I am back (no one cares) with the SECOND POST for the ‘relationship talk’ series for this month. If you haven’t seen the introductory post I did on this last week, please check it out here, because it’s a bit of a heart to heart I did with you guys. And if you missed the FIRST POST in this series, I highly suggest also getting through that one before this, because to me, it’s the foundation of everything.

If you’ve read them all, congratulations on your patience. Let us begin 🙂

So “keeping the excitement in a relationship”. Honestly, I’d love to be in a partnership of a bajillion years and then talk about this topic. But we’re at a decent 8 year mark in our marriage, grounded in a 13 year friendship, so I feel like, I can write about it and not be embarrassed too much of speaking out of line? Makes sense-ish? Let’s chat.

You know, the husband-wife relationship in our culture specifically gets labeled as one of the most mediocre relationships (contrary to what religion treats it as: a very special relationship – just slipping that in because so many things are religiously driven in our society, whether you authentically practice or not). Boyfriend-girlfriend like biryani but husband-wife like boiled sabzi. This mediocrity is bred from the beginning of the shadi and then societally nurtured till the end. Wives will be told to expect average husbands, husbands are coached to emotionally do the bare minimum. We drive fear in people who are yet to marry with implications that they’re entering the most challenging phase of their lives and once they get there, we constantly push the sentiment that this relationship can’t be anything but average. Take a sampling of the most common jokes you see at large get togethers and over dinner table conversations; most are about husbands wanting to escape and about wives either nagging/sulking or irresponsible-shopping.

The business of desi marriages thrives on pushing an ordinary mindset for an extraordinary relationship.

And I think that’s why one of the fundamentals of how you keep your marriage in good shape, and one that actually keeps getting better with time, is to first dissociate from all forms of this mediocrity. We dramatically praise our parents, siblings, best friends, kids but when it comes to spouses, the public standard is fittay mun type comments. We have to say no to this national standard of marital mediocrity first.

The second thing to address is the fear of losing love. Our fears pollute our actions. What we believe often becomes us. I’ve known Nabeel for 13 years now. I don’t wish to say this with a sense of arrogance or pride, but today our relationship is the best that it’s ever been (Mashallah). Anyone in a respectful equation, trustworthy partners, genuine care and honest love, I feel it only gets better and expansive with time. On a micro level, you can suffer through challenges brought on by external factors (toxic friends, in-laws, financial hiccups, adjustment to new roles like parenthood, physical distance, emotional or mental growth of just one individual for which the other has to catchup) but on a macro level if both people love each other, ideologically are on approximately the same page, and are respectful towards one another, it remains a relationship that gets better with time. Love does not fade, excitement does not run out. We need to protect relationships out of a sense of love, not a sense of fear.

If my reason for investing in my relationship is because of the fear of someday losing love, my path is going to be different from someone who invests in their relationship because of simply the need to love. The results of a negative approach differ greatly from the results of a positive one. Our fears manifest behaviors (over-possessiveness, clinginess) that are vastly different from behaviors manifested out of love (space, comfort, trust).

What’s the bottomline for me to keep a marriage alive and kicking? Just one thing: commit to loving each other everyday. There is nothing else to it. The basic act of giving love to someone, takes cares of every single thing that we see those bestselling relationship books about. If my primary purpose in a partnership is to love my spouse every single day, all my actions organically become a derivative of that. Choices like not betraying each other’s trust, communicating openly, no manipulation, expressing emotionally and physically, being soft towards each other when in a good mood and when upset, doing small things to surprise each other like cooking a favorite meal or fixing something broken, respecting each others’ families even if you can’t love them, patience for the other’s shortcomings, asserting self-respect if the other one slips and is unfair to you, correcting their mistakes, letting them correct your own, forgiving each other. These are all things that can come naturally or be practiced, when both sides understand what the primary direction in the relationship has to be: To love each other.

For this series, so many people asked me this question – without vacations, without grand gestures or gifts, without time to go regularly on dates, life with kids, with full-time jobs, with no time to breathe – how can one survive on making a marriage feel special after years of being together. I personally find it hard to separate regular life from a fancier life because to me my regular life is my fancy life. The everyday hangout on the couch after all work and house duties are done, is actually my most favorite date. Conversation, where you can talk about the good bits and the bad bits, is my favorite gift. The sharing of a meal, going on long drives. The small gestures for one another like making a cup of chai or a giving a head massage or doing a small chore that the other doesn’t like to do. There are limitless things that make the relationship special every single day.

But still what about stagnation after years of togetherness? In my very humble opinion it’s exactly these very long years with so much history, so many memories, wins, mistakes – that actually feels the most exciting to me. There is nothing that can match the warmth and comfort of a long association. When we don’t question our equations with our oldest friends/chaddi buddies that we’ve known for years, how can a marriage stagnate when you’re both as loving towards each other (and honestly, in some cases, many times more) as you would be with a trusted best friend.

But let’s get specific, what are some things one can do everyday to keep things special? The best part about this question is that it has no one answer. What our partners like, what makes them happy, what you can do with your time and capacity, it will vary for everyone. And we all have to find those moments, those pockets of time, those tiny little things, that we can do for one another.

