How Well do you and Your Partner’s Relationship Rituals Match up?

Relationship rituals form the glue for connection, comfort, predictability, stability, and safety in adult romantic relationships. But when partners don’t place the same importance and meaning on a ritual there is a mismatch. The mismatch of relationship rituals is a significant contributor to cracks in the connection between couples. The lack of fit when relationship rituals don’t work smoothly opens threatens the fabric of the connection.

Relationship Rituals – Idiosyncratic rituals versus couple rituals

Carmelita, a 42-year old member of her local council, was a person of routine and habit. She functioned best performing her own personal daily rituals of early morning coffee, jogging, showering and then getting the family up and ready for their days. Armand, her 43-year old partner, a self-employed property developer was also a creature of predictability. He liked his late night beverage and his comedy show to unwind on Saturday mornings. He also put a lot of store on hugs before bed and upon waking up; These idiosyncratic relationship rituals were never discussed by either partner, until some upset brought it to the fore.

Relationship Rituals – Importance of Rhythm and Flexibility

In his book, ‘The Hidden Powers of Rituals,’ Bradd Shore imbues rituals with providing us with the most powerful tool in our control. They give us the comfort of rhythmic regularity and flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances, allowing us to “keep time and keep up with time.”

When relationship rituals get stuck and mismatches between partners do not allow for flexibility for change then couples find their relationship on shaky ground. One person wants to keep the ritual going to stay mummified, while the other has outgrown the pupa stage, ready to develop new rituals to fulfil the maturity the relationship needs to flourish.

Relationship Rituals – Unshared Meaning of Executed Rituals

Often, Armand felt undesirable to Carmelita when she went to sleep without prior moments of talking and affection. When he expressed his disappointment she agreed to make a point of having the hugs and talking nice with him before sleeping. It became a relationship ritual, but the meaning of it wasn’t shared, and therefore there was a mismatch.

For Armand the relationship ritual meant that things were good between him and his partner; desire and care for one and other persisting in a comforting bubble where the cares of the world were banished. For Carmelita on the other hand, her participation in the ritual was just a duty that she needed to perform as a loyal and supportive partner. She didn’t get the same sense of security, joy or comfort from it. She did it just to be a ‘good girl.’

Relationship Rituals – Categories of Rituals in Married Couples

A report in Communications Monographs, 1997, identified seven types of relationship rituals in married couples:

Couple Time

Idiosyncratic

Daily routines and tasksIntimacy expressions

Communication patterns, habits, and mannerisms

Intimacy expressions

Spiritual

In a follow up to their original categorization the authors indicated that couples perceived three of these rituals to be most significant in maintaining relationship intimacy: couple time together, daily routines and tasks, and lastly idiosyncratic rituals. (Communications Monograph, 2010).

What we can glean from this, is that couples rely on both their own personal rituals to be honored, as well as special couple time rituals like going to their favorite restaurant every Wednesday night, knitted together with how they perform their everyday tasks, such as who loads the dishwasher each night.

Armand and Carmelita’s night time ritual likely spans at least two of these categories: that of intimacy expressions and couple time. Already there is a mismatch of meaning in one of their agreed relationship rituals.

Relationship Rituals – Communication Patterns, Habits and Mannerisms

Carmelita had a relationship ritual involving communicating with her loved ones as and when she felt or thought something, expecting it to be received readily and responded to immediately – to keep the bond alive on a moment to moment basis. She texted Armand constantly as she performed this ritual unconsciously and impulsively. He felt obliged to respond lest he be labelled unresponsive, uncaring, and unsupportive. So they established this communication pattern relationship ritual that worked on the surface, but was based on a threat of being seen as bad. It became a controlling type of relationship ritual. The result was less disclosure about his real feelings and bottling up stuff that made him want to avoid couple time – compromising a key relationship ritual – couple time.

Relationship Rituals – Family of Origin Rituals Versus Couple Created Ones

Carmelita grew up in a family where everyone always did everything together. They were each other’s companions, best friends and counselors – a closed group that didn’t seek or need contact with a larger social group, hence communicating with each other on a constant minute to minute basis. Their relationship ritual was one of co-dependency with little privacy or personal autonomy. That was her norm and she expected it to be carried forward into the family she made with Armand.

