Symptoms:
- Do you spend most of your time together fighting?
- Do you find it hard to engage in meaningful conversations with your partner?
- Do you no longer feel excited to see them?
- Do you feel unloved and unappreciated?
- Do you feel insecure about your relationship?
If you or your partner have experienced one or all of these symptoms, you’re in dire need of a relationship check-up. A lot of times people confuse “falling out of love” with “going through a rough patch”.
Every relationship has it’s ups and downs and long-distance relationships are no exception. Like a bad cold or flu, problems won’t necessarily kill your relationship if you are able to resolve them quickly. But if left untreated, they could lead to a serious infection and cause irreversible damage to your relationship.
Treatment Options:
Symptom: Fighting
Treatment: A heart to heart
Communication is not an optional part of a relationship check-up, it’s a must. Before you can address any issues you both need to be aware of them. It’s not easy to open up and tell your partner how you feel. There’s a vulnerability that comes with admitting how much you need them.
But when you trust your partner with your feelings and express your thoughts and desires, it will feel like a weight has been lifted off of you. All of the awkward tension you’ve been carrying around will be gone and you’ll feel free. Now, remember to speak honestly but kindly. Talk about how you feel and what you need without making your partner feel defensive.
Symptom: Insecurity About Relationship
Treatment: More Visits
Depending the number of miles between you, visits may be difficult to plan. But you may find that you need to visit your partner a certain amount of times a year in order to keep your relationship strong. Everyone is different, but for some knowing that they will definitely visit their significant other a set number of times each year is something that keeps their relationship healthy.
If you think you or your partner might be one of those people, talk your partner so that you can come up with a visit plan together.
Symptom: Feeling Unloved or Unappreciated
Treatment: Romantic Gestures
If either you or your partner feel neglected and it’s affecting your relationship, we prescribe plenty of romantic gestures. Whether it’s flowers, love letters, a romantic recording/voicemail, a sultry serenade, or an occasional thoughtful gift, romantic gestures make us feel loved and appreciated. If you both do your best to be thoughtful and romantic it might be the TLC your relationship needs.
Symptom: Lack of Excitement
Treatment: Couple Activities
Sometimes during a health check-up your doctor may mention the importance of regular exercise. Being active and using your muscles will benefit your entire body and will strengthen your immune system which will help you fight off colds. It’s same with your relationship.
Regularly doing couple activities will strengthen your bond and help you to fight off boredom. Boredom may sound harmless, but it cause you to feel dissatisfied with your relationship. So learn a language together, play online games together, review an album together, etc…
Symptom: Lack of Excitement
Treatment: More Date Nights
Recently on the Delilah radio show, a woman said that she and her husband had been dating for 11 years. And she commented that keeping that mentality has kept their relationship exciting. Even after you close the distance with your significant other, you’ll both need to work at keeping the relationship strong.
So getting into the habit of having romantic date nights together is just like eating a balanced diet, it will have lasting benefits for your relationship. If your relationship check-up reveals that you’re having problems, date nights might be just the medicine you need.
How many relationship check-ups do we need?
Just as your doctor would recommend a yearly check-up to keep your body healthy, we recommend a yearly relationship check-up to keep your relationship healthy. However, this doesn’t mean that you can’t have relationship check-ups more frequently if you’re experiencing any of the previously mentioned symptoms.
You wouldn’t hesitate to go to the doctor when you are very sick just because you already had your yearly checkup would you? So have as many relationship check-ups as you need to keep your relationship strong.
