Most relationships can be repaired, though not usually through conventional methods like changing, discussions, and reconciliations. In this text, I give you 7 not completely conventional, but logical, reasonable, and effective steps to fix your relationship.
In short, people often approach fixing relationships emotionally and get fed up with unfair treatment, or they act when it’s too late. In this text, I suggest thoughtful actions that can yield good results if you want to improve or fix your relationship. Each of these suggestions can be a crucial and sufficient change.
How To Improve Your Relationship
To fix your relationship:
Do Fun Things Together
This might sound like a cliché that most couples would just skim over.
There’s a reason you don’t do fun things together: laziness, self-imposed limitations, being preoccupied with work, finances, kids, and life’s responsibilities, dissatisfaction with partner, self etc. You already know why you’re not having fun together, so when I say this, you’ll probably just nod and continue living your life as usual.
But since you want to improve your relationship, this is the most straightforward task of the seven listed, so give it a try.
Here’s a guide to follow:
- Find something you both enjoy. Everyone finds different things fun. Some people enjoy hiking, while others prefer a wine night with friends. So, if you want it to be entertaining:
- Find common interests. Discover an activity you both enjoy.
For example, one of my clients loves cleaning, while her fiancé fixes old computer equipment. They combined their interests: he disassembles a keyboard, and she finds the best way to clean it. They spend time together and even make money.
- Try something new. Choose an activity neither of you has tried before. You might discover a shared passion or be pushed toward other similar activities.
- Adapt to your partner’s interests to fix your relationship. I know, I know… it’s not fair. Why should you adapt to them. But you are reading this text now, so I am addressing you. If your partner reads it, he or she will receive the same message. After all, who knows where it will go. Maybe your partner feels grateful and reciprocates, maybe you would like and find something fun in your partner’s activities, etc.
Another client of mine is a typical woman with all the needs for grooming, shopping, etc. However, her husband snowboards, and she joined him in this activity. Her feelings were mixed, but now they spend much more time together, and she has become much cooler to him as a snowboarder. And because she became cool to him, now she is very proud of herself and works hard on snowboarding… that is, now she really likes it. Yes, we are interesting people. A little praise from the right person and how he can get us started.
Solution When the Partner Fell Out of Love With You?
You vs. Others
People unite around common goals but also common problems.
Common goals could be securing a comfortable financial future, succeeding in business, moving, or organizing the garage. Anything that unites you in togetherness will be good for your relationship.
If you have no ideas, your partner may have a goal they want to achieve. Join them in that. Discuss how you’ll achieve it, explore your options, make suggestions, and involve others. Let the pursuit of that goal be part of your daily conversations. People really love and value allies on their side.
But as I said, a common goal can also be overcoming problems or defeating enemies.
Problems are understandable, but have you ever considered how strongly people hold on to their allies when an enemy appears?
Interestingly, some relationships function solely on this principle: we must stick together because everyone else is against us (family, acquaintances, the establishment).
This may sound odd or even manipulative and immoral, but I don’t know your partner, so it’s fair to provide solutions even for partners with a Don Quixote mindset.
This situation can also be artificially created. The person leading this relationship improvement project can invent things for the partners to do together. However, be careful not to exhaust your partner or make them do things reluctantly or against their will.
The idea is to do things unitedly.
Improve Your Sex Life
Some people have hobbies; your shared hobby can be sex. Sex definitely brings people together.
And this is the moment when some of my clients say: but I’m not interested in sex. I understand… but if you’re trying to fix your relationship, and your partner finds sex interesting, maybe you should consider this.
I mean, if you were repairing a house, you wouldn’t say: I’m not interested in working on the roof, I only want to work on windows and doors. We understand each other, right?
Of course and obviously I’m not persuading you to commit to sex in a way – my partner likes it. Rather, the idea is that you too find some advantage and some form of enjoyment in sex.
You will obviously do this by being honest with yourself and your partner about what gives you the greatest sexual satisfaction. What prerequisites need to be met, etc. Your partner should do the same.
