My husband is my best friend, my partner in crime, my favorite human and the guy legally required to warm my feet up at night. This year (2019) marked 4 years married and 9 years together. You guys, we’ve almost made it a DECADE!!! All this love in the air has me thinking a lot about love in general but about relationship wellness in particular. What is relationship wellness? Well, it’s kind of a two part act:
Relationship Integrity – this the heartbeat and health of your relationship. How well you communicate, interact, spend intentional time together and support one another. How you navigate life together.
Partner Accountability – this is how you encourage one another and hold each other accountable in your own individual wellness journeys. How you navigate life apart.
The Five Love Languages
There is this beautiful relationship theory called The Five Love Languages. These are the different ways in which people show love and affection and everyone tends to have a dominant love language or two that they’re more fluent in.
Those 5 love languages are:
- receiving/ giving gifts
- quality time together
- words of affirmation
- acts of service
- physical touch
My husbands dominant love languages tends to be gifts and acts of service. Mine is quality time and physical touch. Surprise surprise coming from the massage lady, I know. What are your’s and your partners dominant love languages? Use this handy quiz to find out!
Peanut Butter Cups
There are different ways that you can utilize these different 5 love languages to either support one another’s health or help each other create excuses. For example, my husbands love languages of gifts& acts of service. He loves to bring home random little gifts or treats to let me know he was thinking of me during his day.
Do I love Reese’s peanut butter cups? Absolutely!!! Do I love that he remembers this and thinks of me when he is at the store? Absolutely!!! Is it beneficial to my health and wellness goals for my husband to bring me a Reese’s peanut buttercup once or twice a week? Well it’s not going to kill me, most likely, but there are other healthier other options. How do I let him know this? COMMUNICATION!
This is a conversation that we’ve had over the years, so now when he feels that he feels the need to speak his love language of gifts he’ll grab something that aligns more with my health goals like a gluten-free treat or some dairy free ice cream. He expresses his love in his native language, I feel his expression of love AND I stay mostly in line with my wellness goals.
Except that one time he brought home a Reeses after using a sharpie to write “Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Non-GMO” on the wrapper. Nice try!
Accountability in Relationships
When we put some intentional supportive thought into the ways in which we show your love and affection you can open up some really beautiful conversations with your partner. Have you ever asked each other about wellness goals and how you can best show support for those goals? This doesn’t just have to be about diet! These goals can be exercise, sleep, stretching or yoga, meditation, self-care, stress management, work life balance, screen time, time in nature, friendships and family relationships, spirituality…. anything that makes you feel whole, healed and well.
Now, I am a huge believer that life is all about balance. Once in a blue moon, if Husband decides he wants to be nostalgic and bring home a Reeses, you best believe I eat that sucker up with gratitude but I know that ultimately, he understands, respects and supports my goals. I know this because we took the opportunity to talk about it. Any time that we are able speak in truth and transparency with our partner is a time that should be cherished.
That being said, communication is the key here! There has to be some proactive conversation ahead of time. If my husband just decided for himself that I need to start eating healthier and suddenly started bringing you home salads in place of Reeses, that could potentially be misinterpreted.
It ALWAYS comes back to communication. I challenge you to create some space to speak with your partner about each other’s personal health & wellness goals and find ways in which you can support one another’s journey.
Holding Up A Mirror
Holding up a mirror is a term that I like to use a lot. When we hold up a mirror for our partner we are able to reflect back to them their own goals, dreams & desires in times that their own vision may be clouded. In this way we can gently hold them accountable to the vision they hold true for their own life.
This does not mean holding your partner accountable to your views for their life. I’m not going to hold my husband accountable to my expectations for what I think his health and wellness goals should be. I do still encourage him and make information available to him when I find it but the accountability and desire has to originate from within.
It is challenging and yet so beautiful to find a space of transparency in your relationship where you are able say “Hey remember when we sat down and you expressed your goals and the direction that you wanted your journey to go? Do you feel that what you’re doing right now is falling in line with that highest good?”
