Small gestures lead to building a relationship. When you first meet a person, you are attracted by gestures. You are attracted by those in which you find yourself, who attract you or the ones you dislike. These gestures, over time, create a code between partners, between people, a code that can only be deciphered by connoisseurs. Sometimes, noticing the peculiarities of these seemingly insignificant little habits, I think that they are the binder that prevents relationships from being broken.

I was reviewing “When Harry met Sally” a few days ago and in one of the scenes is the following dialogue:

” Harry Burns: You take someone to the airport, its clearly the beginning of the relationship. That’s why I have never taken anyone to the airport at the beginning of a relationship.

Sally Albright: Why?

Harry Burns: Because eventually things move on and you don’t take someone to the airport and I never wanted anyone to say to me, How come you never take me to the airport anymore?”

And Harry’s right. We start a relationship with enthusiasm, we make smaller or bigger gestures of attention and appreciation. We form specific rituals. Too few, however, pass the test of time and one day you realize that it’s been a while since you’ve danced together, that you’ve stopped flirting with each other, that you aren’t connected anymore. The small gestures have disappeared and there are only moments of concealed alienation.

Of course, a relationship is exposed to a multitude of factors that can influence it, from the personality differences of each one to the daily worries and the whole range of external factors. But, as with any good thing, a relationship, in order to survive, needs work and dedication from both sides.

We realize that, in a long-term relationship, a relationship that is supposed to last even a lifetime, the partners undergo changes of all kinds. We humans are genetically programmed to change at a physical and mental level every 7 years. Thus, both partners develop new behaviors that will obviously influence the couple’s routine. Hence the question “why aren’t you the same as you were in the beginning?

Many couples fall into this trap, believing that small changes also mean the alteration of love, for some it really is an alteration and alienation until they find that their new versions do not fit together. Sometimes the disappearance of small habits is an alarm signal given to the couple. As an individual you can easily tell if the change comes from an internal need or is influenced externally, so you know when to say “this is me now, I can’t go back to what I was, but I would like to know me as I am now. And to love me. ”