This is true of Sadie’s marriage.  Sadie and her husband Marc have been married for about 3 years and when Sadie goes out to lunch with her friends, she is always complaining that there is no romance left in their marriage, and she guesses that the rest of their lives together will be just boring and routine.  Finally one day, quite honestly a little fed up with Sadie’s complaining, her friend Beth said, “When was the last time you romanced him?, Bought and worn something sexy and new? Set the stage with some romantic music and candles? Massage oils?”.  Sadie thought on this for a few minutes and said honestly, I never thought about it like that.  The last time I was romantic with him was when we were first married.  Now every night, she admitted she comes to bed in her flannel pjs or old night shirt.

Sadie was so busy focusing on what her husband wasn’t doing for her, that she never honestly stopped to think about what she was doing to encourage a romantic atmosphere in her marriage.

This honestly happens quite often in marriage and is a frequent complaint in most marriage counseling sessions.  The spark is gone.  Well, both parties can work together to bring it back.  We can’t become complacent with our spouse, just because we married him, doesn’t mean that we can stop trying to keep him happy and our selves as well.  We must take the time to keep things fresh and exciting.  Believe me if you surprise him a few nights when he gets home from work, he will be ever so anxious to come home and find out if there is a surprise waiting for him.

In life we all face adversity and many couples experience their share of marriage problems.  There will be tough times and it is important that through them you work as a team.  Being a life partner is just that, for better or worse, in sickness and in health, through good and bad, you are there for each other.  It is important to know that you have a relationship that is supportive and loving, even when you personally are falling apart.  This works both ways, so when you look over at your spouse and see them falling apart, that is when they need you to step in, to do everything possible to support them through whatever.  They may not be a pleasure to be around, you may not even like them at that point.  Stress can make people crazy, but believe me if you step in and support, without judgment, without fear, you too will be one of those couples that ride into the sunset together.

The best thing about facing the adversity together is that it builds a solid relationship and proves to both partners that working together then can handle anything.  The closeness that comes from working through life’s issues together is what builds strength, unity, closeness and love.

So when the going gets tough, find ways to stay close, be there for each other, and love each other through it and you will find that your relationship is better and stronger than ever before, and so are the individuals in it.

We all mean to be a better wife, better mother, but it isn’t on the list and the laundry needs to be done, dinner made, dishes, vacuuming, work, school, it seems like there is always more to do.  Unfortunately, because being a better wife is never on the list, it just doesn’t get done.

Sometimes, I know that my husband will approach me very lovingly and touch me or kiss me in a way that I know he would like some of my attention.  Often times, I am just too busy to give it to him.  Isn’t that sad? The most important person in my life, the man that I plan to be with until I die, and I can’t spare some time to be affectionate, to show him the love that he needs, he deserves.

I think that as women we need to spend more time living in the moment instead of carefully planning out everything.  Spontaneity can not be planned, and the truth is you will hear many women say that it is their husband who is not spontaneous enough, when really we only want our husbands to be spontaneous when it is convenient for us, on our schedule.  Unfortunately, that is not spontaneous, it is planned.

As women, we really need to learn to live in the moment.  The list of things to do is never ending and therefore can’t take precedence over all else, especially over our husbands.  Is it no wonder that so many couples need to seek out marriage counseling? We really need to prioritize and our husbands should be on the very top of our list.

Often times, women don’t feel emotionally close with their mate, and therefore, they don’t look forward to encounters of a physical nature.  For men, they don’t feel close to their spouse because they are not getting the physical love they need, so therefore they shut down emotionally.  This is the cause for many marriage problems, and lack of sex is one of the main things that men tend to complain about in marriage counseling.  If you think about it though, what the man is really saying is that he doesn’t feel loved, because in his mind without intercourse, there is no love.

Breaking the stalemate, is something that either partner can do.  Speaking as a woman, be seductive and creative and don’t be afraid to give yourself to your husband.  You will find, that even if you are not in the mood, you can create an atmosphere that will put you both in the mood.  Light some candles, draw a bath for two, or just go on a date.  Rekindling the physical love with your spouse will emotionally draw him back in.  Intercourse is an important part of a marital relationship and abstinence will only create more tensions in a marriage that is on the rocks.

You will find that if you start having sex with your husband more often, your communication and emotional relationship will improve.  I am not saying that there still won’t be things that you have to work out, however with a more harmonious home life, you will be better able to deal with the other issues on the table.

Along this same note, recently I saw a woman on television who gave her husband a birthday gift.  The gift was the promise of sex everyday for a whole year.  She was still doing it, and said that although there were some days where she really wasn’t in the mood and was just going through the motions overall, she felt that it had been bringing them closer together as a couple.  She said that there was much more intimacy and better communication in their relationship now, and that they felt closer than ever.

