Who says you can only fall in love once?
You can rethink the way you tell your own story.
First answer me this: What are the steps in a typical romance?
If you are like the majority out there, you will answer: you meet the love of your life, fall in love, get married, and live happily ever after.
Unless you are someone horrified by marriage.
In this case, you will laugh (secretly or openly) at the idiots who believe in this married fantasy and live-happily-ever-after nonsense. You give a newly married couple a few years of happiness, tops before she starts criticizing, he starts feeling caged in, and they both feel unappreciated and unhappy.
What if it isn’t about the first falling in love story? What if it is about falling in love, over and over again with some ugly moments in between?
Just to be crystal clear, I’m not talking about some ugly co-dependent and abusive relationship in which one person hurts another, is forgiven, and the entire death plunge of the soul happens all over again, and again.
I’m talking about the reality of the daily grind, the little and big tragedies that are woven into the fabric of living, and the challenge of loving, and being loved, when you’re at your absolute worst.
Unless you have some superhuman juice, you probably aren’t that lovely if you’ve just lost your job, cried at your beloved Grandma’s funeral, or are suffering at the hands of an abusive boss, but need the paycheck. You most likely don’t see the point in helping out with the daily house cleaning or in organizing a romantic date.
It could be that your career is taking off and you are on cloud nine. Sure, you are putting in ten to twelve-hour days and have zero energy for anything or anyone, including the love of your life, but the rush of accomplishment is thrilling. Of course, your spouse will understand....... or will they?
You Don’t HAVE to be in LOVE all the TIME
Choosing to love someone does not mean you need to be in love with them for the rest of your life. It’s down right unreasonable.
Sometimes You’re Not Attractive
I don’t care how sexy you are, if you’ve spent the past two days with your head bent over a toilet puking, you aren’t going to look attractive. If you aren’t devoting any time or attention to someone, they aren’t going to feel loved, and as a result, have less of the I’m-in-love feeling for you. If your spouse is severely depressed and can’t get out of bed, it’s unrealistic to be flooded with positive emotions as you take on all the load of working and homemaking.
Other Times There’s Conflicting Agendas
What happens if your spouse receives an offer for the dream job in a different city, state, or country, you don’t want to move, and they aren’t willing to stay? Can you maintain your in-love feeling toward someone who places their professional goals ahead of your happiness?
What about if you would like to live a minimalistic lifestyle of frugality and your partner isn’t on the same page? You want to live a life of frugality so you can quit your job for a year and travel the world like you’ve always dreamed. He wants to keep his big house, beautiful home décor, and elaborate entertaining schedule like before. How likely are you to feel in love at this point?
Sometimes You’re Just Not Nice
You’ve had a nightmare of a day. Someone took credit for a week’s worth of your work today. You opened your car door into a cement post. You're coming down with the flu.
On a scale of one to ten, how kind and loving are you to your spouse when under pressure or not feeling good? Do you take your stress out on those you love the most?
Or do you retreat and hide away when under pressure and unhappy? Alternatively, do you work even harder to be ‘perfect’ when life hits you hard, and then feel underappreciated?
So Many Opportunities to Fall OUT
The opportunities to fall out of love are countless throughout a marriage. It could be a fight over one critical life choice, such as taking a job, or how your approach to money. Or it could be the slow wearing away of affection by the daily grind of life and each person’s weaknesses.
How to Fall BACK IN LOVE
With so many opportunities to fall out of love, you need to take action regularly to fall back in, over and over again. EXPECT that you won’t always adore your partner for life, but have faith that the emotion will come back to you by investing time, energy, and attention into your relationship. Here’s how:
Daily Habits to Fall Back In Love & Have a Blissful Marriage
1. Hug or kiss for at LEAST a full minute once a day, every day.
Affection is the foundation of a solid relationship. No, not sex. Affection. Do you know why? Regular affection releases endorphins. When you get a daily dose of endorphins from someone, you are more likely to feel a positive surge of affection when you see them again.
What’s more, women need affection that doesn’t lead to sex, to feel sexy.
This might not make sense to some men, but a hug, kiss, cuddle, massage, or holding hands makes most women feel loved. When women feel loved, they feel up to sexual advances a few hours later. Meanwhile, many men underestimate just how comforting regular affection by their wives can be and how critical for their well-being.
