Sometimes, dare we say it, your Bubbe’s love advice is outdated and the clickbait-y articles in your Facebook feed about the surefire way to spice up your love life just aren’t cutting it. So, we’ve gathered a selection of real relationship tips from the Arq community for you to lean on when you need.
Embrace your differences
The more you accept your differences and realize that it’s actually why you’re attracted to that person and that it provides a great amount of balance, the more the things that caused tension before just make everything 100 times better. For example, the hours that he’s the best, I’m the worst, and the hours he’s the worst, I’m the best. He’s like, “Why do you always pass out when we’re watching TV?” I’m like, “Why don’t you want to wake up earlier and get coffee?” And that’s a perfect complement. I have time in the morning, you have time at night. It helped when our son came along. Those differences became areas for appreciation and filling in each other’s blanks.
He is a perfect complement to me. He is a phenomenal, creative human being, and a true intellectual. I am a very visual person, but I also want to be able to discuss policy and politics with someone. We both appreciate those things. He’s a bit more of an introvert, and I’m a bit more of an extrovert. We really balance each other out. I will just like keep going, and going, and going, and he’ll suggest, “Why don’t we just sit in the park and not make plans today?” And I’m like, “That’s a possibility?”
He is a white man, and with that came privilege I wasn’t used to being around. Adam is a peaceful guy who generally does not like disruptions. I’m all about disrupting. We got into some very in-depth conversations early on, and I didn’t think that the relationship would have any future because of how different we were.
I was impressed that he was willing to consider things that would be scary for him. He’s a traditional Jewish person who got married to a black non-Jewish person. He’s very structured in his belief systems, but also very open and ready to tackle and unpack things he has held on to for decades. That’s one of the things I love about him. He’s not afraid of re-examination.
Speak your mind
The key to a strong relationship with your partner is communication. Not being afraid to say what’s on your mind. Not talking about it is worse than saying something that might hurt the other person. Also, date nights are really important, forever and always.
This shouldn’t be surprising, but working through things works. Actually pushing back on one another and having conflict and expressing it can feel bad, and it can also move you forward, and you can feel closer to someone, and you know more about how to relate to them the more you do that.
Learn to let it go
It’s important to let things go. It’s difficult because you want the other person to learn, to know that what they did was wrong, and to use that knowledge to ensure that it’s done right the next time. That’s not how people work. Also, we express our emotions differently. Stop trying to make the other person less sad, cry less, or telling them they can’t be angry about certain things. Let it happen, and then ask, “Do you feel better now? Can you let it go?”
Be open-minded
Scott has a lot of qualities I didn’t even know I should have wanted in a partner. My list was very superficial. “He has to be six feet tall and have dark hair.” Support wasn’t something that I thought should be on the list. I didn’t know that I cared so much about family until I started dating Scott. I never really thought about what it would be like to find someone who shared my values.
Coming out to LA to be with Elisha was a big thing for me. I was very New York, had a great, well set up life there. I’m really happy. Not just our marriage and our kid and our life, but, career-wise, I would be in a totally different place. If I hadn’t met Elisha, so much wouldn’t have happened.
Take turns
We are pretty good about balancing each other’s needs and what’s going on in our lives. If Steve’s going through a tough patch or I’m going through a tough patch, we will put more energy into one another. If there’s a career move that Steve needs to make or a career move that I need to make, we support one another. I’m sure our roles will reverse again, which is something I look forward to.
Schedule bonding time
We believe in planning no planning. Every Wednesday is No Plans Wednesday. If you want to move it, you have to ask permission and it has to be replaced that week. We cook that night. Otherwise, we’d order dinner and sit in front of the television. Even if one of us has to crank something out for work and the other one cooks, we’re still talking, there’s still a glass of wine, and it’s still a nice, low-key way to connect.
Every Saturday night, we have a date. For a long time, we were staying home on weekends. Then, we decided, “Okay, Saturday nights. Those are going to be our nights, and we’re going to leave the house and do something.”
When you’re younger, you think, “You have to say you’re going to have a date night?” It seems so dumb. Then, when you get older, and you have more going on, and you get tired more easily, to know that you have that night, just for the two of you, is really nice.
We’re such morning people, and our children are really, really into us putting them to bed at night. This works well for us. What we’ll often do to reconnect is get a sitter in the morning on the weekend, from 8am to 1pm. We work out together, we shower at the gym, we have brunch, we walk around for an hour, and then come back and engage with the family. We both feel so good when we exercise, we’re really awake and connected, and there’s this freshness to the day, so that works really, really well. I call it “Date Day.”
Just be nice
When somebody says, “How can you work with your wife all day?,” Gaston is always confused – why wouldn’t that be ideal? We always compliment each other and say how much we love each other and how much we enjoy being together. We don’t make jokes about being married, like, “Ugh, being married sucks.” It creates a very pure space in a relationship and it’s as simple as that, just being really nice.
Love is about the long-haul
Marriage is not the climax of your relationship. It’s not like, “We love each other so much now, we’re gonna get married, and BOOM! Max love!” It’s a stepping stone and there’s all this opportunity for the rest of your life to try loving each other more than you ever could possibly imagine. One of the amazing things with love is when you think you’re getting close to feeling it the most, you realize that maybe it’s just Phase Two.
Instead of looking 5 years ahead, you look 50 years ahead, which is special and great.
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