Have You Experienced Relation-Dehydration?

One of the most common experiences most every couple will go through will be feeling like they are in a rut—they  feel bored and the excitement of earlier years is now lost in the mundane routines of life, kids, work, and housework. Following the theme of this blog, relationship connection and closeness is analogous to a swimming pool. The size and depth of the pool depends on how many and how frequently you add “cups of connection” to your pool.

As a reminder, cups of connection are symbolic, and can be added to your relationship pool by doing and saying positive things that draw you closer together. These can be small and simple things like eating a bowl of ice cream together while talking about your day, or going on a walk together. Simply sending a text message telling your spouse how much you love them or leaving them a note in the bathroom or in their car with a favorite treat are also ways of adding cups of connection to your relationship pool.

In the early years of being together, most couples are pretty good at doing little things for each other: going on regular dates, and putting effort and creativity into showing their spouse they love them. This is like adding 20-25 cups of connection into the relationship pool daily. Granted, most couples start with a kiddie pool that isn’t too deep yet. But over time, couples who regularly add cups of connection to their pool find that their kiddie pool has expanded into a larger and deeper pool. But over time, we don't seem to add as many cups of connection as often.

Let’s stop here and think about 3 ways that a pool loses water. First is evaporation. If you put some water in a kiddie pool in your backyard at the beginning of summer and never added water for three months, what would you end up with at the end of summer? (besides a ring of dead grass underneath). Depending on how hot the summer was, most of the water would have probably evaporated. This is true for any relationship. Over time, we lose connection with friends from high school, college, friends who move away, and even family members who we don’t see or talk with much.

The sad truth is this: without consistent conscious connections, we will inevitably experience a natural drift to isolation and loneliness. In relationship terms, I call it “Relation-dehydration.” You don’t have to be mean and nasty in relationships (aka “dipping”, which is next) for them to deteriorate. All you have to do is NOTHING. It’s like trying to walk up an escalator that is coming down. It takes consistent effort and if we give up and say “this is useless” then we slowly get carried down the escalator until we hit rock bottom – and that’s where couples either emotionally divorce and stay together for the kids (or other reasons) or emotionally and physically divorce altogether.

The second way a pool might lose water is from Dipping. Dipping occurs by taking the cup you were using to add to the pool and, instead, use it to dip water out of the pool of connection. This happens in ALL couples from time to time. Examples include saying something snarky or sarcastic to your spouse, criticizing, name-calling, yelling, or doing mean and spiteful things on purpose to injure them (emotionally or physically). John Gottman found that happy couples had a pouring (positive) to dipping (negative) ratio of 5:1, meaning they were doing 5 times as many positive things for each other as negative. But notice that even happy couples occasionally said or did mean things. Unhappy couples, on the other hand, have a 1.2:1 ratio, or basically an even ratio of positive to negative.

The third way swimming pools may lose water over time is through cracks in the pool. Cracks represent “loyalty leaks” that stem from broken commitments, loss of trust, and other experiences where individuals feel “burned” by something the other said or did. These can range from broken promises to cheating on their spouse. The size of the leak depends on how serious the other partner views it. Cracks in relationship pools, like real swimming pools, are difficult to fix, and can take work and even therapy to mend. Simply adding cups of connection to a pool that has serious cracks in the bottom won’t fill the pool up.

 Again, it’s critically important to understand that ALL couples experience relation-dehydration from time to time. Similarly, ALL couples experience dipping – we say mean things occasionally, we mess up, we forget instructions, even when they were explained a dozen times. But the effect these have on couples depend on the depth of the pool. If your pool is deep due to countless cups of connection, then an occasional dip won’t feel nearly as bad as when your pool is small and you take a cup or two out of it from a smart remark in a harsh tone.

Many couples also experience occasional cracks in the pool where the foundation is tested. Some couples feel like their pools are more like puddles, while others may seem to have an Olympic-sized pool!  The fact is, the depth and size of couples’ pools vary tremendously. Too often we compare the size of our pools with others, without realizing how long other couples have been together, or the trials, sickness, heartache, and other storms they have weathered together that have deepened their pool. Or the years and thousands of cups of connection that they slowly added to their pool, day by day, week after week, year after year.

So now what? What can you do when you feel like your relationship is “blah!”? You can start by focusing on the positives you see in each other. Take a look at your wedding album, pictures from fun vacations, home videos, or holidays. Talk about the memories you have about when you first met. What does this do? It actually floods your brain and body with chemicals that help cement the memories into your noggin, turns on the positive receptors, dopamine is released, and you feel better! When you feel better you are more likely to feel like doing small and simple things for each other.

You might also try establishing rituals of connection. Examples include a kiss before you leave each other, a kiss when you return, talking for a few minutes after dinner, going on a walk together, or other simple rituals that help you feel connected. The point is that you need to increase the cups of connection into your pool. I also encourage couples to celebrate big occasions in meaningful ways. Holidays, birthdays, anniversaries and other celebrations are great ways to actually add pitchers full of connection to the relationship pool. But even a romantic getaway or week-long cruise will only add a pitcher or two of connection to your pool. These exciting times are wonderful, but the day-to-day cups of connection are how relationship pools become deeper over time—slowly but surely. But time alone will not deepen your pool. We all know couples who have been together for decades but they don’t have a close emotional connection. Perhaps their pools never were deep to begin with or they let relation-dehydration set in. Whatever the case, they drifted apart and turned into cranks! Don’t let this happen!!

Whew! The point is that it’s crucial to make time every day to add cups of connection to your relationship pool and be quick to forgive your spouse when they occasionally dip out of the pool. Focus on all the water that is still in the pool and think about ways you can add to it, not on the water that gets dipped out. Life is about connections – add a cup today! Stay tuned to for future posts about "Connection-Makers" vs. "Connection-Breakers"