"Do what you did at the beginning and the relationship will never end." Why feelings don't cool on their own, and how they can grow stronger with years.
An important principle of relationships:
“Do what you did at the beginning of the relationship, and it will never come to an end.”
What do we do when we’ve just met and taken a liking to each other?
We try to make the person we love happy. We respond to any request gladly, and many of them we anticipate before they’re spoken.
However heavily loaded with work we are, we look for every free minute to meet or at least talk on the phone. We write a lot of romantic messages.
We want to delight the person we love and surprise them. We like seeing the smile and the admiration in their eyes.
We don’t think about ourselves all that much, but we’re attentive to the other person’s wishes and needs.
And then we’re a family. Seven days pass, or seven weeks, or seven months, or seven years, and the focus of our attention drifts elsewhere. We’re preoccupied with work, money, raising children, the household, ministry, volunteering, relationships with other people.
Our marriage can start to feel gray and monotonous to us. We tell ourselves stories about how our partner has probably changed, become different, become indifferent, and how they make so many mistakes and foolish choices toward us.
But maybe the point is that we ourselves drifted away from the way we behaved at the start? Maybe if the focus of our attention returns to the person we love, we can stay in love permanently?
Personally, I believe that over the years feelings can grow stronger.
Nastya left for two weeks to study in the Carpathian mountains. She’s a really excellent gestalt therapist and she’s constantly learning so she can help people fix their relationships and their self-esteem. Before she left, she hid my favorite vegan treats around the apartment for me.
On the third day she told me over the phone where to look for them. I found them all.
How can your feelings cool toward a person who is that attentive, who thinks about you like that and prepares surprises like that?
And every one of us, if we want to, can delight our husband or wife the same way.
That’s why I’m convinced that if we do the right things in a relationship, then over the years it develops and reaches a new level of depth.
The butterflies in your stomach will pass in time, but serious feelings will only grow stronger.