How do you know when love turns into a habit?
t?
According to popular psychology, it takes an average of 66 days for a person to develop (or quit) a new habit. This means that if you want to start running or quit smoking, you need to consciously continue the exercise for at least two months before the habit begins to feel natural. These general time frames are similar to the legendary “90 day rule.” In theory, this is the time needed for your hormones to calm down so you can make an intelligent decision about whether to pursue a new relationship. But what happens when love becomes a habit?
Contents of the article:
Most of us meet someone new who fills our stomachs with butterflies and turns our knees to jelly, and we start crossing days off the calendar to meet their standards. Unfortunately, building strong, healthy relationships takes time and dedication, just like developing healthy habits.
Habits in relationships or relationships are habits
Each of us has literally hundreds of habits, but we don”t think about them unless they cause difficulty, embarrassment or pain. Habits can be as harmless as a daily crossword puzzle or as dangerous as an addiction. Most of our long-term relationships suffer from habits. For example, we constantly do this or that.
But what happens when love becomes a habit? Do we recognize the warning signs? Or do we walk unconsciously, mistaking habit for comfort?
Relationships today
Clearly, the advent of social media, coupled with typically overcrowded and overly rigid schedules, has made it difficult for most of us to meet this standard. Life is a lot more distracting than it used to be, and modern parenting now legitimately requires people to let their guard down, something that was missing (we grew up in the wild compared to kids today). We all run for so long that at the end of the day we often unconsciously (out of habit) scroll through our VKontakte feed, instead of taking a walk around the block after lunch to catch up on the day.
Read also: How to understand whether there is love or affection between a man and a girl
Needless to say, love rules the world? A feeling that fills life with meaning and bright colors, that breaks your heart and inspires. Every.
With the advent of smartphones, the length of our meetings has become significantly shorter: the national average of marriages lasts 10. 2 years (though the divorce rate is 41%, not 50%).
Is it any wonder that slow and steady relationships don”t take longer to build over the long term? Are we really shocked when statistics show that infidelity affects a fifth of marriages?
Worn pants
When our love becomes a habit, it becomes meaningless. Each of us has such friends — people whom we have known forever and with whom we might not decide to be friends if we met them today. But, like old, worn trousers, we cannot stay away. Of course, in most cases these are not the people we live with or see every day. They are part of the larger puzzle of our lives and remind us of how far we have come.
How do you know if you have love or a habit?
If this question offends you in any way, I”m sure the answer will be the latter.
Few of us will be climbing Everest anytime soon, but we should consider that if our relationship with our husband or wife no longer motivates and inspires us, it may become a habit. And even habits that are not in our best interests (for example, smoking) can bring some comfort. But then again, looking at this big mosaic of our lives, do we want to put the theoretically most important relationships in our lives on autopilot?
So if it takes you 66 days to form (or break) a new habit, this might be the challenge you”ve decided to take on to make your relationship more intentional and realistic.
- Can you take a 66-day walk around the area in the afternoon instead of VC?
- Can you devote 66 days to being grateful for the little things?
- Can you devote 66 days to prioritizing your spouse?
If not, then your relationship is not only a habit, but also a bad habit. So, can you take 66 days to see if you can kick those dirty sweatpants? Each of us has different types of relationships in our lives, but as far as we know, we only have one life. Don”t waste time unnecessarily.
