Be grateful: how nice that you love me!

Opposite the table in the open-top car sits a couple, in their late 40s, early 50s, sharing the newspaper. At some point, the man says, "Will you give me the sports section?" Then the woman: "What is the magic word?" And the man, with an expectantly outstretched hand: "Shit, will you give me the sports section?" Every now and then I have to think about this scene. Whenever I realize how we do not live our relationship, we live it off, carelessly, without request and thanks.

"Please" is already sold to young children as a magic word, but the real magic word is "Thank you": "Please" to say gives you something, and let's say the sports section, "Thank you" creates something, it expresses a feeling which is actually based on everything that is good about a life and a relationship. "Thanks" expresses appreciation and leads to getting one yourself - yet we say the word far too seldom because we have forgotten how to feel gratitude.

Gratitude grinds away in everyday life.

In the beginning, love is nothing but gratitude: being in love feels as if the universe has fulfilled one's greatest wish, which you never knew you had, and your passion is interwoven with gratitude for fulfilling that desire gratitude for every single square millimeter of his skin, for every fine hair on her upper lip, for her laughter, the way he holds the cup, for the love of the other to reflect and amplify one's own.

This rubs off in everyday life. Did you get the car out of the workshop? No? Oh, man, I have to take care of that too. Yes? Well, it was about time too. And at night in bed, when you hear someone breathing next to you, with whom you have spent many years? Then you do not think "Thank you for being there", but: If she continues to breathe so loud, I'm sure I can not fall asleep.

And are not we anyway quit anyway? Sure, nice that you're there, but I'm here too. And while you do regulate a lot of things, but I do, and the part of the life you've dedicated to me, I'll dedicate it to you the other way around, so it all comes down to the same thing in the end, more or less, so why be grateful when, once you've teamed up, it's all taken for granted?

Since the 1970s, there have been studies that prove that gratitude inspires people to connect with others: when someone has helped you, you are grateful and motivated to seek out that person. Only for three or four years, researchers have been investigating the importance of gratitude for maintaining existing relationships, especially love relationships. Psychologist Amie M. Gordon of the University of California at Berkeley is a pioneer of gratitude research. Together with her colleagues, she discovered the so-called "cycle of appreciation," which is pretty much the opposite of a vicious cycle.

This cycle describes the close connection between recognition and gratitude. When one partner expresses his gratitude to the other for something he has done or said, or simply for being there, the other one feels acknowledged and measurably increases his willingness to express and express gratitude.

In the next step, the partner, who has received gratitude and recognition, for his part, expresses his gratefulness, whereupon the first partner in turn feels recognized and encouraged to express gratitude and appreciation ... and so on and so forth. The effect is called Amie Gordon and her colleagues "Relationship Maintenance", preserving the relationship so. Sounds a little over-cooled, but it's about nothing else: If we did not want to get the relationship, we would be gone. And the fascinating thing about the "cycle of appreciation": It shows that those who long for recognition in the partnership will receive it as soon as they distribute their recognition.

However, most conflicts in the partnership are known to be agonizing because they seem hopeless, and distributing recognition or getting is the last thing one thinks when the other one has not put out the tax records, has falsely performed or forgotten at the family party that there was this easy plan to finally do something again tonight. "It's always the same with you, I can not take it anymore, why do you always have to ...?": In such moments, gratitude is the last thing you think, you slip out at most as a cruel parody, with a bitter ironic "Thank you for leaving me, really great of you".

But perhaps the thought of the "circle of appreciation" is comforting even in such situations, because it shows that it is easier to change something than it seems. Partners who express their gratitude to each other are happier and closer to each other, and over the period of Gordon's studies, their relationships are seen to last longer.

Of course, it's not about mumbling in moments of anger and despair, "I'm grateful to you, I'm grateful to you" to mumble to somehow come down again. It's about gratitude in moments when we have room in our hearts, but just do not think about letting it into our lives. "When we look at the role of gratitude in relationships, it's not just how many times people say thank you when their partner has brought down the trash," says psychologist Amie Gordon.

