Fall In Love With Your Husband Again- pt 2
October 25th, 2012 // 3:32 pm @ Janine and Alane
Get Ready to Crush on Your Husband
An amazing thing about love: You can be together for years and suddenly feel third-date-hot for each other. How to bring on that super-charged state? Try these ideas–they’re like anti-aging for your relationship.
Another way to zap yourself into the infatuation zone? Fake it till you make it with some intentional touchiness. It worked for Shana MacDonald Davis, a yoga instructor from Seattle who’s been married for 13 years and says that in the beginning, whenever her husband said something shockingly brilliant, she’d flip into crush mode. “I assumed that energy would always be present, but after a few years it started to wane,” she says. “It took going through a couple of periods without much affection for us to realize that sometimes you have to make time to cuddle or have sex even if you’re not in the mood. It can spark the alchemy, and believe me, you’re always happy afterward!”
The single biggest recommendation from experts and couples: Learn something new together. A recent study shows that the more a person feels like they’re learning and growing with their partner (a process called “self-expansion”), the more satisfied they are with that relationship. According to one of the authors, Dr. Gary Lewandowski, the need to broaden our horizons is inherent, and having a partner who can help you do that is incredibly gratifying.
Now, this doesn’t mean you should take a cue from The Bachelor and start couples’ skydiving. Aleeta Lee, who’s been with her husband for 19 years, says that when the juice started to drain from their high-energy love life, she and her husband made a point to begin doing more fun things, big and small, together. “Sometimes we meet up for an unexpected drink after work, or we walk around the city without a plan, like we did before we had our kid. Recently, we took a wine- and cheese-tasting class, and I got a charge out of seeing him get into it. And we got to drink a lot of wine, which never hurts.”
Another crazy-simple tactic: Change your outlook on the things that annoy you about your other half. Monica Beilanko, whose popular blog “The Girl Who” documents how she and her musician husband met and married within weeks, tells me, “I had eagles in my stomach. Pterodactyls! I remember watching his forearms moving as he played guitar onstage with his band and I was just a goner. The first time he talked to me, I nearly fainted.” Now, eight years and two kids later, she says sometimes it takes an act of will to bring those feelings on. “When he’s said something numskulled and I’m spiraling down the angry tunnel of all the things that bother me, I try to change my inner dialogue. I think about the great things he’s done, like building me a cool barn-wood headboard for Christmas. And it’s hard to hate the guy who feeds your babies pancakes while impersonating Michael Bolton. I’m not saying it brings full-on butterflies–but moths.”
Monica’s definitely on to something. A study by anthropologist Helen Fisher, Ph.D., that compared the brains of people who remained in love with their partners to those who hadn’t, showed a lack of activity in the prefrontal cortex–the area of the brain associated with critical thinking–in the former group. Meaning, the people who stayed happy did so by maintaining “positive illusions,” i.e., not being overly critical.
Say you’re aggravated at your husband’s habit of talking to strangers, or how long it takes him to do simple things, or that he can’t wash clothing without destroying it. Try to remember that those traits might also be responsible for his openness, thoroughness, or willingness to try things he’s not good at–qualities you admire and rely on.
Ironically, sometimes it’s that very reliability that sets off the sparks. Sara Voorhees, a movie critic whose 43-year marriage continues to blossom, recalls how seeing March of the Penguins led to a eureka moment: “There is a part of the movie where the mother has to transfer the egg to the father. It’s a crazy process–slippery and dangerous and so many of the eggs just don’t make the transfer. But once that father has the egg, he really has it. He huddles over it through a month of freezing winds and storms and everything else Mother Nature can throw his way. And I remember watching this onscreen and thinking, That Emperor penguin is my husband. That is exactly what he did, what he does, what he will always do for us. That is the hallmark of everything that has kept me loving him for all these years.”
So maybe you’ll get a thrill from seeing your partner in a brand-new way, or maybe you’ll feel a jolt when he’s his truest self. Whatever the cause, be sure to recognize that rush of lust and longing when it happens. And when you get home, do something about it.
“We were talking about something banal when he turned to me and said, ‘You really are my best friend.’ I felt this rush.”
It’s hard to hate the guy who feeds your babies pancakes while impersonating Michael Bolton.”
And all he did was remember to get milk…A late-onset crush may inspire you to revisit high school tricks–backseat, anyone?
Courtesy of Redbookmag.com
Category : Blog