This Is How You Keep Your Love Alive

by Sejal Parikh · September 21, 2015

When you’ve been with someone longer than you’ve not been with them, I guess you keep getting hit with questions about keeping love alive. My hubby keeps dodging’em off with a hearty chuckle and a poor joke about how those li’l attraction buggers (pheromones) in our bodies have learnt the loyalty code! I, on the other hand, talk about the actual secrets of keeping love alive.

Of course, people assume that I am one of the few lucky ones to have found the soulmate (yes, I will use that word) every girl dreams of by a sheer stroke of magical luck and that I am ever-floating on a fuzzy cloud of wholesome bliss, but the truth is slightly different. Yes, I am lucky to have found a loving, understanding partner in the only boyfriend I ever made- but if you think it has been one easy, smoothsail ride, BUBBLE BURST- we’ve had our own fair share and I think a lot many other people’s share of reality checks!

We’re both extremely stubborn people and direct all our fiery energy into being ‘right’ all the time but end up making it ‘right’ for us. I don’t have a surefire way of how we go about doing it- but I can guarantee that if a person like my hubby (who has his own teeny tiny patience threshold) can love someone like me with a badly-hungover case of OCD (and an unreasonable fetish for being on top of everything)- and we’ve made it- my advice is bound to be darned good! (love being right, I told ya!) 😉

Image source: Google, copyright-free image under Creative Commons License

Now remember, there’s nothing romantic about running a bath, taking out the trash and any other routine thing you do in marriage. But then again, everything they told you about marriage was a lie. Marriage isn’t companionship, love, friendship or anything else they say it is- marriage is what you put into it. As you put in, so shall you be able to draw. Holds true even when you are in a committed relationship and haven’t said ‘I do.’

So, without any more delay, take my two cents (worth a lifetime of joy) on keeping love alive:

1. Listen like it’s the first time you’ve heard him speak- every single time!

2. Laugh with each other like it’s the last time you have each other!

3. Cry with him because you can feel his pain ten times over!

4. Dream with each other like there’s nothing that can keep the two of you from making it all come true!

5. Kiss him like he’s the air you need to breathe!

6. Make love to him like an archaeologist excavating pure joy!

7. Forgive him whenever he goofs up- coz it will be your turn some time else!

8. Ask for all you need- with an honesty that sends shivers down your spine! Let him do the same.

9. Allow the child in each of you to play with each other!

10. Share secret codes for kisses, hugs and more- every time someone uses it, you know what to do next!

11. Don’t do dinner- do dining! It will automatically turn the mundane into magical!

12. Live every moment by remembering YOUR beginning and imagining the END!

13. Take ‘I love you and this won’t break us’ time-outs when you are having the worst arguments!

14. Spend time together- when nobody and nothing can take away from this time!

15. Spend time apart and miss each other- until you come home to each other!

16. Give each other the gift of being the most REAL self you can be- clear No-s and truthful Yes-es!

17. Be there- coz you MEAN it!

18. Show each other that they feature right on top of everything important- we all need that!

19. Treat him just like you’d like to be treated!

20. Make every kiss a slice of bliss…

21. Make some sexy rules- making out every time you are alone in an elevator, maybe?

22. Compliment each other- often and then, some more- even in public! Be lavish!

23. Play ‘where-to-find-me’ and wait at the other end, in your birthday suit!

24. Love isn’t hard- but you are. So is he. Remember to love, in spite of that!

It doesn’t have to be too-GOOD-to-be-true, it can simply be too-simple-to-be-magical things in love- do not take them for granted, ever! Not everyone is lucky to find love and luckier to keep it!

Go, find love and keep it alive- forever!