What Is The Rhythm Of A Healthy, Loving Relationship?

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One month before I got married, I was having a conversation with a mentor about what a great relationship looked like. He had been married for 25 years and you could tell he was still deeply in love with his wife.

As we were talking, I asked him “What’s your best piece of relationship advice for someone young and new in love? What’s the one thing you would say that I have to get right?”

He paused and looked up, thinking. After about 30 seconds, he looked back at me and said:

“Make sure you have a rhythm of how you love your wife.”

I was confused by his answer. Wasn’t falling into a routine something that young couples were advised to watch out for?

He went on to explain that life only gets busier. So many couples think that they can just ebb and flow with life, but without intentional rhythms, we end up letting more of life pass us by than we mean to.

He said that rhythms are flexibility and intentionality meshed. Routines are mindless whereas rhythms are purposeful. And healthy relationships need some purposed structure to steer and guide them.

My mentor went on to break down an example of what a healthy rhythm could look like. Even though he told me that advice over 5 years ago, I still think about it most days. My wife and I have tried this rhythm with good success and we’ve shared it with a handful of friends who are at various stages of relationships.

If you’re about to get married or find yourself in a serious, committed relationship, consider weaving a rhythm such as the one below into your normal patterns.

Daily — Talk

At the core of every healthy relationship is good and consistent communication.

In fact, poor communication and the resulting problems are among the most common issues that lead to divorce and separation.

The importance of communication isn’t a new concept. So why do so many couples still get it wrong when it comes to their relationship? There are three reasons.

You will have difficulty building a healthy, loving relationship if you A) only ever talk about the serious things, B) never talk about the serious things, or C) talk sporadically enough that you throw off the balance of serious to goofy.

Good communication requires a balance between deep and light conversation. It requires consistency and frequency.

Texting helps, but it’s not a replacement for good, in-person conversation. My wife and I try to have at least a short conversation together over dinner each night before we watch a show or read our books. Sometimes that conversation is lighthearted — which Marvel Superhero we’d fight and which one we’d date — and sometimes, the conversation is more serious.

Either way, we aim to talk daily.

Weekly — Date

I know of a handful of couples who have a habit of doing a weekly date night. Sometimes that means Friday night Pizza or Wednesday night trivia. Regardless of what they do, each week they are setting aside time to intentionally date each other.

I know what you may be thinking. “There’s no way we’d be able to fit that into our schedule.” Or what about, “These people must not have kids!”

Before your mind automatically jumps to the reasons why it can’t happen, let me say this. As hard as this may sound, you are the master of your schedule. When it comes to time-blocking, you don’t achieve what you hope for. You get what you settle for.

If the health and longevity of your relationship are of utmost importance to you, there are ways that you can go about figuring out how to date your partner consistently.

If you’re still struggling, try to start small. My wife and I really like board games, so sometimes, we’ll cook dinner and break out a board game just the two of us. For us, that’s the equivalent of a small date night.

Monthly — Check-in

Even if you’re in a good rhythm of talking daily, it still is helpful to have a monthly check-in on your radar.

This check-in is mostly just to make sure that you and your partner are heading in the same direction and that no small animosity is building up between you.

Connecting once a month like this doesn’t have to be big or fancy. You don’t want to make it something that feels pressured or forced. You aren’t grading each other’s performance.

It’s more of a touch-base. It’s an opportunity to align on what happened over the course of that month and how you can begin moving forward towards the next month.

I’m a big fan of setting personal monthly goals or short tests of discipline. Occasionally I’ll convince my wife to join in as well. When she does, the upcoming goal is something we’ll try to talk about in our monthly check-ins.

Quarterly — Get Away Together

This is perhaps my favorite rhythm. When my mentor originally laid this out, I thought there was no way that we could make this work — mostly from a financial standpoint. We were young and broke when we got married, so forget the idea of traveling every quarter!

But here’s the catch. I’ve discovered along the past five years of being married that it is very possible to get away frequently if you redefine what “getting-away” means.

We don’t go to the beach every quarter. No one has time for that. But we have gone for a long hike up to the North Georgia Mountains. Or we’ve driven to a neighboring city like Savannah. This past January we stepped it up and went to NYC.

You don’t have to do something robust. But doing something creates the space for new memories to form. It incites adventure and creates some feeling of anticipation and excitement.

Bi-Yearly — Dream

Dreaming with your partner can be enjoyable and tricky. Sometimes it can be difficult to be vulnerable with your partner, especially if your dreams are different from each other.

Dreams take time to come to fruition, so while dreaming together about the future can be a healthy and fun activity, it can also present issues if you do it too often.

Eager longing for something else doesn’t always help with living in the moment.

For me, I’ve found that I can evaluate and adjust my dreams on average twice a year. That gives me something to plan and think through towards the beginning of the year as well as something to adjust about halfway through.

When it comes to creating a healthy, loving relationship, consider setting aside two opportunities to dream together throughout your year.

Yearly — Review

I am a firm believer that nothing truly gets better without intentional evaluation and review.

That being said, if you are dating someone, you are not in a mentoring relationship. You are not their coach, their leader, or their teacher. You are their partner. And as such, any review must be done carefully and wisely, with love and affection.

In order for your relationship to progress and continue in a healthy fashion, you have to be willing to consider the good and the bad. You have to be willing to embrace the things that were fun and the things that were hard.

If you can do this, if you can look back and learn from your experiences together in a way that affects your future, you’re on par towards a healthy, loving relationship.

I like setting yearly goals. My wife doesn’t enjoy that. I’m obsessed with improvement (to my detriment). My wife wants to get better but she is also good at being content with where she is. So we have to be intentional to cater to each other when we talk about reviewing our past year.

For us, we schedule it out on the calendar. We approach it with prayer and grace and we try to listen more than we speak while talking.

Finding your rhythm

Although I didn’t understand what my mentor said when he gave me that advice five years ago, I’ve now seen just how helpful his idea truly is within a relationship.

My wife and I don’t always get it right. Some months we struggle on communication or some years we don’t get away as often as we’d like. But the fact that we have a framework helps keep us in a rhythm of moving towards a healthy, loving relationship.

That is ultimately the best we can hope for.