Do Not Let Your Relationship Become Stale
If you have ever had a long term relationship or you are already living together with your partner, you know that things might get a bit stale and less exciting: routine sets in, you don’t have anything to talk about anymore and you have resorted to sitting at home while watching Netflix as your weekend plan, and while this is not necessarily bad and it can be great if you have already developed a level of intimacy where you don’t need to say anything to communicate… this can be the door towards the relationship growing sad and stale and your partner feeling bored, neglected and losing that special spark that made you two into a lovely couple.
This sounds like a Doomsday scenario if you really love your partner and want to keep them by your side, but this doesn’t have to be. Even if a point comes where you barely have any topic of conversation or where a routine is starting to set in, it doesn’t have to be the end after all. This is a great time to have what we like to call The Big Discussions in life, which we consider crucial to have before you get married.
- The Big Discussions to have before you get married:
Of course, you already know what we mean by this: talk to your partner about their life plan before you propose. Do they want to get married, and if so, when? How much money will go toward the wedding? Do they want children and if so, how many? How is the relationship with their family and how much can you expect to be sending them? People can change when it comes to their life plan, but they usually don’t so you need to
make sure they are on the same page (or at least, a similar one) when it comes to their life blueprint. However, if you have already discussed this at length… it is time for the Other Big Questions.
- The Other Big Questions
Talk to your partner about politics, philosophy, morality, and social issues (and if you don’t know anything about those, it is time to learn). These topics are important to get to know your partner and yourself better and to learn how to discuss appropriately when it comes to touchy subjects (remember, it’s not you versus them, it’s both of you versus misunderstandings and disagreements).
This type of talk can be great to get you to know your partner intimately, but it will also help you to know yourself and negotiate your boundaries and know what you will tolerate and what you would not tolerate. You might have never given too much importance to morality, philosophy or politics, but they are important parts of being a citizen which you should think about and discover your positions on, and do the same with your partner: you don’t want to find out your partner holds a position on human rights that you find morally abhorrent after you are married, or to find out that your partner gets angry, screams or violent when discussing political opinions.
All in all, these great conversation topics will help you discover yourself, know your partner better, and will help the two of you bond and resolve conflict in a reasonable, adult manner… or find out if that’s not possible, which would be a red flag.