How to Put Romance and Spark Back into Your Relationship

How do you put romance and spark back into your relationship without involving sex? It is possible and vital. Many people think that if their relationship is boring, doesn’t have enough excitement, or is stale that they have to increase their sex life. Improving your sex life is not a bad solution, or it’s not bad to tackle that, but people forget that there’s time outside the bedroom where you also can be intimate and put some spark back into your relationship.

Many people struggle with both areas, but they’re less aware of how to fix this part of intimacy. A way to increase intimacy in your relationship outside the bedroom is by examining yourself.

Let’s look at some preconceived notions that may be getting you in trouble in your relationship by examining yourself. 

Most people who come to me with trouble in their relationship have an idea that either passivity or aggression is good, and the other one is bad. They have split passivity and aggression either into bad or good. Therefore, they’re only using one of them, and that’s a big problem. Ideally, in an intimate relationship, you want to be able to use passivity and aggression at the appropriate time, you want to be able to use both. If you declare one is bad, weak, or childish, then you’re not going to be able to use that one.

You may have to journal to figure this out and look back to figure out whether you are more aggressive or passive. When stress happens, when someone upsets you or angers you, what do you do? Do you go right at it, nail it down, give the person a piece of your mind? Or do you go numb, shutdown, or step back? Both are important to use. There are times when aggression is a better idea by putting up a boundary. If someone is in your space, dangerous in any way, or threatening, you want to be able to put up a boundary. Put up a boundary by saying, “You’re scaring me, I need you to leave, or I'm going to leave.” This is constructive aggression.

Passivity helps if you’re the one who gets all worked up, and you are having an effect on someone. Are you’re bothering them or scaring them? You may have to shut down and step back to preserve the trust between you and the other person. 

There’s a time to step down and step away, and there’s a time to step in and step up. I can’t tell you how many people have a problem with one of these. Typically, If you have a problem with aggression, it’s because you view it as mean. If you have a problem with passivity, it’s because you see it as weak. This is not true; there are no such attached labels on those.

Passivity, think about swerving to avoid a child or taking a step back from a cliff, these are passive acts that are super important. Choosing the one down is sometimes the best move in business or a relationship.

Aggression isn’t always mean. Think about going for a gold medal or working hard to win that trophy or get that raise. You are going to go in and stand up for yourself and get that raise. Those are all very productive acts.

There are also destructive aggressions and destructive passivity, which can be destructive. But we want you to be able to capitalize on the constructive part of passivity and aggression to fix your relationship. 

For those of you who are struggling with the part of your relationship outside the bedroom or in general, consider whether you are more comfortable with aggression or passivity. How can you get comfortable using both? By practicing, you have to practice; it’s not going to come to you easily. You’re not going to wake up one day and say, “I love passivity!” You’re going to have to take it one step at a time and practice it. 9 out of 10 times, it certainly helps to have both options.

As always, I want to hear your stories, (757)340-8800.