Pressured to become more passionate in your life and marriage? Here is part two of suggested methods. See part one for background. Other articles touting the benefits of passion and/or how to find it are found by clicking highlighted words.
How to deepen passion in ten minutes a day (one/ two)
How to avoid passionless marriage
4. Periodically review your activities and commitments. Prune unnecessary or solitary activities that take away valuable time from the home such as board and committee appointments, volunteer memberships, and charitable projects. Busyness leads to stress, stress leads work overload. Overload reduces sexual performance.
5. Set sacred times to turn off the cell phone, Twitter, Blackberry or Palm. These times may revolve around family breakfast, dinner, family night, date nights, Saturday ‘in-house’ matinee, or two hours after Sunday worship. The Michelangelo Phenomenon pronounces that a person’s ideal self is shaped in part by his/her mate; bringing the individual and his/her partner into a higher realm of personal and couple well-being.
6. Use your text message, instant message to send love notes to your spouse or significant other. A recent survey by Samsung shows that messaging boosts parent-teen ties. The same could be true for spouse to spouse ties. See rationale above. Basically, high quality time spent with one’s mate does just as much for one’s own self actualization as does one’s mate.
7. Complete ordinary and routine tasks together with your mate to transform the experience into an extraordinary one. Do you have a knack for cooking, gardening, cleaning, or organizing? Why not share these activities with your mate? Upon arriving home, you’ll look forward to these mundane tasks with remembrances of times spent completing a project together. Couples who participate in activities together report greater increases in relationship quality.
Conclusion
So the next time some well intentioned person suggests that you add a little spice to your marriage, don’t forget to carve out the time first. Embarking on such a feat without the proper preparation will only add to your frustration. The unwanted result in trying too hard—becoming the jaw breaking, ballbuster taskmaster and perfectionist. The very character traits you are working so hard to dispel.
Web Resources
Literary Resources
Bennett, Joel B. Time and intimacy: A new science of personal relationships. LEA’s Series on Personal Relationships.
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ. 2000.
Swenson, Richard A. The Overload Syndrome. Navapress Publishing Group, Colorado Springs, CO 1998.
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