insideKENT Magazine Issue 83 - February 2019 | Page 83

Reignite the Spark CONT.
Research shows that we’re losing the connection
with our partners even earlier these days. A study
of 2,000 UK adults found that being too busy,
not making time for physical intimacy, and
forgetting about the small things like hand holding
and quality time are some of the most common
reasons for feeling like the fire has gone out in a
relationship. But what is ‘the spark’, how are we
losing it, and how do we get it back?
We talk about the ‘spark’ from day one. The spark
you feel on a first date. The spark of chemistry in
a first kiss. But we also talk about the loss of it
when we’re 20 years into a relationship, in a 40-
year marriage, after kids, after we’ve gone through
difficult times. In reality, the spark isn’t a
Hollywood fairytale. It isn’t Ryan Gosling
schmoozing you with a 10-minute monologue. It
isn’t just a girl, standing in front of boy, asking
him to love her. It’s connection – the lifeblood of
all relationships – romantic and unromantic. It’s
one of the deepest and most important things in
life. Without connection we feel isolated, cut off,
misunderstood, undervalued.
In our romantic partnerships, we crave emotional
intimacy, and even though we’re told a long-
lasting relationship is going to require work, we
can often leave the success of our connection to
chance. And if it was hard to connect 20 years
ago, it’s bound to be even harder now in our
digital world, where we have at our disposal a
selection box of devices, apps, and platforms to
communicate as fast and as often as we want, in
turn meaning we talk to each other less. We let
the small things slide. We send a text instead. The
last thing we see at night is the glowing screen of
a phone.
It sounds doomy and gloomy, but it doesn’t have
to be; we don’t have to toss aside all of the things
that make communicating in 2019 easy. We just
need to remind ourselves of some of the ways we
can experience real emotional and physical
connection, and give that area of our lives a little
TLC. Sometimes it can be the smallest gestures.
It could be so weird and wacky and particular to
you as a couple that it won’t be mentioned on the
list below.
Before we delve into tips for getting your spark
back on track, it’s important to get some
misconceptions out of the way now.
• Though it will get more challenging, kids don’t
need to be the killer of a relationship
• You don’t need to feel guilty about having a
successful career
• Marriage might mean making sacrifices, but it
doesn’t mean sacrificing intimacy
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