How to Get Back to the Honeymoon Phase by Dr. Deb Hirschhorn

Dr. Deb How to Get Back to the Honeymoon Phase

By Deb Hirschhorn, Ph.D.

This is a complaint I hear a lot of: “My husband/wife says they love me, but I don’t have those same feelings I used to have for him/her.”

So why not? Well, I can think of quite a list of reasons why not: • There’s been too much stress in the marriage. Yes, it keeps getting “worked out” but that unpleasant feeling that someone needs too much attention/repair/cajoling/ or something that just feels exhausting takes its toll. • You forgot who your partner is. I mean deep inside. Or you never did learn that important fact. How can you be “in” love with someone you don’t know? • Your partner also forgot who they were. How can you love them if they don’t even know who they are? • You have not had fun in about 20 years. OK, you go away to a Pesach hotel. That is not actually fun. It’s something you do because someone doesn’t like to cook or because you can’t fit all the extended family in one dining room. There’s an “activities” aspect to kind of make up for the stress. There we go again with stress. • You have not given or received a compliment in 20 years that appeals to your intimate soul. That’s where the “in” love part resides. • You’ve been so distracted by work, kids, in-laws, elderly parents, siblings in trouble – you name it – that there hasn’t been one inch of room left for just the two of you. • Etc.

On the flip side, what does it take to go back to the feelings you had for each other years ago?

Well, remember back to when you were in love. What were the prime ingredients of that experience? There are only two: 1. This other person was totally interested in you. Absorbed. You were everything to them and nothing else got in the way. What a feeling! That’s a feeling like no other – to be that important to someone else. What an ego boost that is! 2. You also thought this other person was fascinating, amazing.

Now here’s a fact: it’s the same person.

The person you once had those feelings for is the same person. So what happened to the feelings?

Or a better way to put it: Why did things like stress, which got in the way, change the feelings anyway?

Let’s look at the two numbers above.

For #1, if there are mundane things distracting each of you, then neither one of you can possibly feel like you are everything. Because you aren’t. There’s work. There’s the kid’s teacher’s report. There’s the needy parent. You’re not everything, and neither is your partner.

Then there’s #2. You no longer talk so you have no idea whether this other person is fascinating after all. Or when you talk, it’s back to those mundane things again.

And date night only partially works to reconnect you because there are too many piled up mundane things that really do need attention. You have to speak to your elderly parent’s doctor. And you have to deal with the plumbing problem in the upstairs bathroom.

So, what do you do?

To get the “in” part of in love back, there actually are some steps you can take.

First, no matter what the source of the stress, whether it is you or them beating yourselves up or it’s coming from external things, the stresses cannot rule you. Life is stressful but the stresses have to be put in their place. One needs a big picture view of the meaning of it all to do that.

Just like we carve out time for Shabbos, we can carve out time for our partner to be the one and only, even if it’s just for a few hours. But it has to be regular. Because they really are that important. And all of that must leave behind all the nasty things like blame and complain. That’s why I call this part of the process “Taming Your Triggers.”

Second, you can’t look to your partner to fill any emptiness you have or to heal your childhood pain. It won’t work. It may have worked for a while, but then the partner wonders why this relationship is so unbalanced. You need to be the nurturer of your own hurt or lonely parts. You need to discover those hidden parts of yourself and reach out to them. You are your best healer. Which is why I call this “Valuing Your Self.”

Third, when you’re talking to your partner, it is normal and natural for them (or you) to slip back into sad/ angry/needy/forget-it mode. It happens to the best of us. So you have to muster the inner strength to forgive your partner for momentary slips – if they’ve done the work listed above. The compassion you developed in the previous section will be very useful here, which is why it’s called “Compassionate Honesty.”

See, when you make space to talk, really talk, from the heart, and share your most vulnerable self to a willing, eager audience, you have the recipe for falling in love again. With each other.

None of this is easy. But researcher Helen Fischer says that there are couples who remain “in” love for 20 years. And that’s how they do it – using the steps listed above. Is this easy? Absolutely not. But it’s not hard either. It’s actually a fun journey, or so my clients say.

You may not believe it can work for you. There’s been too much bad stuff in the way. But I’ve seen it turn around. What does it take to learn the three steps listed above? *A willingness to learn *A willingness to take responsibility for one’s own share in things *A bit of risk-taking to give it a whirl even if it’s a new approach to making changes *A desire to get back to where you once were; call it an ember that hasn’t died

You can do it.

Dr. Deb Hirschhorn is a Marriage and Family Therapist. If you want help with your marriage, begin by signing up to watch her Masterclass at https://drdeb. com/myw-masterclass.