Just about everyone in a marriage or love relationship shares a bond or some level of deep feelings with their partner.It might feel like passion or even adoration to you. Or it could be that those excited, alive feelings about your mate have faded a bit and now your relationship is more akin to a genial coexistence– or perhaps one that is tenser and less pleasant.
Would you like to experience a more spark-filled love with your partner?
You might wish it still felt like you two had just met and were glorying in each moment of discovering one another.
What would it feel like to be head over heels in love with your long-term mate, and have those giddy emotions last?
We believe that it is possible to re-ignite the spark in just about any relationship.
Yes, it requires a commitment to making changes and staying open to one another.
And, yes, it means that you need to clean up relationship habits that stand in the way of you and your partner continuing to move closer to one another.
It is possible!
One way to begin to re-connect and turn toward the relationship you’ve been wanting is to fall “in like” with your partner.
“In like” is a necessary prerequisite on the road to “in love.” And it’s not just a point toward the destination that is regaining the spark between you two, it’s a fun and fulfilling place to be all by itself.
John was at it again. Sitting there at the breakfast table slurping his coffee, clicking his tongue as he reads through the paper. As contented as he seems with his morning routine, Rachel is livid inside. She really doesn’t want to admit it, but her husband John drives her crazy– and not in a “good” way.
Rachel can’t even list off the number of habits John has that annoy her ranging from his loud table manners to his messy hobby of rebuilding cars in their garage. Rachel tries to keep her discontented feelings to herself but these usually come through in sarcastic comments she makes to him.
The saddest thing of all is that Rachel really wants to have a happy marriage. She remembers when she couldn’t spend enough time with John, watching him work on his hot rods and then driving with him through the country. He used to even pack surprise picnic lunches and they’d spend glorious afternoons in a field enjoying one another.
These memories only make Rachel more irritable as she wonders what happened to the man she fell in love with.
Shift your focus
If all you can seem to see are the undesirable qualities in your mate, learn how to shift your focus. It’s kind of like when you have a leaky faucet and that sound of dripping water becomes the total of what you perceive. It can be torturous as the drip, drip, dripping appears to overshadow the birds chirping outside your window, the music playing on your radio and other sights and sounds in your environment.
This happens to Rachel. It seems like she can only see John sitting there slurping, clicking and doing everything that gets on her nerves.
Start out by practicing shifting your focus about something other than your partner. Maybe you do have a leaky faucet. Acknowledge that the drip is distracting you and then consciously steer your attention in a different direction. Intentionally re-focus on something else that is pleasing to you. It might be that you get a wrench and fix the leak.
Open a window and spend a few moments appreciating the song of the birds, watching them fly around.
Rachel begins to practice shifting her focus when she begins to get irritated. She finds that if she tunes in to her feelings and begins this shift when she is just starting to get annoyed, it is an easier process. Sometimes she re-focuses her attention to her own breakfast, savoring the hot tea she is drinking. Other times Rachel asks John a question about what he’s reading in the paper or what he has planned for the day.
Ultimately, she finds these new places to which she’s giving attention more enjoyable than fixating on what’s “wrong” with John.
Don’t stop discovering.
As we suggest that you shift your focus away from those aspects of your partner that are displeasing, you might wonder how that’s going to re-ignite any spark in your relationship.
It could sound more like merely tolerating one another. And it really is– if you only do that.
To fall “in like” with your love, you need to begin focusing more of your attention on those traits and habits of your mate that you enjoy.
If there are requests that you’d like to make of him or her, then by all means, do so from a place of gentleness and love.
But as you get better and better at turning your attention away from your partner’s annoying habits, you’ll probably notice that there is more to him or her than you’ve recently been seeing. In fact, you might discover new aspects of this person that you may have been sharing life with for many years.
And it is highly likely that when you approach your partner with a sense of curiosity and positive expectation, you will really start to like him or her more than before.
After a few weeks of shifting her focus, Rachel realizes how much she delights in talking with John at the breakfast table. In the past, she’s been so caught up in how horrible his manners seem that she’s missed a chance to connect with him. John is beginning to bring up interesting news stories he’s reading about with her and they are sharing more and more invigorating conversations about what they both are learning about in the news.
In fact, this morning John suggests that they take a trip to an inn they read about in the travel section of the paper.
Rachel proposes that they drive there in one of John’s prized hot rods that is almost ready for the road. Both feel excited and alive as they start their day– looking forward to this trip and more connecting time together.
Keep discovering new things about your mate no matter how long you two have been together and regardless of how thoroughly you think you know one another.
And remember to continue to discover yourself as well. We are all changing all of the time. You never know how deeply “in like” you might fall with the one you love unless you open up and stay curious.
For more info about putting the spark back in your relationship, visit http://www.RestarttheSpark.com
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Enjoying a Happier, Easier Relationship