When trying to “work on” a marriage, a lot of couples, or at least one individual in the couple, try to recreate the honeymoon period. But the honeymoon period you went through is over and cannot be recreated. Damn.
Why?
Because the honeymoon period, that most people call “falling in love,” is full of infatuation, fantasies, and seeing only half of the person—the half that doesn’t trigger you and upset you.
Trying to re-capture those old yummy feelings is like wanting that pint of Ben and Jerry’s to be a bottomless pit that never ends, but always satisfies. Or, it’s like an orgasm that keeps going for years on end. Sorry to break it to you folks, it ain’t possible.
If we focus only on the end result or the “high”, we set ourselves up for frustration and disappointment as we try to get back to that feeling. The more we try to re-create it, the more we suffer and the more we try to get our partner to change or us to change to fit into that past feeling. Thus we add more suffering into the marriage.
photo by Andrew Hall, Flickr CC
The work is to renew, like nature, over and over again.
Renewal requires death and rebirth. It can be uncomfortable and scary. Renewal requires patience and trust. Renewal requires two active
participants committed to growth. Renewal is acknowledging what is true—that feelings wax and wane. And, the couples that learn renewal, go to the next level in their relationship, only to eventually hit a wall, and face renewal yet again.
When we get on board with the unavoidable cycles of a long-term relationship, it changes the game in the most helpful of ways.
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