Imagine you have found and purchased your dream car. It’s brand new, it brings you excitement, you find joy in sharing it with others, and you put in extra work to keep it looking fabulous. But, after a while, it just becomes a car. You stop investing in it as much and you don’t feel the need to show it off. The most important thing to you over time is that it gets you where you need to go. However, if you aren’t replacing your tires, changing your oil, or getting regular maintenance, that once shiny, new car becomes a hunk of metal on the side of the road.
What does a car have to do with a healthy relationship? Think of love and attraction as that excitement you have when you first buy your dream car. You and your partner feel in sync, you’re thriving, they don’t annoy you yet, and you don’t have to put in much effort to reap joy from your initial investment, which is the relationship itself. You get to relish your time with your partner, feel them out, and learn new things about them and from them, and you get to share the joy of the newness of this partnership you’ve started with people you care about.
But, after a while, that honeymoon phase goes away. You get to a point where you could probably finish their sentences. You are able to see them as a whole person (good traits and bad traits), and that joy (if not purposefully maintained) fades. You and your partner may lose that initial spark. This is when you may experience more turbulence in your relationship. So how do we keep our relationships flourishing and thriving despite how much time we’ve invested in our partner?
Of course, love is important. Checking in with yourself and your partner and ensuring that the love you initially felt is still existing inside of you is important. But *my* philosophy on maintaining a long-term relationship beyond mutual attraction is built on three easy-to-remember pillars:
- Shared Activities
- Individuality
- Communication
Without these three pillars of love, your relationship, too, will end up as a hunk of metal on the side of the road.