Get a great relationship in just 6 seconds (what do you think about this?)
Get a great relationship in just 6 seconds
By Theo Pauline Nestor
These scenarios that come along with a busy lifestyle are familiar
to most of us: When your date arrives at your place while you’re in the
middle of an important phone call, you gesture for this person to come
in and finally get around to greeting each other 10 minutes later, still
feeling a bit frazzled from your conversation. Or maybe you just spent a
great weekend together, but when it’s time to say goodbye, you realize
that you’re running late for an appointment — so you rush out the door
in a hurry, barely kissing your date goodbye.
These rushed instances are as understandable as they are commonplace,
but they inevitably take a toll on relationships, because these
transitional moments often set the tone for both a couple’s time
together and their time spent apart. Dr. John Gottman, a leading relationship researcher and the author of What Makes Love Last? How to Build Trust and Avoid Betrayal,
asserts that our “rituals of connections are crucial,” because they
serve not only to re-establish the connection with our partners, but
also to protect our relationships from betrayal. “The parting and
reunion [moments] turn out to be really important,” asserts Dr. Gottman.
Attention spent on each other in transitional junctures communicates
that “you’re important to me, and when you come back at the end of the
day, it’s an event. You matter to me.”
How momentary transitions can safeguard your romance from betrayal
Being present for each other and asserting the importance of the
relationship during these transitional moments is part of how couples
establish what Dr. Gottman refers to as “attunement” — i.e., a deep
level of understanding that couples both possess and lovingly express to
each other. In his book, What Makes Love Last,
Dr. Gottman asserts that this level of mutual attunement is a way for
couples to inoculate themselves against falling down the slippery slope
of negative thinking about their relationship that can ultimately lead
to betrayal. “One of the other important things we discovered about
betrayal was not only about turning away from one another, but it’s also
about this negative comparison where one partner is saying in [his/her]
mind, ‘Who needs this crap? I can do better,’” Dr. Gottman explains.
“And that negative comparison gets people to start detaching from the
relationship.”
Six seconds to a better relationship
The “six-second kiss” is one simple and fun activity that Dr. Gottman
advocates couples incorporate into their everyday moments of transition.
Described by him as “long enough to feel romantic,” the six-second kiss
serves as a temporary oasis within a busy day and creates a deliberate
break between the on-the-job mentality (i.e., going to or from work) and
a couple’s one-on-one time together. In fact, the six-second kiss makes
up just a fraction of what Dr. Gottman has dubbed the “magic five
hours,” which is the amount of extra time he’s found that the most
successful, happiest couples began devoting to their relationships each
week after completing his workshops together. Time spent intentionally
focusing on their partners during “reunions” and “partings” also
comprise an important component of the “magic five hours” that these
couples invest into their relationships on a weekly basis.
Reunited, and it feels so good...
We’ve all heard the saying, “You never get a second chance to make a
first impression.” The same could be said for the moment when you’re
reunited with your date. Those first few moments set the tone for your
time spent together — either positively or negatively. Greeting your
sweetheart with affection communicates this person’s importance to you
while reminding your partner of the good feelings you share when you’re
in each other’s company, and trigger reciprocal feelings of his or her
own.
A number of small gestures can be combined in order to ensure that your reunion goes well:
- Make sure to set aside your phone and any other distractions first, and then give your partner your full attention as you exchange greetings.
- Share a six-second kiss.
- Say that you’re happy to see your partner again.
If you’re used to a more casual way of saying “hello” and “goodbye,”
these seemingly simple gestures of affection might feel awkward at
first, but letting your partner know that you’re happy to see him or her
creates an important, positive transition between your time apart and the time you spend together.
In a long-term relationship, Dr. Gottman says that having a
“stress-reducing conversation” is a great way to kick off a couple’s
reunion time together. “The one thing research has discovered,” says Dr.
Gottman, “is that if they take 15 minutes apiece to talk about what’s
stressful about the day, and their partner is an ally in listening —
without giving advice or problem-solving — that can be very important.
You have to have a time when you really have your partner’s ears; it’s a
time when you really can connect.”
How to make saying “goodbye” even sweeter
Setting a few minutes aside to properly say “goodbye” to each other can
make a dramatic difference in a couple’s thoughts about the relationship
during the time they spend apart. So before you zoom off into the world
going different directions, take a minute to communicate how much you
enjoyed your time together — and maybe touch base about when you’ll be
getting together again in the near future. If you don’t have a plan for
your next date, just establishing when you’ll be talking to each other
next (“I’ll call you tomorrow”) can help a couple maintain their
feelings of connection with each other.
You should also make a point of asking what’s ahead for your sweetie so
you can provide the right kind of support later on. “One of the most
important things to do in parting is to find out what your partner’s day
is going to be like,” Dr. Gottman says. “Find out about anything that
is important that’s going to happen to your partner that day. If she’s
going to have lunch with a friend or he has a critical phone call or
important meeting scheduled, know about that and what it means to her or
him.”
And yes, before saying goodbye to your partner (for now, anyway), don’t forget to savor that six-second kiss!
Theo Pauline Nestor is the author of How to Sleep Alone in King-Size Bed: A Memoir of Starting Over and a regular contributor to Happen magazine.
- aneela
on Feb. 17, 2013 at 3:34 PM