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The 7-year mark has traditionally been a time when love and affection in relationships give way to disillusion and disappointment. The first year of any relationship is commonly referred to as the honeymoon period.
During this time everything is brand new and exciting. Couples stay up for hours talking and those peculiarities? You know- the ones that will most likely drive you up the wall later on? Well, those are just about the most endearing thing that you have ever encountered.
While the honeymoon stage is often the most fun part of a relationship; it is actually at par with the same feeling that people get when they snort cocaine; it has to end sometime. Not just because everything in this life is fleeting and ephemeral but also because all relationships must evolve if they are to lead to something more serious.
If you are still lucky to be together 7 years later, things might be a little different. At 7 years, most couples complain of a fervent irritation in the relationship and couples tend to develop an irresistible need to cheat and explore what’s out there. The truth is that all individuals need to feel wanted; they crave attention from their partners.
And after 7 years, even the most attentive couples will have a difficult time keeping the original intensity experienced during the honeymoon period up. So, is there anything that couples can do to avoid the 7-year itch? Here are some tips to help:
Change the way you approach your relationship
If you are expecting your relationship to be as vibrant as it was the day you met even after 7 years, then you need to change the way you approach relationships. In any relationship, whether business or personal, boredom is bound to set in over some time. This is because the novel turns into the norm.
After 7 years, most couples change. If you are feeling the itch, consider it as a wakeup call to improve your relationship rather than taking it as a sign of doom and gloom. Every relationship endures rough spots and times but the challenges are all part of the adventure and adventure is always welcome in relationships.
Understand and accept that sex will not be the same
At the start of the relationship, most couples cannot get enough of each other. Sex can take place practically everywhere- in the car, on your kitchen counter, on top of washing machines. But after 7 years, you should expect your sex life to change. Not only are your bodies different from what they were 7 years ago, but your libido is likely not the same either.
As we continue to age, our sex drive also diminishes. If you accept that your sex lives will not be the same as they were when you were 20, then you can start to do things aimed at fixing the problem. One thing that you can do is be open to exploration, which might mean adding sex toys and dild os to your sexual mix, role-playing or even opening up the relationship to include more people if you are into that sort of thing.
Try and be kinder and appreciate each other
When you have been together for years, you get pretty good at knowing and understanding the things that make your partner tick. Whenever you have arguments, it can be easy to lash out, saying insulting things that you don’t mean. Being together for long means that you get too comfortable with one another, which can make it difficult to notice when we are not being nice.
Being nice can go a long way in helping a relationship to be successful. When you are not nice to your partner, it may cause them to feel unimportant and underappreciated, which will consequently cause them to withdraw. Any talks of the future will be met with resistance and the party feeling unappreciated will find other things, places and even people to seek the appreciation that you are not providing.
Make time to spend together
When couples have been together for many years, they tend to fall into certain routines and habits. Just ask yourself, when was the last time that you and your partner tried something new? After 7 years, you probably have a family and a couple of pets, which may have helped you to settle into a dull routine existence.
Many couples that cheat claim that stagnation and boredom are what led them to seek love and affection elsewhere. To avoid this from happening, the best thing that you can do is switch up your routines so that you can begin to spend time together doing new and exciting things. If you can, travel and go on adventures together- these are the things that will protect your relationship from monotony and subsequent death.
Figure out what isn’t working and change it
If your relationship is in the 7-year rut, take some time to reflect on the years that you have had together. What in the relationship has been working and what hasn’t? Has one party changed personalities? Are you suffering from scheduling problems?
Whenever you are feeling as though the relationship is heading downhill, come together with your partner and assess the areas where you can both make improvements geared towards making the relationship stronger. Remember that it would be impossible to fix what you don’t know is broken, so analyzing your relationship is necessary.
Final Thoughts
Is there any way to truly beat the 7-year itch? The good news is that it is entirely possible to combat disenfranchised relationships at the 7-year mark- some couples don’t even end up feeling the itch at all. However, if you do experience it, the best way to get around it is to always keep the lines of communication open and never stop touching one another.
These are both things that human beings thrive off of and both ate ways of communicating to increase affection, ease tension as well as have more fun with one another. But don’t wait until your relationship is going through the 7-year itch to make needed changes. If you start early enough, you and your partner might be able to avoid feeling the itch altogether.