Imagine this.
You come home from work one day and discover that your spouse has made all your dreams come true. The hallway is painted, as you’ve been nagging about for months. The trash has been taken out, including the insanely large pile of sports magazines that had been cluttering up the coffee table. The Christmas gift you gave has been proudly worn. (Finally!) There’s even a glass of wine and a box of chocolates on your side of the bed, and your favorite movie is queued up and ready to start.
I know, I know. “What alternate universe did my one-true-love just enter?” Am I right? But what if your spouse did this sort of thing regularly, just to be sweet? How would this change your relationship?
Let’s be honest. Both of you brought out your “A-Game” when you first met. But now there just isn’t time. You have jobs. You may have kids. You have “Stuff To Do.” You have almost no free time.
We get it.
But still. How would you feel if you came home to find that your true love had taken some pains to please you? The ideal scenario varies from person to person. Maybe your fantasy involves your spouse greeting you at the door with a simple kiss and a hug. Or maybe you’d prefer to come home to find a lavishly prepared dinner. There’s also something to be said for a true love who finally changes the burned out light bulb in the hallway, fixes the dripping faucet in the bathroom and cleans out the basement. It just depends on what your particular jam happens to be.
“Hold on,” you say. “I cook dinner for my other half almost every night. And I do the shopping, deal with most of the kids’ appointments, work hard at my job, etc., etc. etc., and now you want me to do even more?”
We hear you, girl.
To clarify, we speak here of a Grand Gesture that reconnects that eternal flame. What do you both like? That could be anything from a special, intimate night at home that makes both you and your spouse feel cherished, appreciated, heard and needed. Or, it might be a weekend away from home altogether.
There’s always something in this busy world that will warrant either your, or their, attention. But unless it’s an absolute emergency, it can wait for just one day to work on spending time together in whatever way you choose.
If you don’t know where to start, think “what might my partner welcome?” What does your true love enjoy and adore? Look for the hints. For example, sexually speaking, we know of one Curvicality reader whose spouse keeps buying his plus-size wife sexy lingerie. We know of another friend who would give anything for her partner to simply turn off the phone for a few hours. And we know of a third friend whose dream is to go to a Cubs game with his wife. (She hates baseball.) Everyone is different, right?
It’s just possible that your extra efforts to connect with your spouse will spur them to do the same. Best-case scenario is you end up in a competition to outdo each other in thoughtful and fun gestures to please each other. That’s pretty awesome, right?
The point here is that we spend so much time seeking that “marriage boost” many of us so greatly want to find. Sometimes, it’s as simple as being thoughtful. Small acts of kindness can do wonders to light up a marriage.
How have you given your marriage a boost? Comment below. We’ll use as many of the responses as we can in a future piece!
About Sophia Sinclair: Sophia Sinclair is Curvicality’s sex and relationships writer. In addition, she is the author of The Small-Town Secrets romance series. Usually, she’s writing the next book in the series and simultaneously cooking something strange that you’ve never heard of. (Her husband is a fan of absolutely no “normal” foods.)