"My definition of gratitude means not only appreciating what the partner does, but who he or she is as a human being, not just being thankful because the partner has brought out the trash - one is grateful to have a partner Gratitude is to be aware of all the good things the partner has and to remember why you've made a relationship with him or her at all. "

If that succeeds, the situations will become less, in which everything seems hopeless and in which one annoys oneself about the same thing. Because you yourself get more recognition and because you create a different ranking of sensations. Okay, it's still annoying that you did not put out the steering wheel, but it's not relationship-threatening, destructive of existence, explosive: when I think about it in peace, I'm grateful that we came across each other 14 years ago and that we were smart and passionate enough to build together a world and a life in which we are taxed together. This may ultimately lead to annoying paperwork and rummaging in drawers, but even those are the signs of something great that, to be honest, I feel gratitude for.

"Gratitude helps people to re-perceive what they have instead of what they lack."

Grateful, that sounds so unpleasantly humble, passive and holy, but in fact, gratefulness is, paradoxically, less a feeling and more reason for a decision, a fairly decisive action that is good for the one who is grateful. This is simply summarized in a report from Harvard University's "Mental Health Letter": "Gratitude helps people to re-perceive what they have instead of what they lack, and though it may seem strange, this attitude of mind becomes stronger, the more you use and practice it. " Studies show that people who feel and express gratitude are healthier and happier.

But if we want to practice gratitude in the partnership, we first have to recognize the good in a first step. This is stated by the marriage counselor and author Hans Jellouschek in his book "Mindfulness in Partnership". Many couples would have to learn again, "consciously direct their perception to the positive" and then communicate this. He is concerned that we perceive the "whole" reality of our relationship; So not only the signs of wear and the symptoms of the crisis on the dark side of the spectrum, but also the bright side positive.

The therapist recommends very small steps for this: "A first exercise in the perception of the 'whole' reality of our relationship is that for some time we try to be aware of what we have noticed positively during the day at the partner. " And because otherwise we easily forget or overlook it, we should enter it in a small booklet. The examples he cites are strangely touching, because behind their seeming banality lies the forgotten magic of a relationship that one has to see again in order to be grateful: "The partner's clever or loving behavior towards others for example, the children, relatives, acquaintances, the appearance of the partner, clothing, hairstyle, appearance, his punctuality when we have an appointment, his eagerness to repair the faucet or his skill and good taste in finding the right furniture for the new one rooms to be set up ... "

And when the other one says, "I was glad when you came half an hour earlier and suddenly you were there, thank you for cooking for us, I am dying of hunger, how good that you came with me "and if all this means," Nice that you love me "- then all we have to do is accept the thanks. Perceiving is the first thing, communicating the second, but accepting the third, and perhaps the deciding one in the end: for a thank that is overheard and spurned remains worthless, and whoever can not accept gratitude will also have great difficulty in pronouncing one.

The most important exercise of gratitude is therefore perhaps not even to feel and express it, but to be able to accept thanks, praise and recognition for the first time. Having the confidence and the strength to say to yourself: I deserve this thanks. Sounds a bit arrogant, but that's what the inner voice says, in a sympathetically modest tone. And right after that she adds, the inner voice: Thanks for the thanks.And voila, the cycle of recognition.

The sociologist Georg Simmel has called gratitude "the moral memory of humanity" - because without gratitude for what others have achieved and accomplished before us, further human progress would not be possible, we would only waste and destroy everything (which perhaps suggests that we are not grateful enough in this regard, but that's another topic). Perhaps we should also be grateful when it comes to the person with whom we share life: as a moral memory of our relationship, as a tribute to the common history and the lifetime spent together, without which a common future would be impossible or meaningless. Because we only waste and destroy everything without gratitude.