Link Romantic Feelings to the Sight of Your Face

Anchoring is an NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) term used to describe the mind’s tendency to associate two unrelated events or experiences, especially when strong emotion is present.

For example, if your mother gave you chicken soup when you were sick as a child, you will always associate chicken soup with being loved and cared for.

On the downside, if you once contracted food poisoning from eating contaminated pickles, just the smell of the pickles will be enough to trigger a feeling of nausea many years after the event.

How does anchoring work in relationships?

If you come home from work euphoric about a promotion and see your lover’s face, you will link that feeling of euphoria to the sight of his face. In the same way, if you hate your job and constantly talk about those feelings over dinner with your spouse, you will unconsciously begin to associate the bad feelings with him or her.

In that case, you should make a conscious effort to share more of the good times with them so that they more easily associate positive feelings with the sight of their face.

Sharing good times creates positive anchors or associations. It helps you cope with the less positive moments that each couple experiences at some point in their relationship.

Breakup is often the result of attaching too many negative anchors to the sight of your partner’s face, without knowing how to counter them by deliberately creating positive anchors.

Here is a common example. A young doctor whose wife works to help him through medical school may decide to divorce her after graduation. This is because he associates the sight of her face with the difficult times they lived through during those years. Of course, all this is unconscious; all he knows is that he feels bad every time he looks at her. He mistakenly takes this as a sign that the relationship isn’t working.

Now that you know how anchoring works, use it intentionally to improve your relationship.

1. Plan positive events together and make sure not to let any negativity intrude on the event. Save arguments or disagreements for later.

2. During the height of an intensely positive moment you are sharing,

(a) touch your loved one gently on the knee or arm,

(b) shake the person’s hand, or

The next time you repeat the same gesture with this person in some other context, it will reawaken some of those original emotions in them.

Similarly, if you touch someone in a specific way when they are feeling sad, such as squeezing their shoulder or putting your arm around their shoulders at a funeral, touching them later in the same way will trigger those feelings of sadness. So be careful what kind of emotions you are associating with your touch, words, or face.

How does this apply to gifts?

A gift is by nature an anchor. Every time the recipient looks at the gift, she will remember the occasion when she received it, especially if he experienced strong emotions at the time.

So you can help ensure that your gift is a strong and continuing anchor by making sure to create a truly memorable experience, such as an extremely romantic evening, when you present the gift.

A woman will always remember to follow a trail of rose petals through her lover’s apartment to find the necklace she bought for her birthday.

A man will always remember being gifted his own personal star by a lover dressed only in a star print bra and thong.

It is also important to consider the opposite effect.

Never give a gift as an apology. You don’t want to create negative anchors by giving gifts after an argument.

If you give your wife a diamond ring to apologize for catching you cheating on your secretary, the ring will always remind her of your infidelity.

If you give your husband a new watch to apologize for crashing his BMW, he’ll be reminded of your transgression every time he looks at the time.

Even if those memories don’t make it to consciousness, they lurk just below the surface. It makes more sense to allow them to fade, rather than attach them to physical objects as gifts.

Keep things simple. A genuine apology is all that is required after an argument. Save gifts for positive occasions.