When you walk down the aisle to your future husband, it doesn’t ever enter your mind that one day he could bore you to tears just by breathing in your general direction. It’s not a common thing to talk about. A wedding is the big celebration entering the ‘marriage’ stage, which is a massive transition from just being together as a couple. You’re committing yourself to that person and can’t just up and leave if the mood suits you. The thing is, when you choose to marry someone, you do it believing that life is exactly what you want from them. Sometimes, this is true. Some couples make it the whole hog and spend their entire lives together without a care in the world. Then there are the couples that don’t quite get that far.
Seven seems to be a magic number when it comes to marriage. In seven years, you’ve been with the same person, possibly created a family or changed careers and the person that you were at the start of that aisle is not the person that you know right now. Life changes people. We age, and we grow; and we have children, which entirely changes our perspectives on life from day one. These changes happen so subtly that one moment you’re the person who donned the pretty dress and floated down the aisle of the church, and the next you’re the person who has her priorities split between so many things that the marriage has gone a little stale.
The issue here is that if you don’t water the grass on your side of the garden, it’s going to go yellow and dry out. It’s going to be time to cut it all back and start again, right? Wrong. There is counselling for couples out there that is specifically designed to help you with that seven-year itch. You can get your marriage back on track. You can water your garden so that new blades of fresh green grass poke through the dirt. Your marriage does not have to be defined by a number of years together. The key is to communicate and to grow together, not apart. You’re both going to change and that’s an inevitability. The way through it is to keep talking, keep playing, keep loving each other and appreciating every single change. All the personality shifts that happen with age can be appreciated from both sides, and you can move into the next chapter of your marriage a healthy, relieved and happy couple.
Instead of thinking about how things have become stale, make an effort. Put time in to dating again and reconnecting as a healthy couple and learn about each other all over again. Woo each other; both of you! Children and work become distractions to your love, and you don’t have to let them. It’s tough to find time for each other, sure, but if you’re still talking and still making time for that pillow talk, the seven-year itch can easily be scratched.
