Once the excitement of the first throws of love and passion goes away and you’ve got married bought the house and you’ve had the kids what now?
How is the couple going to keep the passion, excitement, the fun, the adventure and humour alive?
You see boredom can start us on a journey of thinking something is wrong and as we search for what’s wrong we can find a lot of things wrong and now the worry seed is sown.
When I meet with couples who are struggling one of the common challenges is the relationship that was once exciting and a primary focus is now something that is just there and is taken for granted.
This results in their real needs being met outside of the marriage with friends, with work with parents, kids, hobbies etc.
As our needs are being met outside of the relationship it is being starved of what it needs to survive. Just like a business and the children, relationships must grow and develop to stay alive.
What these couples have not done is understand the fundamental reason they are together and what that journey together will look like.
When the relationship isn’t fed what it needs to survive it can start to die and in many cases, the start of this process is ignored – until it’s crisis time and one person has had enough, or started an affair, or turned to another coping strategy.
It’s like the couple, in the beginning, is excited and agree to go on an amazing voyage through life together, they get on the ship and then they sit in the harbour for years wondering why they are bored wondering why they are still together.
The couples who say the kids are their reason for being together are vulnerable because I see a large number of couples where the kids are leaving home and the couples are instantly entering a crisis.
The couples who don’t plan their relationship don’t usually end up where they want because either life or others have their own agenda.
Someone else’s design for your future is never going to be as good as your own design, so it’s important to take charge.
When couples visit me and have learnt how to reconnect out their crisis they are then supported to build a reason for being together as it’s part of what makes their relationship unique and special.
Relationships must grow and the couple must grow together as they head towards the future that excites them both.
This is part of what’s needed to make your marriage bulletproof.