It is not easy to keep a marriage exciting and creative each and every day. If you think your husband is losing interest or even if you are struggling with finding joy in your daily interactions with your husband, then I want you to think about undergoing a paradigm shift.
You do not have to settle for a marriage that lacks enthusiasm, elation, eagerness, or exhilaration.
It is not uncommon for married couples to find that their marriage is growing stale. If you start noticing that your husband is simply checking out emotionally or complains about being bored and unfulfilled, don’t panic.
Everyone goes through periods in which they wonder what it is really all about. You may think that your husband is pulling away or becoming bored with you, but those notions are usually far from the truth.
Every relationship operates on the principle of what I call the marriage inertia trap. As time goes by, the marriage fall into a trap of predictable patterns. Often times, these patterns are become humdrum and routine.
So if there are instances in which either you or your husband feel that your lives are becoming too predictable and you can’t easily find the excitement that existed in the early days, then I want you to temper those anxieties with the realization that this is an uncommon phenomenon.
It takes two people to make the marriage exciting, even thrilling. If you believe that your hubby is blaming you for being complacent in making the marriage fun and he seems to be checking out, just know that it is never all on you. That’s right. Both parties to a marriage share in making the marital union fun, unpredictable, and exciting.
Read this if you are looking for a ton of ideas on how to accomplish that!
https://marriagerecovery.com/how-to-save-your-troubled-marriage/
Now, I am not saying that you and your husband have failed if in every day of your married lives neither of you were able to interject some kind of spontaneous fun.
I think we can all agree that is an impractical expectation. But what I want to talk about is shifting your paradigm about what a marriage can be and how both you and your husband can mold your future in such a way that those exciting and joyous moments are not figments of your past lives, but a part of your present and future.
The operable word is “mold”. But first things, first. Let me get back to my point about not blaming yourself if your husband is complaining and acting like your marriage is devoid of any exciting moments. It is not all on you. It is about what both of you want to do with the future. That is what the conversation should be about.
So let’s talk a bit about why husband and wives can get lost in their marriage and set in their ways such that a form of “marital entropy” just takes over and reduces the relationship to predictable, boring, and unimaginative outcomes.
OK…so I threw out that word, “entropy”, but let’s make sure we all understand what it really means. Entropy is when something moves from a state of order to disorder. Let there be no doubt, marriages can be messy. And as time goes by, the current of our married lives can just sweep us along. Pretty soon we are looking back and wondering what happened to all the fun of yesteryear.
I have talked about this elsewhere on the website when we discussed top principles of making a marriage successful. Did you know that it only takes about 66 days on average for a habit or routine to form?
Well, it is true. And I am guessing that many of the things you and your husband do are products of many months or years of marital habits and routines. Often such routines are normal and necessary things you each do as part of living your lives together.
Someone has to get the mail, pay the bills, pick up the paper. Either you or your husband have to see fit to check on things around the house or apartment that might require maintenance. Simply going to work is a routine. Taking care of educating, feeding, clothing, and playing with your kids, if you have any, are all examples of routines.
Sometimes it is useful to look at things in a different way. Sometimes you should think of yourself as becoming ungettable. What does that mean? Well, I talk all about it in this post!
https://marriagerecovery.com/becoming-the-ungettable-wife-in-your-husbands-mind/
Over the course of a marriage you will begin to collect things.
I am not talking about objects or possessions. Rather, I am referring to certain activities you and your husband may engage in. Some of these things are good routines and habits….some are necessary activities…others may be unnecessary altogether, but through habit-forming, certain unwanted activities can become part of the mold of your married lives.
The routines of your life are seldom defined by the degree of excitement or thrill they bring to your marriage. Rather, they are just, well…they are just somewhat boring behaviors you and your lover partake in.
Many of our routines can soak up the available time we have for each other. They can infringe on you and your husband’s capacity of having fun and doing things that are exciting simply because of the lack of available time or that the sheer volume of all there is to do in your marriage to just get from one day to the next. These activities you find can pull you and your husband away from each other. Without pruning the unnecessary routines of your marriage, both of you can be easily left exhausted or unmotivated.
One of the key principles of a successful marriage is revitalization. Think of it as the periodically renewal of the marriage. What I am talking about is re-invigorating your marriage. And this is where you and your husband need to undergo a paradigm shift.
You both need to clear away some of the things you do to make room for renewing your marriage. Think of it as clearing the deck.
Do away with some of these things that are either unnecessary and replace them with fun. Allow room for the exciting activities you can do together. Allow time for some adventures. Learn to play with each other. By doing these things, you create a positive feedback loop. Soon, your husband will think of you’re in a different way. He will equate seeing your face with something that leads to fun and excitement.
This whole focus on revitalizing your marriage starts with a serious conversation you have with your husband. It is not fair for either of you to blame the other for a lack of excitement or enthusiasm in the marriage. The fact is you are both to blame if you fail to act on the natural order of how marriage entropy acts upon a relationship.
Tell your husband that the two of you have a choice. You can either continue to tread water and get caught up in the negative marriage undercurrent. Or you both can realize what is happening to the marriage and accept that feelings of boredom and lack of excitement with the marriage are not unusual feelings. Once you accept and become aware that you are trapped in a cycle of marriage mediocrity…..only then can you take action to do something about it.
How Do You Go About Increasing the Excitement in Your Marriage?
So what can you do?
Well there are tons of things you can do. One idea is to play with each other. Make your “play” into an event and make it fun, exciting, and surprising. It should be the type of experience that you and your husband can participate in that will help re-ignite the spark that might be missing in your marriage. In a moment, I will give you an example of something you and your husband can do to trigger an evening of delight.
And once again, don’t feel bad if you are thinking that your marriage is missing that spark of excitement. It happens. I have experienced it in my marriage and it will happen again to both you and I. It is just the natural course of how our marriages take shape. We will all go through periods in which the marriage feels like it is stuck in first gear. To rev up the marital engine, you need to take proactive steps liven up things a bit. So turn the page and focus on actionable steps you can take to break up the pattern!
So here is an idea you can run with!
One way to get your husband thinking about you in a much more exciting way is to bring out the sexuality. One of the best ways to get his attention is to act out of character for one night.
Of course, over the long run, you will want to engage in many very exciting sexual encounters over time. But it is not something you want to over do. This is where less is more. I am not talking about the frequency of sex. Rather, I am referring to those very special, exciting, and most importantly, surprising, sexual encounters.
As we discussed, it is easy for couples to get locked into a routine pattern. This can even happen in the bedroom. Well, it is time to remedy that. If you have kids, get a baby sitter. But I want you to plan a dinner with your husband. Present it as a date. Find a restaurant adjacent to a hotel. Toward the end of the dinner, I want you to leave a sealed note (in envelope). Tell your husband you want him to read it. Then excuse yourself to go to the restroom. Actually, what you are going to do is head over to the hotel. In planning this, you would have already reserved a room. Eventually curiosity will cause your husband to open the envelope. He should find a key card to your hotel room and a brief sexy suggestion on exactly what you want him to do to you. I think you can take it from there and feel free to be as creative as you wish.
