I'm no Dr Phil

Let’s get this straight from the start, I am no Dr Phil when it comes to relationship advice, sure I love giving my opinion when I’m at a party and someone is gossiping about someone else’s relationship but I would hate to be judged on my views on this subject. Relationships can be one area of life that many people struggle with, I know I’ve had my fair share of struggles (we’ll leave those to the party talk).

You might be wondering “why is the fitness guy talking about relationships?”. Wait for it, my fitness spin is coming. One of the world leading thinkers in relationship counseling is a guy called John Gottman, for over 30 years Gottman has done research into what creates a great relationship. He’s got so good at understanding the behaviors of both good and bad relationships that he has an over 85% success rate of predicting if a couple will stay together by watching them communicate for only five minutes! Now that is mind blowing.

In one of his many great books, The Relationship Cure, one of the concepts he talks about is the ‘emotional bank account’. The idea is that in our interaction with our partner we can be putting in or withdrawing emotional credits with them. This idea got me thinking (the exercise stuff is coming). When you are with your partner how do you build connection that puts positive credits in each other’s emotional bank account?

For so many couples, time together means getting a DVD and sitting in front of the box next to each other. While I know this can be easy way to relax maybe you could look to add exercising together as a way to build stronger connections. It doesn’t have to be hard core training, it could be you head out the front door and walk around our beautiful city together while having a nice conversation. Or you could create some fun games where you work together to beat your team score.

While exercise isn’t normally considered to be important for a relationship if you can look to use it to create shared experiences as a couple that create strong emotional deposits you’ll be heading towards an all-round healthier life.  

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