Relationship Rituals To Help Your Love Grow
Relationship Rituals For Better Connection With Your Panter
If there’s one hard thing in this life, then that’s to maintain a healthy romantic relationship over time.
One of my teachers in psychotherapy told me this: The person you choose to be in a relationship with, is one who will mirror back to you the areas which you need to heal.
So then one of three things happen. Either you have enough of your partner cause they trigger too many things and you can’t handle it - which leads some people to choose similar types of partners and then complain that they only attract assholes, or you grow out of the relationship cause you healed the part you had to heal, or you continue to be with your partner and work together through the relationship as you both grow through challenges you come across together.
This video is for the last category of people. That is for those who chose to be consciously in a relationship and want the best out of it. In this video, we’ll talk about how to build healthy relationship rituals together with your partner. I’m going to share with you a framework you can use and give you a free workbook you can download from the link below this video.
So, first, let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Let’s address the big question of why relationships feel more and more difficult over time?
Over time, we lose communication which leads to the loss of appreciation, which finally leads to the loss of affection. And this isn't because we just stopped liking each other anymore. It’s because somehow, somewhere along the way, we drifted apart.
And this is where Rituals come into play. Rituals in intimate relationships are recurring activities that add real value for both partners and have a special significance.
And here’s where we need to separate rituals and routines, cause sometimes we confuse them.
Rituals vs Routines
Routines are regular and necessary interactions for relationships to work. So on one hand you have the ritual which is something significant for the relationship and for each of you individually, while on the other you have the routine which is important to manage your day-to-day lives.
For example, you can have it as a routine to make the bedroom together when you wake up before going to work, but you can also have it as a ritual, once a week to decorate the bedroom together with flowers, candles and essential oils, and to massage each other.
What we often see is that, when routines are changed, people in a relationship may feel annoyed or uncomfortable, because a routine that they were used to is no longer there. However, it’s easy to form different routines in time. But if the rituals are changed, then what we see is that the relationship's cohesion, commitment, and stability are at great risk.
What is shown in studies is that relationships with a lot of meaningful rituals are less likely to fall into the trap we mentioned before. To fall into complacency that is. In fact, successful long-term relationships often have rituals because they keep the good things about the relationship alive over time.
Rituals strengthen relationships because they show closeness and give a sense of stability, commitment, and purpose to a couple. It’s finding and defining a common meaning in life that’s specific to our relationship. And we’re both committed to this meaning through the rituals we create around it.
Rituals that promote intimacy, emotionally, recreationally and sexually. Esther Perel a psychotherapist specialising in couples therapy uses a really great way of explaining intimacy. She says that intimacy means in-to-me see. So having in mind her definition, when we speak about the emotional, recreational and sexual levels of intimacy, we want to create rituals that will allow us to see into our partner’s experience of emotions, see into our partner's need for pure playfulness and also see to see into our partner’s wide spectrum of sexual expression.
Relationship Rituals Exercise
So, I have my notebook here and I’ll show you the exercise you can do with your partner to create those rituals.
Draw three boxes like so. Each box needs to have a title. The first box will have the title Emotional Ritual. The second box will be the Recreational Ritual. And the third box will be the Sexual Ritual.
Now what I want you to do is sit down with your partner and decide on one ritual for each box. Maybe more, it’s up to you.
If you’re watching this on YouTube, I have created a pdf that you can download from the link in the description below. If you’re not on YouTube, click the upper corner of the video and you’ll be redirected to YouTube where you can download the pdf file from the link in the description of the video.
So in this pdf, you’ll find a list of rituals you can choose from for all three boxes. You will also find the exercise ready to be used. So you can just download the PDF, print it and use it. Or if you don’t have a printer, you can copy what you see in the PDF, in your journal, as I did here.
Emotional Rituals for connection
So here are some examples of Emotional Rituals. And as we said, the purpose of those rituals is to be open to experiencing your emotions together:
Showing physical affection (cuddling, kissing, holding hands)
Coded or secret expressions of love (like a secret word or phrase you have that only you two know to show your affection)
Cooking a meal for one another. What’s a greater sign of affection than caring for your partner's survival needs?
