When you first got together, your partner would bring you flowers, surprise you with candlelit dinners, and go the extra mile to make you feel sexy and desired.
These days, you spend most of your time together in stained PJs eating takeout on the couch. Why is there no romance in your relationship? Does that mean you’re doomed?
While you might think that when the romance goes, so does the love, here’s why that’s not exactly true and what you need to remember when you start to doubt things.
1. SOMETIMES REAL LIFE TAKES OVER
You might think it would be ideal to live a fairytale day in, day out, being all lovey-dovey with your partner, staring into one another’s eyes and declaring your love for one another constantly, but that’s unrealistic (and kinda gross, to be honest). Yes, romance is important and feels great, but real life is a thing and it takes precedence sometimes. Between work, family, and other responsibilities, you have to realize that your relationship can’t always be just about the two of you.
2. THE HONEYMOON PERIOD IS GREAT BECAUSE IT’S TEMPORARY
If you and your partner focused on romance all the time, it would quickly lose its shine because you’d start to take it for granted. The reason we love the honeymoon period of a relationship so much is that it’s a novelty, something that doesn’t come around often and doesn’t last forever, which is why you want to bask in it. While being further along in your relationship doesn’t have to mean there’s no romance anymore, the grand, sweeping gestures are generally reserved for the early stages.
3. MAYBE YOU NEED TO WIDEN YOUR DEFINITION OF ROMANCE
If your definition of romance is getting expensive gifts, being given flowers, getting wined and dined, etc. then perhaps it’s time to rethink your definition of romance. Your partner could be showing you how they feel about you in other ways that go beyond the surface and actually serve to make your life better. For instance, maybe they bring you coffee every morning in bed because they know you struggle to get up and going for work without caffeine. Maybe they cook you dinner because they know you’ve been busy and you’ll be starving when you get home. When you start to think of romance differently, you suddenly start to see it more often.
4. WHAT ROMANTIC GESTURES HAVE YOU MADE LATELY?
You can’t expect your partner to be the only one romancing you all the time. Think about it: what have you done for them lately? If you can’t think of anything at all, maybe that’s part of the problem. Thoughtful gestures need to be reciprocated in a relationship, so instead of waiting around for your partner to do something to sweep you off your feet and bring the romance, why don’t you take the reins?
