Appreciating Your Partner

Since February is considered the month of love, here’s a reminder of how we can show appreciation and love for our loved ones. If you remember the Sound Relationship House by Dr. Gottman from my Love Maps blog post, I discussed building a love map of your partner. In this blog, I want to share about the second floor of the relationship house: Share Fondness and Admiration.

I remember the first time I learned about this stage. I thought it should be pretty self-explanatory right? Maybe just say “I love you” to your partner, friend, or family member and then a nice warm hug and it’s all good right? Thankfully, I learned that sharing fondness and admiration is so much more important than I initially thought. For example, do you know about the magic ratio of 5:1? In Gottman's research on conflict in couples, he found that successful couples had 5 seconds of positive/neutral emotional states for every 1 second of negative emotional states. So the 5:1 ratio lets us know that for every one negative interaction, there should be five positive ones to counteract it. Even better, if you can have more positive interactions for every one negative one (like 20:1) the relationship is overall more successful, happy, and satisfying.

I don’t expect all of us can count every single positive and negative interaction we have with our romantic partner for the magic 5:1 ratio, but you can practice sharing fondness and admiration for your partner on a daily basis! I can’t explain how happy it makes me to hear a compliment from someone I care about when it is genuine and intentional. Hearing something simple like, “I appreciate how you care for me” or “I’m happy to have you around” can go a long way to make someone feel seen and loved. Appreciating our partner can look differently for everyone. You may want to buy a meal for your partner, spend some quality time, write sticky notes with compliments, or wash the dishes for them. Whatever route you go, make sure you share affection and appreciation for your partner!

-Undergraduate intern, Jade Umanzor