Valentine’s Day has a reputation for being celebrated with grand gestures of love: marriage proposals, gifts and special dates. But when the roses wilt and chocolates are long gone, relationship maintenance is still important—whether for a friend, a significant other, a family member and even yourself.
To get a sense of how to keep relationships strong, we spoke with Anthony Jack, the Elmer G. Beamer-Hubert H. Schneider Professor in Ethics at Case Western Reserve University.
As a starting point, Jack suggested trying to ask the 36 questions psychologist Arthur Aron and colleagues proposed as a means to fall in love. Jack—warning that the questions don’t actually hold the power to make someone fall in love with you—said they do help foster connection and meaningful dialogue.
“They humanize the other person by encouraging our curiosity and a non-judgmental attitude toward the other,” said Jack, who uses the questions in courses and workshops. “They help us see what is unique and valuable about the other person.”
He also shared that there are many forms of love, but the basis for all expressions of this feeling are rooted in self-love.
“Our capacity to love is tied to our ability to feel compassion for ourselves,” said Jack, a neuroscientist and philosopher. “In the west, people often feel like it is self-indulgent to be compassionate to ourselves.”
Read on to find out his insights on developing strong relationships, avoiding common pitfalls, what we can learn from neuroscience and more.
Answers have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
1. What are the key factors that contribute to a strong and healthy relationship—romantic or platonic?
Humans are highly social animals; we evolved under conditions where connection to the tribe was essential for survival and child rearing. Yet our modern society undervalues and undermines social connection, hence the current loneliness crisis.
It turns out our brains have two separate centers for reasoning: one center for analytic thinking such as science, math and logic, and another center for empathic thinking, which allows us to connect to others, appreciate art, find meaning in life, and regulate our emotions.
Healthy brains are balanced between these two ways of thinking, but unfortunately many contemporary brains are not healthy. One reason for this is that most western education focuses on training up analytic thinking, hence our empathic brains are much less well-developed.
It isn’t just our education system that encourages us toward analytic thinking. Another reason is that we increasingly interact with each other through electronics. These encourage more analytic forms of social interaction, such as showing off on social media, comparing ourselves to others, and evaluating potential romantic partners primarily on superficial characteristics (swipe left!). Analytic thinking is associated with dehumanizing and objectifying others.
The most important aspect of healthy relationships is to humanize the other: to be curious about and appreciate the other’s unique experience and how they find meaning and purpose in life. Once one appreciates the many different values that can drive a meaningful life, we can move past our naive idea that other people’s attitudes are right or wrong. There is no right way to live life, but it is an active question how we can live our lives in ways that better bring out the best in us—and the best in those around us.
2. What are some common cognitive or emotional pitfalls that can lead to conflict in romantic relationships? How do people in healthy relationships navigate disagreements differently than those in struggling relationships?
The biggest pitfall is the stories we make up about what other people are thinking and why they act the way they do. We imagine that we can put ourselves in other people’s shoes and understand why they do the things they do. We often believe we know better than they do. (Of course this is sometimes true, but very rare).
We need to be a lot more humble about what we really know, which is usually at best only a small part of the story, and more often we have completely the wrong idea. Instead of making assumptions, we want to be curious and make space for others to tell us what is going on with them. Everyone has their own perspective on reality that is shaped by our past experiences, values and preferences.
Perhaps the most important thing anyone can do to help their relationships is to model the realization that we each see the world through our own lens, and that we are each responsible for that lens by the way we talk. Don’t tell your friend or romantic partner “You made me feel y by doing x” or even worse “You made me feel y by being x.” Although it may seem obvious to you what the other person did, or how they are being, they may see their own actions quite differently. Also, you need to acknowledge your own responsibility for your emotional reactions, which might be very different if only they are informed by a different story. You can do this by saying “When you did x, I feel y.” It is important to do this describing the other person’s action in as neutral and non-evaluative of way as possible. Don’t color it with your interpretation, as that will likely get in the way of the other person paying attention to what you are sharing about your feelings. Just sharing your own description of what you are feeling can be tremendously powerful.
People aren’t mind readers, so they often don’t know. It is even better if you can start to dig into what lies behind your feelings. You can say “I feel y because when you do x the story I tell myself about what is going on is z.” It is amazing how powerful it can be to talk to our friends and romantic partners in this way.
Often someone else may either be confused why you are reacting in a certain way, or they may have made up a story that is completely wrong. Once they know the real story of what was going on inside you and how you are seeing what is going on in the relationship, it can completely change their perception of a situation. Sharing this kind of background is really the only way to get out the information you both need to know to be able to collaborate about how to avoid future conflicts.
3. What impact does stress have on relationships, and what strategies can people use to prevent external pressures from harming their connections?
One of the biggest things that gets in the way of mutual understanding is moving too quickly. Stress, particularly the pervasive sense of time pressure that so many people feel, encourages us to do this. But when we move quickly we make lots of assumptions, and we don’t create the space we need to drop into understanding what we are feeling and why. Find ways to slow down in your relationships. Taking a walk together is a great way to do this, or eating a meal together without phones or screens or other distractions.
Sometimes the easiest way to create this kind of space is to go somewhere different that can pull your thoughts away from worrying about day-to-day concerns. The weather isn’t great at the moment, but the art museum is free, as are other museums for CWRU students.
4. Are there any surprising findings from neuroscience research that people might not expect about relationships and emotional bonding?
People don’t realize how one terribly one-sided our thinking has become and how bad this is for brain health. We really need to respect our social nature more. The quality of our social connections is actually the single biggest factor influencing our physical health—even our risk of dying in the next 10 years—let alone our psychological well-being. Studies show that the healthiest people have regular high-quality social interactions with lots of different people, from close friends to strangers, and in lots of different contexts.
5. How do gratitude and appreciation shape relationship satisfaction, and how can people integrate those practices more regularly?
When we report our feelings, it is very important to not just focus on difficult feelings. Make it a regular practice to tell all sorts of people, your romantic partner, friends, acquaintances, strangers, even university staff and professors, things you appreciate about them or enjoyed that they were involved in. Doing that boosts your mood, boosts their mood and improves your relationship with them.
Appreciation and gratitude are the fuel that will help you get over the hump of any conflicts that arise. Once you have told someone a few times what you appreciate about them, they are going to be much more open to hearing about anything they have done that hasn’t landed so well on you.
Ultimately, virtually everyone wants to be liked by other people—unless we feel like that is impossible to achieve. If you let people know you like and appreciate them then they will be naturally motivated to keep things that way when there is a bump in the road.