Calling or texting just to check-in during the day (that’s a big one for me and I find it so important)
Soothing each other’s feelings. Being attentive to your partner's feelings is crucial for your attunement. So be intentional when asking them about how their day at work was and how is she feeling about it? Set aside each day some time for that.
Another one is to make sure you plan regular date nights at your favourite places and also explore new ones
Recreational Rituals for fun
Now let’s see what we can put in the second box of Recreational Rituals. And by recreational rituals, I mean rituals that bring out a childlike sense of fun. No purpose, no goal-oriented. A sense of fun that you can explore together. We need to get out of the house and do things we like to do for fun, like hiking, dancing, biking, etc. The more a couple plays together, the more in love they usually feel, which makes for better sex. So in this box you can put things like:
Outdoors activities, like hiking, biking or whatever you enjoy doing outdoors (keep outdoors sex for the next box
You can make time to go to the movies together if you’re both cinephiles.
Another thing you can try is making a puzzle together (by the way I hate puzzles but we tried this at home and man I was so frustrated with not being able to find some pieces of the puzzle. So in other words, try things that will make you both feel playful and relaxed and not goal-oriented). No puzzle for me but if that’s your thing, go-ahead
Playing board games together that are not goal-oriented. One I really like is cards against humanity.
Or even try to cook together a new recipe you’ve never tried. Make it fun and explore things in this new recipe.
Add your own thing that brings joy to both of you and schedule some time to go and do it!
Sexual Rituals for more intimacy
So now, last but not least, our very sensual box of Sexual Rituals. Here you can put things like…
Well, it’s a sexual box so what else do you think goes here other than -ah got you! You thought I’d say sex, but that’s not it. Remember the word intimacy. In to me see. So here make sure you put things that make you see into your partner's wide spectrum of sexual expression. Sex is only one bit of that spectrum. So expand your definition of eroticism and in this box, put things like:
Foreplay. Foreplay doesn't necessarily lead to sex. You can explore your limits just by playing around.
Sensual massages. And yes, for the guys out there, you can try massaging your partner without F*** every once in a while. A very sensual and arousing massage sometimes is better than sex.
Talk about sex. Try the scenario game where you both try to be the director of a scene and describe it to your partner. So if you had to direct an erotic scene, what would it be like? Encourage each other to go to the most granular details. Every detail matters in this game of pleasure. I bet for some it’s more difficult than sex.
Write a sweet letter to your partner and include a list of sexual activities you’d like to explore with them. Put it under their pillow and see what happens
Yes ok, I’ll finish this list with having sex. But try to break the routine every now and then. Mix things up in the bedroom to keep things interesting. Maybe have sex in different parts of the house, and try out different positions. Have some quickies sometimes and some other times have longies. Focusing on love sometimes when having sex and some other times makes it fun while having sex.
One thing I’d add here, that I also find it challenging many times is to get your mind away from performance-driven sex. Sex isn't all about the orgasm, and it doesn't end with it. Stop thinking about what you’ve seen on pornhub. Take your time. Add some flavour. Don't be goal-driven and let things happen as they will. Something that helps a lot with the quality of sex is to stay away from porn. One of the quickest ways to feel unhappy with your partner and sex life is to watch a lot of porn.
Once you both agree on the rituals you want to have in your relationship, make sure to come back to this exercise and in the space here, write down if this ritual works for you, if it needs some adjustment or maybe a replacement! In the long run, you want this to become the second nature in your relationship. It’s not easy but it’s work practising.
Remember, the most important thing while practising those rituals is to stay true to your authentic self and you emotions. Sometimes we do things just to please our partner but those rituals need to be mutually agreed upon. The best thing happens when you use these rituals to expand the limits of your relationship while at the same time you feed your sense of self-exploration.
Rituals help us share experiences and strengthen the sense of being "us" instead of being “me” in a relationship with “you”.
Define the meaning of your relationship through those Rituals. Repeat them regularly, with intention and with purpose.
The purpose of exploring and growing together while being emotionally connected.
So download the exercise here and subscribe to my channel to watch more videos like this.