How To Make Love Stay
Posted by: Wendy Atterberry
Filed in:
relationships
11:00AM, Monday March 23rd 2009
I have to admit, even after reading “Still life With Woodpecker” no less than about 5 or 6 times, I still have no idea how to make love stay. The most I gathered from the book, it has something to do with Camel cigarettes and since my relationship with smoking was a brief one, I’m afraid that tip is of no use to me. Thankfully, a new study published in the March issue of the Review of General Psychology found that a surprisingly high number of long-term couples, including some who had been married over 20 years, reported that they still felt deeply in love with their partners. The researchers draw a distinction between romantic love and passionate love. “Romantic love,” the researchers say, “has the same intensity, engagement and sexual chemistry as passionate love has, but without the obsession. Passionate love, on the other hand, includes feelings of uncertainty and anxiety.” Well, if that’s the case, I’ll take romance over passion any day. According to the researchers, there are some “tricks” to making that romantic kind of love endure for the long-term.
1. Hard work: People in romantic long-term relationships “are often very relationship focused,” researcher, Bianca Acevedo said. “Their relationship is something that is very central to their lives, something they spend time on, work on, really care about. They seem to resolve conflicts relatively efficiently and smoothly.”
2. Do new and challenging activities together: “These novel experiences stimulate brains to create the neurochemicals dopamine and norepinephrine, which are also created during the early, exhilarating stages of romantic love.”
Though I’m no expert at making love stay for the super long-term (yet), I have managed to stay happily in love with the same person for nearly three years, which isn’t bad. Here are a few of the tips I’d add to the ones above.
1. Spend time apart occasionally: Distance makes the heart grow fonder, so whether you spend an evening catching up with your girlfriends, or an afternoon at yoga class, spending some quality time away from your significant other gives you a chance to maintain and foster your own identity, nurture other relationships, and miss your guy a little.
2. Flirt with other people: A little harmless flirting is a great way to remind yourself that you’re sexy, desirable, and fun, all of which are probably the traits that made him fall for you in the first place.
3. Do sweet and simple things for each other: Little unexpected surprises keep things spontaneous and show your partner you care. Never underestimate the power of a homemade cookies when it comes to keeping love alive.
4. Squeeze in some quickies: When you’re pressed for time or just don’t feel like investing in an all-out sex session, a quickie is the perfect way to not only relieve stress but stay physically and emotionally connected to your significant other.
5. Enjoy really great meals together: Whether you cook together or go out to a favorite restaurant, enjoying a meal together is kind of like having sex. Both include sensual pleasures and give you a chance to reconnect after a hectic day. Pay attention to the tastes, textures, and scents, and think of each meal as a metaphor for your relationship. If you savor it slowly, the enjoyment lasts longer.
[via MSNBC]
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Kiki T
wrote on March 23 2009 @ 11:13 am: [report]
Be respectful of each other’s friends, even if you don’t like them and DON"T DRESS ALIKE.
jerseygrl
wrote on March 23 2009 @ 11:35 am: [report]
I had someone tell me once that the cause of her divorce was a king size bed. She said “Never get a king size bed. A queen is room enough to sleep, but you’re always touching. When you fight, and go to sleep in a king bed, you are worlds away. In a queen, at some point during the night your feet, legs, hands, they touch, and some of that anger is diffused”.
My husband and I have been married for 3 years and together for 6. We have a queen bed.
joyy
wrote on March 23 2009 @ 11:38 am: [report]
Word to #1 ... but that seems a little thin. My yoga class is about 90 minutes long - hardly a break from the boy.
Business trips are a great way to embrace distance - finding things to do in a new city where you’re probably on your own keeps the trip from being boring and fosters independence, or entertaining yourself when he’s gone can get you focused on stuff YOU like to do on your own.
Or maybe taking a weekend or a short vacation separate from each other, whether his work sched. doesn’t line up with your trip home to visit family or you want to go somewhere by yourself or with friends that just doesn’t light his fire.
Learning to enjoy/survive being apart from each other is crucial, I think, but I don’t think an evening dinner here or an afternoon there will really get those results.
writergirl
wrote on March 23 2009 @ 11:44 am: [report]
@joyy—I totally agree.
My husband travels frequently. I LOVE it. I miss him, but I really love having the tv to myself, making my favorite foods for dinner, spending one-on-one time with my son or reading a book all night in bed if I want. I go out with friends. I have my own routine that I look forward to.
