The love is there—it just might have ebbed to the fringes a bit.
It happens. Not just after a “honeymoon” phase, the literal honeymoon, the first child or the third, but possibly throughout it all. The feeling of love in a committed relationship or marriage can naturally wax and wane.
Here are seven ways to welcome more love back to the heart of your relationship—don't miss #6!
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
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Table of Contents:
Fairytales and the Honeymoon Phase of a Relationship
Ways to Welcome More Love into Your Relationship
Do Good Together
Enjoy Your Own Life More Fully
Say It Out Loud!
Share and Compare Experiences
Revisit Prior Dreams and Intentions
Be Tourists in Your Own Lives
Discover and Explore Your Love Languages
Closing Thoughts
Fairytales and the Honeymoon Phase of a Relationship
The fairytale version of love may plant unrealistic expectations in your relationship. Many seeds of "happily ever after" have been sowed through stories and movies.
However, love requires nurturance.
Love invites each one of us to love when it's difficult, when we disagree, when it is inconvenient.
And I don't mean compromising either!
Love isn't just for feel-good moments! Love can sustain us through struggles, life crises, deep losses, and the everyday mundane. Yet, love is a choice EVERY day.
When you choose your partner EVERY DAY, you keep the honeymoon alive.
Take it from one who has been happily married for decades... it's not always easy or fun but allowing your partner to mirror your needed growth areas is imperative and keeping the love spark burning is vital.
Related reading: "Love Is a Choice—the Best Marriage Advice!"
Below are ways to be more intentional in your relationship to create a forever magnet of love.
Ways to Welcome More Love into Your Relationship
Do good together.
Doing good deeds feels good and releases similar chemicals as the honeymoon phase. ,
When you feel good inside yourself it’s easier to feel good inside your relationship. You know that feeling of deep fulfillment when you’ve done a “good deed,” helped someone else in a meaningful way, or benefitted your larger community?
The experience often feels joyful. You may feel a sense of accomplishment, love, or even passionate excitement! Every one of those emotions is linked to love.
An extra bonus is the sense of belonging that is intensified when engaged in community projects or volunteering. Belonging is a core need of everyone so integrating this giving habit into your marriage can really boost your togetherness.
Creating those feelings together cues your brain to associate those loving emotions with your partner. Turns out, love in the general sense can extend to those who experience it with you.
Try volunteering together with intention: make the decision together to cook a meal for your neighbors or deliver one to someone who needs it; or plan a philanthropic act like donating money, time or supplies.
In smaller, spontaneous ways, this could look like helping a hungry person outside a grocery store get something to eat while you shop together. It could be volunteering your adjoining seats on a bus or plane, or surprising someone with an anonymous gift. Another great way to give is buying a coffee—or even groceries—for the person behind you in the checkout line.
These acts of generosity help uplift us individually and as a couple.
Enjoy your own life more fully.
In the same way that doing good together cues your brain to associate that satisfaction with your partner, fulfilling your own needs through self-care and hobbies will fill you with a satisfaction that expends to your future interactions.
It is important for your life together to have your life apart.
While sacrificing something you love for your partner might seem loving—and at times even be necessary—depleting yourself will not lead to a more loving relationship. Filling yourself up with love by doing what you sincerely love and taking time for self-care on the other hand—that will bring love back into your marriage.
Related topic: "Love Is a Choice—the Best Marriage Advice."
Say it out loud.
How many times have you thought something nice about another person but not verbalized it? You might think it’s irrelevant, unimportant, or that they already know so you don’t need to say it.
How does it feel to have someone compliment you, even if you didn’t need to hear it or already knew it? It’s like hearing someone genuinely say “I love you,” even though you know they do.
Experiment: Make an active effort for the next week (or month) to verbalize your loving and appreciative thoughts about your partner. (Best without actually telling your partner you’re doing this.) You'll experience something that transforms the relationship. It's so simple, many people underestimate its power.
This practice can even create a positive-reinforcement spiral, where you become more aware of your positive thoughts and therefore start having more of them and nip the habit of complaining.
Share and compare experiences.
We, humans, are sensational creatures…in the very literal sense.
People—and their brains—are made to feel things, taste things, see, smell and hear. These sensations bring us back to ourselves in a visceral, human way.
Much like love does.
To get back to that deep feeling of love, try tapping back into your other deep senses together. Sharing an experience—even though you will both inevitably feel it in your own, unique way—is powerfully bonding.
Think of things to do (essentially date nights) with your partner.