In an effort to ensure that his family was strongly bonded and resilient, Armand reluctantly joined in the relationship ritual. It meant a lack of personal boundaries and a dampening of his personal preference, threatening to disrupt the closed enmeshed loop. But it was at great cost to his development as a person in his own right, and when he could no longer pay that price, Carmelita was devastated. She had believed that Armand bought into her family relationship ritual in the daily routines and tasks of sticking to one another. As the glue became less sticky her whole world fell apart and she doubled down on getting him to conform, bringing them to the verge of separation. There was no flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances, reducing the value of the relationship ritual. They sought couples therapy at this point.

Co-construction of Relationship Rituals Promotes Commitment

Their relationship ritual was not mutually constructed and had no chance of lasting, especially as it was constricting and inward facing.
An article in the 2020 Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that co-created relationship rituals plays a key role in commitment to each other. However, the couple need to use a variety of active, passive, and interactive strategies. In the case of Carmelita’s patterns of communication, mannerisms, and habits she denied the existence of boundaries for both herself and Armand, wanting him to hold and attend to everything she put out to him, and expecting him to do the same. In effect, her relationship ritual was that he filled her up with his stuff and she filled him up with her stuff, never needing anything or anyone else.

But it wasn’t something co-created with Armand, but forced on him. Without realizing it she was trespassing on his entitlement to have an idiosyncratic and spiritual set of personal rituals. Couples therapy made these implicit relationship rituals overt.

For his part, Armand was used to more physical affection in his family of origin and greater role differentiation in daily tasks – setting some useful boundaries. In his family of origin physical touch was freely given and received as a symbol of acknowledgment, recognition and validation. He brought that to his marriage and wanted the same relationship ritual to be part of his new family. But it was not co-created with his partner making it a mismatched relationship ritual that Carmelita performed out of duty.

Relationship Rituals – Crucial Elements for Satisfying Commitment

There are three elements that contribute to creating joint relationship rituals for adults to be happy in their romantic connections.

1. Joint Consumption – Carmelita and Armand have to consume the same moment together, such as going for a walk and focusing on the same thing – be it the scenery, weather or what’s for dinner that evening. If they go for a walk and Carmelita vents about her mother’s obstinacy, then she is not with Armand, and they aren’t consuming the same experience. Her mind is elsewhere. They drop one of the main ingredients of healthy relationship rituals.

Co-creating a joint relationship ritual that works -they could co-create a positive relationship ritual by actively choosing to be mentally in sync, tuning into what they are seeing, thinking and feeling in that moment.

2. Shared Experience – When Armand and Carmelita are at a party and he is laughing with others but she isn’t, they aren’t experiencing the same event at the same time. He is relaxed and enjoying the banter, whereas Carmelita thinks it’s childish and disapproves. The second pillar of positive relationship rituals is crushed. If they don’t talk about their differing experiences of the same situation, they will likely become distant, brewing a mix of guilt, shame, and anger that stimulates insecurity. Not a good recipe for commitment.

Co-creating a joint relationship ritual that works – if Carmelita uses her intimacy expressions in their relationship rituals to signal her discomfort, and Armand uses his intimacy expressions of making her feel seen with understanding and compassion then they would wordlessly avoid the chasm that they would likely face after the party. She could then signal that she feels seen and allow him to have his laughs knowing he hasn’t forgotten her or experienced her as a spoiler. These co-created intimacy relationship rituals keep them connected and committed to each other. These signals are unique to the couple, involving certain types of eyebrow movement, lip and mouth shapes, head movements and the like that are meaningful only to them.

3. Surrender to the experience of togetherness – When Carmelita hugs Armand before sleeping she is awkward and rigid. She isn’t leaning into the hug, feeling wanted and wanting Armand back. Armand can feel her stiffness and robotic mode of talking and stroking his hair. He loses the pleasurable and comforting aspects of the relationship ritual and ends up turning away feeling rejected. An important part of his need for connection is denied.

Co-creating a joint relationship ritual that works: If Carmelita allows herself to surrender to the hug, feel desirable, and let their joint breathing rhythms provide security, she would be in the zone where both could be reaffirming their togetherness and commitment rather than behave as two separate beings. Shore in his book ‘The Hidden Powers of Rituals,” calls this ‘agency reversal’ where both give up their separate and autonomous selves and enjoy each other on another plane. This is the most powerful bonding experience – ultimate proof of vulnerability and trust.

Armand and Carmelita are unlikely to become aware of the mismatches in their relationship rituals unless they attend family of origin therapy as well as personal therapy. They need to get a thorough understanding of their unconscious expectations and how that relates to clashes between them. Then and only then will they be ready to start co-creating relationship in an interactive and sustainable way in their couples counseling.