Did you save the love notes that you exchanged with your spouse from those early days? Many people treasure these and store them away in old shoe boxes or drawers. Maybe, because of the modern age of electronic communication, you have a folder in your computer email account where you keep all of your back and forths. For some, perhaps many or most, it can be an eye-opening exercise to look back at the length and the tone of those message from your courtship period compared to what you pass today.Early on you took the time and gave the energy to expand on your thoughts in more than computer-ese shorthand. You actually gushed when you talked about how special and how important your beloved was to you, about how much you missed them and valued them and worried about them. Fast forward a few years in this cache of exchanges and it is disappointing and telling how much your expressions of love have diminshed, or how they have disappeared altogether. There is very little praise and joy and expressive words of love. All replaced by quick and harsh, get-to-the-point facts.
If you find this to be true in your life, perhaps it is time to ask yourself if you think that your spouse no longer needs to hear those words of affirmation and reliance and love. Maybe the truth is that you feel uncomfortable expressing these thoughts to them. Perhaps you think, they know how I feel, I shouldn't have to do all that crap any more. It is just unnecessary. My guess is that those who no longer make efforts to gush over their spouses or feel a certain excitement communicating with them, have relationships that have lost their spark and freshness or have some deeper issues.
I would recommend that you spend some time perusing some of those early love letters and exchanges and then seek to find pathways to reignite that palpable, expressive love with them. Continued, constant effort will be rewarded with a richness beyond your wildest imagination.
