Rekindling the Fires of Love

 Let me introduce myself as well as my work

I felt the need to shake things up in my marriage. My husband and I have been together for over 30 years; that's a Very Long Time to spend with the same person 24/7. Obviously, it can't stay deliriously happy all the time, those feelings wear down after a while, so it's important to find new ways of being.

Well, that's what we did and I'm about to divulge our discoveries with you that I have written of each of our date events and what we learnt from each one. I anticipate that you will have lots of ideas of your own to share with us and look forward to reading them in the comments.

Creating Sparks That Last - A Mid-Life Date Year

Creating Sparks that Last - From Stone Age to Modern Age 

Flint is one of the primary materials used to define the Stone Age. Access to flint was so important for survival that people would travel to obtain it. When struck against steel, flint will produce enough sparks to ignite. Flint is hampered by its uneven expansion under heating, causing it to fracture. This is enhanced by the impurities found in most samples of flint that may expand more than the surrounding stone.

Notwithstanding a reference to the Flintstones, the similarity of flint’s volatility to relationships is scarily close.

Disclaimer: Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

To my husband. Without you this marriage manifesto could not have existed. Thank you for showing me a new light in you and for following me obligingly as I lead the way through our Date Year into our evolving relationship.

Foreword

I have been with my husband since I was 17 and he, 22 years of age. That equates to 36 years of being

with the same person day in and day out. 24/7. Hence the writing of this work on marital bliss. We had

reached an impasse. A crossroads if you will. How do we discover new feelings for each other after

being together for so long? Do we throw in the towel? Do we just carry on in our resigned acceptance

of stalemate?

I decided to try and find or create new feelings for James. This wasn’t a one-woman-show, James

was onboard with reigniting our relationship too. He just didn’t know that I was attempting a revival, an

experiment if you will. Towards the end of our 35th year together - from when we first met - I decided

to be the one taking Jonathan out on dates instead of being the one always taken somewhere. This was

the beginning of vocabulary that had to change. Instead of “I took my wife (here, there and everywhere),”

I wanted to introduce “we went (here, there and everywhere)”. I didn’t want to have those simple

decisions always made for more. Relationship is a two-way street right? Sure, we always discussed

which restaurant to go to or, most of the time, which holiday destinations to choose from, but because

of the young age I was when we met, and the fact that I went straight from home to being married, I had

never wanted to, needed to nor minded having decisions made on my behalf. We had both grown up in

the era of male chivalry but in an age of equality where everyone is now being emboldened, our

boundaries needed moving.

I am now a 53 year old woman. The novelty of being ‘surprised’ by events and destinations which I had

no involvement in making has worn off with age and weariness. Planning life together means taking

each others’ desires and goals into account, not doing it for them.

Love is nebulous, is it not? When I say I decided to find or create new feelings for James, I don’t

mean that I wanted to revive my younger self’s loving feelings towards him; I most decidedly don’t

believe that kind of love has an ongoing lifespan. No, I wanted to explore other ways of discovering

unfound feelings that our matured relationship could relate to. I do recall at a young age saying that I

believed there can be only one true, genuine and authentic love in one’s life and that still holds true for

me today. However, being in love simply cannot last forever. Fact. So here we are at the beginning of

our 36th year together. I decided that Date Year would be a good experiment to try. I wanted quality

time together and, as it was me who was igniting emotional renewal, I thought what better way than to

create date events that would guarantee quality time with James. 

For our 25th wedding anniversary, James and I had celebrated with a year long trip around the world.

Our travels had forced us into unnatural close proximity with each other which paradoxically nearly

pushed our marriage over the edge. In the end, we appreciated the value of this time together, ultimately

strengthening our bond which is what we had set out to do. 

The splendour of our travels was soon worn down by the rigours of daily living and we found ourselves

once more longing for some excitement in our relationship. Naturally we couldn’t pull up stumps and

take another year-long travel trip so we invented mid-life Date Year to pull ourselves out of our rut and

infuse our connection with some much-needed vitality.

You can too, whether you’re in a long-term relationship like us or just starting out, quality time together

is invaluable.