My Advice To Young Couples

I was sitting at a Christmas lunch with some professional colleagues the other day. One of them has recently gotten married. He and his new wife are fairly young and they got married a month ago. I am truly happy for them both and I hope for the best for them. That is why I need to pass on advice from experience.

I am married myself (for the second time...eek...should I be passing out advice?) and have been married for over four years. That is double the time my first marriage lasted. I know from both professional and personal experience that couples go through phases that are accompanied by ups and downs. It is the couples that navigate through the roller coaster who survive. The biggest threat to long-term relationships truly is boredom. That is my advice to young couples: Do not let things get boring.

Boredom in a relationship leads to many things. One thing it leads to is complacency. When people become complacent they stop doing what worked in the relationship when it started (like communicating, having fun, doing new things etc.). When you stop doing what works then one should expect things to fall apart through boredom because it is what works that continues the initial attraction. Complacency caused by boredom only breeds even more boredom. It all goes down hill from there. When people are bored they also can drift emotionally, intellectually, and even sexually. The further the drift the worse it gets as people's needs do not get met as they did before. Then the gap widens into a larger and larger sinkhole that eventually turns into resentment of everything about each other. Resentment is a relationship cancer that will destroy it's host if left unchecked. Boredom will create resentment. If people become bored with each other they are also likely to find someone else that will pay them more attention and add energy to their lives. If that occurs then you can see where it goes from there.

So the key is not to let things get boring. The way to avoid letting things get boring is to remember what brought you together in the first place. There was something about the person that attracted you to them and them to you. Whatever that was keep it front and center. Other ideas include: keep going on dates, plan something fun together on a regular basis and don't stop, go on vacation regularly, and (some people may hate me for this) take breaks from each other. The last point is important and not because I am suggesting that people should break-up and play around and come back together. What I am saying is that you can not spend all your time together all the time. You must have a life of your own and sometimes you need to spend time for yourself and recharge who you are. Why? Because if you eliminate who you were when you met then you have eliminated the reason why the other person wanted you in the first place. When that happens then there is nothing left to be attracted to. After some time goes by playing with this hot potato: boredom hits.

The people that know me and have been around me saw during the last year how complacency and resentment created and fueled by boredom affected my marriage. The gaps created are still clearly evident and at times we are completely adrift from each other and alone even in the same house. Put simply: I did not heed my own advice. As a result, I am where I am. I have seen it hundreds of times with couples I have worked with and in many instances when they got to my office it was too late as the gap was just too wide. I did not think it would happen to me, but though I am a professional in the behavioral sciences I am also human and fell prey to the pitfalls just like anyone else. It is likely that I should not be giving out advice at all, but I am giving it anyways. Don't ever let things get boring.