7 Ways to Make Your Relationship Feel Like it Did When it Started

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Everyone can recall that overwhelmingly ideal feeling of being with their partner over the first year of their relatioship.

Your heart would race every time they would call, you couldn’t wait to see them after work, and you both had the energy to go out and do things together even after long days at work.

Fast-forward to the present, and you’re now finding it hard to believe you ever really felt like that – you’re exhausted and just want to be alone after work, barely saying hello or exchanging a hug or a kiss when you come home.

Little fights that you both would have dismissed in your first stages of dating turn into the silent treatment from one party to the other.

Deep down, you wonder if your relationship is crumbling.

While the honeymoon phase may seem a distant memory, there is a way to replicate it and bring back that passion to your relationship.

I’ve worked with numerous couples on restoring the fire to their relationship and creating a happy and healthy partnership where they both are truly equals.

If you’re at your wit’s end on how to make your relationship feel like it did long ago, here are a few tips to turn it around today!

  1. Keep It Simple: The words you most need in your relationship might surprise you. It’s not that three-word phrase, “I love you.” If you want to build your relationship back to its prime state, “Thank You” is one of the best phrases you can use. Why? Because everyone wants to know they are appreciated. That’s what a partnership is – giving of yourself to help out your partner. Saying “Thank You” more often is therapeutic and tells your partner you appreciate them immensely. Letting your partner know you’re grateful they made dinner or took out the garbage is a small but impactful way to let them know you would never take them for granted.
  1. Communicate: We all get into funks where we don’t feel like talking, especially if there’s recently been an argument in your relationship. While it’s okay to take time to cool off after a heated discussion, communicating effectively and with an open mind is the only way to truly build your relationship up again. Always try to resolve the issue within that day, and respect one another’s points of view.

And remember: it IS okay to disagree!

We are humans!

And even though your partner may understand your perspective on most things, it doesn’t mean he or she will always understand where you are coming from.

It is okay to not see eye-to-eye all of the time. Just make sure you respect where your partner is coming from.

  1. Go Back to Courting: Renew the spark in your relationship by going back to your roots. You used to know what worked when it came to dating: flowers, the movies, or a walk in the park, but now, you barely have time for yourself let alone your partner. That’s not an excuse! If you want to get back to feeling the same way you did about your partner when you first started dating, you have to prioritize those special moments.

Recreate your favorite dates.

It doesn’t have to be anything expensive: a simple coffee in the morning on a weekend can stimulate conversation between the two of you.

When you create those dating moments, you’ll no longer long for the past because you’ll have those special moments in the present.

  1. Invest in One Another: Back when you were younger, you felt like you had all the time in the world to talk and do things together. But now, with kids or a busy work schedule, it feels like you never see each other. This void that is growing between the two of you can only be reversed if you start investing in one another. Remember when you two would talk about your dreams and goals? But then you got busy with “life” and let those things go by the wayside? Get back to it! Showing your partner you truly care that he wants to host grilling parties or that she wants to write her own cookbook is an immensely powerful way to re-forge those bonds of your relationship.
  1. Happiness… It’s YOUR Responsibility: Every time you see your partner miserable, a pang of guilt shoots through your spine. “What can I do to make him/her happy again?” NEWS FLASH: Your job is NOT to make your partner happy. Yes, providing them with support and encouragement, investing time in one another, and enjoying your time together is important and should be a pleasant experience for both of you, but for some people, it won’t be enough. You are the sole keeper of your happiness, and your partner is the sole keeper for theirs. Let go of the notion you are responsible for their happiness.
  1. Take a Timeout for Yourself: While “taking a break” may seem juvenile, there is something to be said for allocating your time back to yourself instead of to your partner 24/7. You are a human being, and you have needs, goals, and desires for your future. While some of those may align with your partner ’s goals, others might not, and that doesn’t make them any less important.

If you have a goal to hike the Appalachian Trail, but your partner can’t stand the outdoors, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pursue your passion.

Taking that time back for yourself will actually make you value your relationship more, reigniting that spark once again.

  1. Seek Out Help: Doing it alone can be tough when you’re trying to rebuild the love in your relationship. Professional help from counselors or relationship specialists is always available to provide you with guidance throughout any stage of your relationship.  

As a relationship specialist, I’ve helped numerous clients lift themselves off the relationship rock bottom and learn how to create that spark again. 

