WHAT IS THE SECRET OF A COUPLE THAT LASTS?

In our entourage, we all know a couple that has lasted for years, the wedding anniversaries that follow one another and the smile on their lips that remains after all this time spent together. And to see this palpable happiness, it makes you want to taste it too. One could ask the question: but what is their secret? How can you manage to maintain this course in a two-person relationship, in a life that you share?

First of all, it is essential to understand the difference between the love you have for your partner, and the fact of making your couple last. Yes, you can be madly in love, but still fail to establish your relationship over the long term.

The couple, independently of our individual lives, is an entity in its own right that must be pampered. It is an existence that must be taken care of, on a daily basis. So what is it that, when we are in love, we manage to make our relationship last?

The question of temporality in love

Make the transition from love-passion to love-reason

If we try to temporalize love, to give it a time, a duration, the famous quote from Frédéric Beigbeder immediately comes to mind: “ Love lasts three years ” . Because we know that love evolves , grows or diminishes, intensifies or runs out of steam: we can meet a passionate love like a reasoned love, a love that grows very quickly, or a love that takes more time. to build. So are there different loves?

In the romantic relationship, we are very early rocked by many illusions . We are built with the idealistic expectation of living the fairy tale and the endless happiness, which gives us the impression of having to constantly vibrate, feel the butterflies in our relationship.

There are two major phases when entering into a romantic relationship:

The fusion-passion love phase is the first phase at the beginning of the relationship where love is very fantasized . Driven by endorphins and the excitement of discovering something new, we marvel at nothing and everything at the same time; of a very banal attention when he or she telephones us, of a completely superficial detail on the way he does his hair and which makes us crack up. This phase is not really reassuring, however, since we do not yet know exactly how long the relationship will last, if it is made to last or if it is only a passage.
The phase of love-reason comes later, after a journey undertaken in the romantic relationship. Love is no longer so much fantasized; it no longer focuses on the charm of the person, but on the quality of the relationship , on its values, on the common projects, on the construction that we undertake with this person. This love is much deeper and more reasoned than fusion-passion love.

A relationship that is solidifying leads to routine. Despite its bad reputation, routine is synonymous with safety and durability . And inevitably, we tend to vibrate less. Some people may feel out of balance at this time, with the feeling of being extinguished and the feeling that the relationship has no more spice. This impression emanates from the fact that we no longer manage to spice up this phase of love-reason in any way other than the beginning of the meeting.

And for this, it is essential to get out of the routine and the comfort zone in which the couple has settled. Let's do what we did for the first few days: let's meet him at a new restaurant, let's pick him up from work without telling him, let's organize a surprise weekend at the last moment! Some might see it as a lack of naturalness because the couple know each other by heart, because they are part of a routine that no longer holds any surprises. Yet it is in this perspective that the couple finds a second wind and renews itself.

Reinvent yourself, even after years

In a relationship, no matter how strong, nothing is guaranteed . It must be kept in mind that we can lose our partner at any time and that it is not an unbreakable physical bond, that there are no chains that bind or hold us.

The grass is not greener elsewhere; it is greenest where we water it . In this sense, it must be understood that the love we have for each other is not always enough and that the relationship must be maintained, cherished, pampered on a daily basis, tirelessly, in order to be long-lasting. Being in a couple and sharing your life is a constant job and efforts to be made every day for the other but also for yourself. And it's not given to everyone!

The way we look at this relationship and on love-reason can be the key to the happiness and durability of the couple. It's about thinking together about what makes us vibrate, building new projections over a longer term and rediscovering this magic, like a light in the monotony.

In this research, sexuality has its essential place since it offers the couple a way to recover their sensuality at the heart of intimacy and to go through its acme, pleasure. Reinventing one's sexuality is already rediscovering a bodily and psychic connection. To learn how to spice up your sexuality, head over to our blog post .

A couple that lasts over time is a couple that gives itself the means, which puts energy into its relationship and which maintains it every day, regularly.

The couple, an entity in its own right

As we told you, the couple is an entity in its own right that must be taken care of. Yes, we repeat it to you because it is the key to understanding that the romantic relationship is precious and that it must be considered in the right way .

From the moment we get into a relationship, we have to forget everything we have learned in mathematics. In the couple, 1 + 1 is not equal to 2, but equal to 3. And this number of 3 includes oneself, the partner and the couple. In this relationship, we not only maintain this bond which reunites the partner with oneself. In truth, in the couple there are 4 relationships :

The relationship I have with myself
The relationship I have with my partner
The relationship my partner has with me
The relationship my partner has with himself

It is in this sense that it is important to be well with oneself before wanting to be well with the other . In a two-person relationship, one of the partners can only manage 50% of the couple , the other 50% being managed by the other partner. That is to say that half of my relationship cannot be controlled by my desires and my injunctions. The couple works as a team and draws its strength from both parties – it is an exchange between the two partners, to help each other and strengthen each other day after day to overcome its obstacles. We realize how much the couple is a real sharing !

Healthy communication, the key to lasting happiness

The languages of love: understanding the other to be understood

The languages of love consist of 5 means of communication :

The touch and the caresses
Words of appreciation
Gifts
Services rendered
quality time

Even if the 5 languages speak to each other – who doesn't like to receive gifts? -, we often manage to identify one or two which are more natural than the others , more spontaneous, and which will be predominant in our way of speaking about love and expressing it to the other in the relationship.

However, we know that 3 out of 4 couples do not speak the same language at all . For example, one of the two will tend to give a lot of importance to gifts, while the other will prefer quality time.

The most important thing is to encounter the other in his forms of language. Succeeding in identifying the language of the other allows you to get out of your comfort zone and adapt your language in all benevolence. The idea is not to change the language of the other, but to get out of their predominant language to do good to the other, to offer what resonates for the other , and to strengthen them in the relationship.

Know how to talk about yourself and say thank you

It is essential to consider that the couple is above all a composition of two people who also exist independently of each other . In times of disagreement and incomprehension, the opposition of the two partners is reflected in their way of communicating; we are much better at criticizing the other's way of being and acting than simply talking about how we feel at the moment.

Yet healthy communication is lifesaving . One of the keys to communicating well - even and especially in times of argument - is to succeed in speaking to the "I" and to express clearly what one feels, rather than using the "you which is mainly used to reproach something to the other. Talking about yourself, your needs, your fears, your emotions more generally will resonate much more in the other.

It works just as well in moments of gratitude , and it is always important to thank the other, to recognize their benevolence , their generosity and to signify what they bring to us. To mark with a word the gesture that he has accomplished allows in return to the one who gave to receive a reward .

Finally, for the couple relationship to last, we will tell you that there is no secret, no miracle recipe. The few keys that could be useful to you in building your couple over time would be benevolence, communication, gratitude and above all, a lot of love, this very vibrating engine that pushes you to maintain your relationship and to pamper her day after day.

Don't forget that the couple is created, built and lived together. Understand the other as you would like them to understand you. Dare to reinvent yourself every day, and renew your sensuality, your pleasure, your desires. Dare to express them, realize them, and offer them to you two!