If I were to share some examples (because I’ve been specifically asked by quite a few people) about how Nabeel and I keep things ‘fun’ and ‘exciting’, I’ll tell you this: You can make the grandest meal possible, execute the most complex recipe, but if you forget to add the salt and pepper, it’s not going to be what you imagined it to be. You can have a big house and the most luxurious vacations. But it will always be the smaller details that make a difference. Affection can’t be slotted into a once-a-year birthday surprise or lined up against a monthly schedule. It has to be peppered throughout your day.

Simple things: Both of us never leave home without a loving goodbye, or enter back in without a welcome hug. If one of us forgets, the other one remembers. We make small plans every few days; one day we’ll cook together, one day we’ll watch a bunch of movie trailers on the couch – even 10 minute activities done with love and a few laughs can make your day. We do puzzles together, lie in bed and read stupid memes together. We compliment each other on our looks; if one doesn’t notice, the other just asks. We sometimes give company to each other in the boring things; if he has to repair the water pipe, I will hang out with him, if I have to clean up the balcony, I’ll ask him to join me. We tell each other everyday on WhatsApp that we miss one another, and if one person is too busy to reply, we give them space but also say it on our own, anyway. We sometimes hang out in the same room even when doing separate things. We flirt with each other, secretly when in public (hashtag cheap thrills) and openly when at home. We treat each other with kindness. And on days when life is too, too busy, one of us will stop for a few seconds and give a nice, long hug, because why not 🙂

But then there’s the forever (stereotypical) problem of men not expressing first and women getting frustrated or giving up. I personally believe there’s nothing wrong with one person taking the lead on romance as long as the other one mostly follows. If you always have to be the one to say ‘I love you’ first (and your partner does respond), what’s so wrong about that. Keeping count, ‘why should I be the one to always do that’, ‘but he never does it’, these are products of our ego, not of our love. The objective is a loving exchange – how that begins or ends is irrelevant to the exchange. Egos take so many expressions of love away from us, so many moments when we can just express how we feel, get consumed by thoughts of ‘main kyoon karoon’. As long as you can do it and also get it back, don’t lose time in waiting over who does it first.

I will also say this. Sometimes in the hustle of life, one person will get swallowed by things that have everything to do with the world and nothing to do with your relationship – long work hours, lots of travel, family distractions, etc. And it’s in those moments, I think, we have to again strap our ego in and respond only with our heart. It’s okay to tell someone you love them even if they’re not saying it back, it’s alright to keep it going on one end for a while….- if you trust your partner and know they usually do well.

A lot of people asked me this, so I’ll add it in, even though I’m perhaps not the best person to be talking about it – “What about love after kids?” Look, I have been told by one or two people here and there, that the only reason why Nabeel and I are still in love is because we don’t have kids. I have no perspective on this opinion….because I have no children, lulz. Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not, it’s not my concern nor of value to me what anyone sees as the reason of our affection towards each other. But what I do believe is that it’s a very pessimistic view and unfair way to see your kids as the reason for a decline in your relationship. Relationships grow or deteriorate because of how we shape the fundamentals. For healthy relationships, children may enhance that love. For weak relationships, children may expose that gap. Children, like all other changes in life, don’t cause anything. They may amplify it, but the blame is not theirs. I mean, if kids are going to ruin your life, why would you have them in the first place – This is again that same mental mediocrity towards children in marriages.

Again, we have to see things on a macro level. Of course, you may have an adjustment period to being parents even in a loving relationship, but on a macro level, it should make your bond stronger. My parents had four kids and they were the most in love couple I knew personally. The same for quite a few of my friends. Of course, there may be exceptions, but those exist for everything and this post isn’t about exceptions. So that’s where I’ll leave that, but of course you’re welcome to believe otherwise.

Like I mentioned in my intro post, a very basic premise of everything I say within this series will be on the understanding that both people in a relationship are at least decent individuals. Chemistry/romance can be worked over together, but basic decency has to be offered by each person individually. For partners who are not willing to contribute in any way at all, this will not help. Both people in an equation have to be invested in each other to make things work. In our society, we put the onus on the female entirely and ask them to ‘adjust’ because ‘husbands aisay hi hotay hain’. That may keep a contractual obligation like the nikkahnaama going (for whatever reasons, no judgement), but a ‘spark’ cannot be rooted in that. It is our responsibility to give love, and our right to receive it.

Many people who meet Nabeel and I in real life often say stuff like this: “You guys look like newlyweds.” “Still in your honeymoon phase”. I wish I could alter this format of thinking. Because we aren’t like two people who are in love after just being married. We are like two people who have been in love for 13 years. A love grounded in shared experiences, time and deep attachment. Until in our minds we can start giving the respect and stature to the spousal relationship, only then can we start manifesting it in our own lives. We can’t aspire to have something fantastic, when our own expectations of it are already low.

So if you’re entering into a relationship or looking to strengthen yours, rise above the mediocrity that’s fed to you and just simply commit to loving one another. If you’re at all times trying to elevate all aspects of your life – career, home, car, travel – it’s probably also a good idea to, at all times, try and elevate your relationship too. It’s what we’re going to be living for at least half of our existence, wouldn’t it be a tragedy if we kept so many years of our life just about average?

If you have the time, I’d love for you to check out this post I did some months ago on the languages of love. That sounds cliched but so incredibly accurate.

That’s all. See you here next week.