Only One Kind Of Relationship Promotes Longevity This Much!

One of the well-established keys of a long healthy life is being in a fulfilling relationship. That’s not to say that one can’t be single and happy and fulfilled—one totally can. But statistically, those who live longest, do so in happy, fulfilling, committed relationships.

Note: happy, fulfilling, committed relationships. Less than that won’t do. Your insurance company might care about your marital status for its own sake, but your actual health doesn’t—it’s about the emotional safety and security that a good, healthy, happy, fulfilling relationship offers.

How to keep the “love coals” warm

When “new relationship energy” subsides and we’ve made our way hand-in-hand through the “honeymoon period”, what next? For many, a life of routine. And that’s not intrinsically bad—routine itself can be comforting! But for love to work, according to relational psychologists, it also needs something a little more.

What things? Let’s break it down…

Bids for connection—and responsiveness to same

There’s an oft-quoted story about a person who knew their marriage was over when their spouse wouldn’t come look at their tomatoes. That may seem overblown, but…

When we care about someone, we want to share our life with them. Not just in the sense of cohabitation and taxes, but in the sense of:

• Little moments of joy
• Things we learned
• Things we saw
• Things we did

…and there’s someone we’re first to go to share these things with. And when we do, that’s a “bid for connection”. It’s important that we:

• Make bids for connection frequently
• Respond appropriately to our partner’s bids for connection

Of course, we cannot always give everything our full attention. But whenever we can, we should show as much genuine interest as we can.

Keep asking the important questions

Not just “what shall we have for dinner?”, but:

• “What’s a life dream that you have at the moment?”
• “What are the most important things in life?”
• “What would you regret not doing, if you never got the chance?”

…and so forth. Even after many years with a partner, the answers can sometimes surprise us. Not because we don’t know our partners, but because the answers can change with time, and sometimes we can even surprise ourselves, if it’s a question we haven’t considered for a while.

It’s good to learn and grow like this together—and to keep doing so!

Express gratitude/appreciation

For the little things as well as the big:

• Thank you for staying by my side during life’s storms
• Thank you for bringing me a coffee
• Thank you for taking on these responsibilities with me
• I really appreciate your DIY skills
• I really appreciate your understanding nature

On which note…

Compliment, often and sincerely

Most importantly, compliment things intrinsic to their character, not just peripheral attributes like appearance, and also not just what they do for you.

• You’re such a patient person; I really admire that
• I really hit the jackpot to get someone I can trust so completely as you
• You are the kindest and sweetest soul I have ever encountered in life
• I love that you have such a blend of strength and compassion
• Your unwavering dedication to your personal values makes me so proud

…whatever goes for your partner and how you see them and what you love about them!

Express your needs, and ask about theirs

We’re none of us mind-readers, and it’s easy to languish in “if they really cared, I wouldn’t have to ask”, or conversely, “if they wanted something, they would surely say so”.

Communicate. Effectively. Life is too short to waste in miscommunication and unsaid things!

We covered much more detailed how-tos of this in a previous issue, but good double-whammy of top tier communication is:

• “I need…” / “Please will you…”
• “What do you need?” / “How can I help?”

Touch. Often.

It takes about 20 seconds of sustained contact for oxytocin to take effect, so remember that when you hug your partner, hold hands when walking, or cuddle up the sofa.

Have regular date nights

It doesn’t have to be fancy. A date night can be cooking together, it can be watching a movie together at home. It can be having a scheduled time to each bring a “big question” or five, from what we talked about above!

Most importantly: it’s a planned shared experience where the intent is to enjoy each other’s romantic company, and have a focus on each other. Having a regularly recurring date night, be it the last day of each month, or every second Saturday, or every Friday night, whatever your schedules allow, makes such a big difference to feel you are indeed “dating” and in the full flushes of love—not merely cohabiting pleasantly.

Want ideas?

Check out these:

• 105 Fun Date Night Ideas For Married Couples
• 150 “Life Questions” (great for what we talked about earlier)

Meet The Family…

If you’ve heard talk of “healing your inner child” or similar ideas, then today’s featured type of therapy takes that to several extra levels, in a way that helps many people.

It’s called Internal Family Systems therapy, often “IFS” for short.

Here’s a quick overview:

Psychology Today | Internal Family Systems Therapy

Note: if you are delusional, paranoid, schizophrenic, or have some other related disorder*, then IFS would probably be a bad idea for you as it could worsen your symptoms, and/or play into them badly.

*but bipolar disorder, in its various forms, is not usually a problem for IFS. Do check with your own relevant healthcare provider(s), of course, to be sure.

What is IFS?

The main premise of IFS is that your “self” can be modelled as a system, and its constituent parts can be examined, questioned, given what they need, and integrated into a healthy whole.

For example…

• Exile is the name given to parts that could be, for example, the “inner child” referenced in a lot of pop-psychology, but it could also be some other ignored and pushed-down part of oneself, often from some kind of trauma. The defining characteristic of an exile is that it’s a part of ourself that we don’t consciously allow ourselves to see as a current part of ourself.
• Protector is the name given to a part of us that looks to keep us safe, and can do this in an adaptive (healthy) or maladaptive (unhealthy) way, for example:
  • Firefighter is the name given to a part of us that will do whatever is necessary in the moment to deal with an exile that is otherwise coming to the surface—sometimes with drastic actions/reactions that may not be great for us.
  • Manager is the name given to a part of us that has a more nurturing protective role, keeping us from harm in what’s often a more prophylactic manner.

To give a simple illustration…

A person was criticized a lot as a child, told she was useless, and treated as a disappointment. Consequently, as an adult she now has an exile “the useless child”, something she strives to leave well behind in her past, because it was a painful experience for her. However, sometimes when someone questions and/or advises her, she will get defensive as her firefighter “the hero” will vigorously speak up for her competence, like nobody did when she was a child. This vigor, however, manifests as rude abrasiveness and overcompensation. Finally, she has a manager, “the advocate”, who will do the same job, but in a more quietly confident fashion.

This person’s therapy will look at transferring the protector job from the firefighter to the manager, which will involve examining, questioning, and addressing all three parts.

The above example is fictional and created for simplicity and clarity; here’s a real-world case study if you’d like a more in-depth overview of how it can work:

American Journal of Psychotherapy | The Teenager’s Confession: Regulating Shame in Internal Family Systems Therapy

How it all fits together in practice

IFS looks to make sure all the parts’ needs are met, even the “bad” ones, because they all have their functions.

Good IFS therapy, however, can make sure a part is heard, and then reassure that part in a way that effectively allows that part to “retire”, safe and secure in the knowledge that it has done what it needed to, and/or the job is being done by another part now.

That can involve, for example, thanking the firefighter for looking after our exile for all these years, but that our exile is safe and in good hands now, so it can put that fire-axe away.

See also: On Being Reactive vs Being Responsive

Questions you might ask yourself

While IFS therapy is best given by a skilled practitioner, we can take some of the ideas of it for self-therapy too. For example…

• What is a secret about yourself that you will take to the grave? And now, why did that part of you (now an exile) come to exist?
• What does that exile need, that it didn’t get? What parts of us try to give it that nowadays?
• What could we do, with all that information in mind, to assign the “protection” job to the part of us best-suited to healthy integration?

Want to know more?

We’ve only had the space of a small article to give a brief introduction to Family Systems therapy, so check out the “resources” tab at:

IFS Institute | What Is Internal Family Systems Therapy?

Take care!