(photo credit: hotblack)
Do you ever wonder if you will run out of things to say to your spouse or partner? After you’ve been together for a while, some things can be left unsaid. When you first start getting to know someone, there is so much talking. At least for me, there is. It’s the phone calls (and I am not much a phone person), emails, texts, and the in-person face-to-face conversations.
I remember spending hours just talking to Ninja and I still have these long email we used to write to each other. When I was younger, I’m pretty sure I wrote lots of notes on notebook paper that would then be folded up and hand delivered to a locker. In the newness, there is so much to discover and the desire to want to discover.
I always looked at my parents and wondered if they would still have things to talk about after my brother and I left for college. They were so different and complete opposites. Would they still have stuff to talk about? Would they have things in common? Would they be able to carry on a conversation that didn’t have something to do with their kids?
When I see them now, their conversations have dwindled tremendously – at least in front of me. But they still travel together and I wonder, what is said between them when sitting at restaurants, or on the airplane, or on their way to go see these epic sites around the world? Is it just small talk? Is it about the weather? How the food tastes?
That’s one of those things that I said I would never become. That I would have so much to say to my spouse or partner and we would continue to grow together and stay connected. I’ve seen many couples part because they have just grown so far apart and they feel misunderstood and unheard. But I see myself wandering over to what I said I would never become.
There are days where I just feel so tired and I don’t want to talk to anyone. I just want to sit in front of the t.v., or a book, or on the internet (oddly enough, tweeting and commenting on FB – sort of this one-sided conversation sometimes). I want to be alone. But when too many of those days add up, it becomes harder and harder to connect with your spouse and you end up having those dinners in silence.
It would drive me nuts when I would see Korean couples around my parents’ ages where the man (and sometimes the woman, too) would be sitting at the restaurant eating together with a newspaper in front. I guess it’s a smart phone now. I couldn’t understand why they would not want to look at each other, converse, and delight in each other’s company. It still drives me nuts to this day, but I definitely can understand it more. There just isn’t much to say sometimes or it’s a cover or a way to hide. It breaks my heart when I see it in myself and my marriage, especially since Ninja and I are so opposite in so many ways. It makes me wonder about our future days together.
The effort has to be made on both parts in willingness to explore each other’s interests. It takes a lot to put aside whatever it is that is interesting to do for you and to take up someone else’s. It could be watching that reality tv show together, reading a book that you thought you never would, playing or watching alongside that video game, or simply putting everything down including how you might be feeling and setting aside the tiredness to spend time together and just be. That’s really, really, really hard.
I’ve been terrible at doing this lately, so I could use your help.
What are some things that you do to connect with your partner or spouse?