In many of the films we grew up with, emphasis was placed on a couple finally getting together against all odds, having a lavish wedding, and ending with “happily ever after”. But few of these stories went into what that “ever after” encompassed: it was merely implied that their lives would be full of love and devotion forevermore.
So, how is domestic happiness ensured? Rather than being the result of a magic spell, long-term harmony comes when couples choose to keep loving each other, every single day. Here’s how you might be displaying that same loving care and devotion, too:
1. Making them a priority.
We all have interests that we like to pursue during our downtime, but these pursuits shouldn’t take precedence over our spouses. If you’re choosing to love your partner every day, then you consistently make them a priority above all other things.
My partner and I both need a lot of alone time, and we both have hobbies that we like to devote time to without interruption. But both of us drop those things in a heartbeat if the other person needs our time and attention. Nothing is more important than making each other feel loved and respected, and no hobby would ever take precedence over time spent together.
2. Appreciating them and the things they do.
It’s often easy to start taking people for granted when you’re in each other’s company all the time. What might have been an amazing, novel thing to experience when you first got together can soon become old hat after you’ve been together for several years. There’s always ground coffee in the caddy, clean sheets on the bed, and so on.
Many of us have ended up being treated like furniture by those who have taken our diligent care for granted over the years, and we’ve resolved to never behave that way towards others. As such, perhaps you let your partner know that you see and appreciate everything they do for you, even if it’s something as small as ensuring that your favorite toothpaste is always stocked in the medicine cabinet.
3. Using “love” as an active principle rather than a passive given.
Many people mistake familiarity and comfort as love, i.e., something that just exists in the background without any effort needed to sustain it. But love is a choice, and that means making a point of nurturing the love you share with little acts of kindness and service, and showing physical affection — even if it’s just a shoulder squeeze or crossed ankles while reading on the couch.
In my case, my partner and I both work from home, but we take regular breaks from our respective office spaces to share meals or coffee together in the kitchen. Similarly, we schedule date nights on the regular, though sometimes they’re just bed picnics while watching silly Kung Fu films. The key is to keep showing up for one another and keeping the hearth fire stoked, so to speak.
4. Offering roses instead of thorns.
Familiarity can sometimes breed contempt, and even the most devoted couples can feel prickly or hostile towards each other at times. These behaviors cause hurt feelings and resentment, and tensions can escalate if the partners are intent upon throwing barbs at each other during tense times.
If you feel that your partner is being obnoxious, look into why they’re doing it. Discovering the intention behind their behavior can usually reduce the desire for retaliation, while opening avenues to resolution. As such, even if you feel that their actions are unjustified, offer them a small kindness instead of reciprocated irritation. Quite often, if your partner is being unusually prickly or snappish, it doesn’t have anything to do with you directly.
You could take their poor temper personally and return fire as it were, or you can recognize that they’re struggling with something internally that they haven’t seen fit to share with you yet. By offering them kindness, like a cup of tea and a snack, asking them if they’d like a hug, etc., they remember that you’re on their side rather than being their adversary, and the ill feelings often dissipate.
5. Choosing to grow and change with them.
Life causes a number of changes in people’s lives, as most of us have realized by now. None of us is the same person we were 20 years ago, though there’s often the expectation that we should be. That unrealistic expectation is why an astonishing number of people choose to leave their partners when they start to change “too much.”
Instead of abandoning your partner when these changes happen, choosing to love them means choosing to grow and evolve alongside them. Rather than clinging to the ideas of who you were in the past, you choose to love the version of your partner you have the privilege of getting to know every single day. And if you’re very lucky, they do the same with you.
6. Remembering the little things that mean the world to them.
I recently read a piece online about someone who was upset that her partner got her the wrong type of juice when he went grocery shopping. Some people berated her in the comments for being ungrateful, and that at least he had gotten her something, but that wasn’t the point of the issue.
The reason she was upset was that they had been together for 30 years, and he never bothered to pay attention to something that meant a lot to her, because it wasn’t important to him.
It’s in these little preferences and the small gestures we make around them that we show our partners how much they matter to us. I know that my partner doesn’t like to leave the teabag in her cup, so I remove it when I make one for her. Similarly, she knows which cutlery pieces I like best and sets them aside for me to use at mealtimes.
If you’ve done something similar, then you’ve likely memorized your partner’s favorite foods, scents, colors, stories… all the things that make them smile, so you can try to make them happy whenever you can. All the little things you pay attention to become love.
7. Not casting your boat to sea when the tide ebbs.
Anyone who has lived by the sea knows that the tide ebbs and flows in natural, healthy rhythms. The energy in relationships will ebb and flow like the tide as well, but some people see periods of low energy or emotional distance as signs that everything has gone to hell, rather than a natural, temporary lull. As such, if emotions cool during that lull and they don’t feel as close to their partners, they may choose to leave instead of waiting it out.
You’ve chosen this person as your partner for countless reasons and have made a commitment to them. As such, when the tide ebbs, you don’t take that as a sign to cheat on them with the excuse of getting your needs met, nor do you muckrake in an attempt to force the tide to return. Instead, you wait it out with gentle patience, seek the treasures that the low tides reveal, and flow with things rather than fighting or forcing them.
8. Remembering how sad you would be without them when they annoy you.
When people lose their partners, either through death or divorce, one of the things they all mention is how much they miss the little, everyday things that they grew accustomed to when their partners were with them. The playlists they made for house cleaning. An excited little wiggle they did when they ate a great meal, and so on.
Whenever you find yourself feeling irritated with your partner, you take a moment to think about how sad you’d be if you never heard them snore again, or if today was the last time you ever found a used teabag in the sink. We all annoy each other now and then, but a bit of irritation is well worth the joy they inspire in our lives.
Final thoughts…
Love isn’t something that just happens to people. Infatuation is, and so is attraction, but love is something that develops over time — usually through a conscious decision and continued effort. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is something we choose to do even when our partners drive us around the bend, interrupt thoughts that we’ll never be able to recapture, and so on.
We choose to love them because sincere connections need conscious energy and effort to remain alive, and the thought of living without our partners is too awful to bear.
