Lately I’ve been around many different couples, living in very different situations. One are married for a long time, others are just living together, some with kids, others without, some are newly in love and some are somewhere in between. Couples living under different conditions and in different places, yet when it comes to cheating, many of couples share one thing in common. They are bored in their relationship or/and mostly they feel the lack of the excitement they used to felt when they were fresh in love.

If you are for some time in relationship right now, you probably still remember the excitement that you felt in the beginning, with all the attention you received from your partner. The loving words and gestures you received, made you fall in love more and more. If you remember that time, you probably remember the excitement of upcoming date, the endless talks and beliefs that everything is possible.

Trough time, some strange things happen, which we call Life. Life with burden of bills to pay, securing the future, hard work on the career, maybe even a kid or two in your life. Before you know, you are just running from errand to errand, trying to get everything done and to keep everyone happy. You simply don’t have time nor the energy anymore for dates or God forbid, endless talks with your partner. Who has the time to talk about each other, when you need to coordinate family vacation and renovation of the house? You forget how it felt when someone told you how special you are or good it felt to go to new places with your loved one.

All of this happens for one reason. In the rush of life, we forget to communicate with each other and to take the time to nurture the things we care about. There is good Buddhist quote saying:

“When you like a flower, you just pluck it. But when you love a flower, you water it daily.”

Relationship should be nurtured all the time, with no excuses. If you want it to work, you need to put some effort in it, like in any other thing in life.

In this rush, with lack of attention from and to our partner, when we get a compliment(s) from someone else, we start to remember how it felt and we miss it even more. We start to miss those times when everything seemed possible, just because we were happy and in love. From here it doesn’t take much to fire the spark a bit more and before we know, we are already relationship with someone else who will bring back the good old days with excitement, dating and flowers. But little do we know that even this new relationship will end up soon with the same sad ending if we don’t change our own pattern.

Being in relationship is a hard work. To maintain at lease the same level as we had it in the beginning of relationship we need to understand that it requires work, communication, patience and understanding. Without those things, no relationship will survive or at least it will not grow as it should.

Partners need to learn to communicate with each other all the time, as they did in the beginning when they spend endless hours to get to know each other and to understand each other more. This is not a one time job, like once when you understand each other, that’s it. You don’t have to do anything more. It’s quite the opposite. People develop and change with time and in order to keep at least the same level of understanding of your partner which you gained in the beginning you need to work hard on it. Otherwise, you will be just like two strangers, thirsty for attention, excitement and love. This will most likely drive you to search for other people, to end up the relationship or to be unhappy and miserable because of where you are now.

So, go on, if you care about it, nurture it and start with that hard work. Remember it all starts with listening and open conversation. After that, only sky is the limit.