Now that we know what relationships that restrict us look like and how to recognise them in time, it is worth turning our gaze towards what actively builds a solid relationship. Not in any grand sense, not through large gestures and solemn declarations, but through something far more discreet and, precisely because of that, far more powerful: everyday appreciation.

Appreciation is one of those things we understand better through its absence than through its presence. When it's missing, you feel it. A diffuse sense that you exist in the background, that your efforts are invisible, that your presence is taken for granted. When it is present, it is hard to articulate exactly what changes, but something does. You feel seen. And feeling seen by someone you care about is, in my view, one of the deepest human needs we carry into relationships.

Why appreciation is not the same as a compliment

The first distinction I want to make is between appreciation and a compliment, because we confuse them often and they are not the same thing.

A compliment is a positive observation about something someone has or does: "You look well today." "That was a good meal." It is pleasant, it has its value, but it passes quickly. Appreciation is something deeper. It is directed not at what someone does, but at who they are. Not at the performance, but at the presence. Not at the result, but at the intention and effort behind it.

Psychologist Martin Seligman, one of the founders of positive psychology, makes a similar distinction between recognising achievements and appreciating the person themselves. Recognition is conditional on performance. Appreciation is not. This difference, within a relationship, produces completely different effects. Recognition says "you are valuable for what you do." Appreciation says "you are valuable for who you are."

The neurobiology of appreciation

There is a real biological basis behind the effects appreciation produces. When we are genuinely appreciated, the brain releases oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin, a neurochemical combination that produces not only immediate pleasure but also a consolidation of the social connection with the person who offered that appreciation.

Research by John Gottman, whom I have mentioned before, identified what he called the "magic ratio" in couple relationships: for every negative interaction in a relationship, at least five positive interactions are needed for the emotional balance to remain stable. Appreciation is one of the most effective forms of positive interaction, precisely because it is personal, precise and directed at something real in the other person.

But the effect is not one-directional. The person who appreciates also benefits. The deliberate practice of appreciation, meaning the training of noticing and naming what is good in the other person, recalibrates your own attention. The human brain has a natural inclination towards the negative, an evolutionary tendency to give more weight to threats and problems than to things going well. Active appreciation counteracts this bias and literally changes the way you perceive the relationship as a whole.

Appreciation that lands and appreciation that doesn't

Not every form of appreciation has the same impact, and I think this is important to understand, because many people do appreciate, but do so in a way that doesn't reach the other person.

Gary Chapman described in his work on love languages the idea that people have different ways of receiving affection and appreciation. What for you is a clear expression of appreciation, for example saying verbally "I appreciate what you did", may not resonate with a partner whose primary language is quality time or physical gestures of affection. It doesn't mean you didn't appreciate them. It means the message arrived in a language the other person doesn't read as fluently.

Effective appreciation therefore requires knowledge. Not knowledge from books, but knowledge of that particular person, of how they best receive, of what touches them and what slides past them. And that comes from attention, from presence, from genuine curiosity about the other person, things we have explored in previous articles on this blog.

Appreciation in long-term relationships: what disappears and why

One of the most painful phenomena in long-term relationships is the gradual disappearance of appreciation. Not because people stop loving or valuing each other, but because appreciation is replaced, almost without our noticing, by expectation.

At the beginning of a relationship, everything is new and visible. You notice, you are grateful, you express it. As the relationship deepens and things become routine, you enter the dangerous territory of the normal. Your partner cooks every evening. Your partner fixes everything that breaks around the house. The other person is there, consistent, reliable. And it is precisely that consistency, which ought to be a source of appreciation, that becomes invisible. Their presence is taken for granted.

The problem is not that people become less grateful. The problem is that gratitude remains internal and unexpressed. And unexpressed, it does not nourish the relationship.

I have noticed that in couples who function well over the long term there is a practice, sometimes conscious and sometimes purely instinctive, of naming things. Not in a forced or ceremonious way, but naturally, in passing. "I'm glad it's you." "I liked how you handled that." "I don't know if I've said this, but I appreciate how consistent you are." Small things, said at the right moment, that cost nothing and have an effect disproportionate to their size.

Self-appreciation: the foundation of all appreciation

I want to add a dimension I consider essential and which is rarely discussed in the context of appreciation in relationships: you cannot genuinely offer what you don't have within yourself.

If you don't have a basic relationship with your own value, if self-appreciation is chronically absent or conditional on performance, the appreciation you offer the other person will often be distorted. Either excessive and compensatory, or rare and awkward, or calculated as a form of currency.

Genuine appreciation for another person comes from abundance, not from deficit. It comes from a place where you are sufficiently at peace with yourself to be able to notice and celebrate someone outside yourself, without needing that celebration to return to you immediately.

This doesn't mean you need to be perfect or that appreciation should be one-sided. It means that the health of your relationship with yourself is directly reflected in the quality of appreciation you offer those around you.

Appreciation as a practice, not a feeling

One of the things I have understood over time is that appreciation is not a feeling that either arises or doesn't. It is a practice. You can choose to cultivate it deliberately, in the same way you cultivate any other habit.

This might mean a daily moment in which you ask yourself: what did someone do for me today, visibly or invisibly, that I didn't mention? It might mean sending a short message to someone you haven't thought about in a while. It might mean saying aloud, to a partner or a friend, something you usually only think in silence.

Relationships are not consolidated through grand moments. They are consolidated through the constancy of small things. And appreciation is, perhaps, the simplest and the most neglected of them all.

When was the last time you told someone, out loud and for no particular reason, that you appreciate them? And what has been stopping you from doing it more often?