The honeymoon period in most marriages has a
shelf life. But does that mean you can’t bring back those fluttery butterfly
feelings of excitement and anticipation everyone experiences at the beginning
of a relationship? Absolutely not. All marriages maneuver through rough
patches. Some don’t survive long enough to come out the other side unscathed.
But many do. Here are 11 ways to keep your marriage fresh.
1. Remind your partner (and yourself) that you
appreciate them.
After you’ve been married for many, many
years, that passionate kiss when your partner walks in the door can easily
morph into a peck on the check that can then morph into an inability even to
look up from your computer. Over the course of my 23-year marriage, there are
times when I’ve felt my own husband and I were starting to become so familiar
with each other that we were settling into a stultifying — albeit comfortable —
routine. But there’s a real danger in that. Studies show that nearly half of men who have cheated say it
was because of emotional dissatisfaction — and not sex. When men don’t feel
connected or appreciated by their wives, they are vulnerable to the advances of
any attractive woman who casts a lustful glance their way. And fellows, it
works the other way as well.
In his film “Annie Hall,” Woody Allen charged
that “a relationship is like a shark. It has to constantly move forward or it
dies.” I believe he was right.
2. Say thank you for the little things.
I’ve been guilty of keeping score, constantly
calculating who had done what. “I cleaned out the kids’ closets, so you have to
clean the basement.” “I moved for your job when we first got married, so now
you need to move for mine.” “I initiated sex last time, so now it’s your turn.”
But playing tit for tat is childish and will do nothing but chip away at the trust
and connection you’ve built with your spouse. If you are so inclined, keep
score of all the positive things your partner does in a day — and then thank
them. Hopefully they’ll get the hint and do the same for you.
3. Practice honesty, even when you’re ashamed.
If you have maxed out a credit card or two and
find yourself hiding the bills each month, you can bet it’s going to come back
to bite you. Eventually, whether you’re applying for a home loan or simply
talking about the costs of summer vacation, these kinds of money issues will
either be brought to light by a credit report or by the simple fact you can’t
afford a trip away. Although infidelity usually happens in bed, it also can
happen with money. And it will be a tough road gaining back your spouse’s trust
if you’ve lied about overspending.
Along that same vein, if you feel you aren’t
connecting with your partner the way you used to, you need to say something —
now. I’ve learned this lesson the hard way. I once let communication issues
fester for months on end, failing to verbalize my displeasure, and my husband
and I wound up in marriage counseling for nearly a year. It took a third party
— and a real investment on our part — to get us back on track. If I had not
kept telling myself that things would get better on their own, we might not
have reached what I call the danger zone.
4. Take care of your appearance.
With many years and a few kids under your
belt, it’s easy to let your appearance slide. Think about when you first met
your partner. Would you have walked around in stained sweatpants and without
brushing your teeth? My guess is no. I’m not saying you have to look like
Julianne Moore every time you settle in for a night of TV. But I’ve seen too
many couples transform from Cliff and Clair Huxtable into Dan and Roseanne
Connor — with disastrous repercussions.
Sometimes my husband will say “wow, you look
nice” as I’m walking out the door for a girls’ night out. At least pay your
spouse the same courtesy you do your friends by fixing yourself up for him or her
every once in awhile.
5. Foster relationships outside your marriage.
I’ve been going on girls’ trips for as long as
I’ve been married. Yes, I love traipsing off with my spouse and three kids. But
these weekends away with friends are also important. Swapping stories with
others and enjoying new experiences make me — I hope — a more interesting
person for my spouse to be around. When Katie Couric asked Barbra
Streisand the secret to her happy 14-year marriage to James
Brolin, she replied “time apart.” “It gets romantic because even the
conversations on the phone get more romantic. You need some distance,”
Streisand said.
Your marriage should be your primary
relationship — but it needn’t be the only one.
6. Watch your words.
There are many things you should never say to
a longtime spouse, the first being: “Don’t you think our new neighbor is
attractive?” That’s a question you just think you want to know
the answer to. It’s also never a good idea to start a sentence with: “You know
it’s always been your problem that...” Who wants to hear that from their
partner? We hopefully all have a pretty good sense of ourselves at this point
and having someone you love point out a failing in this way does little to
engender a loving relationship.
