It’s a common misconception that true love will result in a perfect relationship in which everything goes smoothly with no effort or compromise required. No relationship is like this. Even the best, steadiest relationships require work from time to time. This is where couples’ goals come in. Couples’ goals allow two people to work towards common resolutions together while staying on the same page.
In this article, we aim to teach you some of the best goals for couples to set together, as well as why they’re such an essential thing for any couple.
Why Couples’ Goals
A relationship between two people starts out like a well-oiled machine. In the beginning, everything is in immaculate working order, and it might feel like maintenance on the machine might never be required. However, this is not the case! If couples aren’t vigilant about maintaining their relationship and keeping it in top shape, it will eventually break down.
Just as a machine requires differing amounts of care as it gets older and may need replacement parts, a relationship will change as its members grow. If a couple isn’t willing to put in the necessary work to keep it stable, happy, and beneficial to both parties, it won’t continue to function the way it should.
Couples’ goals, along with regular maintenance on the relationship, help significantly with keeping things running smoothly. Goals set between the couple allow both parties to stand on solid, equal ground, both knowing what is required and expected of them going forward.
It is equally important to revisit and change your goals as the relationship changes as it is to work together and set goals in the first place. As long as you’re honest and open with your partner, willing to compromise, and ready to face whatever you need to together, you won’t have any trouble setting proper goals for the both of you.
Best Goals for Couples
In this section, we aim to open your mind to some of the best goals for couples to strive for together. These can involve anything from life goals, to intimacy goals, and even to money and work goals. As always, your couples’ goals should be decided based on even ground between the two of you, working with compromises if necessary.
The “Fake” Couple
If you’re in a relationship with someone, chances are you’ve seen lovey-dovey pictures of the “perfect” couple on the internet. We all aim to emulate that somehow, deep down. While relationships can often start out at this level of perfection, it’s referred to as the “honeymoon stage” for a reason.
This stage doesn’t last forever, and if you hope to extend a relationship beyond a few months, you must be committed to keeping things together past the honeymoon stage. Unfortunately, the “perfect couples” that we see online are often only depicted within the honeymoon stage.
There’s no way to know how long these couples have been together, what difficulties they face, and what their relationship is really like behind the cute photographs. It’s essential to keep this in mind when we come across these images and stories online; while they may be enviable, they may not necessarily be presenting an accurate picture of reality.
It’s naïve to expect to be able to have a storybook relationship like that for an extended period of time. Like we mentioned before, relationships require work. As dreamy as it is to think about forgetting the world and just lying in your partner’s arms, you will eventually need to face reality and go back to work the next day.
As such, keeping in mind that these online couples are usually fake or misrepresented is essential. If you’re constantly comparing your relationship to an impossible standard, it will never measure up. You’re fully capable of nurturing a wonderful, happy, fun-filled relationship with another, but only if you keep your expectations at a reasonable level.
Honesty
Honesty is an integral part of any relationship – romantic or otherwise – and one of your top goals should be to maintain honesty whenever possible. The level of honesty in a relationship can truly make or break it, especially if a couple isn’t on the same page about it.
Moreover, the way in which you’re honest can have an impact, too. You’ve probably heard the term “brutally honest” before. While brusqueness has its times and uses, that place is not always a relationship. Often, you’ll need to recognize when your partner needs brutal honesty and when they need gentle honesty. Doing the wrong thing can lead to ruining a mood or can even create more conflict.
Below, we’ve provided several reasons as to why honesty is an essential thing in your romantic relationship.
- Honesty builds trust. If your partner has trouble being honest, it follows that it will be hard for you to trust in what they say.
- Honesty solves problems. If something feels unsettled between the two of you, be honest and talk it out. Even if you can’t solve the problem right away, you will know what to do going forward, and you can make solving the problem a goal of yours.
- Honesty builds character. It’s easy for us to lie, and total honesty suggests a strength of character that lying doesn’t. Being honest when we’d rather lie works further to build that character.
- Honesty builds understanding. When we lie to someone, we’re then locked into that lie for however often it comes up again in the future. When we’re honest, however, we build upon that honesty each time it comes up, and the other person is able to understand us better and better each time.
- Honesty is freedom. Like we said above, lying locks you into a contract of sorts. If you’re honest, you’re not held back by any chains of dishonesty – you’re free to be yourself.
- Honesty teaches you lessons. Both when we’re honest and when we lie, we eventually have to face the consequences.
- Honesty shows love. With someone we’re close to, we often feel the need to be honest, even if we don’t want to. This is out of love for that person. We don’t want to lie to them if we don’t have to because they’re important to us.
Because of the above reasons, honesty just helps build a stronger, smoother relationship. If you respect the person you’re with, you should respect them enough to be honest with them. Otherwise, that lack of respect will come to light eventually, and it will inevitably cause issues between you and your partner.
Trust
Trust branches directly from honesty. If a person isn’t honest, it’s tough to trust them. However, you don’t necessarily have to be dishonest to break someone’s trust. Lies of omission, not telling your partner something important, or acting in a way that might hurt the relationship can also cause breaches in trust.
