It is up to us to water the grass within our relationship. Here are several suggestions:
- Giving to our beloved in his or her Love Language (Quality Time, Touch, Acts of Service, Gifts, Words of Affirmation). If you don't know what each of your Love Languages are go to: http://www.5lovelanguages.com/ to take the quiz. You can either give them your email or not.
- Getting off our devices by 8 or 9 PM (or earlier) to spend time together.
- Making eye contact each day while we talk about our day, what we've been thinking about, what we might need or want from one another.
- Going to bed together at least three nights a week.
- Doing some chores together.
- Appreciating and sharing gratitude about one another every day.
- Holding hands, hugging, kissing, making love, having wild sex.
- Bringing coffee in bed, making time for each other to exercise.
- Giving a small, medium or large gift.
- Having friends that nurture you and are part of your emotional support (but don't become your primary emotional support).
Sometimes a new person causes us to think the grass is greener outside of our marriage. And maybe it is. Often it is not.
New people cause chemicals in our brain to engage and see him or her with rose-colored glasses, and truly we are not able to make a good judgment call. If you are in an abusive relationship, that's another, different category than what I'm talking about here.
Most marriage issues can be worked through with an excellent marriage counselor. Even when you have little hope. Keep in mind that Individual counseling leads to divorce much more often than couples counseling unless the individual clearly states that he or she wants to work on the marriage, and the counseling is focused on that.
So water your relationship freely: Don't worry about the drought; this is water you have to use at will. Please practice the suggestions above for a month and see how your relationship is at that point. Let me know.