Sit down to a dinner and eat mindfully together, do date night at a concert, try an invigorating outdoors experience like hiking or boating, go coffee or wine tasting or see a show.
There’s a double benefit here—practicing mindfulness will get you back in touch with what you’re feeling if you’ve lost it. And sharing an experience together gives you a chance to bond, too.
Even better, share your own sensational experience with each other afterward as a way of learning more about each other and imagining your partner’s perspective. These meaningful exchanges deepen our understanding of ourselves and each other even when done occasionally.
Revisit prior dreams and intentions.
Remember the first daydreams you shared with your partner? Where are they now?
A lot of changes along the way in relationships. In day-to-day life, stressors, your own individual issues and outside forces like family, careers and current events—it might be a challenge to even remember your early dreams, let alone realize them.
While dwelling on the past or judging yourself for not achieving a dream is unhelpful, reconnecting with your original goals and values can enliven the love that inspired them. (This is not meant to make you feel guilty for not achieving something!)
Zoom out, looking at the big picture of your relationship together as a longer timeline than the daily minutia.
Together, can you appreciate how far you’ve come?
Can you remember why you became a couple in the first place?
Maybe you’ll even put one of your early goals back on the top of your list and be re-inspired together.
Be tourists in your own lives.
One of the biggest issues with “losing that spark” is getting in a rut. We adapt to our lives to the point of missing the details, the little things that we notice acutely at the start of a romance.
Your brain is smart.
It doesn’t re-learn the same information over and over; instead, it delegates that information to the unconscious for automation. This way, when your brain encounters things (or experiences, or people) repeatedly, it recognizes them, creates memories around them, and ultimately stops paying attention to them.
In the case of working a computer program, that’s great; however, when interacting with an ever-changing human being…not always so helpful. You could even have assigned a negative meaning to the familiar in your relationship.
To get back to noticing the details that matter, try a practice called defamiliarization.
This art or writing technique approaches familiar or ordinary objects differently. The goal is to view them with fresh eyes and an awakened mind can be extremely helpful in a relationship. It encourages us to see the familiar with a new perspective, to rekindle interest and excitement in our relationships.
By intentionally altering our routines and environments, we can break free from autopilot that often dulls our perception of the world and those we love.
This practice involves consciously engaging with our surroundings and partners in new ways, allowing us to rediscover the nuances and details that initially drew us to them; those things that kept us spellbound in the honeymoon phase.
Whether it's taking a different route on a daily walk, rearranging a room, or trying a new activity together, defamiliarization invites us to experience life with renewed curiosity and appreciation, ultimately reigniting the spark that may have dimmed over time.
Essentially, be tourists in your own lives.
Imagine every day being a vacation!
If we train ourselves to see our partner anew each day, our love is also renewed each day.
Cue your brain to sharpen and pay attention. Signal it to tune back in by shaking things up in your day-to-day lives.
When you change your environment by camping or simply walking a street that you normally drive, your brain experiences it differently and starts paying closer attention to the details once again.
Same goes for practices that might seem almost silly, like reorganizing your office, going to a different or new grocery store, or cooking a different meal. These small adjustments change your norm and shift you out of cruise control. Put your partner in the midst of these suddenly “new” situations and your brain will look at him/her with the same “new eyes.”
Defamiliarization is a practical tool to be deliberate in your actions that make the old new again, essentially reigniting that interest, excitement, and possibly that “Spark.”
Discover and explore your love languages.
Whether you believe in the 7 Love Languages or not, they’re an interesting relationship experiment. Reflecting on how you experience love will encourage both you and your partner to make love a more central part of your lives.
It's pretty simple to enhance your relationship by paying closer attention to your partner and how they feel love.
For instance, if your partner’s love language is “words of affirmation,” make a conscious effort to express yourself through words, validating them in meaningful ways.
If your partner's top love language is “acts of service,” dedicate energy doing things for them (as little as handling a chore you don’t mind and you know they dislike). For “quality time,” set aside a moment to simply be with them, undistracted by your phone, work or other tasks.
Closing Thoughts
Regardless of WHAT you do, make an effort to love more intentionally.
Shake things up to beat the boredom of the everyday grind. Do something special for your spouse or partner. Pour on affection if you've heard they want more touch.
Love is a powerful emotion, but even the most well-matched couple can neglect their relationship.
Pick one of the suggestions above and infuse your relationship, bringing back those newlywed feelings!
If you'd like customized couples' support or to learn how to be have an emotionally intelligent relationship, contact us at Heartmanity!
