A lot of couples find themselves at the edge of their sanity, weary from keeping their marriage afloat. But if there’s one thing that can help them in their uphill struggle towards a better relationship, it’s returning to the reasons they fell in love.
The bond that husbands and wives share is often compared to a bonfire. Much like brightly burning flames, the passion typically runs high during the initial stages of the relationship.
As the months and years pass by, the fires of romance will naturally settle down a bit – this is a normal part of a relationship. However, these flames could be extinguished altogether if a couple goes through too many unresolved conflicts.
When spouses become sidetracked by these obstacles, it could cause a gap than can grow increasingly wider over time. Before they even realize it, their fire has fizzled and crumbled into a pile of ash.
With a simple technique however, any couple can uncover the still-glowing embers underneath and re-ignite the spark of their love.
Finding Strength In The Past
Going through some exercises with your spouse is the key is to reviving the positive feelings in your marriage. To get started with this, you need to go the past and look at the roots of your marriage.
Do you remember how you first met? What were the things you liked the most about him or her back then?
While these are just some of the things you need to think about, merely reminiscing the good old days on a superficial level won’t do the trick.
Like a cherished photo album, you need to retrieve your happy memories from the back of your mind, dust it off and make an effort to keep them in your conscious thoughts.
Passively “flipping” though the pages without much thought isn’t going to help your marriage.
To take an in-depth look back in time, you and your spouse need to do some structured sharing exercises.
Come up with a set of questions that both of you can answer and discuss. To give you a better idea, here are some sample topics you can start off with:
1. What are the top 5 qualities that you like about your spouse?
(*Follow up: name a specific instance when your spouse put these qualities into action.)
2. What are the favorite things that your spouse does for you?
3. Name 3 good memories from your wedding day (i.e. sweet, touching, funny, etc.)
4. What were the best moments in your marriage?
5. When was the moment that you decided to marry your partner?
6. What were the challenges you’ve overcome as a couple and how did you get past them?
Feel free to create more questions that are relevant to your situation. You’ll be surprised at the direction your discussions will take as you suddenly recall little snippets that will remind you of the good times.
The important thing is that you explore and savor the good parts of your past so that you’ll learn to FOCUS on each other’s positive traits. Sometimes, getting over a slump in your life boils down to having the right perspective.
Unleashing The Power Of Positivity
In essence, all of this is meant to put you and your spouse’s mindset on a positive track. The single biggest cause of marital strife is not the actual issues that couples have (e.g. finances, in-laws, differences of opinion), but the lack of good feelings to help dilute the negativity of their problems.
If you can’t even bring yourselves to like each other, how can you expect your relationship to stay intact when the bad times come rolling in? That’s why going back to the past and celebrating your origins as a couple is just the trick to give your marriage a much-needed boost.
John Kehoe, creator of the self-empowerment course “Mind Power”, says that there are certain laws of the mind that govern our thinking. One of these is called the “Law Of Control” which states that we have the power to let thoughts take up space in our mind OR kick them out.
With your couple exercises, you’ll develop the ability to let go of negative emotions and see each other in a positive light instead. As far your relationship is concerned, you’ll also find it easier to see yourselves from a “we” perspective rather than as individuals.
Slow Start? Don’t Sweat It
Granted that hostile couples will have a harder time to get the ball rolling, they can ease their way into the topic by casually bringing it up during mundane times like having brunch on the weekend or while enjoying a quiet evening at home.
Eventually, you’ll become comfortable engaging in this positive discussion on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. In time, you’ll be able to turn the tide of negative emotions in your marriage.
As the love finds its way back into your relationship, you’ll find that problems are much easier to handle.
The Path To Better Things
Of course, doing these exercises is not a silver bullet that will magically solve all of your problems. Nevertheless, including them in your weekly routine will create a profound effect on your marriage.
In the future, you’ll open your doors to even more relationship-strengthening techniques, such as doing the exercises found in our “Save My Marriage” book or habits of maintenance.
[...] one of our previous articles (Use This Trick to Save Your Marriage), we covered the different ways you can give your marriage a much-needed boost if it’s not doing [...]