Just about everyone who has been in a long-term relationship has witnessed transitions between intimacy and aloofness, attachment, and separation. They are normal emotional states in any relationship and can be brought on through many different factors, including stress, boredom, or trust issues.
How Do You Know When You’ve Lost the Spark in Your Relationship?
If any of the following feel familiar, it’s possible your long-term relationship or marriage has lost some of its sparkle.
- There’s no physical touching, or very little
- You don’t go out as a couple anymore
- You’ve stopped making an effort or you take your partner for granted
- You have lost interest in spending time together
Most often, intimacy and attachment will reassert themselves naturally. However, if they don’t, you can take steps to fix the spark in your marriage and rekindle the flame.
Do Something New Together
Long term relationships have a habit of falling into a routine that soon gets boring and dull. Both partners find themselves taking each other for granted, which is not an environment conducive to a passionate relationship.
If you are feeling like there is nothing new to look forward to, it’s time to mix it up by doing something different together.
A new activity could be as simple as finding a new TV show you can watch together, going camping, hiking, or spending a weekend away in a romantic B&B. If you are used to exercising apart, a team sport, squash, or tennis, or even dancing might be a fun way to keep fit together instead of exercising separately.
Touch More Often
One of the first things to go when the spark dims in a relationship is touching. Couples need to maintain a physical connection even during tough times. Touching while relaxing on the couch, hugging goodbye as you both head off to work, or holding hands while shopping will be enough to ensure you don’t lose the physical connection that is a critical part of maintaining the passion in a relationship.
Plan Your Erotic Encounters
There are a lot of reasons couples don’t get intimate as often as they did during the first years of the relationship. Children and work often receive most of the blame for a lackluster sex life, but this can work in your favour when you are trying to fan some heat back into your marriage.
The thrill of a new relationship meant you could barely keep your hands off one another and were always eager to get into the bedroom. But you still had to wait for an appropriate moment. It’s not like you could just leave work in the middle of the day to hook up with your girlfriend, no matter how much you wanted to, but being forced to wait made the encounters that much more exciting.
Plan to have sex more often, schedule it on your calendars if you have to. When life, kids, and work make it challenging to get some time together in the bedroom, the anticipation of the event will make the actual encounter that much more exciting and passionate.
Better Marriage is the best place to learn everything you need to know about saving your marriage. We will tell you how to keep your marriage alive and well. Read More about Save My Marriage At Better Marriage.
