Love is the basis of marriage. Love and relationships are about affection and respect and nurturing and caring and liking your partner, liking and admiring them so much that you want to spend the rest of your life in the same physical and emotional space as them. There are many aspects of loving but the most important part when it comes to marriage is not to see it as static. Love can fade away to nothing or it can grow stronger with the passing of each year. It is a dynamic energy that must be looked after in order to flourish.
Most married couples love each other and they love marriage: love is what drew them together in the first place and they love being married and would hate to have to get a divorce (how many times have you heard your married friends sigh with relief that they no longer have to face the dating scene?). While love isn't the only reason that couples stay together, for a healthy and happy union love needs to be nurtured and tended.
How exactly do you do that? How do you get the love help you need? What is love help anyway?
Love help can take many different forms depending on your needs. A helpful and fun way to start may be to take a quiz or a series of love quizzes to work out exactly where the weak spots are in your marriage. Or you could get love advice through couples counseling. Although this may feel too confronting sometimes marriage counseling sessions where you both sit down with an impartial third party in neutral territory, not at home, is exactly the relationship coaching that you need to improve your life together and move forward. Sometimes a chat with a professional counselor maybe all you need. You can get relationship advice and tools through books and courses. A couples retreat maybe the answer where you go away with other couples wanting help with their relationships.
When seeking out love help, whether it be counseling or a marriage retreat or quizzes, the most important thing is to think about the fundamental ingredients for a healthy love relationship.
While sex is important, the most basic essentials are respect and romance.
Respect means to 'regard, consider, take into account'. Sharing your life with someone means consulting them on the major decisions that affect your life together. There is a time to be selfish in a relationship and there is a time to put your partner and your relationship upfront - it is working out when each is appropriate that is one of the toughest lessons to learn along the marriage journey. Sometimes this happens through trial and error and other times it is through actively learning more about yourself and your partner.
You may think that being romantic is reserved for couples still in the dating phase of their relationship, however, that isn't the case. It is something which needs to be an ongoing activity for all couples, although perhaps not as intensely as it is for singles entering new relationships.
If you recognise that you need to put some romance back into your relationship, there are many options available to you. There are large gestures like romantic cruises and romantic getaways or simpler things like leaving dedications or a love note with a carefully worded compliment on your partner's pillow. You could focus on simple ideas like kissing or touching each other more often. Whichever romantic gesture you choose, the important thing is to make sure that it is something you feel comfortable with, so comfortable you'll be able to repeat it and other gestures over the coming months and years. You see, you need to make loving kindnesses a habit.
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