It’s very easy to find yourself in a relationship and wonder where time, the romance and the intimacy that you begun with, has gone.  Let’s face it, the kids came along, the mortgage attatched itself, careers had to be carved out and seperate interests designed to relax, crept into your lives.  This recipe is a surefire way to find yourself disconnected from your partner and a surefire way to discover that your relationship is floundering.

Part of keeping a relationship strong, is to make sure that you grow together and not apart.  Quite frankly you have to make time to be a couple or you will in time that you are no longer a couple.

Here’s some tips:

• Together, sit down and plan yourself a second honeymoon.  Better still, if you didn’t have one first time around, it’s more than time you had one right?  Arrange for the kids to spend some time with Grandma and Grandad and you and your husband go off and spend some couple time.  And this tip is not only for married couples!  If cash is short, use your imagination, you don’t have to jet off to exotic climbs.  You can make it long weekend, closer to home.
• Develop a common interest or hobbie.  If he’s a golfer, what’s wrong with you accompanying him on the odd round?  Remember the couple who golfs together, stands a better chance of staying together.  Note, if golf is his refuge, don’t insist on tagging along for EVERY golf trip, go with him a couple of times every now and then.  The best thing is to find a new hobby together, something you can both enjoy and discover together.
• Spends some time talking to each other, not about what the kids did that day, not about what happened at work and not about some domestic issue.  Really make an effort to listen to each other as you express long held dreams and ideas that have been tucked away in the far corners of your minds and have not been visited for some time.  Nothing connects and reconnects like the sharing of dreams and goals.  Perhaps realising one or more of these goals is something you can both do together? 
• Do something spontaneous: a picnic in the park, taking pot luck at the cinema and just simply turning up without knowing what may be showing, a romantic meal - use your imagination.

The thing to remember is that unless you take the time and make the time to attend to your relationship it will grow stale, it will wither and it will probably die.  Children, domestics and the stresses and strains of life take over way too easily and before you know it, the person you saw yourself going through life with, has gone!  It really is worth the time.