Lessons for a truly loving relationship

HUMANS have a universal desire to belong, to love and be loved. Love is an integrated mind, body, psyche system or process that promotes proximity, reproduction and safety and reduces feelings of stress or anxiety.

It represents the starting phase of a love relationship.

Attraction is a sort of “breaking point” with the previous way of being. It is sudden, violent and unpredictable and is present in all cultures and societies and it can be hypothesised that it is genetically transmitted.

What attracted you most to your partner when you first met or dated? This question yields interesting responses: strength, sexual attractiveness, security, acceptance, caretaking, stable, reliable, vivacious and active are common responses.

Many of us have experienced the traits of romantic love, which include increased energy, elation, mood swings, pounding heart, sweaty palms, separation anxiety, emotional dependence, change of habits to impress, heightened romantic passion, sexual desire, sexual possessiveness and the feeling that you will die for the other person.

The need to be with someone, to feel important, to love and feel needed, to be cared for and secure, to touch and feel affection and have sex is a fundamental human desire.

Add to this kindness, intimacy, communication, attachment, cheerfulness and mindfulness and you have the cornerstone of human feelings.

Relationships are the most difficult examination in life. Many people fail because they try to copy others, not realising that everyone is different. The three pillars of relationships are: love, trust and respect. Love without respect is possessiveness.

Trust is the faith in the nobility of your spouse or partner’s conviction and therefore one needs to trust in the benevolence of his or her intentions.

Respect is the acknowledgement of separateness of your partner. It is honouring what is best and divine in each other. It is respecting difference, dreams, dignity and vulnerability, appreciating each other.

How then do couples or partners continue their relationships and still maintain the initial spark?

Lowering expectations: Have no expectations. When you get something without expecting it, it gives you pleasure. Keep doing your part. The greatest test of faith is when you don’t get what you want but you are still able to say thank you.

Using Dr David Schnarch’s four points of balance:

- Solid flexible self is the ability to be clear about who you are and what you’re about, especially when your partner pressures you to adapt and conform.

- Quiet mind, calm heart is the ability to calm yourself down, soothe your hurts and regulate your anxieties.

- Grounded responding is the ability to stay calm and not overreact, instead of creating distance or running away when your partner gets upset.

- Meaningful endurance is the ability to step up and face issues that bedevil your relationship and the ability to endure discomfort for the sake of growth.

Nurturing: Is the capacity to receive care from others and provide care for yourself and others.

Sensuality: The mindfulness of physical senses that creates emotional, intellectual, spiritual and physical presence.

Self-image: Is a positive self-perception that includes embracing your sexual self.

Partnership: Refers to the ability to maintain an independent, equal relationship that is intimate and erotic.

Passion: The capacity to express deeply held feelings of desire and meaning about one’s sexual self, relationships and intimacy experience.

Surprises: Make a list of things that you know would surprise your partner pleasantly if received from you unexpectedly. The list must come from your memory of previous surprise events or expressed wishes.

Fun list: These are fun and exciting activities you would like to do with your partner. Items included should be face-to-face experiences that are physically vigorous and emotionally intense.

Others should include pleasurable body contact – dancing, wrestling, showers together, sex, massage and laughing. Fun needs no skills, has no rules and produces a laugh.

Maintain the mind as a treasure box to keep love, happiness and sweet memories and not as a dustbin to keep anger, hatred and jealousy.

Aim to be rich – not in what you have in your bank account but what you have in your heart.

Keep smiling. Speaking lips can reduce many problems, closed lips can avoid some, but smiling lips can solve almost all.

Life has no remote. Get up and change it yourself. Every moment has love, every hour has happiness in it. If you lose it, it becomes memory and if you live it, it becomes life. Together each may grow to mature reciprocity. Forgive them even when they are not sorry. Let them be right if that’s what they need.

We forget to acknowledge the ever-present danger of emotionally transmitted diseases like anger, vanity, arrogance, jealousy, hatred, anxiety and depression, which can reach you from far away without even being in direct contact.

USEFUL TIPS

- Prioritise and delegate, help with children, chores, mini-holidays, rest, recreation, relaxation, connect, communicate and cherish. Schedule time and romantic settings, sensual assignments.

- Kiss deeply and passionately. Kiss until you are out of breath, so that you will always remember the warm embracing feeling.

- Have an “affair” with your spouse or partner.

- Indulge in flirtatious friendship like staring into each other’s eyes, stolen kisses and embraces.

- Hug warmly with both arms around your partner.

- Heads on pillows is much like hugging until relaxed, only lying down.

- Change your attitude towards sex, fall in love again.

- Focus on being sensual before being sexual.

- Make spending time together and romance a priority.

- Spend time touching outside of sex.

- Women need a great deal of affirmation about their bodies.

- Men have their own insecurities.

- Don’t just say no to having sex. Spice things up.

- Enhancing the relationship should always encompass romantic gestures, communication, intimacy, sensuality and quality time.

The African Society for Sexual Medicine offers a free online course in sexual medicine to all health-care workers. Visit www.assmweb.org.