The 7 Tiny Rituals Happy Couples Never Stop Doing

You know why you don’t get to see anybody post a picture of the twenty-minute (marriage-saving) conversations they have after work? Because it seems ordinary.

Only, in relationsships, ordinary things like that matter a lot more than the occasional flowers, elaborate date nights, anniversary dinners, public declarations of affection, or weekend getaways that all look like love from the outside.

In fact, relationship experts repeatedly emphasize the importance of what happens in the time between those major relationship events, like the rituals couples create and the countless times they either turn toward each other or away.

This is why I find the habits of happy couples so interesting. They are, a lot of the time, almost embarrassingly small… but then that may be precisely why they work so well.

You must know that a healthy marriage is not lived just on anniversaries; it is lived on drab Tuesday mornings, and on that note, here are seven small rituals happy couples seem to protect as though their marriage depends on them.

1. The 6-second kiss: Six seconds is not very long, but I tell you it is considerably longer than the quick peck on the cheek many couples give each other while they are already reaching for the door.

John Gottman’s relationship work specifically recommends the six-second kiss as a ritual of connection. Now, the idea is not that six is some magical number that guarantees a happy marriage, but it is that a slightly longer, intentional kiss is intimacy that creates a deliberate pause in the middle of the otherwise “automatic transition” that usually happens when couples say goodbye:

“Bye.” (Peck)

“See you later.”

“Did you take the keys?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” (Peck?)

…and they’re gone.

The kiss is just another item on the departure checklist, but the six-second kiss, however, interrupts that and for those few seconds, you are not thinking about traffic, or emails, or the kids, or the meeting, or whatever disaster is waiting for you at work. You are just with each other.

• One couple, married for more than 33 years, described their ordinary workday as a string of little reconnections: a kiss after getting ready, another before she left the truck, and another when she returned that evening.
  (Nilz Baris has been married for over 33 years)

2. The 2-minute check-in: You would be surprised, but happy couples don’t necessarily have long, profound conversations every morning. They may just ask how the other is feeling, or if they need anything.

It may take just two minutes… sometimes less.

Now, the point is not to conduct a daily marital examination or for it to be a “State of the Union conversation” designed like a weekly relationship check-in.

This is much simpler.

This is checking the temperature of communication before the day gets hot, because your partner can walk out of the house weighed down by something you know nothing about: anxiety about a work meeting, tension with a colleague, worry about a parent, a child who isn’t doing well at school, or simply the kind of tiredness that makes everything feel heavy.

You may not even need to solve any of it. You just have to know.

You know, there is a huge difference between living beside someone and knowing what is happening inside them. So, never fail to take note of the small attempts your partner makes to connect, and respond rather than routinely ignoring.

“Every day we talk about our day, life and relationship. And again we have found each other fascinating.”
— Doug Armey, former marriage counselor and married for decades.

3. The 20-minute decompression: This one may save more marriages than another date night will.

Why?

Because sometimes the problem isn’t the marriage but the day itself: your partner comes home frustrated, you come home frustrated, and suddenly two exhausted people are talking to each other as though each is the reason the other person had a bad day.

This is where the stress-reducing conversation comes in. And Gottman recommends partners setting aside 20 minutes for talking about stress outside the relationship and active listening without immediately trying to fix everything. The emphasis is on emotional support: empathy and taking your partner’s side.

What is more, this beautiful ritual is simply relationship communication that doesn’t require money (no restaurant, no babysitter, no reservation, no travel expenses). Just twenty minutes and two partners willing to listen, making sure the world doesn’t become the mortal enemy of their marriage.

“It doesn’t have to be anything big and can be as simple as just taking time to listen to her without telling her right away how to fix things.”
— Gary Kehr, Retired Banking Professional

4. The tiny thank-you: Here is one of the most dangerous things that can happen in a long marriage: you get too used to being loved.

Your spouse makes the coffee, does the dishes, remembers the appointments, picks something up on the way home, and eventually, the things your partner does because they care about you disappear into the category of things you simply expect.

Couples who stay emotionally connected, however, take note. So, they never fail to say “thank you” and let each other know they appreciate the thoughtfulness that went into each kind act.

Research has found that gratitude and appreciation are associated with greater relationship satisfaction and closeness, while expressing gratitude can also encourage positive responses between partners.

You want to know something really neat?

