Why to celebrate your relationship?

Why is it so hard not tho tell your partner on a regular basis how well they did, how good they look, how much you love them?

I have friends who do this very well: they celebrate their anniversaries every 6 months, they kiss and compliment each other every time they meet, they remember the important dates and don't hesitate to show their affection to people around them as well. They seem like they are freshly in love even after dating each other for four years, and still they don't over-do it.

As Suzanne Phillips writes on her relationship blog, couples not celebrating their relationship can find themselves in a dead end.

As much as celebration without fidelity lacks substance and drives suspicion, fidelity without celebration can feel like obligation or habit. Over the years, I have heard too many people struggling in relationships say “To live with a partner who just doesn’t notice you or what you do is lonelier than living alone."

By celebrating your relationship, you make a difference between your affection to your partner and other people. We all want and deserve to be noticed. Unfortunately, couples who go for cheating often justify their action by "I did not have any affection or attention from my partner, I was feeling lonely and taken for granted".

Life is short. Why not celebrating the relationship everyday and make the most out of what you still have?

The aftermath

Learn and let go - or the other way around?

It is funny how things suddenly are put in a different perspective when you step out from a situation and let go.

No matter how painful it has been, I know letting go was the only way out. I have tried to change before, but I never had similar insights I have had now. Since then, I am able to look at things objectively and learning so much about relationships, myself, the other person and love. It makes me less sad and more calm when I realize this was for the best of everyone and had to happen to turn things better. Only now I can see clearly what I appreciate, what I want and what I will miss.

It is true that we have to like and care about ourselves first, otherwise we have nothing to give to another person. By loving and respecting ourselves, we attract people who show us love and respect and automatically become more generous in loving other people. By focusing on what we appreciate in the other person, we get more on what we focus on. Same goes for complaints.

In the and couples should simply have more fun!

Comforting words from Marci Shimoff - The Secret

Even if you're having a really hard time in a relationship... things aren't working, you're not getting along, someone's in your face... you still can turn that relationship around.
Take a piece of paper, and for the next thirty days, once a day sit down and write all the things that you appreciate about that person. Think about all the reasons that you love them. You appreciate their sense of humor, you appreciate how supportive they are. And what you'll find is that when you focus on appreciating and acknowledging their strengths, that's what you'll get more of. And the problems will fade away.

What if it is too late?


Sometimes it is too late, but at least we can always learn and improve ourselves. People also change. Not all the relationships are meant to last. If we could feel joy and positive feelings with anyone by just loving ourselves, it would not matter who our life partner was. Before getting there we need to know what we want, and then become that person ourselves.

Changing the consept of love and commitment

I had a very insightful conversation with a good friend just recently about what we expect from life, love and commitment.

Things are very different than they were when our parents were born: women were still often financially and socially dependent on men and few had a university education. If you didn't get married before your 25 you were called an old made, which certainly wasn't a well seen social status. 

Today things are different. Women do not need men like they did before. Instead, we need a man to share our dreams and thoughts, travel with us and do things together, and of course as lovers. Movies and series such as Eat, Pray and Love and The sex and the city are mirroring this phenomena. Or are they?

Personally I am still struggling with this. My education has been very conservative and also religious. I have had certain ideas and limits about ways of enjoying life and having fun: I am quite sure certain of my relatives still think being abroad is a sin not even talking about having more than one boyfriend.

Today we have a long list of criteria our future partner needs to fulfill: handsome, humorist, romantic, always committed and listening...this is already hard to find, and often we truly get to know the person only when the first 1-2 years being in love period is over. And then, is it enough when we are not in love anymore? Or do we want a person who can fulfill our need for love again? Can we our selves offer the same as we require? Are we ready to work on our relationships? 

The future trend seem to be that divorces are just a normal thing, not even talking about not getting married at all and just concentrating on career instead of having a family. This might be even more evident here in Brussels: full of young ambitious career oriented people who are constantly looking for new challenges.

Hunting for short term pleasure sounds wonderful, but can it work in practise? I have seen too many cases where married men try to hit on my friends and people jump from one relation to another just to escape their own problems and to confront them again with a new person. Also, many women I know prefer to be alone instead of settling for less...but find it hard to enjoy only one night stands.


Still one things is for sure. We don't want to live our lives alone.

We are not in the Sex and the City yet, at least I am not. I need some safety and commitment in my life. But I am very aware of the fact, that it is going to require a lot of hard work. And resistance. Or not? 

Is there the right one for everyone or is it more a question of lowering our expectations and being flexible? Or is there simply many right ones for everyone nowadays?

Comments are more than welcome.