Three Ways to Nurture Emotional Connection for a Happy Marriage

Are you ready to tie a knot? Congratulations! Finding a partner that you can love isn’t easy.  A happy marriage takes work and working on the emotional connection with your partner is one of the most important aspects.

One of the most important aspects of a strong and healthy marriage is a deep emotional connection between the partners. The emotional connection may be there from the beginning, but if it’s not nurtured regularly, you two may become strangers.

Three Ways to Nurture Emotional Bond for a Happy Marriage

Prioritize Your Marriage

In today’s world, we are all so busy and we perform various duties and tasks. What are we talking about here? Our careers, making living, childcare, etc. Somehow we think that doing all these tasks is enough to maintain a happy marriage. We become too exhausted by the end of the day or a week to remember our role as a lover, partner, or a spouse.  Prioritize the marriage in order to nurture maintain the emotional connection. By prioritizing marriage, I mean prioritize your partner before your job, children, and other obligations. Of course, it’s understandable that you can’t do this all the time, but finding the time to do it, is essential. Get a babysitter and put your computer and phone away. If you don’t work on it, it’s unlikely that you can maintain a happy marriage and satisfactory emotional connection with your partner.

 Engage in the Activities that Will Help You Build Strong Emotional Bond

We are raised to “be in our heads.” This means that we are very logical, analytical, and task oriented.  This is needed in order to survive in the corporate world, but our relationships may suffer because of this. In order to develop deeper emotional ties, we need to learn how to “drop down into our bodies.”  This means that we need to be more present, relaxed, and aware of our emotions in order to relate with our spouse on a deeper level. In order to accomplish this, I suggest engaging in things that involve creativity, body movement, our senses, etc. So get involved in following activities, and you will reap the benefits of better connection, sex, and relationship. Of course, you can have your own ideas too. I would love to hear from you.

• Take a dance class together. Engage your senses together with music that you both like while you dance in the feminine and masculine roles together while your bodies are touching. Dance in many cultures is a part of the mating ritual. Just make sure children are asleep when you get home.
• Workout together. This is another activity that engages the body, and thus helps us be more in “our bodies” and  be less “in our heads.”  Moreover, working out produces endorphins, which cause us to feel happy and joyful. When you are feeling happy together, it naturally reinforces the strength of your bond. Your brain associates that happiness with being with your partner.
• Take a yoga class together. Similar to working out and dancing, yoga will provide you with the ways of being physical together and be flushed with all those good chemicals in your brain while together. In addition, yoga trains us to be mindful, present and connected with ourselves and others. This naturally helps us have better relationships.
• Take an art class, such as painting, pottery, etc. Doing creative activities is another way of being more in touch with your senses and feelings. It’s quite sensual experience.
• Cook together or take a cooking class together. This is another sensual activity. How many senses are involved in it? Taste, smell, touch, visual, and even hearing of sizzling stir fry are the part of the experience. While you are at that, feed each other while looking at each other’s eyes, just to make sure that you are on the right track with the right spices of course.
• Create sensual dining experience. If you are at home, turn off the TV, light up the candles, and take your time eating and conversing. If you are at the restaurant, order appetizers, and share them together while eating with hands. Sharing a meal is an emotionally bonding activity. This can increase the quality of your emotional connection.

If you are in in a long-term relationship, it may be hard to maintain the spark of passion. Clinton Powers talks about it in his article 7 Tips to Bring Excitement Back Into Your Long-Term Relationship. What’s important to note is that you need to make an effort in order to keep your relationship happy.

Nurture Attitude of Gratitude for a Happy Marriage

The reason why most of us get into relationships is that we want to make someone happy. When we feel that our partner is unhappy, we start feeling helpless and give up on trying to please them. We naturally turn away from nurturing relationships. We wind up staying late at the office because we don’t want to go back home. This leads to couples living parallel lives in the same household. In order to avoid that, express your appreciation for each other on daily basis. If you are with the partner that you can’t appreciate, a good question to ask yourself is, “Why am I  with him or her?” What was your motive when you told him or her “yes” years ago?  There must be something good about the person. Behavioral science shows that if you reward some behaviors, they will increase. Reward, in this case, would be expressing gratitude. Simple praise for something that your husband or wife does on regular basis, shows that you are not taking him or her for granted. Statements such as, “I really appreciate how you love our kids,” or “It amazes me how you handled those issues at work.” will go a long way.

We All Need to Feel Needed in a Happy Marriage

In order to avoid that, express your appreciation for each other on daily basis. If you are with the partner that you can’t appreciate, a good question to ask yourself is, “Why am I  with him or her?” What was your motive when you told him or her “yes” years ago?  There must be something good about the person. Your task is to find that and nurture it.

Behavioral science shows that if you reward some behaviors, they will increase. Reward, in this case, would be expressing gratitude. Simple praise for something that your husband or wife does on regular basis, shows that you are not taking him or her for granted. Statements such as, “I really appreciate how you love our kids,” or “It amazes me how you handled those issues at work.” will go a long way. We all need to feel needed. When we don’t we seek it somewhere else. You can learn more about how to make your partner feel special in this video.