Archive for May 2018
What To Do If You’re Bored And Unhappy With Marriage
You don’t have to settle for feeling bored and unhappy with marriage. Things can be better.
Many people simply accept being bored and unhappy with marriage as normal. They believe you can’t feel the elation and attraction you felt when your love was new forever.
However, there’s a huge gap between the feelings of being in love you had when your relationship was new and feeling bored and unhappy.
Choosing to settle for feeling meh about your marriage is not only extremely sad, but it can negatively impact your health. Do you really want to accept this as your fate? Probably not.
Just because you know you’re tired of feeling bored and unhappy with marriage, doesn’t mean you know what to do about it. So, it’s time to consider your options.
One option you have is divorce. Yet if the only problem in your marriage is that it’s in a rut and it’s lost its spark, divorce is an extreme response.
Another option you can consider is continuing to feel bored and unhappy with your marriage. If you were truly willing to settle for this type of marriage, you wouldn’t be reading this article.
The final option to consider is bringing life back to your marriage. This may initially seem an impossible task. But if you and your spouse still love each other, reviving your marriage is the best course you can take.
Reviving your marriage really isn’t as hard as you might think because boredom can be fixed – if you’re willing to break out of your marital rut.
Just about everyone likes new ideas, or new experiences, or new things. And knowing this is one of the keys to making your unhappy marriage happy again.
There are several ways you can use the idea of newness to begin feeling less bored and unhappy with your marriage.
You might plan adventures the two of you can look forward to. The size of the adventure doesn’t matter. You might be thrilled with simply going someplace new for dinner. You might decide to plan an exotic vacation together. The idea here is for you both to feel excited about doing something together.
You might decide to learn something new together. Some couples really enjoy exploring gardening, ballroom dancing, robotics, skiing, kayaking, and bird watching. If none of these inspire you, that’s OK because they’re just meant to open your thoughts up to what will be fun for the two of you.
Reviving old dreams you shared, but shelved, is another way to inject some newness into your marriage. Even if you can’t make you dreams come true right away, dusting them off and beginning to plan and work toward making them a reality will definitely get the two of you thinking about and doing more exciting (aka less boring) things together.
Your marriage may have become boring and unhappy because you’ve both stopped connecting the way you did when you were completed enamored with each other. Back then, you used to share just about everything that was going on with your lives.
Choosing to be vulnerable again and sharing the thoughts you’ve stopped discussing with your spouse is another way you can bring the spark back to your marriage.
When you look at these suggestions to take the boredom out of your marriage, you may not feel a lot of excitement about any of them. That’s OK.
The goal isn’t necessarily for you to have an exact roadmap to follow that will drag your marriage out of the rut it’s fallen into. The real goal is for you to start thinking about how you can begin the work to stop feeling bored and unhappy with marriage.
After all, any marriage will become boring and can cause unhappiness when it is predictable. So choosing to shake things up, even if only in little ways to start, will help you to reignite the spark of love you each still have.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce and personal life coach. I help people who want support in deciding what to do about their unhappy marriage. You can join my newsletter list for free weekly advice. And, if you’re ready, you can take the first step toward working with me as your personal coach by scheduling a private consultation.