“Only God knows how sad we were and how wonderfully enjoyable our life together is now. There are no words to express how grateful we are to her for reviving the deep mutual love and respect in our marriage. The big miracle is that we fell in love with each other all over again.” – Leila and Amin Khiabani

 “Thanks to Dr. Simone, I now have a healthier and more loving relationship with myself and others in my life, and greater energy and motivation to achieve whatever I want. It goes without saying that I am a much happier, more hopeful, more successful person than I was before. Thank you, Dr. Simone. You proved to be in my life, the miracle worker you are reputed to be.” – Maryam Mirdar

“I am eternally grateful to Dr. Simone because with her generous and kind heart, rich experience, invaluable knowledge, wisdom and eloquence, she helped me open my eyes and see that I actually have numerous options.  I found out that I could do something about what was wrong in my life and that I have the strength and power to conquer the obstacles and follow my dreams.” – Mary Shir

If you want to find your soul mate again in your partner and start living a more fulfilling and enjoyable life, Click Here to get in touch with me today. 

It is never too late to reignite your love for one another!

Change your Reality, Change your life …

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Albert Einstein once said: “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”  

I can’t agree more with this amazing man as to me, we human beings give meaning to our lives by the stories we tell about them.  

The stories we tell about ourselves to us and to others, not only impact us directly in the present but also have strong implications for our future life including our feelings, thoughts, intentions, and actions.

Many stories occur at the same time in our lives and quite interestingly, different stories can be told about these same events.  

For example, this morning when I got up, I was in a rush to make breakfast and I burned myself while doing so.  

When I was waiting for the garage door to open, I was reading an email, so I was closer than I should have been to the door and the garage door hit me on the forehead while opening up.  

At the office, I found out that I had forgotten to bring in a contract that needed to be signed by a client of mine today.

I also found out that my favorite, competent, highly skilled front desk receptionist is leaving the office in two weeks.

How does that sound to you?  

Can I claim that I had a “bad day”?

Now let’s have another look at my day.  

Here is an alternative story I can tell about that same day:  

When I got up this morning, I was cheered up by a phone call from my sister who lives far away …  

She gave me the good news that my niece, a successful pharmacist, married to her college sweetheart, is happily pregnant!  

After I talked to her for a while I had to hurry up in order to get to my first client at my office on time.  

Quickly, I made my breakfast and brewed a perfect cup of coffee.  

As I was opening the garage door, I received an email with good news on receiving an award!

At the office, I had great sessions with my clients and enjoyed a nice dinner with a couple of my friends and managed to do my sprint runs before going to bed…

How’s that for a day?

Would you say I had a “good day?”  

The truth is that after all, putting together all the events in my day, I went sleep with a smile on my lips …

The ways we story our lives is very much influenced by the context of gender, class, race, culture and sexual orientation among other things.  

The stories that the significant others like our parents, teachers, and friends have narrated about our lives are powerful contributors to the interpretations and meanings we give to our life events.  

For instance, if it is a cultural or familial value for someone to be daring and quick to take action, and they take their time to consider their options and then take action, the may end up with a story about themselves as ‘a coward’, or ‘having no confidence or self-worth,’ or even ‘a loser!’  

While, if being mindful and cautious is the dominant value, they may have stories about themselves as being ‘caring,’ or ‘thoughtful and wise.’   

The problem occurs when the way people define themselves are different than the ways they are defined by the dominant discourses in their environment.  

Then, these individuals will give meaning to their life based only on stories constructed out of their life events consistent with the negative labels dictated by their context.  

Rather than linking all the ups and downs in their life and creating a wholesome story that also includes their successes and accomplishments, these demeaning stories told about them, lead them to link more of the unpleasant events in their lives, resulting in feelings of depression, anxiety, self-doubt, shyness and many more debilitating signs and symptoms…

Do they see your True Value?

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A common complaint I hear from my clients is that their romantic partner doesn’t treat them the way they’d like to be treated.

See, the problem is often not in the behaviors, but in the way, they rate and prioritize you in their mind depending on the value they assign to you.

It is that evaluation that determines the place you occupy in their life.

If they are not treating you the way you expect them to, and if you have communicated that to them with affinity several times, in many different situations, and yet they are not changing their ways, then this is probably not a behavioral problem; it’s that they do not see your value the way you expect them to!

I am going to tell you a story about myself to help clarify what I mean by “seeing your value.”

I have an old friend of 11 years, Jay.

He is an awesome person who has dared to go for his dreams and has created lots of financial success for himself.

He has a kind heart and tries to take care of his friends by giving them a hand in different ways, investing lots of time and effort.

