Tips on Spending Quality Time With Your Partner

Shared quality time is essential if a relationship is to remain solid and satisfactory. Here are some tips to help you implement it in your relationship.

Written and verified by the psychologist Elena Sanz.

Last update: 29 August, 2023

If you want your relationship to prosper, you must cultivate it and take care of it on a daily basis. You must make your partner feel recognized, cared for, and loved. You can achieve these goals in different ways, but spending time together is one of the most important. We’re going to give you some tips for dedicating quality time to your partner.

Although spending time together may seem like a simple task, it’s often something you may not always attend to properly. In fact, according to a study published in the Journal of Family Psychology, the amount of time couples spend together is one of the main aspects that they tend to want to change in their relationships. This includes areas such as spending time together, paying each other attention, and generating interesting conversations.

But, what other ways are there of achieving this goal? And, why’s it so important? We’re going to explore.

Why dedicate quality time to your partner?

When you establish a romantic bond, the desire to be with your partner and cultivate emotional closeness are natural impulses. In fact, following Sternberg’s (1986) triangular theory of love, shared time is directly linked to two of its main components: passion and intimacy.

Quality time combines simple physical closeness and mutual company alongside deeper aspects such as self-disclosure (sharing important information about ourselves) and increasing confidence.

This element is linked with well-being in a relationship. According to a study published in Contemporary Family Therapy, couples who spend more time together talking and sharing activities report greater satisfaction and perceive more positive qualities in their relationships. Moreover, they experience greater closeness with their romantic partners.

Therefore, spending time together is a positive and necessary process in all relationships. However, it’s especially relevant for those in which one or both members use quality time as their main love language. These are people who express their affection and feel loved by sharing moments, space, and experiences with their partners.

Keys to spending quality time with your partner

Are you wondering where to start? Gary Chapman, in his book The 5 Love Languages, offers some keys that’ll help you dedicate quality time to your partner. He identifies quality time as one of the five languages of love.

1. Give them your full attention

Quality time doesn’t just mean sharing a space with your partner. You mustn’t make the mistake of assuming that those who express themselves with this particular love language want you to dedicate all your time to them or that they’ll feel satisfied so long as you spend a certain amount of time together. In fact, what they really want is connection and quality.

This means paying full attention to them during your moments together, getting fully involved with all of your five senses, and, ultimately, giving them your strength.

To achieve this, turn off the TV and put your cell phone to one side when you’re with them, establish eye contact, listen to them, and engage in the moment together. Don’t let your attention wander by thinking of other things.

2. Do activities together

It’s a good idea to do activities together that you know they like and want to share with you. For example, join in with one of their hobbies, attend that concert or recital they love, or take a nature walk together.

Also, invite them to share your hobbies and interests. In this case, you express your love not so much in the activity but in the purpose with which you carry it out: to share significant moments and create lasting memories.

3. Learn to listen to them

If your partner uses quality time as their love language, they feel loved when you know how to listen to them. Remember, listening isn’t the same as hearing. Listening means you must commit yourself to listen to what they’re telling you without being distracted by your own interests. So, show genuine interest in knowing more, ask them relevant questions, and try to understand how they feel.

Remember that they’re not necessarily looking for your advice or opinion, but they need to know that you’re there for them, so they can express what’s happening to them and how they feel, and that the relationship is a safe place to do so. Above all, they seek understanding and validation.

4. Practice self-disclosure

It’s equally important to know how to communicate and express yourself. Your time becomes quality time when you use it to generate emotional closeness and involve your partner in your internal world. Your partner wants to know how you feel, how your day’s been, what’s worrying you, and what you expect from the relationship.

When you choose to share these intimate feelings, you create a connection and make your partner feel loved and involved with you. However, you may not find this exercise easy if you’re not in contact with your emotions. But, with practice, it’ll eventually become a habit.

5. Have initiative

Finally, you should know that if your partner uses quality time as their language of love, they’ll really positively value the fact that you possess initiative when it comes to sharing your time together. You don’t limit yourself to accepting their proposals but also offer alternatives, suggestions, and plans.

By doing this, you not only escape your routine but can also show your partner that you value and want quality time together and that you’re committed to looking for it or building it.

Start spending quality time with your partner

Spending time with your partner can be complicated, at times, because you also have personal, work, and family obligations. In fact, as an article published in Review of Economics of the Household suggests, it’s particularly difficult for couples with children to synchronize their schedules and find spaces together.

Yet, shared time is essential for union and cohesion, and even acts as a protective factor against the effects of external stress (Milek, 2015). Therefore, if you feel that you don’t have enough quality experiences with your partner, don’t hesitate to communicate this need to them.

If you express yourself in an assertive way, it’ll be easier for both of you to get involved in any changes and improve your levels of individual and couple satisfaction.