📌 Discovering what your partner enjoys in sex can make you an irreplaceable source of their satisfaction.
- Story: One of my clients once mentioned a particular sexual preference he was always embarrassed to talk about. Because of this, his partner became irreplaceable to him, as he couldn’t imagine telling anyone else about his bedroom desires.
Consider sex as a project you want to work on. Sex often becomes routine for partners and sometimes even boring. However, in thousands of years of sex, people have found a way to make it more fun.
Everyone has their own sexual preferences, often unspoken. The first step is to build trust so partners can share their sexual preferences with each other. There should be no judgment, ridicule, surprise, or rejection in this process.
Once preferences are revealed, the obvious next step is to try to fulfill them. To make this easier, it might be best to see sex as a form of play or role play, something done within the privacy of four walls and lasting only for that period. Sex can be a way to fix your relationship.
Support Each Other
As they say: If your partner says they want to be a Ninja Turtle, don’t call them childish and stupid, but ask them which one they want to be—Michelangelo or Donatello.
People are so preoccupied with their problems that they forget to support and encourage their partners. Yet, we need support almost daily because of our hormones and emotions, which sometimes make it hard to get through the day. Then, we have external circumstances that can be tough and frustrating. We also have plans and ambitions, things we need to complete, etc.
As you can see, there’s a lot of room to support your partner and improve or fix your relationship. Never forget that inside every person is a child ready to regress, to crawl into a parent’s lap and be comforted, or to wait for a parent to solve a problem.
You can quickly become such a person for your partner (not that you should force a parent-child dynamic, but support is lovely to have).
Never forget that people are often lonely in their struggles, and even the best around them do not support them but sometimes sabotage them. You’ll likely become irreplaceable if you become such a person in your partner’s life.
Here’s another tip: clearly communicating what you’re doing is exceptional. Why? In my career, I’ve seen cases where someone did the right thing for their partner, supported and pushed them forward, comforted and pampered them, and the partner didn’t see it as something special from that person but as something they’re entitled to, something others will do for them, too.
The essence is that if you don’t communicate the uniqueness and exceptional nature of your work, it might be misinterpreted or go unnoticed.
So, sentences like: “What I do for you, people usually don’t do for others. But you’re important to me, so…” can give your partner a reality check.
Give Your Partner What They Want
People are often focused on themselves and fulfilling their needs, and then there are children, work, elderly parents. Household, hobbies, often friends… so their partners usually come last.
There’s also competition between partners, so fulfilling one’s needs is done deliberately and aggressively, and sometimes it goes directly against the partner.
But since the topic is how to improve and fix your relationship, it wouldn’t hurt to shift the focus to your partner’s desires and needs, at least for a while.
You likely know what your partner wants, but if you don’t, you can ask them.
You can scale your partner’s desires (from the smallest to the largest), divide them into different areas (sexual desires, weekly desires, etc.), or list them by difficulty in fulfilling (it might be easy for someone to fulfill sexual desires but very hard to visit their partner’s family for lunch).
Choose the most straightforward principle for fulfilling these desires.
Why Don’t You Give Your Partner What They Want?
Also, ask your partner to fulfill your needs. You can call this an exchange, as it’s easier to do things if you get something in return.
The whole world functions on exchange, so it’s natural for people to expect something in return for their actions.
I notice that this economic concept of exchange is often uncomfortable in emotional relationships, as everything seems calculated. However, this approach ensures that the giving party also experiences some satisfaction and benefit, when he gets something in return. Or their motivation increases because they know they will still get something in return. This obviously evokes positive emotions. And pleasant emotions are what keep us in a relationship.
So, don’t get too caught up in the technicalities, as that might mean you’re refusing to participate in something that’s a natural exchange: you give me something, and I give you something in return. If you resist this, someone might think you’re that you are romantic (which is not a positive trait in practical relationships), selfish and unwilling to do things for your partner.
But what if your partner is selfish and reluctant to do things for you?
