Eight steps to revive dying feelings

Eight steps to revive dying feelings

Could you remember the happiest days of your family life? Those long evening walks around the city, hand in hand with your spouse, endless conversations over a cup of tea until late at night, and even then you just cannot get enough of communicating with each other. Remember the moment when you told your spouse with trembling that you are going to have a baby or when you went to a picnic with your whole friendly family for the first time and it suddenly started to rain and you, wet but still happy, were trying to hide from the warm and large drops of rain under the branches of the spreading trees.

Each couple has their own memories of happy, warm days that they recently had and have never seen again. They were replaced by cold, gray, joyless everyday life. Today you have long evenings, when the two of you are so far from each other, each in his own world, in his thoughts or on his phone. There is absolutely no desire to communicate with a spouse and it seems like you are still one family but that each of you struggles with his or her problems alone.

He stays at work longer and longer day by day, while you are overwhelmed with a hurting resentment, unshed tears and have no answer to the question: “Why does everything happen this way?” When did the discord among you occur, why did a loving, caring husband and wife turn into two strangers, who are forced to share a common living space and raise children together?

And most importantly, is it possible to return old feelings, revive love, rekindle passion, return mutual interest and live together once again those wonderful days filled with happiness that every family has?

1. Everything changes.

Everything in our life is very changeable. Our body, face, thoughts, goals, as well as our perspective on life are exposed to constant change. What do we want from such a subtle substance as human relations? Naturally, they are very changeable as well.

Every couple goes through sympathy, falling in love, making it work with each other and achieving complete harmony. When mutual love inspires you, even a joint grocery trip provides you with a fountain of emotions, comparable to a honeymoon in the Maldives.

But time passes and the storm of passion gradually gives way to calmness. And we often confuse this emotional calmness with indifference from our spouse. But if you think about it, the years spent together give you much more than the months of passionate love that you experienced in the beginning of the relationship.

Your spouse becomes your life partner, a person who is with you in different situations: when you feel bad, you get sick, gain or lose weight, get nervous, cry, laugh until your stomach hurts, or feel labour pain when giving birth to children. He has seen you from different sides, and he stays with you, he loves you. Maybe he merely forgot that women often need to be reminded that she is loved.

2. Emotions are not always a good advisor.

Should you always go by your feelings? No and no again. Because there are many factors that affect our emotional state: a common lack of sleep, feeling unwell, stress, - all this can give dark colours to the perception of relationships. Perhaps you and your husband just need to get enough sleep, have a good rest, so that your family life sparkles with new colours and you can love each other with new energy.

3. Silence is not the best way to resolve conflicts.

Avoiding any conflicts, disputes or confrontation is not the best way to build healthy, strong family relationships. Misunderstandings arise even between people who passionately love each other, but if they are not resolved, then these small conflicts accumulate like a snowball and can lead to serious problems in your relationship with your spouse. When you find a way to resolve conflict together, your love grows deeper and stronger.

4. Be real.

In interacting with many people in every day life, we do not always manage to remain ourselves. A lot of us put on “protective masks” to escape the aggressive and cruel reality that absorbs us as soon as we leave the walls of our home. It is very important not to forget to take off all the masks when we are alone with our family. Your loved one needs the real you.

5. Have a heart-to-heart talk.

Remember the happy evenings when you forgot about time when talking with your spouse. Nowadays all communication is reduced to a short exchange of news. Perhaps it seems to you that your husband is to blame for everything (i.e., it is he who has forgotten how to talk to you).

But think about how your conversations have been going lately. Are you discussing anything other than unpaid bills, furniture purchases and children’s school grades? Of course, all this is important. But when was the last time you dreamed together or were interested in the worries of your loved one. And do you recognize your husband as a complex and beautiful creation of the Supreme Creator?

6. Try to be really honest.

Ask yourself how honest you are with your spouse. There is no doubt that you do not deceive him in everyday matters, but how much is your heart open to him? Often, from childhood, we understand that we should not trust everyone and every time.

And as we grow up, this thought only strengthens in our minds. What if you open your heart fully and overcome doubts and disappointments? Such a step can help you achieve heights in your relationship that were never seen before.

7. Look for love through hot meals and ironed shirts.

Love is not necessarily constant confessions, great feats, expensive gifts and dinners in restaurants. Look for love in the little things, in our usual and sometimes not optimistic reality. Try to charge all your actions with this magical feeling.

A neatly ironed shirt and a husband’s favorite dish are sometimes much more eloquent than a thousand words. Do your best to recognize the love language that your spouse wants to communicate you with. Choose the way of communicating with him that most fully satisfies his need to show love.

8. Love is forgiveness.

No one knows you as well as your husband. You know about all the shortcomings and weaknesses, as well as the faults and mistakes of each other. Your task is to hide these from the rest of the world and forgive each other no matter what has happened between you. This is the path to achieving the strongest, gentlest, purest love in this world and an endless love illuminated by the divine light in the Hereafter.

SAFIA FOKINA As-Salam correspondent