So, Valentine day has passed, and you may be new into a romantic relationship - thanks to Valentine Day, you may just have celebrated Valentine Day with lots of loves from your partner, or it may just be a normal day for you; no matter how you celebrate the day, it is undeniable that at some point in our life we will be involved in a romantic relationship, or any relationship for the matter. It is crucial to look at the fundamental element in most relationship - the feeling of love.
In order to answer the question, do we need love in a romantic relationship, we need to define the word 'love'. To some people, love is action, some may say love is a word that describe the feeling we had towards others; there are also different definition of love depending on different cultures. We will not explore such deep topic in this post, I think it needs a dedicated article by itself. For the sake of this article, the love I am referring to in this article is the feeling towards your partner. The strong affection feeling, the butterfly in the stomach kind of feeling, mixed feeling towards your partner.
So, do we need it? Yes, I believe we need to have a certain feeling of love, or you can call it spark to start most romantic relationship. As you know, I am a gamer, I've played The Sims, Harvest Moon and recently, Stardew Valley. These three games have one thing in common, you need to make effort to impress and make your potential partner fall in love with you! And this is exactly how most romantic relationship start. That is why it is important to have love to start a relationship and it is more important to maintain it.
As you can see below, it's a graph I drew sometime ago after a deep, meaningful conversation I had with one of my closest friend. We discussed what helps to maintain a relationship and if this, love, would fade. The thing is, the feeling of love, the excitement would fade as time passes and it's because we are often forgetful, or even got used to the it. Human on some level crave freshness. Our discussion ended with both of us agree that before our feeling drops under the "line of no return', we need to do something to re-spark the fire of love!
Even in the Bible, the relationship with God is often described as needed constant effort and time. So does our relationship with our partner. So, here are the 5 ways you could try to re-sparkle your relationship.
1. Talk to each other about your spark.
Like what I mentioned in the graph, everyone's threshold is different, and knowledge is power, no? Getting to know your partner helps us to understand them and by doing so, we could work together to create a special, unique, individualize way to spark things up again! I will discuss five languages of love in the future article.
2. Listen.
No, I mean really listen to their interests and ask question related to their interest. I know, sometimes hearing your partner going on about a game that you don't even know bores you or confuses you, but it helps to create pleasant feelings. This leads to the next point -
3. Do things together.
Try doing things together, have each other involving in each other interests. This will build mutual interest and understanding as to what makes it interesting to your partner, and vice versa. I really appreciate when my wife plays Pokemon card, Nintendo games with me. It makes me happier when I know she genuinely want to play. This makes me want to do things that she enjoys as well.
4. Go on an adventure together.
Look, it doesn't need to be a fancy vacation or risky, crazy activity. Discuss among yourself and determine what does adventure means for both of you and from there plan something that both of you will enjoy. Embark on a journey and share these wonderful moment. Well, to me as a nerd, sometimes an adventure means watching a good movie or good drama series on Netflix!
5. Keep a record of your memories.
Remind yourself what bring both of you together. Remind yourself the happy times, and the not so happy time. Remind yourself what and how you overcome those time. Remember the initial 'love'.
6. Have some 'me' time.
This sounds counter-productive, you may ask why? Here's why, because ultimately we are individual who needs our own time, doing our own things and hanging out with our own friends. Have you ever try eating your favorite snack for a year? Yes, you may still like it, but at the end of the year, you will crave for something else! It is also through having 'me' time, you get to reflect on your relationship. This helps to identify what you miss when you are spending time together. Also, think of it as refueling your energy tank.
There you go, 6 individualize ways for you to work towards a healthy relationship! It goes without saying, it takes two hand to clap. That it is important that both of you are putting effort in your relationship.
What other ways would you recommend or that you have tried that helped your journey in your relationship? Share with me below at the comment section!
