Cuddling, play, and sufficient sleep.

By Theresa E. DiDonato Ph.D.

Big romantic gestures are fun (who doesn’t like a weekend getaway?), but healthy relationships aren’t defined by grand acts or dramatic events. Sure, send the roses and plan the trips, but make sure to prioritize the quiet underpinnings of lasting love. Indeed, healthy relationships thrive not because of sparkling fanfare, but because of day-to-day habits that support the couple’s well-being.

Long-lasting love isn’t loud; it’s quiet. Partners in healthy long-term relationships have ways of operating that might not be lavish or exciting, but their effects are nonetheless important. Indeed, their typical approach to each other and their relationship is likely more important to their relationship’s success than more dramatic ways of showing love.

Everyday Conventions That Support Relationship Well-Being

So, what makes healthy relationships healthy? Recent research suggests that people in healthy relationships adopt a variety of habits that quietly benefit them, fostering relationship quality, commitment, and/or stability.

1. They communicate efficiently. People in healthy relationships are good at making joint decisions, a skill termed collaborative communication efficiency (Bannon et al., 2020). Different from problem-solving skills, collaborative communication efficiency captures a key type of partner coordination that appears when people have to talk and figure something out. More satisfied couples can make decisions more quickly (Bannon et al., 2020), perhaps because they understand each other so well.
2. They get enough sleep. Good sleep benefits us individually, but it also appears critical for relationship success. When people don’t get enough sleep, research suggests their poor sleep quality drives feelings of anger, which, in turn, makes them harsh judges of their relationships (Audigier et al., 2023). To be able to get enough sleep is to avoid a negative bias that could adversely affect relationship health. The habit of good sleep, therefore, is one way people can nurture their healthy relationships.
3. They cuddle. Expressing affection every day is a quiet convention that supports relationship well-being. Experimental work has shown that cuddling, for example, has a direct effect on raising relationship satisfaction (Van Raalte et al., 2021), and further, that partners who engage in physical affection, including cuddling, tend to be more satisfied in their relationships (Gulledge et al., 2003). This suggests that adopting a regular habit of affectionate behavior may be a critical, albeit quiet, way that happy couples support their relationships.
4. They invest (the right amount of time) in their friendships. How much time should you spend with friends when you’re in a romantic relationship? Recent research asked this question for men in heterosexual relationships, and the data revealed a fascinating pattern (Marabel-Whitburn et al., 2023). Romantic relationship quality tended to be higher for those men who spent more time with friends, up until a point. Think of an inverted “U”-shaped curve. At a certain threshold, additional friend time may come at a cost for romantic relationship quality. Healthy partners have figured out the balancing act: they know how much time they can invest in the friendships they value while prioritizing their romantic relationship.
5. They reminisce. Feeling nostalgic? It might be good for your relationship. Recent research suggests engaging in a specific type of nostalgia, romantic nostalgia, predicts stronger relationship functioning (Evans et al., 2022). Romantic nostalgia involves reflecting on past good times with a partner. Both correlational and experimental research show that this type of sentimentality supports important markers of relationship well-being.
6. They play. Playfulness as a regular interaction style can transform otherwise bland moments into relationship-enhancing opportunities. Partners who use their playfulness as a way to interact with each other tend to be more satisfied in their relationship (Proyer et al., 2019). This suggests playing is not reserved for children: it may be a habit of engagement that allows couples to cultivate their relationships.

Maintaining a healthy relationship requires work, and it’s not the short-lived grand gestures that make the difference. Partners in healthy relationships do little acts, like affection and reminiscing, a regular part of their lives. As such, these seemingly small behaviors sustain their relationship in times of stress and nourish it in times of joy. Rather than loudly focusing on the flourishes, people in healthy relationships quietly invest in their relationship’s foundations.

This isn’t to say they skip the gestures; rather, people in healthy relationships see these gestures as the icing on the cake rather than the cake itself. The core of their relationship is grounded in practices that gently encourage their relationship to thrive.

References

Audigier, A., Glass, S., Slotter, E. B., & Pantesco, E. (2023). Tired, angry, and unhappy with us: Poor sleep quality predicts increased anger and worsened perceptions of relationship quality. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 40(12), 3803-3831.

Bannon, S. M., Taggart, T. C., Kehoe, C. M., & O’Leary, K. D. (2020). Collaborative communication efficiency is linked to relationship satisfaction in dating couples. Personal Relationships, 27(2), 385-400.

Evans, N. D., Juhl, J., Hepper, E. G., Wildschut, T., Sedikides, C., & Fetterman, A. K. (2022). Romantic nostalgia as a resource for healthy relationships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 39(7), 2181-2206.

Theresa DiDonato, Ph.D., is a social psychologist and a professor of psychology at Loyola University Maryland.