Are you racking your brains but are unable to come up with the perfect way of bringing the romance back in your sexless marriage?
How can you put the romance back in your sexless marriage? Well, there are two ways to put the romance back into your marriage. One way is to move back, and the other is to move ahead.
Beginning of Your Relationship
1. You Feel the Spark
Do you recall what it was like when the two of you first began your relationship? Sure you do. Everything was new and exciting, there was a special “something” going on between the two of you, and there was this sexual energy that went along with the newness.
Your relationship was in the early part of the honeymoon phase. You were both on your best behavior. In fact, there was a measure of pretense – you were both putting your best foot forward in an effort to impress and win the other.
2. You Are Attentive to Each Other
During this time you were also very attentive to each other – you listened to each other with great care. Your listening was so carefully tuned, that you actually were able to read each other’s minds.
Many people report that during this early period of courtship there is an occasion when they reach for the phone to call their beloved, when low and behold, guess who is already on the other end of the line! It is like magic.
3. Tight Bond Is Formed
That magic is what we call “enmeshment.” In this early romantic period of a relationship, a very tight bond is being formed. Much of it is sexually charged, as you recall. There is a great deal of mutual dependence being formed at this stage in a relationship. You become dependent upon your partner, and your partner becomes dependent upon you. It is as if two are becoming one.
4. Two Have Become One
In fact, in many wedding ceremonies in the Christian tradition, there is a point where a “unity candle” is lit. At some weddings, there are two separate candles representing two separate people. Those two candles are picked up by the bride and groom and then used by each to light the unity candle, and then the separate candles are extinguished. Two have become one.
Why Couples Lose Romance
What is missed here is how vulnerable each is in front of the other. If one has a bad day, there is a tug upon the other. If one can’t come home on time, there is a felt reaction in the other. If one gets angry with the other, there is anger fired back. When enmeshed, a couple acts and reacts with great energy.
When most people ask me about “rekindling romance” they are talking about this period of enmeshed emotional energy.
1. You Overcome the Honeymoon Phase
The key is this: the relationship is in the honeymoon phase – it is unstable and each person is working hard to make the relationship secure and stable. To make it secure they create romance.
Couples want to “rekindle romance” when they have reached one of two points – either the relationship has become unbearably boring (good), or the relationship is threatened with dissolution.
In the first case, you and your partner have settled into a pattern of mediocrity where rules and roles are followed well, but there is no passion anymore. In the latter case, there has been poor communication and/or lousy conflict management, and your relationship is in obvious trouble.
Are you trying to keep the love alive in your relationship? Read 15 Little Things Strong and Healthy Couples Consistently Do Together
2. You Get Overwhelmed with the Routine
In either case, one or the other of you begin to push for change and you know that things are heating up between the two of you. Your relationship cannot continue as it has been, or you will end up divorced. This is the time when many people come to me for marital therapy. The magic is gone.
At this point you might well be yet enmeshed with each other, but not in a way that is creating positive emotions. In fact, you might be negatively enmeshed. You get angry, and then your partner gets angry. You want some distance, and your partner starts to cling. Your partner wants distance, and you chase after your partner.
3. Sex Disappears from Your Relationship
You try to get your partner to be more open and intimate, and your partner stays away from you. You are still enmeshed, but instead of moving close to each other during the honeymoon of romance, now you are acting and reacting to each other in some sort of painful dance.
Are you trying the bring the romance back in your sexless marriage? Read Sexual Intimacy: Mastering The Art of Subtle Seduction
How to Rekindle the Spark
1. Spend Some Time on Your Own
Interestingly, some couples fall in love with each other again by breaking up, by putting distance where there once was togetherness. Maybe it is with an affair. Maybe it is with fights that end in a kiss-and-make-up act of eroticism.
Something happens to put distance and insecurity so that you can feel uncertain and enter back into some sort of courtship. This is a very emotionally draining way to live.
2. Grow Together
Other couples decide to move ahead. They decide to grow up. Technically we call this “a move to greater differentiation.” When you can learn to be “apart, and a part – at the same time” then you have become more well-differentiated.
As you read this you might be able to get your head around this concept, but maybe not. You see, you have to be slightly well-differentiated to understand differentiation itself.
3. Manage Your Emotions
When you can be yourself with others, you are well-differentiated. It takes a great deal of maturity to do so. Most of us, because of our enmeshment, tend to twist ourselves out of honest shape so that we can be with others. That is, we modify ourselves into something less authentic so that we can belong.
Or, we manage other emotions by changing our behavior. That is, we change ourselves so that our partner isn’t so upset. A well-differentiated person doesn’t do that anymore. Instead, a well-differentiated person is honest at all times but never rude.
4. Respect Each Other
Couples that have become well-differentiated go through a period of instability when the relationship is frighteningly close to destruction. You each have to be the real people you are and with each other.
Respect for the separate people you are is built, and a new kind of love and affection is created. This time, the romance is born of a deep and profound appreciation for the unique people you each are.
Is there a lot of respect between you two in your relationship? Read 25 Ways You Can Show Respect to Your Partner
Conclusion
Now you are together out of nothing more than desire. You are aware that neither of you has to be in this relationship, but you are in it freely. You are strong, and your partner is strong. As a result, your relationship is stronger than it ever has been. There is little sense of vulnerability because there is little enmeshment. Desire and respect hold you together.
So, if you want to rekindle the romance you can either destabilize your relationship by moving back to a time of insecurity and fear or ahead to a time of great security and confidence. You get to make the choice of which method to use to make them fall in love with you again.
If you want to know more about how you can bring the romance back in your sexless marriage, then you might find this video interesting:
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