In a post-lockdown world, I can't think of anything more important than mindfully and intentionally connecting with those we love,. Not just maintaining our close connections, but nurturing them with intention and care. Whether you are in a new relationship or in a long-term partnership, married or dating, these tips can inspire new ways to improve emotional closeness and connection with your partner. I encourage you to personalize the tips to your relationship, allowing your own creativity to influence how you might apply these research-backed suggestions!
Tip #1: Daily Compliments
According to Prepare/Enrich, a major premarital counseling program, one of the simplest ways to increase emotional connection and feelings of positivity in your relationship is to intentionally and generously compliment your partner daily. Compliments convey gratitude, affection, respect, and admiration, which are crucial for building a solid foundation for emotional connection and intimacy. Sometimes we get so caught up in the habit of our daily routines that we can't remember the last time we gave our partner a flirty compliment of how attracted we are to them or an honest affirmation of the hard work we see them putting in to their big project or our household chores. Experiment with offering your partner more daily compliments to better set the stage for emotional intimacy and closeness.
Tip #2: Daily De-Stressing Conversation
I see the daily Stress-Reducing Conversation from the Gottman Couples Method as an essential building block for emotional intimacy. Cultivating the ability to support each other day to day with various stressors outside of your relationship from work or home, personal or relational, can make the difference between feeling like a connected couple or a disconnected duo. While the De-stressing Convo is pretty straightforward, it is encouraged to personalize and adapt it to your own relationship's needs. Typically the rules go like this:
One Speaker and one Listener
Speaker talks as in depth and in detail as they want about any stress or stressors they have outside of the relationship (and can also include things they feel positive or grateful for or are looking forward to).
Listener shows interest, eye contact, affection, and solidarity with Speaker
When Speaker is done talking, Listener summarizes what they heard Speaker say and asks, "Do you feel heard/understood?"
Speaker corrects Listener if needed, who then edits their summary until Speaker feels satisfied with summary and feels heard.
Speaker and Listener may only then switch roles.
It is important to be on your partner's side, like their cheerleader or best friend...sharing in their feelings, triumphs, and sorrows, without making these your own issues or your problems to solve. Listener's goal is to ACTIVELY LISTEN; showing the Speaker that you are paying attention and taking in the meaning of what they are saying, paying particular attention to the emotions they are expressing. This can look like nodding your head, maintaining eye contact, shifting your body to face your partner, holding their hand, following along with "Mhm"s and "Wow, that sounds tough!" Focus on the emotion words your partner is using, this makes for easier and more meaningful validation and summary statements: "You sound frustrated about that coworker!" "You are hurt and saddened by how your mom chose to talk to you today over the phone."
So many couples struggle with taking on their partner's stresses or trying to come up with solutions prematurely. It's important to remember, we all have the desire to be seen and heard, to have our experiences and emotions accepted. This is the goal of the Daily De-stressing Convo -- not solution-finding or fixing how our partner feels!
Tip #3: Increase the frequency and variety of your non-sexual touch
Disconnected couples can fall into the trap of not touching their partner unless they are attempting to initiate sex. Therefore, it is important to be giving and not goal-seeking when offering physical touch as a way to connect with our partner, otherwise we run the risk of associating physical touch with pressure or expectation for more. Non-sexual touch includes physical forms of affection such as cuddling, massaging, tickling, rubbing, holding hands, sitting together with limbs touching, hugging, even kissing. The idea is to get creative with the variety and frequency of touch that you are utilizing to convey affection to your partner so that you are not only using touch to initiate sex or intercourse. Remember, people have different preferences for amounts and types of physical touch they enjoy. Please always honor your partner's boundaries and preferences for the amount and type of touch they would like to experience when engaging in nonsexual and sexual touch.
Tip #4: Play Together
Disconnected couples don't often make time or space for play and fun in their relationship. It's easy to forget that relationships take effort, investment, and nurturing to thrive -- just like a plant or any other living thing. And just like other living things, relationships die when they are neglected. Play is defined differently from couple to couple: board games, date nights, concerts, trying a new activity, learning a new skill, cooking class, wrestling, traveling, laughing together...are all ways we can connect with our partners with play. Play is not only something children need, adults need play, too, we just don't make as much time for it as we should. Here is your reminder to be intentional and make room for play in your relationship so you can connect further over experiences of joy and pleasure. Who doesn't want more of that in their lives?
Tip #5: Check in about it
Sometimes the best approach is the direct approach. To increase emotional connection, it might be best to simply ask what would help your partner feel more connected to you. Take turns answering these questions from Sex Talks by Vanessa Marin, LMFT:
"What are 3-5 specific things that help you feel connected to me?"
"What are your 3-5 favorite ways to receive love?"
"What are your 3-5 favorite ways to show me your love?"
As a bonus tip, make this a weekly ritual checking in about what each of you need to feel connected or supported this coming week, keeping in mind that our answers can change hour to hour and day to day (so it's a good idea to keep checking in about it).
Tip #6: Share Your Dreams and Goals
Connected and healthy couples cheer on their partners in accomplishing the goals they set out for themselves. Couples who share a vision and dream of the future are stronger in the face of smaller conflicts and challenges. Even if your dreams differ from your partner or are more specific to you or your career, just sharing your dreams and goals with one another and offering each other support is a profound way to show respect, admiration, and love for your partner. When we feel supported by our partner, we are more likely to be successful in accomplishing our goals! Research shows feeling close and connected to our partners at home actually improves our performance and achievement out there in the world!
Tip #7: Couples Therapy
As a marriage and family therapist, my favorite part of working with couples is being allowed the honor of witnessing couples growing stronger and closer together by addressing challenging patterns and blocks in their relationships. Couples therapy is not only a place for struggling couples, it is also a place for couples who are wanting to learn new and better ways to connect to improve emotional or physical intimacy as a proactive or preventative measure. If you are wanting to invest more time and effort into your relationship, couples therapy can be a lovely option for creating space in your busy schedules to sit down and mindfully nurture your relationship.
And now....
The mission should you choose to accept it....
Select one tip to try out in the next week OR have both you and your partner select an idea from this blog post to try this week without telling the other person what option you chose. Once you've experimented with one of the options above, debrief and discuss how this action led you to feel in terms of emotional connectedness with your partner and vice versa. Eventually, with even more experimentation and exploration, you both will begin to identify a full menu of actions and ideas for drawing closer and improving your sense of closeness with your romantic partner! Most importantly, please remember to have fun with it!