How To Fix Your Relationship When Love And Affection Fade
When love and affection fades, everything falls apart...
Allan Filipe Santos Dias on Unsplash When a couple values the love in their relationship, they will almost always do anything to make it work and ensure they are always happy together.
Many marriages and couples experience a lack of affection in their relationship over time, causing their love to crumble and fade. You mean so much to each other — you can’t just sit there and let your relationship die.
So, how do you fix a broken relationship when everything starts falling apart?
Showing affection will keep the love alive for a long, happy relationship you both deserve.
Try to think about the wonderful moments you and your partner had together. Can you remember how happy you were? What about the first time you fell in love? How did it come to this?
Here are 6 simple but effective steps on how to fix a broken relationship and keep your love alive for a long, happy marriage.
1. Ask yourself, "Should I stay?"
This is the first question you should ask yourself, and being honest is important.
Where do you want your relationship to head? Do you think you've invested enough in your sexual relationship?
If you want to stay with your partner, then you need to be proactive and do something.
Find out what took the affection away to get your relationship running once again. By analyzing your relationship, you can figure out how to fix your broken relationship.
2. Maintain mutual respect and acceptance.
Respect is what nurtures affection. Lack of respect in a relationship can destroy affection.
Everyone needs to be treated with respect and feel accepted by their mate — it's what makes us who we are. Both of you are unique and should appreciate and respect each other's differences.
There are times when someone might expect their partner or spouse to only be what they want them to be. But focusing on an idealized version of your partner can create serious difficulties.
No matter how similar we may seem, each of us tend to have diverse beliefs, desires, dreams, and tastes.
No one can be perfect in a relationship. People make mistakes. To have a happy, healthy relationship, avoid clinging to unrealistic expectations, which can seriously impact mutual respect.
By accepting your partner exactly as they are, you respect them as the person who you chose and fell in love with.
Likewise, when you treat yourself with respect and dignity you earn it back from your partner.
3. Show kindness.
Showing kindness to your partner can bring love and affection back to your relationship.
When your mate is upset about something, respond by being kind. Refrain from arguing or becoming angry to foster communication and understanding, which helps resolve disagreements easily.
Avoid acting selfishly or putting yourself first.
Demonstrate kindness by doing things you know will make your partner happy. Remember to not overdo it — going overboard with kind gestures can backfire if they seem disingenuous or manipulative.
Consider your partner's dreams and help them achieve their goals to show affection. Your spouse may have some sort of weakness — appreciating them the way they are is being kind and affectionate to them.
4. Work on strengthening emotional intimacy.
Intimacy is founded on trust. This is what drives healthy relationships and once lost, things can get stale.
Emotional intimacy can be expressed in many ways. Some examples are sharing experiences and fun moments with your partner, or simply talking with your mate openly about your feelings and opinions.
A sexual relationship can also show affection through physical touch, eye contact, and communicating with body language.
5. Make time to do fun activities together.
Remember the activities you loved doing together? The places you love to go? Spend time with your partner doing what you love and going to your favorite places.
When life gets busy due to pressures from work, children, and other activities, time for fun activities as a couple can be taken away.
Make time to participate in fun activities together with your partner. Go on dates, play your favorite games, or take a vacation and travel somewhere both of you like or have always dreamed of visiting.
Being alone together and having fun will help you reconnect once again and bring back the affection and love.
6. Avoid anger.
Anger can kill affection in a relationship and can also lead to poor judgment, creating new problems that weren't there to begin with.
When you're upset about something, communicate with your partner in a healthy and mature way.
A mediator should be involved if you think your partner cannot understand what you're trying to point out. A third party can help get things straight.
Treating your mate with anger can scare them away. Avoiding anger and embracing healthy communication skills are strong expressions of affection, which can aid couples in falling in love again.
Egoism, playing the blame game, holding onto resentments, and being overly critical can lead to a lack of affection and happiness in a relationship. Couples should strive to avoid these things at all costs to keep the love alive in their relationship.
Nurturing affection in a relationship can seem hard at first, but anything is possible with patience and cooperation. Couples must promise to both put in the effort and hard work to keep love and affection alive.
Take this relationship advice to heart and learn how to be happy as a couple again.
Donna Begg is an expert editor, a mentor, analyst, and researcher.