My boyfriend and I have been dating for more than 4 years now. Our relationship has progressively grown since 9th grade, when we first became friends. In 10th grade we developed into best friends and by 11th grade we were exclusively dating. He gave me a promise ring our senior year and then college happened. The new and vibrant aspects of college life put a tremendous strain on the quality of our relationship, but nevertheless, we made it through freshman and sophomore years. Now in our 3rd year of college, I am more in love with him than I ever have been and we are planning on getting engaged later this year. The journey to get this far has been anything but easy. It has taken massive amounts of time, compromise and a lot of faith. One of the hardest obstacles we had to overcome was the "comfortable monotony" phase. This is a phase that majority of couples (married or non married) get themselves into all of the time. Every time we would see each other we would do the exact same thing: he would come over my house or I would go over his, we would watch a movie, we would talk, I would go home or he would go home and then night ends. There were a lot of excuses we used to justify this routine, the most prominent one being the financial issue. Finally, we realized that we had fallen extremely far into a rut and needed to get back the passion and spark in our relationship. Agreeing to "date night" at least once a month, we set out to rekindle our relationship. There are actually a lot of fun things to do locally that have little cost or are free. We went on an afternoon hike and picnic at a local park one week and then to a Saturday morning movie the next. These dates made us feel like we were just getting to know each other again and we began to treat each other with more love and respect then ever before. So my suggestion to anyone who is in a long term relationship is to make sure you make time for "date nights". It helps you rekindle the love and passion you once shared and develop a whole new perspective on your significant other once again.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Preventing the Atrophy of Relationships
My boyfriend and I have been dating for more than 4 years now. Our relationship has progressively grown since 9th grade, when we first became friends. In 10th grade we developed into best friends and by 11th grade we were exclusively dating. He gave me a promise ring our senior year and then college happened. The new and vibrant aspects of college life put a tremendous strain on the quality of our relationship, but nevertheless, we made it through freshman and sophomore years. Now in our 3rd year of college, I am more in love with him than I ever have been and we are planning on getting engaged later this year. The journey to get this far has been anything but easy. It has taken massive amounts of time, compromise and a lot of faith. One of the hardest obstacles we had to overcome was the "comfortable monotony" phase. This is a phase that majority of couples (married or non married) get themselves into all of the time. Every time we would see each other we would do the exact same thing: he would come over my house or I would go over his, we would watch a movie, we would talk, I would go home or he would go home and then night ends. There were a lot of excuses we used to justify this routine, the most prominent one being the financial issue. Finally, we realized that we had fallen extremely far into a rut and needed to get back the passion and spark in our relationship. Agreeing to "date night" at least once a month, we set out to rekindle our relationship. There are actually a lot of fun things to do locally that have little cost or are free. We went on an afternoon hike and picnic at a local park one week and then to a Saturday morning movie the next. These dates made us feel like we were just getting to know each other again and we began to treat each other with more love and respect then ever before. So my suggestion to anyone who is in a long term relationship is to make sure you make time for "date nights". It helps you rekindle the love and passion you once shared and develop a whole new perspective on your significant other once again.
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