Creating Sparks That Last & All Things Relationships

What Is Love? 'Writer seeks 'wife' for a year on a tropical island.' The other day I asked for you, the reader, to define love in one word. I got some thoughtful answers which I'll list below. But before I do that, I want you to ask yourself what love means to you, firstly as an individual and secondly in a partnership. Years ago, when my marriage was still young, I read an autobiography by Lucy Irvine called Castaway (NOT the Tom Hanks movie). This was an intentional project to live on Tuin Island, an uninhabited island off the northernmost coast of Australia, for a year. It began with a male writer advertising for a female to live with him and test their mettle of survival on Tuin Island.   The catch, by Australian Officials standards, was that they had to be married in order to stay on the island. This did not please Lucy as G (as she calls him) expected more than just survival tactics from her. This caused deep introspection on both their parts, making for a del...

Communication? Sometimes Non-Communication? On this particular date, James and I were grumpy with each other. We were away on holiday together in Bath, UK and started our day by parting ways for individual sightseeing. Neither of us felt like talking to the other and that is a huge sign of respecting each others' boundaries. If feelings are too heated, it often pays to walk away temporarily, before hurtful things are said and tempers flare beyond control. By the time we met up again, later in the day, our feelings had diluted with retrospection and deep thought - so vital in understanding ourselves and others in an attempt to be respectful and not lose our temper. The following is an excerpt from my travel journal: Our melancholy overflowed into our tiny dorm room at the YMCA. We very seriously considered cancelling the rest of our trip, and we were only 3 months in! After a thoroughly heated discussion about the pros and cons of packing up and going home, we acknowledged that thi...

Attentiveness, Responsiveness, Engagement “T here’s no single definition that describes a  “healthy” relationship . So much of tethering your life to another person means making the rules up as you go along. Regardless, though, you do have  to establish a basic level of respect and empathy. And that’s where the A.R.E. formula for relationships—which values attentiveness, responsiveness, and engagement—comes in.” This is an excerpt from the Relationship Tips segment of Well+Good. This article is written by Kells McPhillips and you can click on the link below to read the full post. https://pin.it/6W72uCi

Spending In   Instead of spending out on a date event, we ranked ourselves important enough to pursue projects we both wanted to accomplish in our home. Investing in ourselves should always be a priority. So often we pretty-up areas in our home that are highly visible instead of improving unused areas. It seems a waste and yet it is not. It's the same with our relationships - you create value in spaces otherwise wasted by spending time on each others' needs, making them visible and valuing their role in our commitment to each other. Our 'Spending In' date doubled as fulfilling each others' desire for empty spaces to be filled by finding solutions that work rather than throwing out something (or someone) just because it's (they are) outdated. By transforming ourselves into practical functionality we rediscover purpose and intention, giving ourselves a new lease on life. Approval (ie we need only accept each others' differences) is not necessarily required, o...

In Your Very Own Private Dance Studio One of my most favourite memories, whilst living temporarily in a foreign land, was learning the Bolero dance with my husband. We knew no-one, we didn’t know the area well, and so we took it upon ourselves to learn something new; the Bolero dance. My husband is not a natural on the dance floor, not that I am either, but what I mean, is that the very fact that he willingly undertook this project with me, knowing that he was out of his comfort zone, was the most romantic thing he could ever have done. My husband the Dance Floor Hero, I was smitten. Date night is so simple to invent, with just a little creativity. Usually, it means the absolute world when one or the other partner goes out of their way to create a memorable experience. I’m curious, what seemingly uneventful experience turned out to be the most romantic date for you and your partner?

  Invest in your relationship to deepen its worth Here we are, mid-way through our date year experiment and this one ended up being away from home  in the Philippines, so it made sense to incorporate date night into our holiday.  James and I had only arrived in the Philippines a couple of hours before; we had left Sydney in the early morning in the middle of winter knowing full well that we were arriving to high humidity. I was dressed in a spencer, long sleeved polo neck, scarf and jacket. While waiting for our luggage I took off my scarf and jacket but couldn’t remove my long sleeved polo neck because I only had a spencer underneath – James looked at me, sweat pouring from my beet red face and said as if surprised, “Aren’t you hot?” What ensued I cannot be sure except for the fact that I answered him in a flurry of colourful words from which he calmly turned to collect our luggage. Aren’t I hot? Of course I’m hot, I’m boiling, what did he think I would be feeling? There...

How do You Stay Married Until “Death do you part”? Note: Today's post is an extract from @mrshillaryvance via Instagram. She is a Therapist, Coach & Educator. With her permission, I have paraphrased some poignant thoughts about long-term relationship commitment: So many people don’t really weigh the gravity of the FOREVER part or consider what it really means (or actually looks like) to love someone forever. A lot less people would probably get married if they did! But in all seriousness, marriage is pretty awesome and it’s totally worth it with the right person (but potentially disastrous with the wrong person).  I think it’s time more people weigh the seriousness of forever and start talking about the glossed over realities of what most marriages look like day in and day out (it’s definitely not always G-L-A-M-O-R-O-U-S). All this to say, marriages will have their ups and downs...the good days and bad days, the “I think you’re hot” and “I think you’re not,” days, but what rea...