This fall, my husband Brian and I found ourselves at loose ends. Two children had launched to college and beyond, and the third landed a restaurant job that kept her working most evenings. Suddenly, our nest felt empty. Every night could be date night, potentially. Scary!
This shift in the dynamics of our home life—after two decades centering around children—gave us an opportunity to shake up our relationship. We started trying new routines, explored fresh interests, and renewed our focus on each other. This dynamic extended throughout the day and week, bringing back that novelty and excitement that drew us together at the beginning of our relationship—amplified by the intensity of deep knowledge about each other and years of shared milestones.
But you don’t have to experience a transition in order to breathe new life into your relationships. These intentional strategies can make something old feel new again—and increase your feelings of connectedness, appreciation, and joy. Whether a romantic partnership or even a longstanding friendship, there’s always an opportunity to renew. What better time than Valentine’s Day to give it a whirl?
1. Explore a new path together
Over a long relationship, you fall into patterns. One person habitually initiates plans for an outing or intimacy. You know each other’s preferences and have “your places” for dinner or coffee. The wheels of your shared vehicle through life have carved deep grooves—making it easier to simply follow the track they set.
Try forging a new path. You can start small, like waking up before your partner to make coffee for both of you. Instead of going to the same Thai restaurant you both love, suggest a walk in a park you haven’t visited. Be open to an impromptu evening out to a line dancing bar or spontaneous mid-week visit to an improv club or jazz spot you haven’t tried. “Go on adventures together,” suggests Kerstin Rao, a coach in Westport, Connecticut.
Sometimes, the catalyst for change can be one person dropping the ball. When I experienced an onslaught of work a few months ago, I simply didn’t have time to plan dinner or organize our schedule the way I usually would. Suddenly, Brian was suggesting new experiences to try and whipping up recipes that I never would’ve picked.
One Wednesday evening after work, he led me to our favorite pair of armchairs in the sunroom, where he’d set up a new-to-us sound system. We held hands in the dim light, listening to the honeyed voice of Wynonna Judd pour out of precision German-manufactured speakers: “Only love will lead us to the other shore.”
2. Disagree better
Similarly, when you’ve known each other for decades, you can predict what will set off the other person. It’s easy to pick a fight but, somehow, harder to avoid one.
This is an opportunity to “accept influence,” as the Gottman Institute puts it, and let the other person be right for a change. Instead of digging in your heels because you disagree, acknowledge whatever piece of the other person’s perspective is valid. As Don Cole, a couples therapist and clinical director of the Gottman Institute, suggests: Rather than “I love you,” say the other three magic words: “That makes sense.”
If you take that first step, the other person may soften, as well, opening up room for a compromise. After all, you chose this person to be central to your life and invested years in the relationship. What are you accomplishing by being stubborn? It can feel like a gift to compromise and accept as a quirk the things that would’ve annoyed you in a different context.
Consider setting a time in the week to discuss difficult issues. When you know there will be a chance to problem-solve, the everyday disagreements can be easier to let go of. And you may discover that there are fewer topics on the agenda for that weekly meeting, as you work through the longstanding stubborn spots in your relationship with new eyes and ears. Bring a warm, expansive heart to your relationship—and you’ll prompt the other person to reciprocate.
The Gottman Institute’s research on fighting in relationships finds that people in stable marriages exchange five times more positive interactions during a fight than those in marriages that are likely to end in divorce. It’s not that the happy couples fight less frequently, but they fight more effectively—and with less contempt, criticism, defensiveness, and stonewalling.
3. Create connection rituals
A simple way to retread your relationship is looking for opportunities to create rituals around the times during the day and week that the two of you come together. When you reunite after work or daily errands, consider sitting with a cup of tea (or glass of wine) and talking without distraction for 10 minutes before you jump into dinner preparation. Look for chances to start a new routine—bonus points if they engage your five senses. Maybe you visit the bagel shop together every Saturday morning, carpool to a martial arts class, or walk through your neighborhood at dusk.
The key is that by repeating the same pattern every morning, evening, week, or month, you create a connection ritual that helps something ordinary become special—or even sacred. You’re turning toward each other, intentionally. And by slowing down and noticing the experience during the ritual, what researchers call “savoring,” you can become more mindful and appreciative of the relationship. What we practice becomes stronger.
In these rituals, aim to strengthen the friendship by turning toward your partner when the best happens and also when the worst occurs, offers Karen Bridbord, a licensed psychologist based in New York City. “Couples who have a very strong friendship are the ones who tend to do the best. It’s not necessarily because they have less problems,” she says.
4. Practice specific appreciation
In a longstanding relationship, we may know what we mean to the other person—but it still helps to say it. I recently went to dinner with a friend who was going through a rough time at work. We relaxed and chatted over wine and steaks, and as we said goodbye, she thanked me for my years of friendship and said she always appreciated my positive and can-do spirit. Even though my goal was to cheer her up, I ended up being the one who felt cherished.
That’s something you can do for your romantic partner. Dig deeper than giving general compliments that center on adjectives, such as “you’re beautiful” or “you’re so brilliant.” Instead, look for the verbs in your relationship, and get as specific as possible with both the person’s actions and the impact it had on you. For example: “When you unloaded the dishwasher and cleaned the kitchen on Wednesday night, it made me feel loved and relieved that I didn’t have to do my chores during a busy work week.” Or even better, “It was an unexpected bright spot in my week that you found discount tickets to a dance performance. It broke me out of a gloomy week and helped me see beauty in the world.”
In a study of mothers and daughters, social psychologist Beverley Fehr was surprised by how emotional they grew during a closing exercise that centered on gratitude. Each mother named three qualities she appreciated about her daughter and the daughter reciprocated. Everyone ended in tears.
“You don’t know what the other person values about you,” says Fehr, a professor at the University of Winnipeg. “It could be a validation of what you might have thought but weren’t sure about. It might be a delightful surprise that this was a quality of mine that the other person really values.”
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