Creating Sparks That Last & All Things Relationships

Redefining Love and Marriage https://unsplash.com/@jennymarvin Committing to a life-long marriage through difficult times takes a lot of courage. I had to define for myself the kind of life I wanted. Was I willing to forgo some of my identity to take on the characteristics of a partner who, just 30 years ago, was a complete stranger to me? Had I really got to know him at all? In this life that we share, how deeply had we truly got to know each other? Not so deeply at all, I was to learn. In spite of the many epiphanies through our year-long travel escapade, what we did on a daily basis in the humdrum of a nine to five lifestyle eroded the  lessons learnt and the coping mechanisms we had adopted. Outwardly we have a wonderfully marvelous life, yet our invisible introspection, unseen by those around us, slowly dims the light in both of our eyes. Old habits took over as we forgot to create special moments together. Our lives became mechanical. Learning to redefine the meaning of l...

Tentative First Date Our first Date Event was to try to recreate lost memories. Trying to recall what it was I felt for James and how that felt on the inside. I opted for a lunch on our cultural cuisine. It was my hope that the tastes and flavours of our heritage might evoke the excitement of our younger dating days. As we had emigrated from our beloved South Africa 15 years ago, there were many occasions long lost to our past. Whilst I am a firm believer in not living in the past, I am also a firm believer in the fact that blood is thicker than water. The vast stretch of water that we had crossed to get to where we are today was not enough to erase the density of culture flowing through our veins.  The lunch that I chose to rebuild our hopes and dreams on is called Vetkoek. Not as in an animal doctor! The letter ‘V’ is pronounced with an ‘F’ sound. It is an engorged ball of dough deep fried and filled to bursting with savoury mince. Yes, we used to savour them dripping with melted...

Heartfelt Feelings Before we began our Date Year Experiment, I had to find my heart, my feelings, the depth of my emotions. I wanted our relationship to be filled with love and affection again. I knew that it couldn’t be the same as before, simply because we weren’t the same people who had started this relationship together. It’s impossible to be the same. Life has happened, we have matured, maybe even grown skeptical. We still loved each other, just in a new way. So we had to find new ways to reconnect.

Enjoy Our Date Year Experiment With Us I would love to share the unexpected secrets of our date events with you. You will discover a whole side of your relationship that you never even knew existed. As did we. This will undoubtedly help you to uncover hidden treasures in your relationships too. From feeling resentful to feeling appreciated you will delight in these new-found feelings for each other.