Keeping the "spark" alive in your relationship requires a conscious effort of both individuals. Communication is the means of keeping the spark alive. Many couples find it increasingly difficult to stay connected on an intimate communicative level. Lian Dolan states "a recent British study found that the longer couples are married, the less they have to say to each other over the course of an hour-long meal. In other words, the social scientists assigned data to one of my greatest fears: that my husband and I will become the couple in the restaurant eating together, but not saying a word to each other except, "Pass the salt."
How bad does it get? Listen to these numbers: Couples who are dating chat for 50 minutes out of the hour. Presumably, breathing, eating and imbibing take up the remaining 10 minutes. Immediately after marriage, the downward trend kicks in, with the time spent talking dropping to 40 minutes per hour. Twenty years into marriage, the average couple talks for 21 minutes of the hour; 30 years in, conversation takes up 16 minutes. And by 50 years of marital bliss, the average couple converses for three minutes in an hour! That's 150 words or less in an entire meal! I'm guessing "Are you still breathing?" takes up most of the conversation time."
Finding time each morning and night to have a conversational "huddle" with your partner is vital to staying connected, engage, and invested in your relationship. These relational "huddles" can be as much as checking in with each other to find out what did you most enjoy about your relationship today? What was dissatisfying about your relationship today? How can you be helpful to each other? In the end a relationship is a team sport where you either win together.......or lose together!!
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