Transcript:
Hi, everybody, welcome or welcome back to my channel. My name is Anna. I’m a clinical psychology doctorate student and I make videos about real life applications to psychology in this video. We’re going to talk about how to keep a relationship in the honeymoon phase forever and first of all. I know some of you guys. Based on the title are going to be running to the comments, saying this is propaganda. This is not possible you cannot keep a relationship in the honeymoon phase forever. I agree and I disagree. I think that it’s impossible to stay in certain aspects of the honeymoon phase with someone after years and years like the idealization aspect of it, but you can draw out the honeymoon phase for much longer than average, which is about six months and you can maintain certain aspects of the honeymoon phase forever and no. You’re not going to accomplish that if you don’t even try, but if you do, try your hardest, and you really work at keeping this relationship fresh and passionate and happy forever, then your chances are, you can probably incorporate aspects of the honeymoon phase well into your relationship, and, you know, even if it’s not quote, unquote, the honeymoon phase. Even five years later, you can still maximize the happiness of your long-term relationship, So I think before we go into. How exactly do we keep a relationship in the honeymoon phase? We have to talk about characteristics of the honeymoon phase. What is realistic for us to keep forever? And what should we probably accept is going to disappear. I think a really important component is idealization of your partner. This is when you’re in the early stages of the relationship and they can do no wrong. They have no negative qualities, Nothing unattractive about them. They’re perfect, human and perfect for you. This is something that helps two people bond in those early stages of a relationship and build a strong foundation that will last them for years. It’s not realistic and not necessarily healthy that you will keep this outlook forever. It might make it difficult for you to set boundaries or to acknowledge that what they’re doing sometimes is wrong or it may swing to devaluation because we tend to when we idealize someone swing to the completely opposite side, where they hold no value when they do something wrong and honestly, it’s a little bit delusional when we think that our partner is completely perfect human, and that’s okay, I’m not saying delusional in a bad way like I said it serves a function, but if it lasts too long, that could potentially be a problem, so that’s one aspect of the honeymoon phase is idealization. Another aspect I think is passion. This is when you want to spend all your time with them. You feel a strong physical connection to them? You get butterflies around them. You get intense emotions because of them, it could be jealousy, infatuation, anger, happiness. You can and absolutely should try to keep passion in your relationship. Past the honeymoon phase without passion, the relationship turns into more of a friendship, and I’ve talked about this before, but that does tend to happen with long-term relationships. Once you spend a lot of time together, you know each other, really. Well, you get comfortable. If the passion disintegrates, you become more like friends than anything else, and yeah, commitment might increase, so you might still feel bonded with them. But if passion decreases that puts a relationship at risk of wandering eyes and dissatisfaction, another aspect of the honeymoon phase is no arguments in my experience. Honeymoon phase usually ends right around the point. When you have your first fight, so if you’re fighting very early in the stages of your relationship or before you even got together, that’s kind of a red flag because relationships that aren’t good in the very beginning, hardly ever last long or last happily and we’ve spoken about this Before. How definitions of arguments vary from person to person based on culture upbringing, the dynamics of their relationship as you may already know, my definition is, you know, verbal or physical aggression, yelling not listening to each other, stonewalling and so on, but it may be even healthier to have a lower threshold for what you consider fighting, is it, you know the person speaking over you taking small jabs, lack of empathy and so on, this is an unpopular opinion, but I think that you can absolutely ensure that you have very few arguments in a relationship if any, the notion that all couples fights is ridiculous to me, my partner and I we don’t fight, and it’s not reasonable to expect that of other types of relationships, You know, like, oh, all teachers and students fight all uncles and nephews fight. No, that’s not an accurate generalization. It may be very common, but we should not simply accept it because it’s common. We should be working to prevent it. Do you want to be like everybody with an average relationship? Or do you want to have a great relationship so okay. We talked about the components of honeymoon, phase idealization passion and no fighting. How do you stay in the honeymoon phase for as long as possible or incorporate aspects of the honeymoon phase throughout your relationship so first, let’s start with passion. How do you foster passion? I think some distance my partner and I were in a long distance relationship for about nine out of the 11 months that we were together before he moved to Chicago and we moved in together and some people did ask us. Oh, like aren’t. You worried about that since you were away for so long? And I think when you know, you know, and you always instinctively know, even if sometimes you overlook or deny knowing whether someone is right for you and I think that it helped us maintain that honeymoon phase for a very long time being away from each other because the expression distance does make the heart grow Fonder is true when you’re always grasping at someone and they’re always just out of reach. It does rile up your passion for them, and that could be because of physical distance because of circumstance, and it could also be because someone is playing you and manipulating you and always trying to play hard to get if a couple is 24 7 together for the first few months of their relationship, they might think they’re making the most of their honeymoon phase, but in reality, they’re probably ending it prematurely and I imagine a lot of couples ended the honeymoon phase early because of the quarantine because they’re spending much more time together, and they’re always in the same four walls, but it’s important to remember that you can always place a little bit of distance between you and your partner. It doesn’t have to be, you know, running to the other side of the world. It could be keeping yourself busy with hobbies, not canceling a long day’s or girls girl’s nights going home to see your family all this different stuff. Even when you are quarantining together, it is possible to have separate things that you do where you’re not always focused on each other and the reunion, after a long day of not seeing each other is so much more excited, warm, passionate than the reunion. After a day that you spent together. I think a lot of people would agree. Another