Over the years, we’ve seen hundreds of marriages suffering and falling apart due to busy schedules, children and just plain old familiarity. (If familiarity doesn’t breed contempt, we can tell you that it definitely breeds a stagnant relationship.)
But that doesn’t mean the spark in your in your marriage is dead! What it means is that you’re going to have to work on relighting your fire and jumpstarting your marriage engine.
We believe that it is possible to get that love back in your marriage and fall in love with each other all over again. And here are five ideas to help you do it.
1) Be attentive to each other
It’s easy to get into the habit of ignoring your partner and taking them for granted. But one of the best things you can do to help reignite the love in a marriage is to start being attentive to each other.
This doesn’t mean making a special effort to go out to dinner, or even to start cooking dinner and cleaning the house every night. It simply means talking (and really listening) to each other.
2) Flirt with each other
If you’re married or in a long-term relationship with someone, you don’t need to flirt with them anymore, do you? Wrong! Flirting is as much an important part of a marriage in as it was when you first met. Maybe even more.
A little mutual flirtation can go a long way toward improving your marriage – replacing grumpy resentment and the day-to-day grind of family life with playfulness and lightness.
There are a lot of different ways to flirt with your partner, so take your pick! You can leave notes for each other to find, make an effort to look attractive for each other, share secret in-jokes, or just plainly let your partner know how attractive you still find them.
3) Have more sex
Often, as the love dies in a marriage, so does your sex life. After all, you need to at least like someone to want to have sex with them, and if you spend most of your day resenting your partner, you’re not going to be itching to jump into bed with them!
But sex is a vital means of connection between couples. In fact, especially if you have children, it’s one of the few things that’s just ‘yours’. And when the sex dies away, so can much of the intimacy in your relationship.
So it’s important that you have more sex, not less if your marriage is struggling. And don’t just wait until you’re in the mood for it (you may have to wait a while!). Even if you have to plan it around picking up the kids from football practice and early morning meetings, make an effort to start making that time for each other.
4) Plan dates
When you first met your partner, the chances are you used to go out on dates – doing lovely things just with each other and enjoying being together. But with all of your responsibilities as a couple – especially if you have children – it can be a little hard to get out on the town for a night of fun.
But as difficult as it may be to find time together, it’s important for the health of your relationship. So if you can, try to plan a date with each other once a week or fortnight, even if you need to be creative about what a ‘date’ means!
If you can’t go out, plan a candlelit dinner. Can’t manage even that? Try some wine and cheese and a good movie once the kids are asleep.
5) Surprise each other
Everybody likes a nice surprise. But when you’re in a long-term relationship, it can be easy to forget about doing the small surprising things you once did for each other.
You know, like remembering their favourite author and buying them a book. Or buying an impromptu bunch of flowers or piece of jewellery, just because. Little, thoughtful gestures that show you care, that you pay attention to each other, and think of each other when you’re apart.
You don’t even need to buy things for each other. You can cook their favourite meal, wear the outfit they love you in or record a movie you think they’ll like. Just something that tells them they’re special to you and on your mind.
Remember, you once fell in love with each other, so there must have been some compatible common ground and mutual respect. And maybe, by taking some of the actions in this article, you can rediscover each other, and not just put the spark back into your relationship, but herald a new, happier era for you both.
Also read:
“I don’t even think i have a time for relationship”- Ali Baba’s son
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