Every day you participate in routine activities that are rituals for getting you through the day. Quite likely you start off your morning with rituals for getting ready such as showering, dressing and eating breakfast. In your love relationship, you also practice specific rituals. Certain connecting rituals are good for the relationship, they help you work together well as a team.

What are Connecting Rituals?

Think about the roles you each play in your partnership, some rituals help bring you closer together as a couple, these are connecting rituals. Most love relationships start off with the couple effortlessly practicing certain connecting rituals such as calling or texting each other at the beginning of the day with morning greetings and wishes for a wonderful day. Throughout the day there may be phone calls or texts and in the evening couples look forward to hearing from or seeing each other.

Many of those connecting rituals disappear unfortunately as relationships progress and as life gets more demanding. Along with the loss of those rituals is the potential for erosion of the positive bond that the connecting rituals provide. Instead of connecting rituals, couples may engage in rituals that create distance. Distancing rituals can seem deceptively harmless, and could be as simple as checking FaceBook, Instagram or email during a conversation with your partner.

Connecting Ritual: Greetings and Partings

A great way to create connecting rituals in your relationship is to start off with the basics. There are four ideal times in your day to intentionally connect with each other.

1. Connect first thing in the morning. When you greet your mate with a “Good Morning”, you are sending a message of acknowledgement; you are also first in line to positively influence the tone of their day.
2. Connect before you leave each other for work. Before you or your mate leave for the day, share a hug, a kiss and well wishes. You are sharing a gift of warmth and a feeling of being cared for.
3. Connect after returning home from work. When you and your mate return home at the end of the day, the partner who is already at home should make the effort to meet and greet the other partner who is coming through the door. A pleasant welcome home does wonders to reinforce the feeling that home is a sanctuary for relaxation and rejuvenation.
4. Connect at bedtime. At bedtime, it’s important to close out the day with an affirming gesture such as a hug, a kiss and your hopes for a restful night. You and your mate will enjoy better sleep if your last interaction for the night is positive rather than negative.

Connecting Ritual: Sharing Wins

During their time at home, many couples discuss things that happen at work, parenting concerns and issues and problems that need to be resolved. Of course these are important topics but at times these conversations can become strained creating tension and an impulse to avoid further conversation.

Shift the tone of your time together by including the connecting ritual of sharing wins. Here’s how you do it. During your day when you are away from each other, be on the lookout for anything that you can consider a win and save it to share with your partner in the evening. It may be a complement from a co-worker, your supervisor or a client. It may be the successful completion of a project or a new idea that you would like to implement. As you and your partner get into the habit of sharing your wins, you will begin to eagerly look forward to that special time of sharing.

Over time as you practice connecting rituals, they become habits that are easier for you to maintain without too much effort. You may wonder, if you are engaging in an activity simply because it’s a ritual is it a true expression of your caring and of your desire to connect? The answer is that if you are open to the experience, and you are genuinely being mindful as you greet, embrace and share with your partner, the positive emotions will follow.

Practicing connecting rituals will not instantaneously change your relationship; instead you will gradually begin to notice subtle positive changes such as a decrease in tension, a feeling of looking forward to the connecting times. You will know that these rituals are beneficial when you begin doing them. Practicing connecting rituals contributes towards a positive atmosphere that you will notice if you break away from the ritual. Give it a try.

Do you have your own connecting rituals? Share them in the comment section below.