Habits that Keep Couples Happy0

You can gather a lot of information from Facebook status message updates.  David McCandless and his team scanned over 10,000 Facebook status messages to find out when people break up.

• There’s a great deal of breakups right before Spring Break
• Most people breakup on Mondays
• People like to start the summer being single
• There’s a big peak of breakups right before Christmas
• The lowest breakup day of the entire calendar year is Christmas day.

They say that all good things must come to an end.  Really, there’s only two things that can happen to a relationship.   Couples can either grow closer together or closer apart.  So, what are some things that you can do to help grow your relationship together?

Writer Kimberly Dawn Neumann has put together her list of the Top 5 Habits that Keep Couples Happy (and as a result, stronger):

1.)  Catch romance where you Can
“You may start out with chocolates and roses, but the likelihood of being able to sustain that feeling with a busy schedule is pretty unlikely,” says JoAnn Magdoff, Ph.D., a New York City-based psychotherapist. Successful couples learn to build a bubble of romance at unexpected times — during their daily commute, while doing laundry — and in low-impact ways, whether that be a long, lingering smooch or just holding hands. In other words, the next time you hear yourself say “Oh, look, we’ve got 15 minutes to ourselves,” make use of it — that’s what keeps the spark alive.

2.)  Habit #2: Fight fair
Believe it or not, learning to fight right is an important part of keeping chemistry alive. Why? Because if you are constantly cutting each other down, it’s hard to feel mutually amorous. “There is no such thing as a relationship without disagreements,” says David Wygant, author of Always Talk to Strangers. “But if there is an understanding that your partner can come to you with any dissension without being attacked, you will have an honest relationship comprised of ‘open discussions’ rather than ‘fights.’” Debra Tobias, who has been happily married for almost 10 years to her husband Steve, agrees. “Steve and I have learned to listen to each other when we’re upset and we admit when we’re wrong,” says Tobias. “We also make a rule of never, ever saying ‘I told you so’ no matter how much we might want to say it.” The result is that their chemistry doesn’t wane because they never let their arguments escalate to a personal level. Focus on the issue at hand instead of throwing verbal punches.

For the rest of the list, click here.