Creating Sparks That Last & All Things Relationships

Dormant Feelings Can Be Re-Ignited You can also find new ways to feel by learning more about each other. To recap on last weeks’ post about honest and open vulnerability and making a commitment to the happiness of your relationship, I’ve got a few pointers below to steer the process in the right direction.  To learn a little more about your mate it’ll help to understand some of these ideas: Unique         🔸 What are your interests, individually and as a couple? Connect     🔸Physically and emotionally with eye contact Consistent     🔸 Commit ahead of time to a time frame that suits both your calendars for date events Vulnerability   🔸 Be prepared to talk of sensitive issues without fear of betrayal Laughter     🔸It really is the best medicine ; choose outings that tickle your funny bone I am not a marriage counsellor, I’m not even a relationship guide; what I am, is a wife. I have been a wife to the same man for 33 years. I won’t say always happily because that would b

FIND YOUR UNIQUE SPARK Choose ways to ignite your relationship that make both of you happy Image credit @casey-horner via Unsplash ♥ Notice how I said ‘unique’?   There is no one size fits all to a relationship so don’t compare your relationship to anyone else’s.  Each one is a unique fit. I largely chose our dates myself for Date Year but I made sure to integrate James’ preferences as well. This is how our experiences became unique to us. I use words like ‘both’, ‘our’ and ‘us’ because marriage is exclusively about the two of you. Three’s a crowd, no doubt about it. We’re not talking about socializing, we’re talking about connecting. Your marriage needs to grow the two of you together so choose your date experiences wisely. ♥ Be consistent. Don’t let the inconvenience of everyday life get in the way of making a commitment to the happiness of your marriage.                           ♥ Regularity brings results. A once-off just won't cut it. ♥ Honest and open vulnerability is a nece

Goals to Make Your Relationship Zing! Image credit @unsplash by @jonathansborba When James and I completed our Date Year Experiment, we came away with solid ideas of what we wanted our relationship to look like. We set goals to ensure that we got the very best outcome. I'll outline some of them here, along with additional ideas from practicalintimacy.com https://pin.it/1N7Qi1l 🔥 Know your boundaries and limitations:          ❣   As well as knowing your own boundaries and letting your partner figure out theirs, you also   need to know your limitations: own your faults, your shortcomings and areas of   required improvement. Don't try to dictate your partners' limitations to them, this is about you taking ownership of your own stuff. 🔥 Validate your own feelings and emotions:         ❣   Maintaining the status quo to keep the peace is not an option. Name your feelings, name your emotions without having to defend them. They just are  because that is what you're experienci

NO SPARK STAYS ALIGHT WITHOUT EFFORT Our Date Event for the year proved to be thoroughly worthwhile. James and I had bonded over new experiences and quality time alone, but that by no means meant we could sit back and watch our marriage continue to flourish all on its own. Just as there is no perfect person out there, yes I’m talking to you, there is also no perfect relationship or marriage out there. If you consider for a moment, that essentially you are two strangers from different backgrounds with your own opinions, cultures and personality, so you are bound to disagree on some topics, which is to be expected. And if you’re not disagreeing some of the time, I would venture to say that one of you is sacrificing too much of your self or possibly even being unnecessarily passive.  We should be playing to each others’ strengths not highlighting weaknesses, but building them up as best we know how. Relationships require fine-tuning all the time Every day we are faced with situations tha