If your resolution is to make it to 2010 and beyond in your relationship, Dr. M. Teri Daunter, a Petoskey psychologist, has three words to live by: Respect, reciprocity and playfulness.

“When playfulness is gone, this is a blinking yellow light. When reciprocity disappears, this is a blinking red light. When respect is gone, this is a nuclear explosion,” said Daunter. “All three of these ingredients are reflected in the way in which we communicate with one another. But remember there is no Sears Roebuck guarantee on relationships.”

Anyone who has been in a short-lived or long-lasting partnership can attest to the fact that they need attention and maintenance to endure. The News-Review asked Daunter to provide some insight from her years working with couples about how to make a relationship last, to help ensure you’ll celebrate another anniversary in 2009:

PNR: Is there a single-most important habit that healthy couples follow?
Dr. Daunter: Communication is the essence of a relationship. I do not mean just the physical exchange of words, but being present to one another psychologically and emotionally. In other words, it is a relationship between people’s essences. In our busy lifestyles, there is rarely an essence to whom to communicate. Our real selves get buried beneath our acts and pretenses. Instead of having a job or career to support our family, we end up having a family to support our career.
 
PNR: What are ways in which each partner can contribute to a healthy relationship — instead of putting it on the other person, what can “I” do?
Dr. Daunter: Ask yourself, “Are you in there?” Couples need to learn to listen loudly. It is impossible to not communicate, so we need to listen to the music behind the words. So communication, verbal and non-verbal, is the vehicle to learning about one another’s essences, which is the exploration of one-another’s reality. Our perceptual reality is different, so you cannot assume the way you see things is the way your partner sees things.
This requires discussion and understanding. Too often what happens with couples is an argument with the attempt to convince the other partner that his way is better than her way. Unless we are mature enough to appreciate the reality of our partner, communication will definitely fail. Unless we are willing to allow the partner to communicate to us his reality, without making the partner wrong, communication will certainly fail. So constructive communication, the basis of a healthy relationship, requires that you expand your reality to include the reality of your partner. This process needs to be done with maturity and without conflict.
 
PNR: Do healthy couples never argue? What is a mature way to handle disagreements, and should you really never go to bed angry?
Dr. Daunter: Disagreeing and arguing are two different experiences. It is common for a couple to have conflicts and have differing opinions. It is important to recognize the conflict and expand our view to include that of our partner. Arguing is an attempt on the part of one partner to impose his or her world view on the other partner. Communication is not about debating; it is about sharing one’s perceptions and one’s opinions.
It is probably a very good idea to go to bed in a positive mood as it aids sleep and being in a positive mood puts you in the parasympathetic part of the nervous system, which will also aid the digestive process while you sleep, but realistically everyone at some time holds on to negative energy. So we need to remember that we are humans and not robots.
 
PNR: What are some things to avoid in your relationship if you want it to go the distance?
Dr. Daunter: Don’t store up grievances; talk about them as they come up. Stubbornness is the cancer of relationships. Listen to your partner so you can get to know your partner and not to evaluate the rightness or wrongness of the statements. Don’t lay trips on one another. Realize that what you have to say is not more valid than your partner’s. Listen loudly rather than superficially — often we are so busy thinking of how we are going to respond to defend ourselves when we are attacked that we are not listening.
Communication between partners should not be a sword fight. Understand that all everyone wants is to be happy. So don’t take things personally. Don’t see everything in terms of how it affects you. Get yourself out of the way. Listen without judgment.
 
PNR: Any other habits of healthy couples that you’ve noticed through your years learning about others’ relationships?
Dr. Daunter: Listen to what is not being said as this often is communicated more loudly than what a partner says. Listen to body language, look at the face of your partner, listen to innuendoes and many subtle behaviors that typically go unnoticed. This way, you can penetrate beneath the façade. We often hear only what we wish to hear and see only what we want to see. So tune in your tuner to all stations and don’t get locked into one frequency. Then, especially master “inflow.” Learn to receive information accurately, without bias and judgment. Lastly, don’t rehearse; be yourself.

10 habits for healthy (and healthful) relationships

1. Think as a team. Treat your health as a combined system, not two separate individuals.
2. Floss together. It’s one of the most important steps in oral and overall health — do it together.
3. Check each other’s backs — and more. Every four months, inspect each other’s backs, in and behind each other’s ears, the back of your necks, your scalps, and other places that are hard to see. You’re looking for moles, crusty or red spots, and elevated or asymmetrical areas — all of which could be signs of cancer.
4. Treat your depression to improve your partner’s health. If you’re depressed or anxious, you’re not only affecting your own health, you could be making your partner sick.
5. Perfect your conflict-resolution skills. Research from the University of Michigan shows that partners who suppress anger are twice as likely to experience early death compared to those who express it.
6. Smooch. Kissing releases oxytocin in both men and women, which helps couples feel closer and more intimate. This brain chemical decreases corticosterone and other stress hormones, and also helps lower blood pressure.
7. Let go of your expectations in bed. If you believe the stereotype that good sex takes hours, then you’re losing out on numerous health benefits. Satisfying sex lowers blood pressure, reduces stress, improves immunity and raises self-esteem.
8. Trade places with your partner. Cognitive exercises called “neurobics” can create new associations between different brain parts, generate new cells and strengthen pathways in the opposite sides of the brain. Neurobics involve using your senses in new ways and employing different parts of your brain to do familiar tasks. To practice neurobics with your partner, try sleeping on the opposite side of the bed or swapping domestic chores for a month.
9. Get off the guilt train. Couples who make it a rule not to guilt each other for mistakes are physically and emotionally healthier. Guilt induces a physiological response in the brain that causes the release of the stress hormone cortisol. This alters metabolism and can lead to excess fat storage.
10. Invest in experiences, not objects. Research from the University of Colorado shows that happiness is found in what you do, not what you buy. This is because experiences are open to positive re-interpretations.
Source: MSN Health