We love and respect each other and have witnessed the struggles and challenging situations each of us had to face, during these years.

However, when we would decide to get together over lunch or drinks to catch up and spend some quality time together, quite frequently, he used to call or text me an hour or so before meeting and ask to postpone our get-together for a last minute appointment with a client which could lead to a potentially lucrative contract, or something else that had just come up and needed his attention.

This had bothered me for so long, as I am also an extremely busy person, who has put in a request to God for a few extra hours a day, decades ago …

When my friends and I want to get together, we schedule a convenient time which works for both of us, at least a week or two ahead of time.

To be honest with you, unless something unexpected happens, my friends and I are not in the habit of canceling or postponing outings as both of us know we have collaborated diligently to clear out that time slot to spend it with each other.

We value and look forward to that delightful event and prioritize it above our other engagements.

I am so lucky to have wonderful friends and family members who treat me like a queen, as I treat them like the kings and queens they are.

So such repeated incidents with Jay burdened my heart.

Everybody who knows me, knows that I am very outspoken, so I did bring this issue to Jay’s attention several times.

Each time, quite annoyed, he told me that I was being too difficult and it was not a big deal between friends to reschedule get-togethers and that he, quite often, treated his other friends the same way, without them complaining about it!

Well, I understood that this might not have been an issue for his other friends but it was for me … It was still bothering me and I was still feeling insulted by my good old friend…

And a few years ago, it dawned on me that it was not that he meant to insult me, it was simply a matter of where I stood in his life and mind!

He valued me and my friendship, but not enough to prioritize me over other engagements in his life.

I had a tenth or eleventh rating on his list which was not what I expected from him and our deep friendship!

After that “Aha” moment, I did not feel angry or hurt anymore because I understood that it was useless to try to negotiate a change in his behavior, as long as he did not see “my value” the way I would’ve wanted him to: the rating he had given to me was way below what I expected …

So now, whenever he contacts me to get together, I no longer bother to work hard to tweak my schedule and make it happen.

I just look at my daily schedule, which is typically full, and let him know that I’m too busy to meet …

And now, he asks to get together almost every week, without paying attention to my humble request that we need to schedule it ahead of time …

Even though I miss my friend, I feel O.K. about what has happened and how it is going now …

We mostly catch up over emails or text messages which is fine …

He gets to do all the important things in his life and I get to do the same without feeling annoyed by his accustomed way of scheduling time with me!

Hundreds of times, I have heard from my clients and others that “he just doesn’t listen,” or “if only she would do this or that.”

But the truth is, they have rated you way down on their list, below many other priorities in their life!

It would do you a lot of good, to realistically find out where you stand in their mind based on how they treat you and make your decision accordingly instead of getting mad or feeling hurt by what they say or do and wasting a life time trying to encourage or goad them to bring about desirable changes in their behaviors …

What say you?

The Golden Key to Successful Relationships

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Often times, we go along with our assumptions about our current or prospective romantic partner, and their values and expectations from us and from the relationship.

As far as I know, assumptions do not often lead to happy endings….

Effective communication of our wants, needs and values have been known as the golden key to successful relationships by many researchers.

A while ago, a dear friend, gave me a gift; a beautiful orchid…

It was exactly the color I loved …

it was exquisite…

Excited, I put it on the shelf and started enjoying its beauty and the joy it had brought into my life…

When it came the time for me to water it, based on my experience with other plants and flowers I have had, I assumed I knew how much and how often to water my new beauty; after all it was just a flower like others…

Unfortunately, it did not work as I had expected.

My beautiful little flower started to glow less and less every day and its gorgeous petals started to fall off one after the other.

Frantically, I modified the amount and frequency of the watering regimen.

The petals kept falling off my beautiful orchid.

I was mad at her for not responding to my loving care, for not being appreciative of how much I loved her, took care of her, watered her and finally for dying on me with such cruelty! …

Sad, isn’t it? …

It was actually my assumption that she was just another flower like all the others and that I knew how to treat her were what ended her short life…

It was the fact that I did not pay attention to her early signs of unhappiness and kept doing what I assumed was what she needed hoping that everything will turn around, she will appreciate my love and care for her, and will look happy again…

I could have asked her (or a gardener who knew orchids) as to how much and how often watering will work for her…

If only I had done that …

She would have been beautiful and happy, still sitting on my shelf, brightening up my days…

It’s unfortunate that we often do the same thing with those we are in relationships…

Don’t we often assume what they want, and provide it for them, and end up disappointed and betrayed when they feel unhappy or upset?

