I am sure you have heard the quote, “Falling in love is easy, staying in love requires work.”
For those you of who have been married for a number of years, I am sure you can relate to this way of thinking. The romance and the excitement of a new courtship is something that is hard to replace, to be sure. And once careers, children, busy schedules and other demands are added to the mix, marriage can become routine and feel rather … well, dull.
Researchers have been studying happy marriages for years, asking the same questions again and again. How do you stay in love? How do you feel satisfied and complete in your marriage? How do you continue to feel drawn to your spouse the way you did when you first met?
While love changes over the years and continues to grow and mature, it should not diminish. In fact, many agree that love is like a good wine; time just adds to the richness and complexities of the emotion. The trust you feel for your spouse deepens and your life becomes so entwined with theirs that a time before you were together seems hard to imagine.
But, what if you don’t feel that way? Suppose you have been married several years and you feel that your love has dried up? Statistics indicate that you are not alone! The increasing divorce rate alone is enough evidence to indicate that this feeling is a common problem. But, being willing to do the work and to encourage that love to grow once again is worth all the effort and sacrifice.
The author of an article in Thriving Family magazine, poses these 2 questions: “What if working hard, instead of giving up, is the key to passionate, long-lasting, true love? What if a real relationship starts when we get real about staying in love?”
What are your thoughts? I happen to agree with the author that with some hard work and commitment, love can grow and things can be even better than they were before. Here are some tips.
- Make love a verb. So many of us view love as an event. An occurrence that happened. A state of being. But love truly is an action word.
- Put your spouse first. Sometimes we do things not because we particularly care about it, but more because we know the person we care about is interested in that particular thing. That doesn’t mean you have to give up all of your hobbies and adopt the hobbies of your spouse. What it does mean is that there is value in devoting time to something for nothing other than the simple reason of making your spouse happy.
- Pay attention to your heart. There is power in identifying your feelings and the source of those feelings before lashing out at your spouse. I feel angry. I feel jealous. I feel scared. Come to terms with those feelings and deal with that emotion before acting negatively toward your spouse.
- Fill the gaps. Often there is a difference between what is expected and what actually happens. The author of this article gives some great advice: “When that happens, we have two choices: We can believe the best, trusting that there is a reasonable explanation for our spouse’s behavior. Or we can assume the worst, reading disrespect, hurt and a thousand other things into those situations.” In short, it is good practice to give your spouse the benefit of the doubt.