How to Keep Your Love Life Strong When Life Gets in the Way

Anyone who has been in a relationship long enough knows that staying happy together is about action. Love is not all about sweet stories and romantic ideas. While they are part of the equation, staying in love is about sacrifice, faithfulness, fortitude, and compromise to make the other person feel loved and appreciated. Unlike romantic comedies and holiday love stories, where everything clears up after a conflict or two, maintaining a thriving love life takes more effort.

• Best Practices to Keep Your Love Life and Work-Life Up to Par
  • Communicate. Communicate. Communicate.
  • Compromises
  • Express Expectations
  • Strive For Work-Life Balance
• Keep Your Relationship Strong and Healthy

Best Practices to Keep Your Love Life and Work-Life Up to Par

With every day’s grind of responsibilities and frayed nerves, it’s easy to understand why dealing with a partner’s issues might fall to the bottom of your list. And when difficult times come, it might be easier to shelve or put off issues in your relationship rather than work on them. But that shouldn’t happen if you learn to maintain your relationship and keep your connection strong. Keep reading to learn how to maintain a healthy relationship through love, balance, and compromise.

Communicate. Communicate. Communicate.

There is no denying the importance of communication in a romantic relationship. Communication is arguably the number one determining factor in a relationship’s success. You should be able to express to your significant other how you feel each day. Have a conversation to understand how your headspace is and what you are feeling at the moment.

Scheduling might not seem as spontaneous or sexy, but regular check-ups with each other will strengthen your love life. It can be easy to allow annoyance after annoyance to build up to a full-blown fight. Checking in means better communication, fewer fights, and ultimately better connection.

After all, a relationship is simply two people trying to get their needs met. Use a scheduled check-in to discuss any problems, recent triggers, and all good things that deserve recognition. Try and do this daily, weekly, or even monthly. You can even put it in your calendars to ensure you don’t forget or skip it.

Compromises

What does compromise mean in a relationship? Compromise is all about using mutual concession to settle differences in a relationship. It doesn’t mean completely agreeing with your partner all the time.

In a relationship, it is healthy to maintain your personal beliefs, values, opinions, and even preferences while still meeting the other person halfway. Ultimately, there will have to be some meeting in the middle. Each of you will have to communicate what you need for your sanity, and it is reliant on both of you to work to a common ground.

Compromise can come in handy in many situations. And it means doing all that without arguing, pushing each other away, or hurting each other’s feelings. Compromise is about coming together to find an agreeable solution for both parties. It goes a long way in showing that your relationship is more important than being “right” or always getting your way. It also shows that you’re keen on approaching life as a couple and want to make decisions together.

Express Expectations

Let your partner know what you feel comfortable handling from a work/life perspective. One takes the trash out while one makes sales calls. A relationship takes two people to build. So, if you constantly bite your tongue when upset or turn away from bad behavior because you would rather not upset your partner, you’re doing more harm than good. Likewise, if you feel a need to nag rather than enforce consequences, you are not helping your relationship.

Acting compliant to keep the peace contributes to the inauthenticity of the relationship. Decide on a different path in your relationship; speak up, learn to say no, and express your needs and wishes openly and honestly. Create a genuinely open channel where both of you can communicate openly.

Setting expectations early on will go a long way in forging a much stronger love life. Ideally, you can be honest about needs and feelings without guilt or starting a fight.

Strive For Work-Life Balance

Life is already busy, and adding a stressful work environment might make it seem like you don’t have enough time to spend with each other. Work and other responsibilities like kids will always be there. Work-life balance will go a long way in helping you improve your social health in the long run.

Be sure to carve out time that is not work-related and allow you two to experience each other romantically. This might mean turning off work phones between 5-9 pm to have dinner and talk about everything not business-related. It could also mean taking time off work to go on a romantic trip or to relax at home and pamper each other. So, regardless of your schedule, carve out that quality time for the one you and your partner.

Keep Your Relationship Strong and Healthy

It’s no secret that while love is the foundation of any happy relationship, love is not always enough to build a strong relationship. Strong feelings for your significant other are a necessity. But with many life responsibilities, fitting quality time with your partner is bound to take a backseat at some point.

Keeping your love life strong takes effort. Through the dedicated fostering of communication, compromise, openly expressing expectations, and a healthy work-life balance, you can build the strongest foundation for a healthy, happy love life.