Ten Habits of Happy Couples!

**Narkissos** · #1 06-23-2014

#1. Go to bed at the same time.
Remember the beginning of your relationship, when you couldn’t wait to go to bed with each other to make love? Happy couples resist the temptation to go to bed at different times. They go to bed at the same time, even if one partner wakes up later to do things while their partner sleeps. And when their skins touch it still causes each of them to tingle and unless one or both are completely exhausted to feel sexually excited.

#2. Cultivate common interests.
After the passion settles down, it’s common to realize that you have few interests in common. But don’t minimize the importance of activities you can do together that you both enjoy. If common interests are not present, happy couples develop them. At the same time, be sure to cultivate interests of your own; this will make you more interesting to your mate and prevent you from appearing too dependent.

#3. Walk hand in hand or side by side.
Rather than one partner lagging or dragging behind the other, happy couples walk comfortably hand in hand or side by side. They know it’s more important to be with their partner than to see the sights along the way.

#4. Make trust and forgiveness your default mode.
If and when they have a disagreement or argument, and if they can’t resolve it, happy couples default to trusting and forgiving rather than distrusting and begrudging.

#5. Focus more on what your partner does right than what he or she does wrong.
If you look for things your partner does wrong, you can always find something. If you look for what he or she does right, you can always find something, too. It all depends on what you want to look for. Happy couples accentuate the positive.

#6. Hug each other as soon as you see each other after work.
Our skin has a memory of “good touch” (loved), “bad touch” (abused) and “no touch” (neglected). Couples who say hello with a hug keep their skin bathed in the “good touch,” which can inoculate your spirit against anonymity in the world.

#7. Say “I love you” and “Have a good day” every morning.
This is a great way to buy some patience and tolerance as each partner sets out each day to battle traffic jams, long lines and other annoyances.

#8. Say “Good night” every night, regardless of how you feel.
This tells your partner that, regardless of how upset you are with him or her, you still want to be in the relationship. It says that what you and your partner have is bigger than any single upsetting incident.

#9. Do a “weather” check during the day.
Call your partner at home or at work to see how his or her day is going. This is a great way to adjust expectations so that you’re more in sync when you connect after work. For instance, if your partner is having an awful day, it might be unreasonable to expect him or her to be enthusiastic about something good that happened to you.

#10. Be proud to be seen with your partner.
Happy couples are pleased to be seen together and are often in some kind of affectionate contact — hand on hand or hand on shoulder or knee or back of neck. They are not showing off but rather just saying that they belong with each other.

Happy couples have different habits than unhappy couples. A habit is a discrete behavior that you do automatically and that takes little effort to maintain. It takes 21 days of daily repetition of a new a behavior to become a habit. So select one of the behaviors in the list above to do for 21 days and voila, it will become a habit…and make you happier as a couple. And if you fall off the wagon, don’t despair, just apologize to your partner, ask their forgiveness and recommit yourself to getting back in the habit.

If there was one key to happiness in love and life and possibly even success it would be to go into each conversation you have with this commandment to yourself front and foremost in your mind, “Just Listen” and be more interested than interesting, more fascinated than fascinating and more adoring than adorable.

forextraspecialstuff · #2 06-24-2014

Yes to all of these. In conjunction with #8 I have also heard the suggestion to never go to bed without resolving a fight. Another one I heard is to always say thank you, the way I read it was in reference to when one person in the relationship takes on more responsibility whether it be with "tasks" or finances because after you've been together for a bit it's easy to take it for granted.

CBGB · #3 08-06-2014

1, 3, 7, and 10 are what we practice the most in my marriage.

As long as we are in the same house, we always go to bed at the same time.

It really bugs me when I see couples walking...but not together. It just seems odd that you would not want to walk next to your partner. We always sit together too, especially when eating.
My wife has mentioned countless times how much she loves the "good morning sunshine" she gets when she wakes up. It's just habit on my end, but she loves it.
While I would never attempt to go overboard with the public displays, we often kiss, hug, hold hands, etc in public. My wife is beautiful and I love to be seen with her.

**Narkissos** · #4 08-11-2014

Quote:

Originally Posted by CBGB

1, 3, 7, and 10 are what we practice the most in my marriage.

As long as we are in the same house, we always go to bed at the same time.

It really bugs me when I see couples walking...but not together. It just seems odd that you would not want to walk next to your partner. We always sit together too, especially when eating.
My wife has mentioned countless times how much she loves the "good morning sunshine" she gets when she wakes up. It's just habit on my end, but she loves it.
While I would never attempt to go overboard with the public displays, we often kiss, hug, hold hands, etc in public. My wife is beautiful and I love to be seen with her.

Repped.

hunt · #5 01-27-2016

was looking for this information, thank you guys!

Susan · #6 02-25-2016

This is a wonderful article. Sometimes after people have been together for a long time they tend to take things for granted. The "I love you"s might not be said as often as early in the relationship. You just figure they other one should know but it sure feels nice to hear it. My fiance and I pretty much do everyone of these things. We make an effort everyday to let the other know how much they are loved and appreciated. Love truly is a beautiful thing.

missiemouse · #7 03-20-2016

Huh, it seems like we aren't doing most of these things. And we're also constantly fighting nowadays. Sigh... But I think it still isn't too late especially since I've read this list. I know now what I've been doing wrong. I don't know why... But since our son was born, we just kind of drifted apart. I do think I have some fault in it since I tend to our son the most and of course there's work and chores to be done. But to be honest, if someone helps me out, then it might be easier. Alas, my husband's too lazy for such chores, whenever he has a vacation, he just lays there and plays games on his phone. And yup, I've scolded him about it a lot of times, but he still does it.

CBGB · #8 03-29-2016

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