The first option is to pressure your partner to adopt this method of functioning. If that doesn’t work, you might have to accept that you have a selfish partner. They might also be uncooperative, narcissistic, or something else. In that case, you still have the option to give your partner what they need and become the most important figure for them. Not many people will endure this dynamic, giving more and receiving less. If you can do this, you might be a rare and valuable person in your partner’s life.
Another option is to leave a relationship where only you are expected to give.
How To Maintain Good Relationship
Talk to Your Partner
Everyone carries something within them. Everyone has thoughts. Rarely do people express their thoughts, desires, fears, hopes fantasies, and imagination. The most interesting, unexplored, and striking things are those that people carry in their minds. These inner experiences can even surpass external events because our inner perception is stronger than the actual circumstances.
For example, if your partner experiences injustice, they likely need to talk about it and find a comforting perspective. You can help with that. Or if they are going through something good, they probably want to share their joy with someone. These are extremes, but there’s a whole spectrum of things in between that people would talk about.
People want to talk about their passions, thoughts, and interests. They even want to talk about their emotions. People love to be smart and show off their expertise. They also love giving advice. As you can see, this leaves a vast field for conversations.
Open a bottle of wine, pour two glasses, and have a conversation with your partner. Choose a random topic and see where it leads you.
Ask Your Partner to Explain in Detail What Bothers Them About You
And don’t get angry when you hear it. Don’t get angry, even if you hear it’s about five different things.
The process is to sit down with your partner and ask them to talk about what bothers them and what they would like you to improve.
The next step is for you to listen while your partner talks. If you’re expected to speak, it’s permissible to:
- Ask them to explain better if you don’t understand
- Explain yourself
- Ask for exact instructions on how to improve things
It’s not permissible to:
- Attack your partner
- Defend yourself aggressively (rolling your eyes, insulting, mocking)
- Threaten to leave or something else
It’s essential to listen carefully to your partner and not justify to yourself why change is impossible. It’s okay to explain yourself, but you need to change what your partner wants. Justifying yourself is, unfortunately, a dead end because it gives you a reason not to change anything. Here, we’re dealing with how your partner feels about what you’re doing and what you can do to make them stop feeling that way.
I warn you, this will be a tough task for your ego, but don’t approach it from an ego position but from a relationship-improvement position.
And yes, you might have to do a significant part of the work, even if you’re not responsible for the relationship deteriorating. There are more texts on this topic:
For some couples, this can be an excellent start to improving or fixing the relationship, with one side showing goodwill and doing what they can. The other side might be encouraged by this and start doing the same.
📌 To be clear, it would be ideal if this goes in the opposite direction, but it is best not to mix the two conversations, because then you don’t know who is being talked about. Everyone defends themself and attacks the other.
But even if this doesn’t happen, the side that tried to improve things (you) can say they did everything they could, made an effort, and fought for the relationship. And you can be proud of yourself. Also, this makes us better people because we acquire new cooperation skills, overcome our egos, and choose reason over emotions.
When it comes to the ego, it’s worth mentioning that the hardest part of this proposal is overcoming your ego, which always tells you that you’re right and that your partner should take care of fixing things.
You may be right. But when fixing a relationship, it’s less important who’s right and far more critical which path to take to improve things. Good text on this topic: Who Reaches Out First After A Breakup?
Always remember this fact as the reason you’re doing certain things and going against your ego, which will undoubtedly protest.
Let’s be clear: this might not yield good results. Your partner may become even more arrogant because of it, which isn’t entirely bad as it gives you an answer about the kind of partner you have. But for some people, this will yield great results. Some partners will feel satisfaction, others will feel the need to reciprocate, and some will adopt this positive behavior from you.
When a relationship is broken, it can be repaired in various ways. I don’t know your reason for why the relationship isn’t working, but any of these actions might be sufficient and crucial to get things moving and improve your relationship.
I like to tell my clients “You’ll invest energy into something. Either to fix your relationship or to find and build a new one. It’s up to you to choose where to invest your energy.” Dee
