Sustaining Emotional Connection: A Key for a Strong Marriage

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The most common problem that couples report when they initially walk into my office is that they are no longer emotionally connected.

An emotional connection is a bundle of subjective feelings that come together to create a bond between two people.

However, sustaining a strong emotional connection in a marriage doesn’t ‘just happen’.

While we may be able to emotionally connect with our partner easily in the initial phase of the relationship, to build an emotional connection that is sustainable, one requires intentional and consistent effort.

When both partners work, have children, and life is busy, it’s easy to put a couple of pieces of the relationship on the back burner.

I often start out by asking couples if there was ever a time that they did feel an emotional connection in a relationship. Typically they say “yes.”

Then I ask what they perceive was happening in the relationship that allowed them to feel emotionally connected.

Typically the answers are related to the fact that they were each ‘courting each other’; taking the time and making an effort to focus on each other and being completely present for each other.

Often I hear “before we had children.”

After a couple gets married, life begins to happen, and stress in the marriage can often increase.

We become distracted by the challenges of everyday life and sometimes neglect to take that time and make that effort to focus on each other as we did at the beginning of the relationship.

Emotionally connecting with your partner

How to connect with your partner on a deeper level?

I believe a vital mistake that many couples make is the misperception that sustaining emotional connection takes time and energy that they don’t have.

Research shows that spending 270 seconds a day will help couples sustain an emotional connection.

Just three 90 second genuine interactions where one is fully present for their partner can help to sustain an emotional connection for couples.

John Gottman, a contemporary research psychologist, best known for his work and research with couples, created a diagram that facilitates a couple in creating a better marriage in six hours a week.

Six hours a week may sound like a lot of time initially; however, when it is broken down, it requires less than an hour a day.

Capturing moments to genuinely communicate to your partner how important they are can be the key to sustaining a deep emotional connection with a man or an emotional connection with a woman.

Intent to communicate

I believe one of the keys is to be intentional about communicating that to your partner.  

It is worth noting that the rise of technology hasn’t necessarily helped couples to be more intentional about sustaining emotional connection.

So often, couples become distracted with their phones, computers, or video games. Being completely present without distractions is crucial for sustaining an emotional connection.

Couples often feel overwhelmed at the idea of integrating behaviors that help to sustain an emotional connection.

We, as human beings, often have a negative perception about implementing new behaviors because we perceive doing so will always require us to make a significant effort and change.

However, being intentional about implementing new behavior is the fastest way to create new neural pathways that will allow the new behavior to become more natural.

According to Julie Hani, RN, BSN, BA, CDE, “the book Hardwiring Happiness by Rick Hanson gives practical advice for maintaining the positive. One strategy is to focus on the good for 10–20 seconds, really absorbing and storing the experience in our long-term memory.”

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Eventually, with enough repetition, the new behavior will become more automatic. Eventually, the behaviors needed to sustain an emotional connection will become natural.