The Importance Of Trying New Things Together In Your Relationship
A healthy, long-term relationship should feel familiar, comfortable, and safe. Unfortunately, too much familiarity and comfort can lead to a pairing that eventually feels stale and monotonous. Life is all about balance and romantic relationships are no exception. If your relationship is beginning to feel a little boring or repetitive, it doesn't mean that it's over or that you've fallen out of love with each other. It means that it's time to ask yourselves when the last time was that you tried something new together.
Craving novelty is a normal and natural human function and you don't have to throw away your safe and comfy relationship to achieve it. All you need to do to make your relationship feel exciting again is to commit to having new experiences together. Let this be your guide to spicing up your long-term relationship by strategically infusing it with new activities and reaping the benefits of exploration.
Core strength
When it comes to the human body, all movement comes from the core. The same is true with your relationships. Every experience you have with your partner strengthens the bond that acts as the foundation of your relationship. All relationships are built from this core; would your best friend be your best friend if you hadn't shared so many unforgettable experiences together? Time spent together makes you more and more familiar with each other and provides a comforting sense of truly knowing one another.
No amount of chemistry, sexual compatibility, or romance can make up for a shaky foundation. Will endless Netflix sessions at home get you there? Maybe, depending on whether you engage with each other and how often. Experiencing things that are new to you both, however, will provide you with a fast track to a bond that can hold together the foundation of a sprawling relationship for years to come.
Vulnerability
Trying a brand-new activity — especially in front of your partner — for the first time can be nerve-wracking and downright embarrassing. Accepting this reality and choosing to put yourself on display anyway is embracing vulnerability. In the animal kingdom, leaving yourself vulnerable means you are open to a deadly attack from a predator. In a relationship, the consequences might not be quite as dire, but your nervous system doesn't realize that and reacts to an imagined threat the same way it would to a real one. As a result, manufactured vulnerability can feel just as terrifying as the real thing.
Putting yourself on display as you potentially fail spectacularly leaves you open to ridicule, rejection, and abandonment. Facing the fear of vulnerability and learning that you can trust your partner to stand by you regardless of your two left feet or inability to throw an ax can build a remarkable amount of trust within your relationship.
Intentionality
Setting out to try new things with your partner is about more than just building a library of shared experiences and memories to bond over or embracing vulnerability together. It's also about the power of setting an intention and then following through with it. When you set a goal of engaging in a new activity with your partner and you achieve that goal, your brain rewards both of you with the feel-good neurotransmitter: dopamine.
Dopamine is the brain's built-in reward for achieving an objective. It provides you with a feeling of pleasure and intense satisfaction, but that's not all it offers. Dopamine also creates a surge of motivation that inspires you to set your next intention and then prepare to follow through with it, no matter what it takes. Experiencing these natural chemical highs together with your partner can help you to associate each other with feeling satisfied, accomplished, and capable.
Prioritization
Learning new skills and trying new things takes time, planning, and commitment. Assuming that your life is already full of personal and professional obligations, this means that there will be times when you'll need to prioritize your plans to explore with your partner over other potential social or networking opportunities. Making the conscious choice to prioritize the development of your relationship over other goals you might be working on sends a very clear message.
If your partner is also willing to prioritize the benefits of investing their time into trying new experiences together, your efforts will pay off in the solidification of your relationship. There will come times when other areas of life must be prioritized, but you should both be willing to always put as much focus as you have available into shaping and improving your relationship into one that is likely to survive the long haul and help you through the ups and downs of your lives.
Love languages
The concept of the five love languages, coined by Dr. Gary Chapman in the early '90s, is sometimes treated like just another silly, forgettable social media quiz that provides a momentary snippet into your relationship dynamic. However, this couldn't be further from the truth. Knowing your partner's (and your own) love language can pay off in spades when it comes to expressing your love for one another effectively.
Love languages can also prove incredibly effective when it comes to trying new things with your partner. Knowing which love language to use when taking on learning a new skill together can make a major difference in the level of shared success you experience. If you're learning to cook together, for instance, you can incorporate your partner's love language in a number of ways. If they receive love through gifts, start surprising them with vintage cookbooks. Acts of service? Volunteer for dish duty. Physical touch? Start a mini food fight. Give it a try by revealing both of your love languages at 5 Love Languages and choosing a new activity to dive into together.