Couples

Make A List Of Five Things You Want Your Partner To Do If You Die

By  | 

This article is especially relevant for couples nearing the end of their lifespans, where one partner will leave the other behind to try to move forward without the anchor that has offered support for so many years. But it’s a good exercise for anybody, a chance to strengthen your relationship by putting ephemeral hopes and dreams for someone you love into words. If you do die, the list will act as a powerful antidote against the hopelessness and lack of direction that will surely grip your partner while in the throes of grief.

Actually one of the biggest reasons that elderly people tend to pass away pretty quickly after losing their partners is precisely because they no longer feel like their lives have any meaning, they have no purpose to guide them, no reason to keep struggling through life. Making a list of five things you want your partner to do if you die can instill that sense of purpose, making it so that you really are walking next to this person in the journey through grief and towards carving out a happy life without you.

You might find that sharing your list with your partner helps you guys right now too. Taking the time to clearly formulate your hopes and dreams for the person you love will probably give that person some important things to consider, make you feel closer to each other, and maybe even spur you both to activate right now to try to reach those goals while you are both still alive. Here is a sample list:

1. I want you to reach the heights of your yoga practice that I know you are capable of.
2. I want you to train a therapy dog.
3. I want you to pursue a career that is meaningful to you.
4. I want you to travel around the world.
5. I want you to find a partner who is kind, loving, and fun.

Related posts:

  1. What To Do If Your Romantic Relationship Is On The Rocks If you’ve been struggling to get along with your partner and feel like your romantic relationship is on the rocks there’s a good chance you’ve been giving your negative thoughts and emotions free rein. You say and do destructive things, rationalizing your actions on the grounds that you’re only being honest, that it would be […]...
  2. Take Care Of Your Relationship Think of the objects in your life that you are most careful around, the things towards which you are purposefully gentle, almost reverent. Whatever they are, you need to think of your romantic relationship as first place on the list, treating it even more carefully than you treat those objects. Actually it’s utter insanity that […]...
  3. Fear Of Being Alone “But learn one thing, impress it upon your mind which is still so malleable: man has a horror for aloneness. And of all kinds of aloneness, moral aloneness is the most terrible. The first hermits lived with God, they inhabited the world which is most populated, the world of the spirits. The first thought of […]...
  4. Flower How is it possible that many of us become more concerned with offending the checkout guy, the bank teller, or some acquaintance than we are about offending our partners? We grow complacent and start taking the people we care most about for granted, as no longer in need of much cultivation or care. Many erroneously […]...
  5. Wanting Out Of A Relationship How many people all over the world are still in relationships they desperately want out of due to not wanting to hurt the feelings of their partners? So many, and what a bad reason to stay. On the surface it almost seems noble, a form of self-sacrifice, putting the needs of someone else before your […]...
  6. Vulnerability Most of us have become aware of the many unfair competing cultural demands that women face but men don’t always have it easy either. One of the most perplexing and anxiety provoking areas in romantic relationships is the expectation that you be strong and vulnerable at the same time. Most women will agree it’s a […]...
  7. How To Improve Your Romantic Relationship When people are feeling good about their partners sayings and doing relationship-affirming things comes naturally and effortlessly to them. But when they’re feeling bad about their partners these relationship-affirming behaviors disappear, to be replaced by relationship-eroding words and actions. The paradox is that the relationship doesn’t really need relationship-affirming words and actions when things are […]...
  8. Couples Teaming Up Against Conflict Probably the most useful concept from narrative therapy is the idea of separating the problem from the person, in effect saying “You are not the problem. The problem is the problem.” Weight is instantly lifted from your shoulders and you feel lighter, that there is a way out of the mess you are in. Instead […]...
  9. Jealousy in Romantic Relationships Jealousy is a problem in romantic relationships mainly because of what it implies, which is that your partner is an object to be possessed and controlled. Really the whole reason for jealousy is that you’re worried you are going to lose your loved one, which means you think you have this person right now. You […]...
  10. Tell Your Partner What You Want It sounds so obvious, to just be honest in your relationship and tell your partner what you want, to say what your needs are, but a lot of people find it hard to do. They keep this information to themselves, and then resentment and hostility start to bubble up. Your partner can’t read your mind, […]...
  11. Seeing Flaws Or Seeing Potential In Your Partner Many people go into a relationship with the underlying goal of changing their partner. They view this person as a project. The plan is to eradicate all of the flaws and problem areas in order to create the ideal specimen. Obviously there’s a lot wrong with this situation. For one thing, flaws and problem areas […]...
  12. What To Do If You Feel Like Your Partner Doesn’t Get You Many people silently stew over the feeling that their partners don’t get them, at least not fully, and they yearn for a relationship where they could be recognized and celebrated in their uniqueness and complexity. While in and of itself the desire to be known is not pathological, the underlying psychological forces often are, the […]...
  13. Make A Gratitude List To Combat Depression If you’ve been struggling with depression some symptoms you’ve probably experienced include low self-worth, negativity about your life situation, and hopelessness about your future. These symptoms occur together so often that Beck and his colleagues termed them the cognitive triad of depression. The thing to realize is that your beliefs about yourself, the world, and […]...
  14. How Not To Communicate With Your Partner We had the chance to observe a bickering couple over the course of a few hours due to our close proximity in a public square, and though these encounters were only snapshots and can’t tell us whether they were just having a bad day, the way they interacted with one another is instructive for improving […]...
  15. Reassuring Your Partner When you feel like saying and doing things to reassure your partner the current health of your relationship probably doesn’t particularly depend on these things and when you don’t feel like saying and doing things to reassure your partner the current health of your relationship probably does depend on them. That’s the paradox. The times […]...
  16. What To Do If Your Partner Has Become Your Adversary In the early stages of a romantic relationship people tend to believe they’ve found the partner of their dreams, the solution to all their problems, the sought after entity that will finally fulfill all their wants and needs. But before long fantasy makes way for reality. Conflict starts to rear its ugly head. The magic […]...
  17. Do Not Punish Your Partner By punishing your partner we mean enacting all those conscious and sometimes unconscious changes in typical patterns of behavior that cause your significant other psychological, emotional, or physical distress. Depending on the couple, a punishment may seem rather small objectively speaking, like a short word or talking less than normal but the essential psychological factor […]...
  18. You Do Not Have To Tell Your Partner Everything You Are Thinking And Feeling There is a pretty common sentiment out there in romantic relationships that it would somehow be dishonest or inauthentic to hold back certain thoughts or emotions. Even when these thoughts or emotions are destructive to the relationship, damaging its foundations, disintegrating trust and intimacy, some people feel like it’s their obligation to communicate the information. […]...
  19. Projecting Discomfort Onto Your Partner I watched an uncomfortable scene unfold at a coffee shop that will serve as a good example for a type of abuse that occurs in romantic relationships. It’s not always immediately apparent but still does a lot of damage to the foundations. To set the scene, a guy explained that he had been going to […]...
  20. Help Your Partner Feel Secure In The Relationship What happens with so many distressed couples is that partners start to experience a lot of doubt about the long-term prospects of the relationship and they feel compelled to voice this doubt. They rationalize their behavior on the grounds that they’re just trying to be honest about how they’re feeling. But look, feelings come and […]...
Related Items