My name is Fiona and I’ve been married to Steve for twenty years this month. Our honeymoon baby has just moved away from home, so it’s been a good time to look at how our relationship is going to be after twenty years of family life.
Neither Steve nor I want to fall into a stale, unromantic relationship where we are just fulfilling our obligations. If this were to happen, over time one of us may be requesting a divorce. In spite of hectic schedules, we’ve come up with some simple ideas to relight the romance and keep our relationship on track after all these years.
Make the ordinary, romantic
We’ll make time to eat together, turn off our phones and sit down together at a table with candles and talk about our day. It’ll also be time for us to reminisce about our years together. Remembering the times we laughed together, the silly things we did, how we felt at the very start of our relationship. We may be reminded of activities we want to repeat or places we want to visit.
Touch
We can be more intimate now there’s no child at home embarrassed at her parents kissing for longer than a nanosecond. We’ll snuggle on the sofa to watch our favourite television show, share a bottle of wine and some of our favourite snacks. It will be like a romantic date night at home. We’re going to learn how to give a great foot massage and dance in the living room to our favourite tunes. Perhaps we can take dancing lessons, we’ve yet to decide.
Shared interests
It’s great to have a store of great memories from the last twenty years, but we’ve hopefully many more years to come. Therefore, we’re going to create some new memories. Whilst Steve likes golf and I think it’s a good walk spoiled, I still want him to continue to follow his own interests. We do share an interest in art history, so we’ve become ‘friends of’ the local art gallery which gives us access to exclusive lectures and social gatherings in summer and winter. We’re looking forward to learning new things and meeting new people.
We’ll reassess our goals and dreams for the future. We are committed to try and reach our ideals. The idea of a home in the sun is appealing and just might be possible. That’s our dream to work on now.
We promise to continue to cherish each other. Support each other. Listen to each other. We know small actions and efforts often create big results. We can continue to be happy after twenty years together.