Romance.

I've had romance on my mind lately.  Maybe it's the lovely weather (ah, spring).  I've always loved romance.  It was easy to love in my dating years, because when people are dating (or "courting", you could say), they're always trying to be romantic to win someone over. 

But after being married for a couple of years (amazing that it's been this long!), romance changes forms, and it requires a lot more effort.  When you're dating, it involves effort to do anything together.  But once you're married and living together with a routine, the small things that would have been considered effort are simply just...normal.  

It's strange to sit back one day and realize that there's nothing WRONG with your marriage - nothing is going badly, no one is being mean.  But things are just plain-Jane, run of the mill, day to day normal.  You realize that neither husband nor wife has done anything wrong, but the spark has fizzled, and you've probably both let it happen.  When you were dating, there was constant reassurance of someone's feelings for you, constant effort to be caring and thoughtful.  You knew the person courting you was on your side.  But things slowly change, and it's easy to see your spouse as your opponent.  You find yourself subconsciously not being as loving, thoughtful, or supportive as you could be, simply because your partner isn't doing the same for you.  And then you're in a vicious cycle, of just not being wonderful to your partner because they aren't being wonderful to you - and it doesn't seem to get better.  There's no fight, no argument, no confrontations - just quiet.

I think it happens to every couple.  I see newly married and engaged couples, and they are always laughing, showing love, touching each other physically - you can tell they are still in a phase of wanting to show their feelings.  And then those of us who have been married for a while slip into thinking our partners should just know we love them without having to make effort to show it.


Thus, romance evades us.


Luckily, my husband and I saw this little issue creeping up and talked it out, and are making sure we break the cycle of marriage blahs.  We will be just fine.


No matter how long you've been married, I think everyone needs some romance, some special care.  Doing the dishes is helping, but it's not extra special care.  I have two general thoughts on what it takes to make something romantic:

1. It has to be out of the ordinary.  For example, we do dinner and a movie all the time, so if Wes planned that, it wouldn't be romantic.  He does dishes all the time, so that's not romantic.  I do laundry every week, so that's not romantic.  But for other couples with different routines, some of those things might be very special! 

2. It needs to require thought and purpose.  Anyone can buy flowers, that's not super special - unless they think about it and purposefully buy flowers their partner really enjoys.  Anyone can schedule a dinner date, so schedule something with an actual reason behind it (i.e. Mexican to remember your awesome trip to Mexico, maybe?) - as long as there's actual thought, effort, and loving reasoning behind something, it will feel special and not like someone just doing their marriage duty.



I know these thoughts are rambling, but it's just on my brain lately.  As much as people tend to write off romance as being cheesy, I think most relationships (in a sense, even friendships) could really use more of it.