Exhausted Possibilites
I’ve just celebrated my 10th anniversary and sometimes find it hard to come to terms with the fact that relationships evolve over time. I sometimes wish for that newlywed stage, the passion and excitement that we shared for the first couple of years of our relationship. I’ve wondered if there is some way to get those feelings back. So, I started asking myself what I could be doing differently, really going deep and I found that taking 100% responsibility for the relationship was the way to recreate those loving feelings. In fact, that along with the three things anyone can do (and I did) can keep the love alive in their relationship and none are complicated.
“When people who been together a long time say that the romance is gone, what they’re really saying is they’ve exhausted the possibility.” Darius Lovehall
First, it helps to realize that long-term relationships inevitably change and evolve over time.
Relationships generally move from passion to a more mature, committed love. After 10 years in a relationship, I can attest that very few sparks fly about, but all hope isn’t lost. You can reignite the passion by taking 100% responsibility and doing something new together.
New experiences flood your brain with dopamine and norepinephrine. These chemicals stimulate the same reward center of your brain as falling in love. The key is doing something new together, whether that is learning how to hit a baseball, renting a scooter and touring the city, or traveling to a foreign country (our personal favorite). This is much more likely to bring excitement to a mature relationship than going out for a nice dinner or taking a walk together. I do enjoy doing the simple things with my wife, but we haven’t done something new together for some time now. We did start trying her working out with me, but it isn’t her thing. So we’ll need to come up with something that both of us enjoy.
Second, the more sex you have with your partner, the happier you’ll feel about the relationship.
The good news is that people in committed relationships do have more sex than singles. The typical married couple has sex about 51 times a year, with very happy couples having sex about 74 times a year, yeah, that’s once to twice a week. However, frequency declines with age, dropping to 20 times a year by age 65. Given that sex helps bring you closer together, you can improve your relationships simply by having more sex. Counter-intuitively, this works even if you don’t feel like having sex. Most people discover that once you get started, the body kicks in and hormones fire up. You’re then likely to realize that you like and want sex more than you thought.
When my clients, both men and women were asked to write down the five things they most wanted during sex, they listed:
5 Things Men Want Most:
Be more seductive
Initiate sex more often
Be more experimental
Be wilder and sexier
Give more instructions
5 Things Women Want Most:
Talk more lovingly (not just in the bedroom, but during the day)
Be more seductive
Be more experimental
Give more instructions
Be warmer and more involved
It appears that we aren’t so very different after all.
Both men and women want more experimentation, more instructions and more seduction. Note to self: I must talk to the wife about those flannel pjs.
Of course, I recommend that you do this exercise with your partner and see what your own unique answers are.
I have told my wife that I feel more attracted to her if she is in a cheerful mood, that when she smiles…. Umm!!! Most women say they are more inclined to have sex if they get compliments, love and support. What happens outside the bedroom matters more to women than men.
No joke. Often, working mothers feel so burdened by tasks that they don’t feel they have the energy or inclination for sex, especially if they have started to resent their partner for not taking on a fair share of the chores.
Working mothers handle the majority of household responsibilities even when both work full time. Something has to give, and usually sex is the first to go. The burden isn’t just physical. Women also carry the mental load of remembering who has sports, dance, piano etc…. and when the plumber is coming to to fix the toilet. I call this invisible work and it isn’t just the mental list, it is also the actual work women do that men often simply don’t see.
But now you ask, doesn’t it take two to tango? How can I change the relationship on my own?
The good news is it all starts with this game changer:
Only one person has to initiate change to proactively change the entire relationship. You, being the motivated and curious person reading this blog, Yes YOU, being ready to take 100% responsibility get to be the game changer.
Here’s the best relationship advice I can give you now: pick one of these three possible things and become the game changer in your own relationship.
Perhaps you’ll decide to have sex one more time a week than your usual, even if you don’t particularly feel like it because you know that it will bring you closer together (besides, it’s good for your skin). Or maybe you’d like to spark things up by doing something new together. Whatever sounds easiest and most appealing, that is the thing to do first.