I’ve seen many, many, MANY marriages break up because of the husband traveling. And I really think it is because the wives left at home never devised a way to have their own life outside of their husbands.
joyy
wrote on March 23 2009 @ 11:56 am: [report]
@writergirl - funny, my bf’s ex pushed him to take the job that requires a ton of traveling ... because she thought he needed to work full time and pay for all her crap (he’s still doing the same work, but also uses that to facilitate traveling for pleasure too) ... and they broke up after she cheated on him - because he ‘was never around.’! That’s ok, that freed him up for me
Honestly, when he goes more than a month and a half without him leaving for at least a week, he drives me batsh1t NUTS.
develange
wrote on March 23 2009 @ 11:59 am: [report]
you can do with the king sized bed if your man is built like the jolly green giant, minus the green.
Spending a week or so apart can remind you how much you love being with the person, not to mention build some EPIC sexual frustration. Distance is good, but I could see how it could be destructive…loneliness and insecurity leads to bad things.
writergirl
wrote on March 23 2009 @ 12:03 pm: [report]
@joyy—//Honestly, when he goes more than a month and a half without him leaving for at least a week, he drives me batsh1t NUTS.//
LMAO! I TOTALLY get you. My husband started traveling when my son was about six weeks old and basically traveled non-stop for two years. I think he was home a total of six months in those two years. Then all of a sudden, the traveling stopped.
After three or four months of him being home—and my sanity going quickly by the wayside—I said “Don’t you have to travel any time soon? ANYWHERE?”
I was desperate!
retro chic
wrote on March 23 2009 @ 12:26 pm: [report]
Lightening strike: This sure explains a whole helluva lot why my BF and I are so deeply on, then off for breaks. Except, I’m the romantic, he’s the passionate. He’d swear up and down that it’s the opposite, tho. Kinda like when I’m the UP bicycle pedal, he’s the DOWN one, etc—balanced and cruisin’ with some effort.
It’s a big love and I’m tired. Any tips for blending both, and… can there be some gender basis for this? We’re on hiatus now (O, thank you, thank you).
@Kiki T: Got some serious star-sh*t goin’ on too (we’re double-naughties, five years). *( help )*
@jersery: Queen bed is def the way to go. Sometimes just holding tired hands in bed is buzz enough. Doubt the King is cause of any break up, tho, unless there’s “someone” in the middle.
CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on March 23 2009 @ 01:28 pm: [report]
Encourage a man cave.
joyy
wrote on March 23 2009 @ 01:37 pm: [report]
@jerseygirl - this is only true if you don’t have a dog/other pet that shares the bed. Our golden retriever-lab mix is a medium sized dog, but he steals 1/3-1/2 of the bed easily, then the skinny but long-armed bf flops around a little, and before you know it, I’ve got a tiny little space to sleep for myself - in a king sized bed! Sometimes I actually have to wake him up and ask him to scooch over, but more often than not it’s pretty cute.
This fits in nicely with him traveling though - I get the bed all to myself while he’s gone
juliePS
wrote on March 24 2009 @ 06:25 am: [report]
my parents have been married for 30 years and are the two most disparate people I have ever met. Seriously, they have almost nothing in common and are complete opposite personalities. For years, I had no idea how they did it. But the truth is, they definitely do those first two things, especially the ‘having fun together’ bit—back when I was but a wee bobblehead, they were biking across the country together and doing all sorts of crazy fun adventurous stuff. They’re independent individuals but each has a piece of the other’s lives, even things they don’t do together—like, my dad plays in a band, and my mom goes to almost all of his gigs. And they’re still crazy about each other (sometimes leading to epic mother-daughter TMI, let me tell you, haha).
haha, my mom also once told me not to marry someone you weren’t crazy in lust with. She said, “If he loves you and treats you well, that’s great, but you also have to think he’s totally hot.” Having been through a couple of really long-term relationships, I can now say: best advice ever.
NeelyOhara
wrote on March 24 2009 @ 06:53 pm: [report]
As much as i get upset or miss my boyfriend when he’s inaccessible for a few days, part of me really enjoys it. I go see my friends, watch movies i want to watch, do my facial routine. Cheese is right: let the man have his man cave (funny enough that’s what my man calls it). He goes to visit the men in his family and have a testosterone fest. We may talk for 10 min during that time but it’s fine. We have our times apart, but we’re always together.
SouthOfNowhere
wrote on March 28 2009 @ 01:26 pm: [report]
@CheeeeEEEEse:
That’s a good idea. Not only just a physical place to go, though, but also to encourage him to go out with the guys every once in awhile.