Trust is vital for all relationships, whether they be friendships, romances, or otherwise. Even families have difficulty staying together when trust cannot be found. If families have that much trouble when they’re more or less forced to stay together, how can a couple together by choice expect to do well in the same situation?
Your goal should be to be able to trust your partner implicitly, in all situations. However, trust like this isn’t given – it needs to be earned. The confidence that’s built between you and your partner will be significantly affected by your actions.
If you feel like you can’t trust someone else like that in a relationship, or if you think that you’re not ready to be worthy of that level of trust, you should think about putting off a relationship until you do feel ready. Trust between couples nowadays isn’t really optional. Couples don’t function correctly when they can’t or won’t trust each other.
However, it is important to note that the inability to trust one another isn’t always the fault of the couple. Sometimes, one or both members will have difficulty trusting because of past events in their own lives.
For these people, gentleness and time are what they need. It will be the trusting party’s challenge to remain faithful and show the untrusting party that they are indeed worthy of that trust, and it will be the untrusting party’s challenge to give their partner a decent chance at proving themselves.
Communication
Bad communication is one of the most common pitfalls that couples fall into as they age. As we grow complacent in our relationships, we sometimes grow to expect our partner to be able to tell everything we need, or we can get angry when they forget to provide something that we want. It’s crucial for us to remember that, no matter how well you know your partner, it’s impossible to read their mind!
When we don’t communicate properly in a relationship, we often accuse our partner of not doing as much as they used to do for us. Resentment gets built up this way, and this resentment comes out through heated, mean words and arguments. These arguments breed more bitterness, and eventually, this bad communication can be the end of a once-great relationship.
Bad communication can cause a plethora of issues for any relationship, stable or otherwise, such as the following:
- Fighting or arguing with your partner, sometimes recurrently
- Resentments and doubts aimed toward your partner
- Lack of caring about the other, sometimes to the point that one party may seek companionship elsewhere
- Continued breakdowns in communications between the two of you, to the point where the relationship may end
Interestingly, the onset of poor communication seems to coincide with the ending of the honeymoon period. Suspicious, right? Like we mentioned earlier, if you’re not prepared to handle the work that a relationship requires once the honeymoon period ends, you may not be ready to take on a relationship.
Vulnerability
Allowing yourself to be vulnerable is a great way to promote closeness in any relationship, and it should definitely be something to include on your list of goals. However, the ability to show vulnerability to someone is based heavily on trust. We don’t naturally feel comfortable showing vulnerability in front of others. We’ve evolved so as not to do so – according to the laws of nature, vulnerability gets you killed.
However, refusing to show vulnerability to your partner may not cause issues in the short-term, but if you plan to become a close, happy couple, it will eventually become necessary. If one or both of you refuse to show vulnerability, your relationship will never be able to progress past superficial stages. Your relationship will never feel “deep” enough.
If your partner doesn’t show vulnerability, however, or if you find yourself unable to, don’t worry. The security and trust required to feel vulnerable with someone come with time and effort, and a partner who knows you and loves you will understand this, especially if it’s not your fault. Different people open up at different rates, and personal trauma can make this take even longer.
If you feel like you need someone who will open up to you right away, be careful who you choose for a partner. It’s unkind to shame others for being unable to open up, as it’s sometimes out of their control. If you want a relationship but have personal trauma to deal with, a kind, gentle partner can help, or you might think about looking to therapy as another option.
Caring
Of course, in any relationship, caring about your partner is important. However, in this section, we define “caring” as something a little different: something more like showing small gestures of care and affection to your partner. It’s essential to show you care to your partner, even if they already know you do.
Showing that you care with small gestures of affection will help promote closeness and love between you and your partner. You should have a goal to show that you care in some small way at least once per day, even if it’s just a text saying, “I love you.” However, we’ve also listed some more creative examples below.
- Make a fancy dinner when your partner has a hard day
- Show an interest in what they’re interested in
- Try to do things together, but give them space when they need it
- Show you care in the things you say, such as “drive carefully” or “have a great day at work”
- Just tell them that you care!
It’s not difficult to show your partner that you care, but it’s something that we can fall out of doing easily. Telling and showing your partner that you care is a great way to show them that you’re dedicated to the relationship between you two and that you really do care about keeping things healthy and happy.
Alone Time
Believe it or not, alone time is just as valuable in a relationship as time together can be. When couples spend excessive amounts of time together, their personality traits can start to “bleed into” each other. You’ve probably noticed this before with couples you’ve been close to.
While a certain amount of the above is natural and to be expected, it’s also important for couples to spend some time apart, both to maintain their separate identities and to cool off when arguments inevitably happen. Closeness in couples is wonderful and beautiful, but co-dependence is not.
The term self-intimacy means the ability to reflect alone on who you are, what you want, and where you’re going in life, and it’s essential to attend to these wants within yourself. While connection and compromise between you and your partner are important, it’s equally as important to keep from losing yourself under all the settlement.
You and your partner should both understand that some time alone is healthy and vital for a functioning relationship. You should set goals to spend some time alone at least once per week to reflect, think, and meditate, whether this is while your partner’s at work, playing videogames, out shopping, or watching the game.