I know that this is not necessarily the answer for everyone with marriage problems, however it is interesting to see how increasing the frequency with which these couples are having sex, there level of intimacy is going up.  Let’s face it, our marital relationship is our primary relationship, so we must nurture it and help it to thrive.  By doing this we can not only improve our marriage but improve all aspects of our lives.

Now you may be sitting there thinking, how can this save my marriage? Or how can this solve my marriage problems? Well, the answer is simple. Remember how you felt about your spouse when you met, remember how excited you were to spend every minute together? Don’t you think that if you felt that way again, you wouldn’t stray?

Take Linda and Kevin, married parents who had been really distant for a long time.  With work and kids things just got nutty and they really didn’t even realize that they were drifting.  Waiting in an empty school for their son to finish his basketball practice they decided to walk around the school.  Linda made a few jokes about making out by the lockers at school, and Kevin stopped her against the wall in the empty stairwell and gave her a kiss, like they were high school students all over again.  Well, needless to say they took their passionate kiss to a whole new level in a dark empty classroom.  They felt like high school kids all over again, and a new spark was ignited that they hadn’t felt in years.

So when I talk about getting that new feeling all over again, what I am really saying is rekindle the passion, find new and exciting ways to be together, and you will see that it will be like having an affair, but an intramarital one.

In either case, you must work to fix these issues because they can be the death of any marriage if they are allowed to linger without being addressed.  I personally had been cheated on in my past, and honestly had cheated in past relationships.  When I entered the relationship with my current husband, I vowed to change my behavior and to never have cheating become an issue.  There have been times in the past that I have worried that he might cheat, but then I realized that putting extra energy into this thought was not serving either of us.  I have vowed to myself to always trust my husband and to believe that he is doing the right thing, until I have a real reason not to.  Running around worrying about where he is and who he is talking to is to say the least a very immature attitude.  In order to have an adult relationship with your spouse, you must believe in your heart that everything will be okay.  You must trust implicitly the fact that your spouse will be true to you, and locking him up and not allowing him to speak to women, will not stop him from cheating if that is what he is going to do.  It is my experience that doing this will just encourage lying and deceit, as your spouse is going to speak to members of the opposite sex, but if he knows it bothers you, then he just may avoid telling you about it.  This can be worse because then you don’t really know what is going on with him.

Encourage open, honest communication with your spouse and allow them to tell you about things that happen.  Feel comfortable enough with yourself and your husband to listen to him and not pass judgment on the situation.  Distrust will eat away at your marriage, so try to address these issues as they arise and you will find that you have a healthier, happier relationship because of it.

As evolving human beings, we learn and grow from our experiences in life, and this is a good thing.  Sometimes, we have issues that we have not dealt with and we carry them around, waiting over and over again to be hurt and wronged.  If that is what you are looking and waiting for, then that is most likely what you will get.  They call this a self fulfilling prophecy.  In other words, sometimes we are the catalyst for our own misery.  Most people don’t like to hear this, because if they believe their life is really lousy, then they really want to blame everyone else but themselves for the problems they have.  As for me, I always found it a bit refreshing that I was creating my own problems, as it has empowered me to not stay the victim and wallow for too long, realizing that I am the only one who can create solutions to my own problems.

In marriage it is important to acknowledge your areas of weakness, so that you can work to heal them.  For instance, if you distrust your spouse, it may be for good reason, or it may be that every time you have loved before you have had another betray you, and so in the back of your mind you think this is going to happen every time you love another.

Keeping in mind and having an understanding of yourself and the troubles that you have had in the past, can help you to spot your own areas of weakness and make changes in those areas.  Letting your spouse know and understand your own personal issues, will help them to better understand you and your reactions to certain circumstances.  Understanding yourself and your mate is a key to getting your marriage back on track.

Honestly, it doesn’t have to.  You can’t really see if years earlier these family members ever had that kind of passion.  Realize that in past generations public expression of physical love was not near as exceptable as it is today.  Back then public displays were kept very G Rated, and so perhaps from day one their passion for each other has always been kept behind closed doors, perhaps it still is now.  In other words, passion does not need to dwindle at all, keeping the passion alive is important to a healthy relationship whether you are 25 or 85.  We all want to feel attracted to and loved by our spouses.  Don’t be afraid to keep that spark alive and keep expressing your love for each other.  You can still passionately kiss each other every chance you get, even if you do have to put your teeth in to do it.

Finding a balance seems to be so much a key to having a good marriage and a good life together, and yet somehow the mother/father role is taking us both over.  We need to say no matter what else has to be done right now, I am going to take time out to be with my spouse.  The list to be done is never ending, and even after doing the laundry or the dishes, they will just need to be done again.

Taking time out for your spouse and blowing things off occasionally is what we women really need to do.  We need to make that one of our biggest priorities, spending good quality time with our spouse to let them know that they are our top priority.  Keep in mind the kids will be grown and out before long, and that will definitely decrease the things to do list, but you and your spouse will be together long after that, and you need to nurture that relationship so that there is something still there when the smoke clears.