How to Fall in Love With Your Mate Again: Ten Hot Secrets

“His mouth is sweetness itself;

He is altogether lovely,

This is my lover, this is my friend,

O daughters of Jerusalem.”

Song of Songs 5:16

The grass is always greener on the other side. And many of us think of how we would be happier with that special someone…else. I have another take on this. Are you still married to the one you love…loved. Before you pack up and move out, before you wipe the slate clean, consider this, you can not run from you.

Whoever your new mate will be will not change who you will be...well, not by much. The doubts, the fears, the guilt, the strengths, the weaknesses that make or break your current relationship will be the baggage you take into a new relationship. Now I am not claiming to be a relationship guru, but having been married to the same woman for over 25 years, and with many opportunities on both sides to move on, I have arrived at the conclusion that you can be happier with a new mate, but the best decision is to try to be happier with the present mate.

Yes I am proposing that you can find love again…in the marriage. OK you have done the counselling bit, you have kissed and made up countless times, but somehow you have grown away from each other, you have no tender affections for each other anymore; plain truth you now resent each other. In fact you have been calling divorce lawyers and quietly making housing and job searches to facilitate a new life…with a new mate.

You want to experience the thrill of sexual desire with the one you love…again. You want to look forward to coming home to hug and kiss your mate…again. You want to find love…again.

1. Remember how it all started. What drew you together? Revisit the roots of the relationship to look for possible solutions to the problems pushing you apart.

2. Love, that special affection for another whereby you hold him or her dear, is more than a feeling; it is both a duty and a blessing. So you need to seek the Source of love in order to strengthen your love for each other. God is love, so the nearer you both draw to God the closer you will become to your mate.

3. First be a friend before you become a lover. The secret lover thing is for story books. The lifelong thing is with a deep friend. Your mate should be your friend. Friendship requires shared values, hobbies, interests. To deepen friendship you need time together, play together, and yes, pray together. I am shocked at how many marriages survive with partners living separate social lives. People go out alone, and take separate vacations. Then they complain when they find distance between them. I mean, you don’t have to stick together like glue, but how are you going to keep a marriage going with separate lives.

4. Communication involves disclosure and feedback. As friendship deepens you will want to state your expectations, you disappointments, your fears, you hopes. You will also want to express yourself on the kind of social activities you believe are best for the marriage.

5. Yes, I had to talk directly about sex sooner or later. Spice up the sex. When I was younger I used to hear nearly every pastor preaching about how wives could improve a marriage by putting on perfume and wearing lovely nightie, and thought it so trite. Well now that I am nearer to 50 I will give an overwhelming standing ovation to that idea (pun intended). It does wonders for me. Sexy lingerie is great. The satin smooth feel plus the fragrance of perfume, wow, wow, very stimulating. And getting away from home to hotel or cruise will do wonders. No money for both, wait till kids are out of house and you have your home hotel!

6. Make an effort to date your mate. Treat him or her the way you would if you had a new person to impress. Flowers, kind deeds, little romantic things. Just like you were courting someone new.

7. Accept the fact that over a life cycle, you will experience changing physical and emotional needs. Read up on the needs of the different stages for male and female in order to understand yourself and you mate. You may discover that nothing is wrong with either of you; you are just not coping with the life cycle stages of each other very well.

8. Do a personality profile. Sounds cliché, and even too metaphysical if taken too far. But there is a little truth in the four windows into the way people behave: choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic, and melancholy.

9. Attend a marriage enrichment seminar at you local church. Ask your pastor to organise one for the couples.

10. A change of scene can do a lot of good. Run away together! Instead of running away from each other to someone else. Do something major like… sell the house and move to another state…together.