The Spark Is Gone In Our Marriage

Oh boy..here we are. We’re on the married road and we come to a fork in the road titled “Spark Road”. This is the most common thing I see and hear about with married couples. We have no spark, our marriage is boring, I don’t feel anything for my wife, my husband doesn’t do anything for me.

I am raising my hand here; I was one of those people. Every marriage goes through some dull moments. It’s just the way it goes, it happens. It’s life, right? We have families, careers, children, and all the host of things inside of each of them.

Things are different today than they were 25 years ago when our parents were in our shoes. Careers are more demanding, kids are involved in more extracurricular activities, there’s more to do, etc. Life is just harder in my opinion. In the 60’s and 70’s the divorce rate spiked, but then lowered in the 80’s. Now 1 in 2 couples end in divorce. That’s sad.

We are in control of that “spark” in our marriage. Since I am a divorcee I am always evaluating myself, what did I do to contribute to my divorce, as well as what others that are married and divorced tell me. I always am asking why? My parents have been married for over 46 yrs. and I’m very close with them. I grew up in a household where no conversations were off the table. We talk a lot about their marriage. My mom said something interesting to me once, she said, being with anyone for over 40 years can get boring, but it’s what you put into it.

That really made me think. Marriage is no different than a career, it’s something that’s important to us, right? We want to please our boss, we want to stand out from our peers, we want to move up in the company, so what do we do? We put in the work, we give it 110% ALL THE TIME. Why don’t we do that with our marriages? Because we don’t make our marriage a priority. Our kids, our jobs are more of a priority.

The relationship with your spouse should be your foundation. If you don’t take care of the foundation, the walls will crack, will eventually come undone and fall into pieces. So, that “spark” and keeping that lit comes from within you. If you are someone who has a demanding job where you aren’t present and I mean present in your marriage, let me ask you is that job really that important to you? Is that income really that important? When your home you need to BE home. Your spouse needs to spend time with you, feel you, love you, touch you. If you work crazy hours because you’re in sales, or a lawyer, or a VP of a company and you come home and you maybe have dinner with your family then go back to working on your computer your spouse will eventually get bored, period. You two need to have a serious conversation about what’s important, the money or the marriage? Let’s face it we all live above our means, but getting back to marriages in the 80’s people didn’t live above their means, they worked, came home and when they were home it was family time, nothing else.

Ask yourself some questions about your marriage?

• How many times a month do you and your spouse do something together just the two of you? Date night, grocery shopping, going for a coffee, going to happy hour?
• How often do you and your spouse have sex? Once a month? Twice a month? 3 times a week? I relate sex in a marriage to gasoline in a car, if you have no gas your car isn’t going anywhere, there’s nothing else that you can put in your car in order to make it drive anywhere. If your not intimate your marriage WILL NOT survive. In my blog post, “Our sex life is gone” you can read more on that issue.
• When you leave in the morning/come home at night is the 1^st thing you do when you walk in the house kiss and hug your spouse? Do you randomly walk by your spouse and give them a love tap, a hug, anything? We as human beings need some kind of physical affection from our partner.
• Are you present in your spouse’s life? Do you ever just sit down with your spouse and ask them how they are doing and just sit there and keep your mouth shut and listen? Or is it always all about you and your issues? We need to know and feel that our spouse cares about what’s happening in our own lives. Remember we each have individual lives, then our life with our spouse, their two separate things.
• Are you a taker? Do you expect your spouse to do everything for you and you don’t do anything for them? We all have needs, but if you only care about yourself and don’t ever consider what your spouse wants you have a serious problem.
• Does one spouse do more around the house than the other? Do you conquer your home like a team? Men do you help with laundry, cleaning, etc? Or do you just mow the lawn and take the garbage out? Women do you think your only responsibility is taking care of the kids?

All these questions and ultimately the way you answer them are the driving factors of keeping or diminishing the “spark” in your marriage.

If you need ideas to keeping the spark alive bring it to the forum at, “Ask Jen”.