Overcoming marital boredom

There is a common feature in marital relationships that is called burnout. It is a time when you feel so low about your spouse and you begin to feel that he or she could have been a mistake, after all. This is the time that you feel dissatisfied with your spouse. It can be so bad that you feel you need another wife or husband, or you begin to crave a taste of extramarital experience, especially if you have an ex that you had a great relationship with. The burnout can also be due to a feeling of boredom, thus craving for variety.

As one man puts it, “Eating beans all the time is boring and leads to loss of appetite.”

When you are in a state like this, it is time to fan the flames of romance in your marriage, to overcome the burnout. If not dealt with, boredom can end up in a divorce. That is one thing couples must realise in handling their marital affairs.

What is romance? Someone once defined romance as keeping the excitement in your relationship alive. That is, you must continue to be ravished in your love for your spouse. You cannot seem to have enough of him or her. If you like, call it being regularly intoxicated with his or her love. This is one way of overcoming your dissatisfaction with your spouse. You just need to create a new level of excitement in your marriage. Anytime you are dissatisfied with your spouse, or he or she feels dissatisfied with you, know that it is time for a new level of excitement in your marriage.

No matter whom you are married to, and for how long, there comes a time when you feel dissatisfied with that person. Burnout does not respect anyone. It will come, but handling it well is what matters.

Creating a new level of excitement in your marriage requires you to go back to the beginning of your relationship. Like I often say, no matter how a relationship ends, the beginning is always a sweet story. That beginning includes devoted attention, regular gifts, holding hands, impressive dressing, weekend outings or clubbing, etc. All these get you excited about each other.

But once married, unmet expectations and challenges take their toll on your excitement level. They make you feel low about each other. That is why you need to be deliberate about creating a new level of excitement in your marriage. It is like re-engineering the excitement level of your relationship. It is a price you need to pay for your marriage to survive the burnout.

How do you get going about it?

*How much attention do you give each other these days? One aspect of the beginning of a relationship is the high level of attention. You hardly can do without seeing and speaking with each other. But with marriage, proximity seems to breed contempt. You gradually begin to give less attention to each other due to many factors − house chores, work challenges, quarrels, children, delayed childbearing, etc. All these affect the attention level in marriage. There is, therefore, the need to deliberately work on these to raise the excitement level of a couple. The more attention you give each other, the more the bonding. This brings about a captivation of each other’s heart.

*Regular and surprise gifts contribute a lot to the excitement level of a married couple. However, this also suffers from marital challenges. Once burnout sets in, each spouse should work on creating excitement in the marriage by revisiting the gift idea, especially if it is the love language of each spouse. At this point, you do not need to wait for the traditional time of Valentine and festivals to appreciate each other with gifts. You do it regularly, to show that you are still in love with him or her.

*Holding hands should not be a once-in-a-while affair in marriage. Physically touching sparks the fire of love between a couple. You cannot be physically touching each other and not be excited about each other. So, when you realise the fire of love is burning out in your marriage, you can fan the flames by physically touching each other more than ever before. Do not make it a sex-induced one, but a love-centred love.

*Impressive dressing goes a long way in creating excitement between a couple. Looking good for each other should not be relegated to the background in a marriage. You should dress to keep your spouse spinning in the head. Let him or her be excited about the way you look all the time. Some spouses become loose in dressing after getting married, with the notion of “Who is looking at me.” This affects how their spouses admire them. If you realise that your spouse is dodging a joint outing with you, it is time to work on yourself.

When you feel like you have had enough of your spouse, that is when you need to take a second look at your looks and make necessary adjustments. Dressing seductively in bed works wonders in raising the bar of excitement in marriage.

I can go on and on about this, but the point is that there are no hard-and-fast rules about it. Each spouse should study his or her spouse and make necessary adjustments to get more excitement in your marriage.

When you do these, you will realise that there is a magic wand in creating new excitement in your marriage. Instead of getting tired of or becoming bored with your spouse, you are evergreen in your marriage.

• You can avail yourself of copies of my books ‘Enjoying Great Sex Life’ and ‘How To Help Your Wife Enjoy S3x’. Please contact 08112658560 for details.

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