“You always...” or “You never...” Think about
it. Neither of these is true. If you start a sentence with these words your
mate is certain to shut down or start a fight. Stop for a minute and think
about what you really mean to say — and then say that instead.
7. Put away the jumper cables yourself.
In life, there are big things and there are
little things. The big things — draining the bank accounts to support a
gambling habit, forgetting to mention that he’s in the federal witness
relocation program living under a false identity or that he has a second family
stashed in Queens — are of course one-way streets to divorce court. But most of
us don’t have problems of that magnitude. Most of us have problems that are
more like petty and repeated annoyances, which when fed the steroids of
resentment and anger, balloon up like Arnold Schwarzenegger. And we all know what steroids did to his heart,
right?
Most of our problems start out small enough —
he borrows the jumper cables from your car and then leaves them sitting in the
driveway just waiting to get run over — and from that sprouts a giant festering
sore. It leads you to utter words like, “If you loved me you would have put the
jumper cables back in my car so that when I get stuck in a bad neighborhood
with a dead battery I could save myself,” which, in my household, generally
results in a reply like “When do you ever drive in bad neighborhoods?”
It is the small annoyances that, if left
unaddressed, do us in. For a happier marriage, address them right away and keep
it simple. “Honey, did you put jumper cables back in my car?”
8. Relish the silence.
Sometimes the best way to address a problem is
to just walk away from it — as in seriously let it go. Not every slight must be
addressed. Know that not every insult is intended. Practice letting go as much
as you can. Forgive more. Forget more. Bite your tongue until the tip bleeds.
And once in a while, remind yourself of why you married this person. Focus on
those reasons and let stuff pass without mention.
The trick to successful silence, however, is
that you really let the problem pass. If you stay silent and still harbor bad
thoughts, well, that’s where ulcers come from. As the Beatles told us, “Let It
Be.”
9. Recognize the ebb-and-flow.
Relationships aren’t flat-lined; that’s death,
actually. Life has ups and downs, peaks and valleys. We all go through periods
where the mere thought of life without our partners can bring tears to our eyes
and then a week later we can’t stand the sound of their breathing next to us.
We’ve all been there. The trick is knowing that you won’t stay in either place
forever. Truth is, in a marriage, you spend most of your time in an emotional
middle ground. It’s not songbirds chirping, nor is it considering which poison
in his pasta will cause the most painful demise.
This middle ground isn’t the couple who sit in
the restaurant across from one another without conversing. Those people have
actually flat-lined and just don’t know it yet. No, the middle ground is when
months meld into years and you know what the reaction will be before you say
something. It’s when the book you finished last night just migrates
automatically to the nightstand on his side and he tells you about the recorded
“Modern Family” episode you slept through. It’s the every day ebb and flow without
the waves.
10. Be kind.
We tend to take advantage of those we love the
most — probably because we know they love us and we can get away with it. It’s
the old kick-the-cat syndrome. You have a bad day at the office and come home
and take it out on your mate. A much healthier pattern is to start out each day
by asking yourself, “What can I do today to make my partner happy?” And mean
it. Doesn’t it make more sense to put your best face on for someone you love?
Look for ways to say “yes.” This rule applies to parenting as well, but in a
happy marriage, people are busy trying to please each other. That sometimes
means sitting through endlessly long ball games, putting on a tie, watching a
horror movie with your eyes closed, and traveling around old Civil War
battleground sites when you really wanted to be vacationing on a beach in
Hawaii. It’s doing things for your partner.
11. Maintain intimacy and passion, both inside
and outside the bedroom.
Intimacy isn’t just sex and passion isn’t just
doing it on the kitchen counter. Bedroom habits age along with the marriage.
There may be no stronger aphrodisiac than a moonlight walk on the beach that
ends in a kiss. There may be no greater display of passion than the zeal of a
partner in a hospital room trying to get the nurse’s attention for an ailing
wife. Don’t let others define what is a “normal” or “healthy” amount of sex for
your marriage. Know that things change, but that doesn’t make them less
exciting or fun. And intimacy comes in many shapes, including conversation and
cuddling.