Let’s stop assuming and start being curious to find out what works and what doesn’t work for our romantic partner or others around us…

Let’s communicate clearly about what our expectations are and what we would be willing to invest or compromise in the relationship.

Let’s be curious about their ideas, thoughts, and plans for themselves or for the two of you as a couple.

Let’s be open and ask to find out about their expectations, wants and needs…

Otherwise, the relationship will fade away and perish, the way my beautiful orchid died on me and left me with much regret…

You can try this on your own…

Sometimes though it seems like an impossible task to effectively communicate your needs and wants with your romantic partner and to listen to theirs.

Effective communication is the golden key to scaffolding a strong, dependable platform for the future of your relationship based on your understandings and agreements.

I have heard numerous times from my clients that having a “real conversation” with their partner felt like walking into a “lion’s lair!”

They claimed that they did communicate with their partner but their spouse wouldn’t listen…

Later on, they found out that even though they intended to communicate with their spouses, they were actually criticizing their partner, putting them down, or reminding them as to how they had miserably failed to make them happy…

The fruits of this kind of communication were nothing but resentment, bitterness, and coldness…

Experts recommend that using skilled professionals can facilitate couples’ communication about the “difficult” subjects in their relationships.

Couples report feeling happier after being able to communicate with each other, without getting into an argument.

They also admit that utilizing effective communication skills, they have been able to get their partner to agree with them more often!  

For many years, I have facilitated successful communications between couples to help them understand each other’s values and needs.

This understanding has enabled them to build the rest of their lives on kind and loving interactions rather than angry encounters or coldness.

Try this on your own…

If at any point, you decide that you can benefit from having an ally who wants both of you to succeed and feel happy, I am here to help…

7 Red Flags in Your Relationship

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If you’re asking yourself whether this new relationship is going where you want it to go, reading through these 7 red flags could help you decide whether to continue to hope on or cut your losses and move on …

The truth is that the signs are often there, but we are not always willing to see them!

We tend to ignore those signs because either we don’t want to give up the hope that this relationship is going to turn into a happy one, or we feel we’re just too tired to start all over again with somebody new, or that we have the false belief there will be no one any better for us anyway …

Well, let’s look at the signs with eyes wide open and make a decision to create a happy future for ourselves! After all, isn’t it our responsibility to make ourselves happy?

For this purpose, consider the following questions about the person you are dating:

  1. Are they genuinely interested in knowing you, your history, cultural, familial and individual values and dreams as much as you want to know them? If they are not, they probably never will be … Either they are not that into you or even if they are, it’s not going to be a collaborative union with mutual respect and understanding!
  2. Are they trying to control you and/or the relationship by playing the dating game, keeping you waiting and guessing before they answer a text or phone call, being inconsistent in the ways they behave toward you like slot machines that respond in unpredictable ways to keep you wanting and hoping for more? If this is the case, then you are in the wrong relationship!
  3. Do they communicate with you with ease, honesty and affinity, or do they evaluate, criticize and invalidate you or expect you to read their mind and do as they desire without communicating their expectations to you? Do they lose their temper or give you the cold shoulder or silent treatment if you do not give them what they want? If they are not communicative now, they probably never will be… So do not waste any more of your time and energy on this relationship!
  4. Are they keeping secrets from you? Are they unwilling to open up to you and share with you some parts of their history, their friendships, hobbies or occupation? Can they be transparent with you about their intentions for their life and for the current relationship with you, or do they make vague comments about their intentions and dreams? Different people need varying amounts of time to feel comfortable opening up.   However, if they are not willing to share such information after a few weeks, then either they are not interested in a long term relationship with you or this is the way they are going to be — which rarely leads to a happy relationship!
  5. Are they willing to introduce you to their friends and loved ones, or are they being secretive about their friends and other important people in their lives? If so, you are probably not going to be in that person’s life for very long!
  6. Can you be completely yourself while you are with them, or do you feel you need to hide parts of you or change yourself to become desirable in their eyes. In a good relationship, each partner helps the other develop their personal voice with care and support. If this is not happening in your relationship, you will definitely be better off getting yourself out of this big trap!
  7. Are you attracted to and admire the person they already are, or do you hope they will someday actualize their potential and become the man/woman you want them to be? If you can see them for the person they are and accept that they are living the life they want to live, then you are in a relationship that is very likely to flourish and bring happiness to both of you. If not, then it’s time for you to move on and create space for new opportunities to knock on your door …