tip for growing passion. Don’t get lazy, always be trying to still woo or court or impress your partner. Breakups are never not a possibility, so it’s important to not take it for granted. That your partner is always going to be with you. You have to kind of maintain a little bit of that fear that they can always leave you because the second you get complacent, It becomes a possibility. So how do you do this? You can continue to initiate dates even in the quarantine. There are ways to have romantic date nights. You can look good for them. Even if you’ve just quarantined together, you know, don’t get lazy with hygiene or being well kept simply because you’re comfortable enough around them, and you don’t have anywhere else to go wear cologne or perfume don’t. Stay in pajamas all day. Don’t postpone brushing your teeth. Keep showering every day. Keep your home tidy. As if you’re still trying to impress someone coming over, you know, these are pretty basic things. It’s kind of sad that I even have to say them also. Don’t stop being chivalrous or courteous. Hold the doors open for them. Say, please, and thank you, compliment them. And so on another way to rile up the passion, random acts and words of affection and appreciation, for example. Get them flowers when you’re at the supermarket or say, I love you and take your hand where you’re just working together Next to each other, also try to switch things up at least once a day, for example, if you usually go watch TV right after dinner, so just a board game one time and also don’t. Stop making them laugh. I never realized how much my partner makes me laugh until I had a sword in my mouth, and I couldn’t laugh because of the horrible pain, and I was just in pain all the time because he was always making me laugh. Laughter is medicine. Be the person that gives your partner that joy that laughter. You don’t want someone else to be that person? How about preventing arguments? How do you make sure that there are no arguments? If things are getting heated, lower your voice, you know, physically lower your voice because you don’t realize that your voice is getting louder and louder. Sugar coat things. If you feel like you can and want to tell your partner the most blunt thing rethink that because we think that we can get away with being a little more rude with people that we take for granted that we think are not going to leave us, but ask yourself. Would I speak this way to my boss? Would I speak this way to a person at the supermarket? If not reconsider, reframe it, sugar coat, it say it nicer. Because if you take this person for granted, it’s going to show also use a lot of I statements. You know, I’ve talked about. I statements all the time on this channel instead of saying you always do this or you piss me off! Say, I feel this way because of this thing that happened. See, I need this from you. I need that from you. So I statement is very helpful physical touch to remind them that you care about them. It’s crucial. If things are getting heated, you know, just put a hand on them in a non-violent way. Of course, you know, just remind them that you care about them. Through that affection, it gets all sorts of hormones going in their brain when they’re reminded that you love them and validate their point of view. Make it clear that you understand the perspective. Say, yeah, you know? I completely understand you’re working really hard and I’ve been slacking with the dishes. So we talked about how to keep no arguments in a relationship How to keep that passion. What about maintaining a little bit of that idealization? And we talked about in the intro? How idealization that’s kind of the one that isn’t really necessary to incorporate throughout your relationship past the honeymoon phase, but we should keep a little bit of it, so you can do this by boasting about your partner and their accomplishments and their positive qualities to others also to them. You know, always saying you’re so pretty. You work so hard, you’re so good at what you do, and so on, always keep a running list of green flags. You know if you’ve been here on my channel before, you know? I recommend kind of keeping a running list of red flags, you know? What is this person doing that? Doesn’t sit right with you, but I think it’s equally important. If you want to maintain this relationship to also keep a list of the green flags to say. What do I love about this person? What is what are they wonderful at? Because if you look at that list or you run through the list in your head, and you realize how great they are, you’re much more likely to idealize them also verbally point out all the wonderful things that they do don’t. Stop saying, please, and thank you every now, and then when you look over at them, especially now when you’re quarantined together, just look over and think about how great they are. How cute they are. Tell them, you know, say something. Nice to them. Take their hand. And what about in order for them to idealize you? Don’t stop working on self-improvement. Don’t stop growing, don’t! Stop changing, don’t! Stop taking care of yourself. Both physically mentally emotionally in the relationship. Don’t stop working at it. This goes along with the fostering passion about don’t. Get lazy, don’t get complacent in your relationship. But here’s the issue. One person can do all the work in the world trying to keep this relationship in the honeymoon phase, but it means nothing if the other person doesn’t also put in the work. If your partner is committed to keeping your relationship as happy and fresh as you are, then go right ahead. Send them this video. Tell them what to do, but if they don’t care enough to even watch the video or to hear why it might be important to incorporate the honeymoon phase into your relationship if they’re offended by the idea that they have to put work in the relationship if they want to get lazy instead of keeping you happy, you deserve better. You can play a little hard to get. You can capitalize on the distance to get them to long for you more, but ideally, you shouldn’t need to do that for your partner to feel passion for you like my partner, and I we don’t play games. We do spend 24 7 together and we still keep the passion alive. You know, you shouldn’t have to resort to convincing the other person why they should work on your relationship, but besides, you know, playing a little hard to get putting a little bit distance between yourselves. You cannot force someone to behave a certain way. You cannot force them to value you and your relationship. You either have to accept things as they are or move on if they’re not willing to work on this relationship with you because I imagine a lot of those of you watching. This are probably people who maybe are struggling with their relationship and want to make sure that it gets better and you know? I just want to say it takes two to tango. You can’t be putting in 100 of the work, so I do hope. This video was helpful, and I do hope that you are all part of the category of people where both parties or whatever, however, many parties there are are trying to put in 100 of the effort. Don’t forget to hit like and subscribe if you want to see more of this type of content and I’ll see you soon.