A Key Ingredient for Creating Close, Connected Relationships
Although they may not be aware of them, everyone who creates a great relationship has certain things that they do over and over to create more love,passion, connection (or whatever is important to them) on a consistent basis in their relationships.
In any relationship it's usually not just one thing we do that creates the magic but many different things. Sort of like ingredients that go into a recipe for a favorite food or dessert-- if you leave out one of the key ingredients things don't go so well.
So what are the key ingredients in a close, connected and loving relationship?
Sadly, one of the ingredients that most people consider to be essential for a connected, alive and long-lasting relationship is something so simple but is often the first to disappear.
That ingredient is the simple act of having fun together.
That's right-- FUN.
A question many people wonder about fun is...
"Why does it disappear when it's usually part of what brought us together?"
That's a good question and we'll answer it like this.
Life gets in the way and we often choose other things on a day to day and moment to moment basis that don't move us toward more love, passion and connection.
Our jobs become priorities and when kids come along (although we may be having fun in different ways), we tend to put having fun as a couple very low on our list of "things to do."
In our relationship, even though the two of us are together most of our time together,we found that because of everything else going on in our busy lives we had allowed the "fun" part of being together fade a bit. Although we do have fun working together, we had been short-changing that part of our relationship and did a few things to get things revved up a bit.
So, we did what we're going to suggest that you do. We decided to make a list of things we considered fun to do together and do those things.
Susie already had a good quality bicycle but Otto didn't.
So, last week Otto bought a bike and we took our first ride together Tuesday evening as part of his birthday celebration. It just took an hour and boy was it fun.
Another "fun" thing on our list that we enjoy doing together is watching concerts of our favorite recording artists on DVD.
So, the other evening, after we stopped working, we watched a wonderful VH1 Storytellers concert and program featuring one of our favorite musical artists, Natalie Merchant. What a joy for both of us!
You get the point...
If you are in a marriage or relationship, we invite you to make a list of things that you enjoy doing together. They might be things that you used to enjoy together but no longer do--or they might be new things that would be fun for both of you.
If you are not currently in a relationship, we also invite you to make your list of what you consider "fun" activities. Again, they might be new activities or they might be things that you used to enjoy. Not only would this be a way to create more fun in your life, it might also be a way to meet someone special.
Whether you are in a relationship or not, you have to carve out some time from your life for having fun and doing this new or not-so-new activity.
Why would you want to do this?
It's pretty simple--It brings aliveness and renewal to your life and your relationship.
What we've found is that anytime you want to create more love, passion and connection in your relationships and life-- fun is always one place you can count on to give more of what you want to you.
We invite you to explore what fun means to you this week and to make time in your life for it.
It's so important for the quality of any successful and happy relationship.
