Relationship Advice: How To Be A Healthy Lover

Relationship Advice by Naturopathic Doctor Justin Gallant

With Valentine’s Day around the corner I figured I’d drop some knowledge on you guys with some of the things I work with to improve relationships with my patients. Here are some tips to improve the health of your relationship. ​

Listen to your partner

This one is especially for the men… Listen to your partner. I mean actively listen. If your partner has a hectic day all they want to do is vent about it. Having a bad day sucks but it sucks even more when no one cares. It’s actually pretty easy once you accept that you don’t have to fix anything. You just have to pay attention for 5-10 minutes and understand how crappy our partner is feeling, and then show that you care. Don’t try to help them fix it and don’t trump their story with yours.  If you don’t do this your partner will bottle everything up and eventually it’ll come out as a physical symptom like high blood pressure, high cholesterol or, headaches or a big juicy zit, or they’ll find someone who will listen.
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Real life situation: Susie comes home after a long hard day of putting up with her passive aggressive coworkers and her boss gave her crap for not getting everything done. She’s been bottling her emotions up all day at work and wants to spill the beans when she gets home. She pours out everything that went on today without taking a breath.
What are the proper responses?

1. Tell her you worked overtime today and Trevor got fired
2. Give her a big hug and say, “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
3. Listen actively and show some concern
4. Tell her she should find a new job. 

Click here for the answer

Love Languages

The way you express and receive love is most likely different than the way your partner does. You might build your partner a deck or buy them fancy jewelry but if their love language is words of affirmation, you could have just said they looked nice and it would’ve meant a heck of a lot more to them. For more information on this check out the book, “The 5 Love Languages” Here is a link to figure out what your love language is. Get your partner to do this test too and discuss your love languages with each other. Things will start to make a lot more sense and communication will improve big time.

Real life situation: Peggy has been feeling down lately so Robert tries to brainstorm things that he can do to make her feel better. He decides to clean the entire house but when Peggy gets home she’s still miserable and does not show her appreciation for all of the hard work he went through. Robert gives up after this and decides he’s not even going to try anymore because he feels like putting in the effort isn’t worth it. Peggy’s top 2 love languages are physical touch and quality time. If Robert knew this all he would have had to do is go for a walk holding Peggy’s hand, give her a hug and spend some 1-on-1 time with her. He thinks he’s done all he can but he was focusing his energy showing love in a language Peggy doesn’t understand. 

Transparency in relationships

Be open about what you want. Just be straight up. Instead of giving a multiple choice question and having the right answer in your head, just give them the answer. The ability to read minds is impossible and we hate being wrong.

Real life situation: George has been craving pizza all day. He gets home and asks Lisa, “What do you want to eat for dinner?” Lisa says, “Doesn’t matter to me, I was thinking we could get groceries.” Unsatisfied with this response, George starts to get moody and puts up a fuss about doing groceries. Lisa just thinks George is being a dick so she goes to get groceries herself and George stays at home, craving pizza and getting hangry. She brings home everything except for pizza, George is miserable the rest of the night and then says something he didn’t mean. Now Lisa is miserable. George should have just said he wanted pizza. Don’t be like George. 

Walking to blow off steam

If you had a bad day and you know you’re bound to take it out on your partner, walk it off. Either go for a walk on your own if you feel like you need alone time or ask your partner to join if you just need to release some tension. They say dogs are one of the best remedies for depression. Is it because dogs are awesome or because they force you to get out and walk? After about 20-30 minutes you'll feel the tension start to go away. This relates to our primal brain. We have so many factors that put us into fight or flight mode and if we never send a message to our brain telling it that we got away from a threat we're just going to be a tense ball of stress waiting to fight or run away from a threat that doesn't actually exist. Walking or going for jogs tells our brain we got away and we can relax now.

Email about sensitive issues

If emotions tend to get in the way of touchy subjects, email each other instead. This way you can look over what you’ve read and reflect on it before spouting it out and saying something you didn’t mean. Try to email rather than text since it’s difficult to get the tone and a lot of misunderstandings happen through text. It's common for an elephant to be in the room and both parties would rather just keep it tucked away because it could lead to an explosive argument. 

Loving and taking care of yourself 

Take care of yourself! If you don’t take care of yourself and love yourself it’s going to be difficult to take care of, and love your partner. If you feel like you don’t deserve to be loved, your partner’s efforts will be futile and they’ll eventually stop trying. It’s important to explore why you feel like you don’t deserve to be loved before your partner gives up on expressing love that is not being received. If you feel like you don't deserve to be loved try working with a psychotherapist, counselor or read the book Loveability by Robert Holden.

Maintain your identity and relationship

If you have kids, be sure to maintain your own identity and relationship. I see so many patients whose kids have finally moved out and they have no clue who they are or who their partner is. We can get so wrapped up in our kids’ lives that we abandon our own. Once those kids are gone you have another 60-80 years with yourself and your partner, a 20-year hiatus isn’t the best way to start the remaining 60-80 years of your life. 

Recommended readings

1. You Just Don’t Understand – Deborah Tannen
2. The 5 Love Languages – Gary Chapman
3. Loveability: knowing how to love and how to be loved – Robert Holden

Thanks for reading!

Please share this with your partner or on facebook and comment below if you have anything to add.
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Dr Justin Gallant ND
Naturopathic Doctor