It’s imperative that couples understand that the need for time alone is not a reflection of not being good enough or not being compatible enough. Time alone is a requirement of every human being, whether they know it or like it or not.
Dedication
Any couple should have a measure of dedication to each other in the relationship. If you’re not dedicated to your partner, what’s really holding you to them when the times get tough? When the newness of the relationship fades? When you end up in your worst fights?
Not all parts of a relationship are sunshine and daisies. Any couple will have rough patches that they must deal with and get over, and it’s your dedication to each other that will see you through these hard times. However, commitment must be cultivated through time, love, and understanding. Dedication doesn’t just appear one day – it comes about when attention and work are put into the relationship.
In order to build and show dedication in your relationship, we recommend trying some of the things we’ve included below.
- Don’t threaten to leave over every little thing when you argue. If leaving is threatened at all – which we don’t recommend – it should only be for things that are deal breakers (i.e., issues you don’t feel you can work through with your partner).
- Make far-off plans together. Reminiscing over dreams of sitting on a porch swing together as you grow old is a great way to show your partner that you plan to be around for a long time.
- Think about your history together, especially if you’ve been through a lot. When you’ve already gone through hard times in the past, it can make tough patches you encounter seem like nothing.
- Listen! Your partner should feel valued in the relationship, and listening to their thoughts and opinions closely is a great way to make them feel special.
Sacrifice
Just as maintaining your self-intimacy should be carefully balanced with compromise in a relationship, your personal victories need to be carefully balanced with personal sacrifices. Some things aren’t worth fighting over, or sometimes it’s just important to you or your partner that they maintain something that’s important to them.
Think of this as an ugly painting that your partner has. The picture may have belonged to a member of their family, or it could be important to them for another reason. Whatever that reason is, it’s better that you let them hang the painting in the living room, even if it’s ugly and doesn’t match the décor. This is what sacrifice is like in a relationship.
You will inevitably need to sacrifice things throughout a relationship, especially if you have leftover habits from being single for a long time. You may not be able to spend a chunk of your paycheck on beer anymore. Your partner might insist that your ultra-comfy but ugly recliner be switched out for something lumpy and attractive.
Your sacrifices won’t always be in superficial things, but we guarantee that they will always be around in some capacity. Just like with compromise, you’re not prepared to sacrifice things, you are not ready for a relationship. However, it should be the goal of any couple to keep sacrifices relatively equal on both sides.
Connection
If you don’t connect in your relationship, you won’t have much of a relationship at all. Like communication (in fact, many losses of connection are caused by bad communication), connection can be lost as a relationship grows and matures.
Complacency is the enemy here. As long as you always aim to value and cherish your partner, you won’t lose your connection with them anytime soon. However, because of the way relationships are portrayed in the media today, many people get the wrong idea about how to foster and keep your connection in a relationship.
Despite what our culture tells us, shiny, expensive things are not the way to build a lasting connection with the one you love. Of course, extravagant gifts can be used in conjunction with sincere thoughts and words in order to solidify your connections, but merely plying your significant other with something shiny and new is altogether counter-productive. It’s nothing more than a bribe.
Try these things to increase your connection, instead:
- Resist the urge to argue or be defensive. One time is often enough to brighten things between the two of you and get back on a better path.
- Thank your partner when they help out around the house. Even if they take out the trash or wash the dishes consistently, make sure to thank them for it when you can.
- Ask questions when something’s bothering you, rather than letting your feelings fester and grow ugly.
- Always make time for your partner, whether it be just to answer a question or to spend a night out. Don’t take their time for granted.
Time Together
Like we said above, time spent apart is essential to maintain our distinct identities, but time spent together is equally as vital in a relationship. After all, if you don’t spend time together, what are you even getting out of the relationship?
During the honeymoon period in any relationship, the couple spends nearly every waking moment together (and usually time asleep, too!). While this is fine for a while, this isn’t something that can last forever – it’s just not economical. Eventually, one or both of you will need to go back to work, visit family somewhere, or otherwise go off on your own.
As the honeymoon phase dies down, couples will naturally spend less time together and less time communicating. While this is to be expected, measures should be taken to mitigate it, too. If you let things go too far in either direction, things will end badly.
Couples should set goals to spend time together and apart. For example, planning a dinner out (or in) once per week balanced with spending time apart once per week is an excellent place to start.
Freedom
Relationships are unhealthy as a rule if they’re restrictive. Freedom is essential in many aspects of a relationship, whether we’re talking about freedom of expression, freedom to do things, or freedom to be yourself. In the ideal relationship, you should feel free to say and do just about anything around your partner without fear of being judged.
If you feel like you don’t have this freedom in your relationship, but it’s still relatively new, stick to it! Unbridled freedom doesn’t come right away – you’ll need to develop a level of trust and comfort with your partner before this becomes a reality. However, if you attend to your relationship with the care that it needs, you will find that you feel the freedom to do many things.
Relationships are like a living, breathing thing. As both parties grow and change, so does the relationship, and so do the things that the relationship requires. As long as the couple is prepared to accept and set goals for this, they will undoubtedly experience a happy, stable, fulfilling relationship, even if they hit some rough patches along the way.