I have found expressions of appreciation don’t have to be over the top. In fact, it works best when it is specific. So, not: “You’re the best,” but: “Thank you for picking that up. I know you were already tired.”

You are doing something very important here: you are making invisible effort visible, leaving your partner feeling valued. It counters the resentment that often grows where one person’s effort has become the other person’s expectation.

This is the way of happy couples: they don’t necessarily do more for each other; they are often just better at taking note of what has already been done.

“Many past nights of arguments and misunderstanding have taught me there’s always a way to show appreciation back. Be thoughtful, and you’ll see it’s not so hard to keep an amazing balance with your partner.”
— Ashley Jeun

5. The goodbye-and-return ritual: There is something especially sad about couples who have come to leave the house like co-workers. Then when they come home, hours later, they simply walk past each other into whatever needs doing next.

This is where the daily rituals around saying goodbye in the morning, and reuniting at the end of the day, are a worthwhile part of your maintaining emotional connection. In fact, a couple using even two minutes of non-distracted communication at reunion as a way of refreshing their connection daily will find it indispensible.

Now, not every homecoming needs to be a romcom scene. Sometimes you are exhausted, sometimes the baby is crying, sometimes dinner is burning, sometimes you really do need to put the bags down first, but there is a difference between being busy sometimes and becoming invisible to each other.

“I walk him to the door every morning as he goes to work, and stay at the door, watching until I can no longer see his taillights.
We kiss each other every time one of us leaves or returns.
We hug often.”
— Christi Zelaya,“What are the ‘little things’ that keep your marriage healthy?”

6. The screen-free buffer zone: Your phone can sit beside you while you are talking to your spouse. You may even insist you’re listening, but then your eyes keep dropping toward the screen. And without ever consciously deciding to ignore your partner, you have just told them something is more interesting than they are.

Researchers use the term “phubbing” for this kind of phone-related, quality time diminishing, distraction in relationships. Not surprisingly, studies have associated it with lower relationship satisfaction and other difficulties in relationship functioning.

Of course, the findings are not absolute proof that every phone distraction damages a marriage, but the pattern is concerning enough to take seriously.

So, whether it is dinner, the first few minutes after coming home, coffee together, or the last part of the evening, you should make time where the phone is relegated to the background.

It is not that phones are necessarily evil. It is just that your undivided attention is one of the ways you tell people they matter to you. Your partner may eventually forget what you said, but they may never forget how often they had to compete with your screen to get your attention.

“They don’t have their phones out…they know how to be present with each other.”
— Elizabeth Earnshaw, LMFT, The Relationship Realist

7. The private joke: Every good marriage has a little world inside of it. Be it a ridiculous nickname, some story nobody else finds funny, a phrase that came from an old mistake, a strange voice you use only with each other, or a meme that makes absolutely no sense to anyone else, but it is always enough to get you both laughing.

Why does this matter?

Because marriage is not only about managing responsibilities; it is also about friendship, and humor strengthens that friendship when it is affectionate and not mocking or contemptuous.

This is why the private jokes matter. The playfulness reminds you that you are not merely co-managers of a house; you are two people who actually enjoy each other.

“Fred invented a word… which makes absolutely zero sense — to communicate exasperation. I have to remember not to utter this word in the presence of others, lest it provoke strange looks.”
— Kira M. Newman

The rituals are the marriage

I see it as a grave mistake to think that your marriage will be kept strong by the big things (anniversary celebrations, surprise weekend trips, surprise birthday parties, fancy dinners, even the renewal of vows).

Those things are lovely, but you don’t spend most of your marriage doing those things.

You spend it doing ordinary stuff, coming home tired, falling asleep, waking up the next day, and doing it all over again. All of this is why I find the Gottman-famous principle of “small things often” rings true so strongly here: the health of a relationship is built through repeated everyday actions, not the occasional bursts of romance.

Happy couples aren’t perfect. They do, however, recognize that even though small things individually may not look all that impressive, but they add up to create a marriage in which both partners keep seeing the evidence all the time that they matter.

The alternative may very well be a couple waking up to a marriage in which they have become strangers, and have to spend months trying to recover all the tiny forms of connection they stopped practicing over the years.

Healthy marriages aren’t built on grand gestures. So, the secret isn’t finding extra time in your marriage for them; it is learning to make good use of what little time you already have.