The wedding day is here and the bride and groom look so in love. One year later, you're shocked to hear that beautifully happy couple is headed to Divorce Court. Here are 12 ways the experts say keep happy couples happy and together.

  1. Thinking positively about your partner.  Remember more of the favorable than the unfavorable experiences you share together.
  2. Thinking about your partner when apart. When you leave your partner for the day, the evening, or for an extended period of time, do you forget about his or her existence? Is it out of sight and out of mind for you? If so, this may be a sign that you’re not that much in love. Sending quick messages to let them know they are on your mind shows appreciation and loyalty making them feel wanted and loved.
  3. Difficulty Expressing Yourself. It's important to validate your significant other's feelings regardless if you agree with them. Most people just want to be heard, so bite your tongue, listen and you create a stronger more loving bond.
  4. Enjoying challenging activities. Like definitely attracts like when it comes to personal interests and hobbies. Spending time together is important, as you’ll see below, but it’s how you spend your time that influences your relationship satisfaction even more. This is especially true with men, If you’re going to go bungee jumping for the first time, your relationship will benefit when you and your partner face this challenge together. Facing challenges as a team strengthens a bond especially for men.
  5. Spending time together. If you want to strengthen your emotional bond, doing even mundane housework can help. That basement remodel or painting the spare room. Cooking, gardening, grocery shopping, and even cleaning the house are other ways to bolster your love for each other. A study showed that this was particularly important to men.
  6. Expressing affection. Feeling love toward your partner is important, but so is expressing it in physical ways. The affection you show doesn’t have to be overly gushy. A touch on the shoulder or kiss on the cheek is enough to build your relationship’s intensity. It shows your partner how important and attractive they are to you.
  7. Being turned on by your partner. Those tiny touches of affection can not only boost your emotional connection to your partner, but also make your sex life a lot more exciting! Women found that the way their partner made them feel emotionally had a direct connection to how much they wanted their partner physically.
  8. Engaging in Whoopie!! It's not secret that sex is the closet act you can share. People in love are more likely to have it on a regular basis. A recent study showed that part of the reason for the positive association between sex and love is that people who are happiest in their relationships both love their partners more and have sex more frequently. Whatever the cause, having regular sex maintains feelings of love and even happiness.
  9. Feeling generally happy. People who feel happier about life also have stronger feelings of love toward their partners. We can’t determine whether people who are in love feel happier because of that but from a survey the findings suggests that if you’re experiencing personal distress, this can leak out and cause your relationship to suffer. Similarly, if your relationship is in trouble, your personal happiness will suffer as well.
  10. Wanting to know where your partner is at all times. Being intensely in love, for men, is associated with wanting to know your partner’s whereabouts. Too intense, this can turn to stalking. But to put a positive spin on it, if you want to know where your partner is, this reflects the fact that your partner isn't very far from your thoughts. As long as it isn't obsessive, it's a good sign.
  11. Obsessively thinking about your partner. Being slightly obsessed with your partner turns out to be positively related to intense love, at least for women. The women most in love in a recent study didn’t particularly care about knowing their partner’s whereabouts. However, they were more likely to engage in obsessive thinking about their partner more generally.
  12. Having a strong passion for life. People who approach their daily lives eagerly seem to carry these intense feelings over to their love life as well. If you want your relationship to have passion, put that emotional energy to work in your hobbies, interests and activities. Your brain's reward centers respond similarly to love as to getting excited about your other daily interests. So, get "fired up!"

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