Don’t Stop ‘Dating’ Your Wife or Husband

Don’t stop dating your wife or husband. Sounds strange right? If you’re already married why would you date your husband or wife?

Because ‘dating’ has a lot to do with what you felt for each other at the beginning of your relationship. Dating is what a couple does when they are interested in each other.

Dating is what a couple does when they are learning about each other. On a date a couple dresses up and puts some thought into what they will do together on a particular evening.

In many cases, a date is something two people look forward to. Two people pay close attention to each other on a date.

People on a date think about, no, worry about, what their date thinks or feels about things like what they wear, how they speak, how intelligent they seem, and how they look.

A date is something you have to ask for. A date is not something you can take for granted. You have to ask and then you get permission to have a date with someone.

A date is valued because you know the person you asked can say yes or no. If a date has chemistry, two people want to get closer. Two people on a date with a lot of chemistry are usually thinking about kisses, holding, hugging, and sex.

Two people attracted to each other on a date will envision making love to each other. The novelty, the strangeness mixed with attraction, is a pull that is hard to resist. This date and more dates convince them to marry. A marriage is exactly what endless dating needs to become.

OK, two people get married. They might have kids. They have relationships with each other’s family. They make a home and start to feel comfortable and familiar to each other.

Now that they’re married they feel a sense of security, of safety in their home. At first they might rub each other the wrong way, as they struggle from time to time to live together comfortably.

Eventually if they’re in love, they get comfortable being themselves together. Like an old pair of slippers, they wear their familiarity in their home together. They get used to each other.

The couple can now predict what each other will do and sometimes what each other will say. Life has become predictable. Their life together is safe and secure, and if they can help it, without too many surprises.

After a while, excitement fades and familiarity takes its place. In extreme cases, two people can even start looking alike around the edges.

If something unpredictable happens that disrupts this security, they resolve the problem as quickly as possible and get right back to their security as soon as possible. A date is exactly what an endless marriage needs to become.

Date your wife or husband regularly during the course of your marriage. You’ll fall in love again and again.

Most married couples expect that their experience of falling in love will last for a lifetime. They don’t realize that falling in love was never meant to happen only once. Falling in love needs to happen over and over again for love to last. The only way to make this happen is to keep dating the person you married.

Comments? Welcome. Dr. Tom Jordan