This Is How You Keep The Romance Alive In Your Marriage, According To Dr. Jordan Peterson
Whether you've been married for 12 months or 20 years, it's important to maintain a level of romantic intimacy with your husband. Dr. Jordan Peterson gives sound advice on how to keep the spark alive, especially when you have children and many responsibilities to manage.
It's all too easy to let the romance die out in your marriage, even if you've only been married for a couple years. Things only get harder when you have children and priorities change. After all, having a baby will focus most of your attention away from one another and on this new child. The two-year itch and seven-year itch are very real phenomena, and these are often the times in a marriage when couples see the spark die out or they start to feel bored with one another. Psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson speaks often about what constitutes a healthy marriage, and he offered some specific advice on how to keep the romance alive and well in your marriage, no matter how long you've been together (and no matter how many children you have).
This Is How You Keep the Romance Alive in Your Marriage, According to Dr. Jordan Peterson
In a series on Daily Wire Plus, Dr. Peterson offers advice for married couples to maintain physical intimacy, which is a pillar of any healthy marriage. The modern lifestyle leaves husbands and wives busier than ever, so it's easy to put off dates and activities that will foster physical intimacy. That's why Dr. Peterson says you have to be proactive and take action in order to keep the spice alive between the two of you.
"Negotiate with your wife so that you two have some time for each other, even during that initial period of infancy," he says. "You have to consciously attend to the maintenance of romantic intimacy."
Even if you've only been married for a year, you have to sit down and make time for one another so that you can really connect. He encourages married couples to negotiate intimate time together on a regular basis no matter what, even if it feels unnatural at first.
"It's really easy for the intimate part of your marriage—the sexual part—to drop to priority 12 on the list of priorities, of which you only ever address the top 5," Dr. Peterson said. "So it's not like it's not important. It falls far enough down so that it gets ignored, and that's a very bad longterm strategy."
He says this is especially important to consider when you have children. While it's important to care for your kids and give them necessary attention, you can't let that take away from your relationship with your husband. Even if you have to mark your calendar for a date night and negotiate when you're going out together, make it happen so that you don't lose out on the physical intimacy. Easier said than done, and it's quite simple advice in the long run, but it's safe to say that most couples don't intentionally negotiate time for themselves in order to foster ongoing intimacy—and arguably, that's why so many marriages fail.