We all know there’s plenty of love and affection in a new relationship, but why do we forget all about its importance when we’re in a long-term relationship?
We all love the honeymoon phase of a relationship. We’re full of
passion and love and affection toward our new partner. We just can’t
seem to get enough of them. This lasts for a few months, but it does
eventually dissipate. You kind of forget about it after a while.
You just get so caught up in your routine with your partner you
forget about giving them love and affection. You settle into your normal
life where the sex is scarce and the affection only comes after
watching romantic comedies for a couple of days.
Making the relationship last
Expecting that your relationship lasts forever without ever putting
in the effort is faulty thinking. To make a relationship last through
all the hardships, be willing to show your love and affection even at
the least expected times.
Long-term relationships aren’t a walk in the park. Just ask any
couple that’s been together for more than 10 years. They all tell you
there were times when they wanted to kill their significant other! But
they made it work because of two very simple, yet overlooked, things:
love and affection.
The importance of love and affection in a long-term relationship
Although those two things are important for any relationship, they’re
even more important to have if you’ve been together for a long time. Or
you want to be together forever. Making a relationship last has more to
do with how you act than how your partner acts.
If you understand the importance of love and affection in a
functioning relationship, you have hope of a happy and healthy long-term
relationship. This is why love and affection stay vital in a successful
relationship.
#1 Your partner loses confidence without them. How
do you think your significant other would feel if you stopped showing
love and affection toward them? If you just stop showing you care for
them, they’re going to feel like they’re not good enough.
This causes them to lose confidence in themselves. It just puts them
in a bad mindset going forward. Love and affection makes them feel good
about themselves and ensures you’re still attracted to them no matter
what.
#2 They might start to think you’re getting bored. If
you just stop showing your love and affection, your partner thinks you
no longer like them or are bored with them. Now, this might not always
be the case, but that’s how it feels for them.
If you still love and care for them but don’t show it, how are they
supposed to know you still do? Give them your love and show them
affection every single day. Then there’s no question that you no longer
care for them.
#3 You may forget just how much they mean to you. Have
you ever had a really amazing hobby or toy when you were little or
something that got you really excited and played with forever? Then
after a while you stopped and lost interest until that one day came
along and you found it and did it again or played with it again. You
just couldn’t believe you’d ever put it away.
Well, that’s how love is. If you stop showing your love and
affection, you can forget about how much those feelings mean to you. You
might endanger your relationship. Showing your love and affection keeps
your own love for them alive.
#4 You’ll start to lose that important bond. Bonding has to happen in a relationship. Affection is a great way to bond and strengthen that connection with your partner.
If you stop showing your affection for them, you’ll grow more and
more distant. This puts a lot of relationships at risk of breaking. You
need to bond to keep your love alive.
#5 You must show them how much you care. Love and
affection needs to be given priority in a long-term relationship. It is
necessary to show your partner you still care for them. It’s not a
guaranteed fact that you do.
You have to give them your love and show them affection because
that’s how you show that you care for them. If you don’t show that you
care, they won’t think that you do
#6 Happiness remains in your relationship if you show love and affection. What’s
a common reason many relationships fail? It’s because happiness slips
out of the relationship. It becomes replaced by frustration and anger.
If you show your partner how much you love them by giving them
affection, they won’t have a reason to be unhappy.
Keeping happiness in your relationship is what makes two years turn
into five. And five years turn into 20. The key to a long-term
relationship is keeping the happiness alive through love and affection.
#7 Without love, you lose their affection. If you
don’t show your partner that YOU love them, they won’t give you their
affection. Why should they be sweet, kind, and caring toward someone
that doesn’t even love them?
If you lose your significant other’s affection, your relationship is
going to be very difficult to maintain. You’ll be frustrated that you’re
not getting affection. They’ll be upset they’re not feeling your love.
#8 Without affection, you lose their love. At the
same time, if you don’t give them affection, their love for you
dwindles. It’s very hard to maintain loving someone when you’re not
getting any affection from them in any form.
Giving your affection to your lover is vital in a long-term
relationship. You have to be sweet, caring, and loving toward them or
they’ll start to lose their love for you. Even little simple things
every day make a difference.
#9 It maintains the honeymoon phase. Sure, it
definitely slows down the honeymoon phase. I mean, you’re not always
going to want to rip off your partner’s clothes forever, but having love
and affection makes this happen occasionally as opposed to not at all.
If you show your love and affection, you’ll see how much it brings
you back to the time when you first started dating and that passion was
alive and well. It brings little moments of that same passion into your
relationship after a long time and that’s what helps maintain a happy
relationship.
#10 No relationship lasts without them. This is just
the truth. You add and subtract many other things from a relationship
and still manage to make it work. But if you never show your partner how
much you love them by giving them affection, it never works.
Doing that and showing them you still care—after all those months,
years, etc.—is what they need from you to feel happy and fulfilled in
their relationship. Never forget to give them love and affection.
There are a lot of things that go into the success or failure
of a relationship. If you look at many long-term relationships, they’re
still together because of the two most important things: love and
affection.