Picture an old married couple sitting at a restaurant, having dinner.
Where are they sitting? At opposite ends of the table… or next to each other?
Are they looking at their dinner plates… or each other?
As they talk, are their faces expressionless or animated?
Your answers reveal something about yourself:
Whether or not you think a couple married that long would still be in love.
Why Get Excited?
It’s hard to maintain enthusiasm and excitement for someone you’ve been with for such a long time.
Excitement tends to peak in the early days of a relationship, when you’re just discovering each other and everything is so fresh and new.
Few people know how to maintain that enthusiasm over the long term.
They stop getting excited about their partner.
They assume they know everything there is to know.
They’re bored.
No wonder so few relationships make it.
When you’re bored, the obvious solution is to break it off and find someone new…
Forgetting that this new person will eventually become boring, too.
Feels Like Rejection
It’s incredibly painful to feel like you’re no longer interesting or exciting to the person you love.
That feeling of rejection is old and deep.
Remember being a kid and wanting your parents’ attention?
Remember all the ways you tried to get them to drop what they were doing and look at you?
They were busy, but you were a kid. Their attention was like food.
You’d get it by any means necessary: being their helper, making silly faces, throwing a tantrum.
We need to feel that the people we love will never lose interest in us.
But as we get older, that’s an embarrassing thing to admit to.
Why He Shuts Down
Your grown man is never going to admit that he wants your attention.
He’s an adult, not a child.
But he feels it when you are busy doing something else, looking at your phone, or uninterested in what he has to say.
He shuts down. He says less. He stops opening up.
When you actually want him to talk, he has nothing to say.
You can keep this from happening by practicing the third gift:
Curiosity.
Wonder About Him
When you look at him, what are you curious about?
Is his mind a black box you’ll never unlock?
Why does he do what he does?
What does he think of that movie, that song, that car, that couple?
What does he wish for?
What does he dream about?
Are his dreams the same today as they were when you met him?
He is always changing.
You may not see it until you look back several years and realize how different the two of you have become.
If you stop being curious about him, you may just look up one day and find you’ve grown apart.
If you stay curious, you nourish that little boy inside that just wanted attention.
(Don’t know what to ask him? This book can help.)
One Last Twist
Now that you know the powerful effects of the 3 gifts on a man…
How the little boy inside yearns for acceptance, affection, and curiosity…
Do you think the little girl inside you needs the same things?
Let us know what you think!