How to Keep the Romance Alive in your Relationship

To begin, let’s look at ‘making the effort’. Like most things in life, everything takes some work on our part to firstly create it at all, and then, more work to keep it going a certain way. After all, “nothing comes from doing nothing” right? So it figures, if you’re in an intimate relationship and want it to be a certain way, you will need to put in the work towards that outcome. If you’re single, likewise, you will need to get really clear around the characteristics and values of your ideal partner and who you need to become to attract that person.

Now that’s all very well, but like so many of our goals in life, while we may move mountains to achieve them in the first place, we often stop with our efforts once we’re there. Our decision around stopping is not usually a conscious choice to ‘let things go’, we simply relax our efforts. Think of the number of times people work very concertedly to lose weight for instance and then once there, do nothing to maintain that shape and so rebound back to their heavier weight.

In relationship language, this may take the shape of starting out single, then finding a partner and enjoying all the excitement and passion of the newness of the relationship. Then we stop working at keeping it that way and before too long, it begins to change and ultimately, we end up single again. At this point, ‘single’ may take the shape of actually being on your own again as the relationship comes to an end, or feeling on your own despite being with someone. The earlier sense of intimacy and connectedness that we once had, is now no longer there.

In short then, to keep things going a certain way, we need to keep working at it – and this is pretty much true for any area of life. So this now leads us into the next part of our discussion – making the right effort for the best outcome. It’s one thing to make an effort, but it figures that different efforts will produce different results, so we want to be a) making the right one and b) staying attuned to where we may need to change our approach to produce a different result. It’s the old adage about the definition of insanity that we’ve all heard before, but so true. It would be insane to keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result right? So our awareness of what is and isn’t working is important.

If you’re single, and you’re spending most nights camped out in front of the television hoping your dream partner is going to turn up, it’s time to try a different approach! Addressing your confidence around meeting new people and getting out more will increase the likelihood of you finding the relationship you desire. If you’re in a relationship, and your passion is diminishing for example, well what are you doing about keeping the passion alive daily? We all need to put in the effort to create the results we dream of.

Our awareness in intimate relationships can take many shapes including being open to learning more about relationships and the like, from the myriad of sources available these days, alongside the really fundamental aspects like open and honest communication with our partner. How better to learn what your partner considers important than to get it straight from them in a truthful way.

One trap we can fall into in communication with our partner is approaching things from our own frame of reference. We make the assumption that the things that we like and what makes us feel really special and loved, will be the very same for them. While this is true in part, it’s not entirely true.

In his book, The Five Love Languages, Gary Chapman distinguishes five love languages that serve to communicate love to us:

• Words of Affirmation – verbal compliments, encouraging words communicating a belief in your partner’s abilities, kind and loving words.
• Quality Time – giving of your undivided attention, spending time together just hanging out or doing things you love, sharing quality conversation.
• Receiving Gifts – they need not be expensive, it could be a flower from the garden or a note. Gifts represent visual symbols of love.
• Acts of Service – doing things for your partner that you know they would like you to do.
• Physical Touch – holding hands, kissing, embracing, sex, a casual brush/touch in passing your partner.

For relationships to flourish and for the ‘love tank’ of both partners to stay full, it’s important that we express our love in a way that our partner understands. As an example, consider a woman whose primary love language is gifts with a man whose love language is words of affirmation. He may be rather surprised in a disagreement one day to hear that she doesn’t feel very loved. When he questions this, she goes on to share that he never shows her. He argues that he’s always telling her and is angered to hear her say this.

Meantime, she is upset to hear of his annoyance over her frequently spending money buying him things he doesn’t need. She feels he doesn’t appreciate her efforts in showing him she cares and so takes this to mean he doesn’t care and so on. Can you just see where this could go…!

It’s a classic mismatch of approaches. Without the correct communication and understanding, we are apt to miss meeting each other’s true needs. In this above instance, she wants to be shown she matters and so she does for him something that she likes – getting gifts. But he wants to hear he is cared about and so he remembers to tell her often. While still meaningful, it doesn’t entirely satisfy us in the deepest sense as it’s not being communicated in the most meaningful way to each of us.

Hmmm…………..something to think about huh?

Where could you begin tuning better to your partner’s language of love and what could you be doing differently to make a bigger impact in showing you care?? Or where could you start doing something differently towards meeting the partner of your dreams?

Remember, ‘Love is a verb’. Enjoy creating the passion!

PS If you’d like to learn more, there are 2 books I’d highly recommend:

The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to your Mate – Gary Chapman

Conscious Loving – Gay & Kathlyn Hendricks