New Year’s Resolutions: Why Your Relationship Should Be at the Top of the List

As the new year rolls around, many of us start thinking about resolutions.

We promise ourselves we’ll exercise more, work harder, drink less, save more, or finally tick off that long-standing personal goal. These intentions are well-meaning and often important.

But here’s a question we’d love you to pause with for a moment: Where does your relationship sit on your New Year’s goal list?

For many couples, their relationship is something they hope will “just be okay” while they focus on everything else. Yet research and clinical experience consistently show us something powerful: when your relationship is strong, almost every other area of life feels more manageable. And when it’s strained, no amount of individual success truly compensates for that stress.

In The 8 Love Links, we describe a thriving relationship as a springboard for life, not a background stressor. This year, we invite you to consider making your relationship a conscious, intentional priority.

Why Relationships Drift (even with the best intentions)

Most couples don’t drift apart because they stop caring. They drift apart because life gets busy.

Careers, parenting, financial pressures, health issues, family demands and mental load slowly take centre stage. The relationship moves from being nurtured to being managed. Over time, small disconnections compound, and couples find themselves feeling more like co-managers of life than intimate partners.

The good news? Relationships don’t need grand gestures or dramatic overhauls to change course. They need consistent, intentional attention.

That’s where the 8 Love Links come in.

A New Kind of Resolution: Strengthening your love links

Rather than setting vague goals like “communicate better” or “fight less,” we encourage couples to focus on strengthening the systems that hold their relationship together.

The 8 Love Links represent eight interconnected pillars that create long-term security, closeness and desire. When one link weakens, strain shows up elsewhere. When you strengthen even one link, others often improve naturally.

Here are a few ways to use the new year to realign your relationship using this framework.

1. Start With The “Me in We”

Real relationship change always begins with self-reflection.

Instead of asking, “What do I need my partner to do differently this year?” try asking:

• “How do I show up under stress?”

• “What patterns do I bring into conflict?”

• “What would being the best version of myself in this relationship look like?”

New Year’s resolutions often fail because they rely on external change. The most powerful relationship resolutions focus on what you can influence.

2. Re-establish Your Couple’s Base Camp

Every strong relationship needs a secure foundation.

Your “couple’s base camp” is the sense that:

• you’re on the same team

• the relationship is emotionally safe

• there are shared values, boundaries and expectations

The new year is an ideal time to revisit questions like:

• What do we want our relationship to stand for this year?

• What do we need more of, and less of, to feel secure together?

• Are there any boundaries we need to clarify or reset?

Security doesn’t limit freedom; it creates it.

3. Prioritise Small Magic Moments

Many couples assume connection requires more time. In reality, it requires more intention.

Magic Moments are the small, everyday interactions that signal:

• “I see you”

• “You matter”

• “We’re still connected”

A warm goodbye, a genuine check-in, a shared laugh, a moment of affection, these are the moments that quietly determine whether a relationship feels nourishing or draining.

A powerful resolution for the year ahead is simply this: “We will protect and create positive moments, even on busy days.”

4. Learn to Navigate Conflict, Not Avoid It

Conflict isn’t the problem in relationships, unrepaired conflict is.

The new year offers an opportunity to shift from:

• winning arguments

• avoiding hard conversations

• repeating the same fights

towards:

• understanding triggers

• slowing down reactions

• repairing more quickly

Healthy conflict builds trust. It reassures both partners that the relationship can handle discomfort without breaking.

5. Invest in Deep Connection and Desire

Long-term relationships don’t lose intimacy because love disappears. They lose it because connection stops being protected.

This year, ask yourselves:

• Are we spending time together that actually builds closeness?

• Do we feel emotionally known by each other?

• Is desire being supported, or left to chance?

Connection, emotional safety and desire are deeply intertwined — and all of them can be nurtured with the right focus.

A Relationship Resolution That Lasts

If there’s one resolution we hope you carry into this year, it’s this:

Don’t leave your relationship to autopilot.

Prioritising your relationship doesn’t mean neglecting personal goals, it means creating a foundation that supports them. When your relationship feels secure, validating and connected, everything else in life becomes easier to navigate.

This year, choose to strengthen your love links.Choose intention over assumption. 

Choose connection over convenience.

Your relationship is worth it.

Warmly,

Shahn