2. Say thank you at least once a day.
If you want to fall back in love, take a few minutes to write a text, make a call, or tell your spouse why you are thankful. With time and the habit of living together we can stop telling each other thank you. So express your gratitude for your wife’s hard-earned pay check, your husband’s daily homemaking work, and each other’s effort to care for children, family members, and the community.
3. Have We Met Before? Flirt.
Imagine you are meeting your spouse for the first time. What would draw you to him or her?
It could be the same cute smile, sexy walk, sense of humor, brilliant brains, or rebel attitude they had when they first met. But perhaps you see something new that wasn’t there years ago. Maybe it’s her newfound confidence or his new decisive attitude. It could be the passion your partner has for her work or the patience your wife exhibits with your children in the most trying situations.
Now you can move on to the most important step. Flirt with your spouse. You gave this up after you got married, right? Time to freshen up those flirting skills.
Compliment your spouse, tell them what you find so lovable, endearing, or impressive about who they are as a person. Keep it fresh by looking with new eyes at your partner each day. Sure, this can be a challenge, but it’s worth the effort.
4. Dress to Impress. Stay Sexy.
With time you may be tempted to take your partner for granted by not investing in your physical appearance. It doesn’t matter if you will spend the entire day at home. Dress and groom to look attractive to your partner every day.
This doesn’t need to take a great deal of time or require you to be uncomfortable. You can look sexy with make-up free and in exercise clothes. Just make sure you groom, look fresh, and wear attractive clothing.
If you’ve given up on investing in hair care, shaving, or exercising, make a change. Imagine you are back out, single again. What would you do? Would you dress differently, start a new fitness program, or go get your hair cut? Then take these steps now to boost your sex for your spouse.
Have you given up on yourself, because your partner doesn’t care what they look like? You have a right to ask, politely, for changes. This is a delicate situation, so you may want to talk to a therapist together.
While it’s reasonable to expect unconditional love, it isn’t reasonable to expect unconditional attraction.
5. Five Minutes of Kindness
Take five minutes, every day, to do something that will make your spouse feel loved. Be careful here that you aren’t doing what YOU, would appreciate. Take Gary Chapman’s advice and know your spouse’s primary love language to increase your marital bliss. Is it physical touch, gifts, verbal affirmation, service, or quality time?
Everyone has ten minutes per day to devote to kindness. For example, if your spouse’s love language is:
Gifts, you could bring home a flower or their favorite snack.
Service, you could do the dishes even though it’s his turn.
Affection, you could cuddle on the sofa or give a back massage.
Verbal Affirmation, you could write a quick love letter and leave it as a surprise.
Quality time, you could take five minutes to play a game, take a stroll, or talk.
6. Ask for What You Need
One of the best daily tasks to fall back in love with is to make a habit of communicating to one another every day, what you most need and want.
This could be a clean kitchen, help putting children to bed, some solitude, a good listener for an hour, an errand, or something else. By asking for what we most need each day, we decrease the opportunity for miscommunication and resentment and increase the opportunity to feel loving toward our partner.
Every day is the key ingredient in this daily primary need for communication. Why? Well on one day, your partner might most appreciate you putting the kids to bed so he can meet a work deadline, while on another he might most appreciate a glass of wine and quality time with you, or you cleaning the kitchen because he’s physically exhausted.
It’s in our human nature to want to pay back the help we receive from others. So when you help your spouse by taking over the grocery shopping on a hectic day, then she will be far happier to put the kids to bed so you can go for a run before nightfall. This back-and-forth exchange builds a sense of teamwork and loving feelings over and over again.
7. Weekly: Schedule Time for Sexy
What is a romantic relationship without a sensual touch? Friendship. Schedule in time for sexy in advance just as if you weren’t married, but dating. Adding some excitement and anticipation can spice things up and give enough warning to get in the right mindset. Investing quality time in talking, touching, or experiences can forge a bond that prepares you for an intimate night when you get home.
Even if you don’t have money or time for a romantic date out, get all dressed up for a night in. Schedule time to get sexy, often, and don’t go too long between sessions. The longer the rest interval between sexy moments, the more awkward it can be to reconnect. So mark some days in the calendar, and then by all means, on the other days be spontaneous.
Sure, tragedy, illness, and heartbreak happen, as do differences in how you want to live your lives together. Don’t stress if you’ve lost that love feeling. Accept it as normal and start, or keep, investing in the seven habits of blissful marriage above.
Grain of sand by grain of sand, all these loving actions build up over time so you can find yourself falling back in love, even if you previously didn’t like your spouse!