Cooking Together Could Be The Secret Ingredient Your Relationship Needs
Being in a relationship is work. The goal may be to live life with the person who is always there for you and love each other forever. While it certainly does have those aspects, anyone who has been a long-term partner can agree that being a happy couple takes a good amount of effort from both parties.
"The strongest, most enduring relationships take lots of hard work," clinical psychologist Lisa Blum tells PsychCentral. Blum says you can easily compare couplehood to tending a garden. "It's a beautiful thing but you wouldn't expect it to thrive without a whole lot of labor and TLC."
Mealtime can be a source of frustration for many couples, and this is especially true with dinner. Part of it is simply because everything that you have to do every day can quickly get monotonous. However, it's also due to the fact that preparing and sharing a meal must satisfy both partners, from what dish is chosen to how it is prepared.
Tackling chores as a couple
One of the things biggest issues that couples experience is often that one partner feels they do more household work than the other. In heterosexual couples, it's more often than not the woman who takes on home and child responsibilities more than the man.
According to The Guardian, women in heterosexual relationships account for taking care of 65% of household chores. While that is an average, the more traditional gender roles play out in the relationship, the more likely that number increases.
Regardless of gender and sexual orientation, every partner wants to feel valued and appreciated. No one wants to feel like they are the unpaid help whose purpose is to make sure everything gets done in the home. When couples cook together, they are doing much more than simply making a meal — they are saying, "You matter to me and I am taking an active part in our lives."
Cooking together offers new shared interest
Duties aside, getting busy in the kitchen can ignite a new sense of togetherness. Finding enjoyable shared interests is one of the signs that your relationship is made to last. Whether one of you has more cooking experience than the other or you're both novices in the kitchen, cooking together can help you learn how to work better with your partner. When you're in a couple, you should be a team that focuses on the greater good of the relationship — much in the same way you work together to make a delicious meal.
Additionally, cooking together helps create a standard of love, fun, and friendship. "Creating memories in your home helps to nourish your sacred connection as privacy in a relationship and intimate time together, prioritizing each other makes both people feel loved," relationship therapist Jaime Bronstein told Brides.
If you pick a specific night to cook together each week, it can become a ritual. Instead of mealtime being a chore, it can turn into something you both look forward to and enjoy.