|
Marriage and Family Therapy
When feelings go down… How to spice up the marriage?
Does this sound familiar? You and your spouse are dining out at a restaurant, enjoying a great meal, perhaps some wine, and feeling fairly relaxed, but you’re not speaking to each other.
This describes a scene where, instead of communicating with each other, you’re both busy with thoughts of your own, glancing around the restaurant, reading the posters or messages on the walls, watching sport on an elevated large screen television, or have your nose buried in the desert menu even though you’ve barely started eating the main meal.
When, after a purposefully lengthy perusal of the various menus, you have no choice but to put the menus down, you wonder what you can do next to pass the time. You find yourself observing other diners.
You see a couple at the bar, about the same age as yourself and your spouse, sitting shoulder to shoulder on two bar stools, chatting away merrily, and even, occasionally, touching their heads together as they share a private joke.
You notice a much older couple at a table near you, who aren’t saying much, but are sitting across from each other at their table, one hand clasped with that of their spouse’s on top of the table, for the entire world to see. They’re eating their desert with their other hand, and occasionally make eye contact with each other and smile.
Another couple your age, at a table closer to yours than you’d like it to be, are chatting so much, that it’s almost annoying, and yet, you find yourself silently sighing anyway.
And, good grief! does that couple over there really think that nobody else can see their bare feet beneath the table? But you smile, remembering that that was you once. Not so long ago, it seems. What happened to those days?
You’re tired of feeling down, and seemingly excluded from being part of all those happily married couples out there. You and your spouse used to be a part of this group, and you decide it’s time for a revival!
How to spice up the marriage?
It’s best to discuss your plans with your spouse. This not only actually gives you something to talk about with each other, enabling communication to once again start playing an important role in your marriage, but the actual act of reminding each other about past fun experiences, or planning new exciting ones together, can, on its own, develop into a memorable fun experience.
Point out the other restaurant couples that you’ve been observing, and say, “Do you remember when…?” Be careful, though, not to end the question with an audible sigh, rather go straight into the next sentence “Wouldn’t it be fun to…?” and end that question with a smile, and make eye contact with your spouse.
If you don’t feel ready to discuss your romantic plans with your spouse, at least make the first move, instead of waiting around forever for your loved one to make the first move. It may never happen.
It’s been a while since you tried to spice up the marriage?
Follow these tips to set you on your way to refuelling that spark:
- Make eye contact when you speak to each other.
- Telephone each other regularly when away from each other, even if it’s just for a few hours that you have to be apart.
- Send text messages of a romantic nature.
- Pay interest in a hobby of theirs that they normally do all alone, even if all you do is just sit and watch.
- Touch each other often, even if it’s just brushing your partner’s arm briefly during conversation.
- Dress up at home and not just when you go out.
- Hold hands in public.
- Leave little messages or tiny gifts where you know your spouse will find them
- Feed each other
- Together, browse through books, magazines, and the Internet, and compile a list of fun things to do together, and cross them off as you do them. When the list is almost all crossed off, make a new one!
- Do something you both haven’t done before. Together.
Above all, have fun, and don’t stop putting in an effort to keep having fun. Don’t think that marriage could be or should be fun. Believe that marriage is fun – and show all those boring diners in a restaurant what they’re missing out on!
| 
