Nurturing Your Relationship

When was the last time you stopped and took a long good look at your relationship? How well is it going, or not? It is all too easy to go about our everyday lives without giving a thought to the depths and development of our relationship. It takes both yours and your partners commitment and hard work to keep the relationship ‘alive and blooming’.

There are many relationship guidelines that we can find, whether it be in a book, magazine, on the Internet and so on, and often enough you find questions such as the following to answer:

• Do you know your partner’s likes and dislikes?
• Do you know your partner’s favourite film?
• Do you know your partner’s favourite hobby?
• Do you know what makes your partner feel stressed?
• Do you know what your partner’s major aspirations are?
• Do you know what your partner would do if they won a million pounds?
• Do you know what inspires your partner?
• Do you know your partner’s fantasies?
• Do you know the relatives your partner likes best?

Knowing the answers to these questions are all well and good, but relationships go much deeper than knowing these answers. By answering a bunch of questions does not mean that your relationship is any better than the next persons.

In any relationship we are constantly learning new things about the other person. The deeper the friendship or relationship, the more you learn about each other. During the courting stage the relationship seems nice and ‘hunky dory’, this we often call the honeymoon period. We tend to be more adventurous and spontaneous in the initial stages, calling each other every spare minute of the day, going out and spending money on each other and generally trying to impress one another.

After the honeymoon period, whether it is in a marriage or intimate relationship, usually both parties begin to relax and the efforts of the initial stages begin to wane. The relationship is then in danger of becoming mundane. But in order to maintain a relationship, time needs to be spent learning and exploring one another. In doing this and then acting on what you discover about each other is an effective way to nurture the relationship.

When we take a look at the word ‘nurture’, it means the act of advancing and contributing to the development of something. Anything under nourished causes an imbalance and a lack of something essential for completeness, and anything not nourished eventually dies. This can be applied to relationships.
Just like everything else it needs to be cultivated.

There will be rough patches and disagreements within the relationship, but this is all apart of what some people call the ‘growing pains’ in a relationship, and learning each other’s boundaries. What matters is how you deal with this situation when it arises. Are you going to walk away from the relationship, leaving an unresolved mess? Or are you going to choose to work through these difficult times? It is not all the time you will both agree on something, it might be a case of ‘agree to disagree’.

Michelle’s Relationship

1st Four Months:
• Spent a lot of time together.
• Talked a lot.
• Would send cards to each other, even if it was to say ‘Thinking of You’.
• Went to the gym together.
• Practically did everything together.

Four Months Later:
Cracks in the relationship started to form. Michelle and her partner began arguing a lot. They would argue about each other’s friends; the phone calls she received; her conduct with other people and so on.

Instead of walking away, Michelle chose to stay in the relationship and work at it. It turned out that her partner had been in a previous relationship that went bad, and was carrying the hurt into this relationship. The situation did not change over night, but because Michelle stayed and worked at counteracting his insecurities she now has a more secure relationship.

Her tip was to always sit down, talk and listen to each other, and if need be, take time out from each other, but keep the ‘communication line’ open.
To bring the ‘spice’ back into your relationship, begin to court each other again. Do some of the things you enjoyed when you first got together. Trying something new and spontaneous often works for couples.

It is not always easy to be able to turn our relationship around for the better by yourselves. If you and your partner feel that you need help highlighting issues, try to seek help and guidance from a professional service. A good relationship is worth fighting for.

Top Ten Nurturing Tips:
1) Be open and honest
2) Discuss fears and hopes
3) Communication
4) Be creative and spontaneous
5) Have time out together
6) Create good memories
7) Listen to one another
8) Have a willingness to make up
9) Appreciate one another
10) Compliment one another