10 psychological keys to improve your relationship with your partner

Couples relationships are dynamicThey are not always the same, since they go through different stages such as vital changes, changing situations and difficulties that will put the relationship to the test. In broad strokes we can differentiate an initial stage of courtship in which there are more beautiful, romantic moments and leisure and a later stage of coexistence in which to share in addition to more time, more responsibilities and loads.

Regardless of the moment in which your relationship is, Verónica Valderrama Hernández, from Psicoalmeria, gives you 10 keys to improve it. These keys will be very useful. However, if you consider that the relationship is at a point of stagnation, it may be important to receive the help of a professional in psychology, in Psicoalmeria they perform couple therapies becoming professionally involved and adapting the techniques and strategies to each case.

• Related article: "The 5 types of couples therapy"

Key ideas to improve your relationship

Many times it is difficult for us to make changes thinking that if the couple does not change, what we do will not be of much use

. This is not true, it does not matter if you think that your partner must also change, by making these changes you will make your partner change without doing so consciously. Why? Because it won't make sense to treat you the same or treat both of you the same if something has changed.

It may be in your power to break the reciprocal behavior patterns that currently exist in the relationship. You can start applying these keys from today!

1. Practice Active Listening and learn to Activate Your Gaze

It is important to listen actively to your partner and with full awareness. Consists in be totally focused on the message you are trying to communicate and transmit to us. Accompany this technique with an active look, eye contact indicates that attention is being paid and denotes sincerity.

Have you ever stopped to think how many times you communicate correctly and how many other times while doing other things? It is common for many conversations to take place while you check your mobile, for example, or attend to other obligations. Knowing how to listen is very important and will reflect attention on your partner. Facts that avoid promoting active listening are: getting distracted, interrupting your partner, imposing your ideas without understanding it, not validating their feelings, telling your version without listening to theirs and disqualifying their opinion.

• You may be interested in: "Active listening: the key to communicate with others"

2. Empathize

Before any situation you are experiencing, before acting you can put yourself in the place of your partner. How will you be living it? How would I live it in his place? Put yourself in the shoes of your partner, try to understand him / her and not judge him / her. If you perform this technique properly, you will be able to address your partner in a more assertive way.

3. Use the "I" and avoid the "You"

During conversations and discussions, try using the first person (me) more and the second person (you) less. We do not feel the same way that they tell us You hurt me, to receive the message I have felt bad about what you said. The Self promotes empathy on the part of your partner, and the You provokes emotions compatible with an attack, so the next response is probably along the lines of a new reproach.

4. Reset

Avoid the reproaches of the past, imagine that those situations already overcome have expired. What do you think can be positive in a discussion to bring out things already discussed from the past? Focus on clarifying the current situation with current facts and arguments.

If your partner agrees that reproaches add negativity and increase problems, you can establish a secret word and use it when one of the two makes a reproach of something From the past.

5. Activate the positive circle

It consists of doing something positive every day for your partner. A detail, a nice, loving or romantic gesture. Any fact that implies that you have spent time with your partner will be rewarded, did you know that by nature we tend to return favors or gestures of affection? Do something new positive for your partner every day and you will see how it begins to bear fruit very soon.

6. Recreate the first dates

If you have the opportunity recreate one of your first dates, remember and relive those first moments can rekindle the spark and make you connect with what attracted you to your partner initially. It will also be useful to carry out new pleasant activities as a couple or to recover activities that you stopped doing.

7. Think before you talk

How many times have we heard this phrase, and how many times do we really use it? It is normal to be impulsive during a conversation, but if we think that the conversation is getting into an argument it will be better to think before speaking and focus both on the words we want to communicate and the most appropriate ways to do it.

8. The Wish Box

It is an interesting and beneficial activity, you can propose it to your partner. Consists in make a box between the two (there are available to buy), I personally recommend making it and sharing time as a couple.

You can decorate this box however you like, and it will have a slot at the top as a “piggy bank”. You will choose a color each for the notes or ballots to be entered, you will place those days wishes that you want your partner to fulfill and you will commit to fulfilling the wishes of your partner annotated.

9. Sex without ideas?

Ask yourself the following questions: what did we do before in sex that we could recover? Is there any sexual fantasy that I have not fulfilled and can propose to my partner? Don't be afraid to innovate and jump in, get out of the routine.

10. Try asking for help before deciding

Before starting a serious conversation that could have a significant impact on your partner, we recommend seeking a professional opinion to have an objective perspective of the situation.

Many of our actions and behaviors are carried out by expectations and interpretations that we form and that sometimes do not conform to reality, therefore it is important to see the situation from different perspectives. The psychologist Verónica Valderrama Hernández and the psychologists of Psicoalmeria will help you in whatever situation you are going through so that you decide in the most appropriate way and always with psychological techniques that have validity empirical.