Advice For Your Relationship
Relationships can be very confounding more so if your expectations are not the same as the person you are dating. You started out very well with a glow in your face proclaiming your new found love. You go out of the way to please your partner and vice versa. Then there are the romantic candlelit dinners, long walks, exchanging gifts, staying up together all night – everything seems to be perfect but then as time passes by you wake up to the fact that there is something really amiss in your relationship. There is just no spark left to fire up the passion and you begin to wonder if the romance is dead.
If you find yourself in a similar situation, realize that this could mean that you are actually ready to move on to the next level of your relationship.
Over a time, love grows deeper and moves beyond the physical. So may be you are missing the moments when you and your partner used to look into each other's eyes or hold hands. However, love is a journey and each step has something new to offer. But if it is a journey, you have to move on from the comfort level you have attained and go beyond what you have come to expect. In other words, you have to let go because if you don’t leave the first step, you can’t move on to the second and then the next and so on to reach your final destination.
What this means is that when you find something is amiss, it does not signify that something is wrong with your relationship. When the romance is gone, it may signify that it is time to take your relationship to the next level. New romance is always exciting but fleeting. But the next step takes you deeper, where you find trust, comfort, security and the true intimacy that comes from knowing someone so closely.
Relationship, like other priceless things in life, has to be nurtured with time and patience. In today’s time challenged world, the hardest thing is to find time. However, no matter how pressing your commitments, you must take out time for your partner. Remember it is not quantity but the quality of time that you spend with him/her that is important. The point is never to take your relationship for granted – it is as important, perhaps even more than your other priorities.
Communication is important in any relationship. At the initial stage, when you are getting to know your someone special, you tend to talk about each other’s life, aspirations, and secrets. But over the time, you come to feel that you know each other inside-out, and so there is less need to communicate. Then gradually as life falls into a pattern, you begin to complain about daily irritations, you focus on the trivial, instead of the meaningful. However, no person is ever complete and with the passage of time he or she also grows and changes. So there's always more to learn about each other. Away from the mundane, do make it a point to share memories and build on the special connection between you through communication rather than letting it fade away.
Go the extra mile for your partner. It is easy to be lazy in a relationship. Over a period of time, you stop saying ‘I love you’ thinking why state the obvious. However, sometimes stating the obvious at the most unexpected moments can add greatly to your relationship. You really don’t have to move mountains to go the extra mile – even small little gestures can make all the difference. Remember at the beginning of your relationship when you were so eager to surprise your partner with a breakfast or a spontaneous little gift? So why not pick up a bottle of wine when you know your partner's had a bad day at work. Gestures like this will make your partner do the same kind of things for you. Let your mate know that he is still important and worth making an effort for.
If your relationship is still important, you will still find it well worth to give it a little more time and effort. Don't slack off and don't take your partner for granted. Love is like a plant that needs consistent, careful attention to thrive, survive and bloom. Without it, your relationship is destined to wither away.