As a relationship therapist working in Exeter, I often observe how the everyday domestic tasks such as work, food shopping, bills etc and parenting can overtake the romantic side of the relationship. The passion that leads to romance and physical attraction becomes easily forgotten as the tasks that come with managing life and parenting children become foreground.
All relationships change overtime, so they need our attention and efforts to notice what’s happening and to make small tweaks here and there to ensure they remain in balance.
I like to think of these tweaks as three corners of the relationship (see below). I use this to assess where each couple is both strong and weak.
Sternberg, 1986
Quite often I see a strong commitment to the relationship, and a weaker passion and intimacy. Couples no longer feel close, connected or bonded and this can reduce the physical attraction and romance. Sternberg calls this ‘Empty love’
In empty love, partners can often feel neglected, missed and forgotten about. This can lead to conflict and blame patterns in the relationship, which slowly overtime, erodes the relationship even more.
Couples get polarised in trying to change their partner to get what they want. This makes it harder to get what they want rather than asking: What is it that I’m longing for? How can I make it easier for my partner to give me what I want? How could I be a better partner? What makes me not the easiest person to live with?
When each partner starts taking responsibility and moves away from blame, conflict patterns dissolve and each partner feels more seen and understood. Intimacy building in this process allows room for vulnerability and to share with each other what they long for and need from their partner. Each partner feels closer and safety in the relationship strengthens.
Overtime, both partners see that they’ve created this interaction together-they both come to understand who they are and what they bring to the relationship.
This leads to many big irritations becoming small as each partner shifts their perspective and realise they were all emotion driven e.g. you no longer hate the noisy eating!
With some practice and guidance, couples learn good listening and communication skills and continue to move away from familiar conflict patterns.
Couples learn how to balance out the corners of the relationship with many often realising that intimacy and passion were the very things they were probably good at earlier on in their relationship. It just became lost.
Couples who forget about the intimacy and passion forget about each other. A relationship isn’t just about functioning together to complete the everyday chores-we need more than that from our partner. We need to be loved, seen, touched, listened to, appreciated, desired and very importantly we need to have some fun together.
If you would like support for your relationship and you would like to discuss how therapy could support you, please do get in contact using the link below. My practice is located in Exeter and I also offer therapy online.