Self-Care Sunday: Pinpoint What You Love About Your Relationships

In today's Self-Care Sunday tip, we encourage you to pinpoint what you love about your relationships, and then make a plan to preserve these aspects.

It is often easy to see someone’s best qualities at the beginning of a relationship, especially romantic relationships (though this applies to most relationships as well). This is when both parties are putting their best foot forward, and because they have not spent very much time together, there is no pent-up resentment getting in the way of all of those great qualities shining forth. 

But as relationships progress, we begin to notice the other sides—the flaws, or the aspects of their personality that push our buttons. The day-to-day aspects of life take over, and we start to lose track of all those wonderful beginning-of-a-relationship feelings. Instead, we focus on the flaws and the things that are not going well.

The great parts of the other person’s personality begin to fade to the background ...

… unless we intentionally pinpoint these aspects and make a plan to preserve them.

While there are some relationships that are simply not a match, there are often circumstances where relationships can be restored and reinvigorated if both parties decide to identify and preserve what they liked about the relationship in the first place. 

Today is a good day to do that. Think of a relationship that isn’t quite working in your life, but that you would like to save. Now, think back to the beginning of that relationship. What qualities made you attracted to that person in the first place?

Did you love to go dancing? Did you love that your partner encouraged you to pursue your dreams? Did you laugh a lot? Did you pick up new hobbies together?

Now, make a plan to bring a bit more of that back into your relationship. Have a date night, and if you can’t dance in a club (because of the pandemic), dance in your own backyard. Let your partner in on a goal of yours. Watch a comedy special. Dust off your racket and play a game of tennis together.

This isn’t a cure-all for all relationship-woes, but if you extract what you love about a person or a relationship, and then you spend time on it, you shift the focus from the weaknesses to the strengths, and you find more to enjoy in each other.