Falling in love is easy, even though it doesn’t seem that way all the time. When you’re single and lonely, it can seem like love is far away, but people fall in and out of love every day. We look for different things at different points in our lives. So, that crazy wild person you met and used to be with may not be the love of your life now…but you “loved” them then because they fulfilled a need in that time of your life. That’s why it’s easy to fall in love, but the real question is how to do you stay there. People in relationships always talk about how the spark can dwindle over time, and while you still love each other, the puppy love craziness goes away.
People in long-term relationships start to build their lives together, so either they get married or move in together and begin to live in the same space. Once this starts happening you start to become partners who share all the ups and downs of an everyday routine. This can take some of the fire out of your relationship. When you’re just dating, you only get to see each other when you plan to. So you can forget all the stress of the day and just concentrate on hanging out with each other. Once you live together, you can’t do that anymore. Not to mention, living together means that you are around that person for the majority of your time. You see each other constantly and most likely sleep in the same bed. Part of the excitement of dating is that you have a chance to miss that person when they’re not around. A lot of times that’s the biggest reason for your relationship slipping.
The best advice for a situation like this is to allow each other space to have (at least partly) your own lives. Obviously, you’re trying to spend your life together, but that doesn’t mean every second of the day. It’s healthy for you both to have your own friends and other social relationships (friends, of course!) outside of your significant other. This allows you time to get away and have some fun with others, and it makes you appreciate the other person that much more. The situation is a win-win in that you get to spend time with others and have some fun and it makes you miss that other since they’re not around. Giving each other space allows you both to come back even more in love and stronger in your relationship.
Obviously, trust plays a big part in being able to do this. You must trust your partner, and they must trust you. If your relationship is one where there’s been issues of cheating or mistrust, then those need to be worked out first. But if you are able to trust each other, allowing just a little bit of space can help to bring that spark back into your relationship.