It creates a discussion and an opportunity to check in with yourselves and each other with out the confrontation of “calling them out.” A gentle way of holding up a mirror and being a supportive partner to one another. Encouraging each other to take care of yourselves as individuals and to work together as partners to hold each other accountable to the goals that you’ve already set forth for yourselves.
Relationship Integrity: Relationship With Self
Ultimately you are merging two lives together. Two independent separate beings who’s lives together can be even better and even more enhanced by what you each bring to the table. Each living your best life separately but also living your best life together. When you start to speak transparently about priorities in relationships some debate can be brought forth. For instance, we tend to think of relationships as 50/50 but perhaps they should be 100/100.
My husband and I have learned a lot in our 4 years of marriage and the 5 years of partnership prior to that. The one lesson that we revisit constantly is that while it is commonly acceptable in our society to say that your significant other is your number one priority in life, we challenge that perspective. In the conversation that we’ve had over almost a decade, we’ve come to realize that your spouse cannot be your number one. Together we have learn that you can only love, respect and care for someone as deeply as you love, respect and care for yourself.
You have to be your number one so that you can show up not only for yourself but for your partner, your relationship and your family. Putting your own self-care, stress management, health and wellness first so that when your cup runneth over, you can then pour into your partner and vice versa. If each partner puts them self first, inevitably the relationship will flourish. Two healthy, happy, whole beings joined together.
Relationship Integrity: A Note For Parents
Another debatable relationship priority is that your relationship with your spouse should come ahead of your relationship with your children. Now before you come after me with pitchforks, this is this is purely theoretical idea that a friend introduced me to. My husband and I don’t have children of our own yet so this concept is not something that I have been able to stretch out into and explore. Even not being a parent myself, when my friend (who is a parent) brought up this concept, red flags went of in my brain.
She went on to suggest that your relationship with your spouse, whether it be with your with your children’s biological parents or with a step parent, is modeling relationships for your children in the future. And went on to say that if your relationship is strong then you are going to work better as a team to raise children and nurture your family unit. It’s important to note that this theory only applies to healthy dynamics where your childs health and safety are not at risk.
So…
- 1. Self
- 2. Partner
- 3. Children
But more important than putting numbers to a priority list it driving the point home that intentional self-care and intentional relationship care paramount to your overall happiness, co-habitation & the building of a contended life.
How Partners Massage Can Help
Our partners massage classes are a great way to reinforce and strengthen or any one of those five love languages.
- Receiving/ giving gifts – gifting each other massage or massage tools and oils to enhance your home practice.
- Quality time together – a massage can be 5 minutes or 2 hours. However long, it’s intetional time spent together.
- Words of affirmation – communicating and giving your partner feedback on how much you enjoy their massage.
- Acts of service – offering massage after a long day to ease each other’s stress & tension.
- Physical touch – massage, massage, MASSAGE!
These classes are a great way to create intentional communication in your relationship, enhance intimacy, build trust and reignite a spark or to keep it lit. If you feel like your relationship with your partner is floundering, the simple act of creating intentional space together can make all of the difference. It does not have to be these partners massage classes. It can be as simple as a date night, dinner for two at home, taking some intentional time just sit down and talk together. Don’t pass the time next to each other. Spend it together. Invest in your shared love. Communicate and discover ways that you can support each other to be the best version of yourselves.
Just Be Together.
P.S. If you want to get really really sappy with me, check out this poem that I wrote right before my husband and I got married. It speaks to this idea of putting oneself first. What can I say, I’m a romantic!
Take Care Of You
Your self-care, your stress management and your health & wellness have to be your top priority. regardless of what relationships come after, they will all flourish if the relationship with your self is strong and healthy.
Learn More
You can learn more about relationship wellness & partners massage by following my Facebook page or subscribing to my Youtube channel. Check out this Relationship Wellness video.