Transcripts

Dr. Thomas Habib:
In couples, it's the expectations of love we have. We talk about love as a constant when it isn't. What's constant is commitment.

Dr. Thomas Habib, author of the book If These Walls Could Talk, says in a relationship, not only is love not constant, but typically there's really very little.

In fact in a good marriage, I peg that the average feelings of love in minutes per day is five minutes per day. If you think about it, it happens in such a way where, for example with myself, all I have to do is think of my wife and what she does with the children and the leadership she takes in that and I feel love, I feel gratitude for what she brings to my life and the children's life. And so for about a half a minute I have a feeling of love that infuses my life at that moment.

In fact many couples have far less than five minutes a day, but there are some things you can do to increase it.

Like one of the things I like couples to do is upon arriving home to just hover around each other, to spend time with each other. To block the children out just to reconnect so that the friendship and what used to fall easily in the relationship has a chance to resume. And even more so the holding of appreciation and contentment can be maximized.

At somethingyoushouldknow.net, I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.