Relationship Maintenance Connection Rituals
As relationships progress, it is important to create and maintain rituals of connection. These small anchor points in a relationship help strengthen the couple and help them maintain that strength through harder times. Doherty (2001) included a few chapters about rituals in his book Take Back Your Marriage: Sticking Together in a World That Pulls Us Apart.
Greetings as Rituals
To start, evaluate how well your greetings are as rituals. Do you greet your pet or the people you work with in a more friendly way than your partner? Doherty (2001) says to think about how the dog reacts when you get home, then try to top the dogs reaction in how you react when you greet your partner. If that seems a bit too much, how would you like to be greeted and how would you like to greet your partner? This could be a hug and a kiss or greeting them with your chosen nickname for them and asking them about their day.
Traditional & Special Rituals
There are many small and simple rituals we can do to keep connection with our partner. It could be things like consistently checking in with how they are doing or what has been going well or bad in their day, leaving notes for each other, spending time without technology, or paying close attention and noticing things you can complement them about (Doherty, 2001).
There are also more traditional or special rituals you can start. They are meant to help highlight and remind you of your unique and special relationship.
Anniversaries
Anniversaries are the most individualized couple ritual you can have. The dates you acknowledge are specific to you. You could create rituals for dates like, when you first met, your first date, when you first said, “I love you”, when you got engaged and/or married, and more.
Of course, you don’t need to do grand things for every one of these. Determine what is important to you and your partner and put the effort into it. Make it important to yourself to believe acknowledging these things are valuable. Plan ahead to do something special and tell your partner what they mean to you.
Birthdays & Valentines Day
Birthdays and Valentines Day are some other obvious ones.
We’ll start with Valentines Day. It is a highly commercialized holiday that can make people feel compelled or guilted into doing things. It is best to talk with your partner ahead of time about their expectations. This is a good time to practice being assertive so that you can fully understand each other. Talk and figure out how you both want to make the day your own.
It doesn’t have to follow traditional Valentine's expectations, it can, but it is not a requirement. And of course, remember that your partner should be hearing from you that you love them and what they mean to you much more frequently than once a year!
For birthdays put the effort into understanding how they hope their birthday will go. Learn about what they liked or didn’t like about how their birthday went growing up. This is your chance to show them in very tangible ways that you know them and want to celebrate them. Doing it with love and sensitivity, in the ways you’ve learned, contributes to their personal happiness and the health and connection in your relationship (Doherty, 2001).
More Rituals
There are many other times of the year that you can choose to have special couple rituals, like New Year's Eve, Christmas, or with the seasons.
All of the mentioned holidays and ritual opportunities are not a time to keep a covert contract expectation against your partner. If you think they should do or you want them to do a specific thing or buy you a specific something, make sure they are aware of that expectation or desire, in a non-demanding but self-disclosing way.
Being clear helps your partner to succeed and prevents you from being disappointed. Also, do not weigh yourself down with daily large ritual expectations that are hard to fulfill.
Adding these highlights of continued dating, relationship self-expansion, and relationship rituals here and there, to the increasingly monotonous lives you live, helps to cultivate and maintain your cherished relationship.
Work on it every day, every week, every month and year after year to maintain the love, passion, and commitment that will create a satisfying romantic relationship for you and your partner.