Welcome to Relationship Building week! We’ve decided to spend the next week offering articles to help you build your relationships by exploring concepts that help couples grow closer together. Part I of our Relationship Building series focuses on exploring each other’s interest as a key component to keeping your relationship healthy and building stronger bonds as a couple.
Couples that play together, stay together. One of the biggest reasons that young couples end up growing apart is that they learn over time that they don’t have as much in common as they thought they did. It’s important to be open-minded with our partners and take our differences in interests as opportunities to try new things together. A lot of what makes things enjoyable is the company that we keep while doing it. So even if your partner’s interests don’t seem very appealing to you, the thought of experiencing something they love with them should. Part of what makes a relationship great is that you have someone that loves and cares about you that is willing to compromise their wants and needs to build a life together with you. Part of that compromise is being able to step out of your comfort zone for the good of your partner’s feelings.
The longer you stay with someone, the more likely you are to forget those little things that you fell in love with in the first place. That comfortability can sometimes lead us to blowing off our partner’s interests as just a daily tiff instead of something serious that we need to work on together. If a couple is disengaged from each other’s interest for a long enough period of time, it puts a big damper on the health of the relationship and opens up the possibility for someone else to have an impact on your partner. It’s human nature to gravitate toward people that have the same interests as us. We have an inherent need to be around people that understand us, and that share the same joys and passions that we do. If you don’t have that in your relationship, it can tear it apart over time.
It’s crucial for us to make sure that both people in the relationship feel that their interests are important. Set time aside on both of your calendars specifically for exploring each other’s interest on a weekly basis. Whether it’s just one or two hours a week, it can do wonders to strengthening the bond between you. Not only does it show your partner that you’re willing to try to enjoy their interests, you might actually get introduced to something that you really enjoy as well. At the very least it should be fun spending time together, and in the end that’s the real benefit for both you.
Come back tomorrow for Part II of the Relationship Building series when we’ll discuss talking about your life goals with your partner.
