One of the greatest challenges couples face in our contemporary age is the presumption of sexual excitement. When the romance wanes, marriages are at risk — but what’s a couple to do when passion is in decline?

We’re all in favour of a vibrant and passionate sex life for couples — however, it’s not always easy to sustain the passion when domestic responsibilities make spontaneity and novelty an endangered species.

Early Days

It was, for example, relatively easy to create romance as newlyweds when everything we did was new and exciting. Simple things, like cooking our own meals after work, in our very basic rental kitchen, were a daily highlight as we had both lived with our families up until the wedding. Every dinner, no matter how bland the food, was in effect a date night!

Soon work demands, babies and endless housework transformed those dinner dates into endurance marathons and romance was the last thing on our minds. We learnt early on, and have had to relearn many times since, that romance is something that needs active cultivation or it will quickly go ‘missing in action’.

A lot of couples assume that because passion and romance in their early years appeared to happen so spontaneously, it must be something over which they have little or no control. Like the weather, they believe that they are subjects of their passion, not masters of it.

Make the Effort

In truth, while the romance and passion may have appeared to be spontaneous, it wasn’t effortless. When we reflect on our early years, we recall that we spent literally hours planning for our time together. We dreamed about seeing each other again, we wrote love letters (it was the days before mobile phones, text messages and social media!), we planned little treats and surprises for each other, and we greeted each other with urgency and longing.

In short, we invested huge amounts of time and energy in communicating our love and desire. No wonder it was such a wonderfully passionate period!

While it’s natural for our erotic desire to wax and wane in the different seasons of our life together, it’s important to remember that it’s not completely beyond our control. The passion we enjoy together is directly related to the investment we make in our relationship. And this holds true for every stage of marriage.

Stay Curious

One of the essential keys in this quest is a spirit of curiosity. We should never assume to completely know everything there is to know about the other. Yet how often do we slip into this dangerous thinking! It is especially deadly in the context of a disagreement when we assume we know the other’s motivations (presumed to be selfish), needs (presumed to be unrealistic) and desires (presumed to be demanding). Our spouse often doesn’t get a chance to be anything other than what we presuppose them to be!

Rather, when we foster a spirit of curiosity, it allows us to hold the other in our imaginations lightly and reverently. It creates space in our relationship for the other to surprise us or simply be different to what we expected. It creates space for new discoveries and adventures.

The key to life-long passion is the element of mystery. As author Marcel Proust noted, “Mystery is not about travelling to new places but it is with looking with new eyes.” Look with curious eyes on your beloved and you will banish the monotony of domesticity to unleash your marital passion!

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Originally published at SmartLoving. Photo by Amina Filkins.