Integrating these practices into your life and your relationship won’t guarantee eternal bliss, but it will make a positive difference in the quality of your connection to your partner. Nothing is more hazardous to a relationship than putting things on cruise control, since it sets us up to go to sleep at the wheel, and we all know what that can lead to. With all of the competing commitments in the full lives that most of us have, it can become easy to assign a lower level of priority to your relationship. Relationships are living organisms, and like all organisms, they require care and attention in order to thrive. But what you stand to gain by attending to the needs of your relationship makes the effort infinitely worthwhile!

1. Attend to your relationship. More marriages die of neglect than of irreconcilable difference. Relationships require on-going maintenance in order to thrive. If your relationship isn’t thriving, it’s dying; there’s no middle ground. Many people take better care of their cars and trucks than they do their marriages. And although most of us wouldn’t think of driving 50,000 miles without changing the oil in our vehicle, we go months without saying “I love you,” going on a romantic getaway, or simply taking a few hours to be alone together without any competing distractions. Relationships thrive when given adequate attention, but they wilt like a dying flower when neglected.