Shore up your relationship with this practice
When you’re in a relationship, how do you work to sustain it? Maybe you have a go-to mental list of pro-relationship actions: “Give more affection!” “Show more gratitude!” “Listen more attentively!” “Schedule more date nights!”
All of these might be useful, but all of them focus outward: on your partner and/or your relationship. Is this the only way to go?
Putting the “I” in Relationship
Romantic relationships are fundamentally interpersonal. They provide companionship, support, and connection, and they feed our social brains in important, satisfying ways. The interpersonal component of romantic relationships is so much at the forefront, however, that we can forget the role of the individual in “us.”
Sometimes, if we want our relationships to improve, we need to think about how we treat ourselves.
Self-compassion as a Response to Personal Challenges
How do you treat yourself in the context of struggle or suffering? If you practice self-compassion, then in the face of a challenge you are kind to yourself, you accept failures as a normal part of the human experience, and you acknowledge your emotions without being overwhelmed by them (Neff, 2023). In other words, to engage in self-compassion is to be your own best friend when you need one the most.
Self-compassion appears to be personally beneficial. For instance, as reviewed by Neff (2023), self-compassion is tied to more optimism and positivity, fewer mental health struggles (like anxiety and depression), and engagement in more healthy behaviours (e.g., exercise, healthy eating). These observed connections, along with experimental work, suggest self-compassion is well-poised to predict important aspects of romantic relationships.
Self-compassion and Relationship Health
Recent research by Körner and colleagues (2024) revealed that the happiest relationships tend to involve partners who are actively caring for themselves, not just their relationship. Their research, which included 209 German couples, zeroed in on an often ignored question: How does compassion toward the self, i.e., self-compassion, link to relationship well-being? Their results revealed a consistent trend.
People with more self-compassion reported:
- More engagement in their relationship. When individuals were practising self-compassion and in the habit of supporting themselves in times of challenge, they were more invested in and committed to their romantic relationships.
- A better sex life. What happens out of the bedroom can predict what happens in the bedroom. Among participants in Körner and colleagues’ (2024) study, having self-compassion for oneself was linked to more sexual fulfillment in one’s romantic relationship.
- More faith in their relationship’s future. Will your relationship last? People practising self-compassion saw their relationship’s future as longer, i.e., their relationship as more stable.
- More trust. People with more self-compassion tend to trust their partners more, which can feed into many different aspects of relationship well-being.
- More freedom. People can grow together and grow individually in a relationship. More self-compassion corresponded with fewer perceived constraints, including on self-growth, in a relationship.
Attending to Yourself is Attending to Your Relationship
Should people focus on their partners and their relationship dynamics in order to help their relationship survive and thrive? Of course! But research also suggests we should pay attention to ourselves. Empirical findings suggest a strong connection between self-compassion and key markers of relationship satisfaction and well-being (Körner et al., 2024).
What kind of orientation do you bring to your own failures and struggles? To the extent that you can engage in self-compassion, you limit self-judgment, isolation in the experience of failure, and over-identification with emotions. Self-compassion is a chance to be kind, connected, and mindful. While the benefits to the self are well-known (Neff, 2023), self-compassion may also support stronger relationship functioning (Körner et al., 2024). Future experimental work can help reveal exactly how self-compassion may encourage stronger, healthier, and happier relationships.