Listener Question (Bobby in NYC): What Actually Keeps the Spark Alive?

In this listener question episode, I share my thoughts on what actually keeps the spark alive in a long-term committed relationship. Things like attraction, emotional connection, playfulness, and why I think many people misunderstand what the spark really is. We often talk about it as something that magically appears at the beginning of a relationship and slowly fades with time, but I'm not convinced that's true.

What if the spark is something two people create together? Because the goal shouldn't be to hold onto some fairytale version of what you had in the beginning. It should be about continuing to create something meaningful together, day after day, year after year.

Email CT: ct@TheMindfulSPX.com

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome back or welcome to the Security You Podcast. My name is CT. I help you understand why you love the way you do. Today's episode of a listener question from Bobby in New York City. He said, I've heard people say that many long-term relationships, the initial excitement and passion eventually fades. How true is this? And what separates couples who stay happy from those who grow apart? I love this question, by the way. Thank you, Bobby. Here's what I wrote down stream of consciousness immediately when I got this. One, you're on an endless quest to learn everything about that other person. Curiosity, curiosity, curiosity. Inside and outside of the bedroom. Two, you never stop chasing each other. That could be in little ways and small. Little and small is the same thing. Little ways or big ways, and everything in between. Where you're making sure that they know that you value them, and it's reciprocated, and they value you just the same. And so maybe that is every Sunday night you do a big I don't want to say bad, I don't say big, but I don't want to make it feel heavy. Um you do like a Sunday reflection together. And so you come together every Sunday night, 7 o'clock, or whatever that routine may look like for you guys, and you talk about what went well that week, what could have been better, you know, how you were support how you were supported, what you appreciated, ways that you would like to be supported better in the the following week. There's many ways you could do that, but that allows every week you're checking in with each other, and think about how different that would be. Then you go weeks, months, years. The resentment's going to build on dumb little things that really don't matter, but they turn into bigger problems because they weren't addressed quickly enough. Another idea is what if you just send, or or um, if you just have like post-notes, like you guys exchange post-it notes, you know, in the bathroom mirror every day. Maybe you get up way earlier for work than they do, and so like it's just a little game, a little ritual that you create. It's actually making me think of this a whole other episode. Three, the relationship isn't solely built on the foundation of physical attraction or some shared hobby. There's a deeper resonance there between those two people. So you connect on a much deeper level than just the surface level physical attributes or the surface level hobbies or interests that you may have. That's just not gonna be sustainable. I'm not saying that you can't both, you know, you guys are both big pickleball players and you met at some pickleball championship and that brought you together, that's great. There's nothing wrong with that. But from the bigger picture, the majority of dating, I've talked about this numerous times in other episodes, of just the surface levelness of everything. That's just not the right sustainable way to think about relationships. If you're asking me, CT, what do you mean by that? I really like to do X, Y, and Z, I want somebody that shares that. What I would say to you is to go deeper and think about the connections in your past that have lit you up or uh energize you, that give you life, that make you want to be a better person. Maybe you haven't experienced those. So then I would ask, what would that connection look like? I'll give you a very concrete example from my life and my world, is I need to be emotionally and intellectually stimulated. I need to feel emotionally safe with you, meaning that I can express my thoughts and feelings without you shutting down or running away. Intellectually, I need to be stimulated. I was no good student in school, so I don't mean from from like a uh books smart perspective, but but if you are, that may be stimulating. You may you may want somebody that can meet with you, meet you in that way. For me, it's more when I say intellectually, I mean like a sparring or a bantering back and forth where we can talk about topic A, and then that leads to topic B, and we're gonna call back to A. Talking about C, but then we're gonna call back to A or B. And it's just this very effortless flow. We can be talking about A, B, and C one moment, and the next moment something comes up, and now we're transitioning to X, Y, and Z. None of that feels abrupt, none of that feels, you know, like it doesn't make sense. It literally just flows together, like we're going down the lazy river together, building that story together. So there's a playfulness, there's an imagination that's extremely attractive to me. That is going so if I'm creating a really uh connection based off of that kind of emotional, intellectual side of things, it's gonna make the physical and the sexual side that much greater, that much more fulfilling, because we're creating that foundation in kind of like our own little world. We're creating the shared rituals or the shared uh it was like inside jokes, that's what I was thinking. Like we're creating kind of those shared moments together, and that just strengthens every other part of the connection. Next, you don't try to change the other person, you accept them for who they are. We can't build a relationship based off of future possibility or potential. We need to be aware of the person that is in front of us and if they can meet our needs, and if we can meet their needs with who we are right now in this moment. That doesn't mean that they have to or that you have to be perfectly healed, happy, and whole to be able to experience, nurture, and grow a connection, but you have to be willing to not only understand those needs and those desires that you have, but also be able to set those boundaries so that you don't let yourself stay in a connection that no longer serves you. We can't just base everything on potential. I think that leads to a lot of, I was gonna say disagreements, I'm not sure that's the right word I was looking for, but maybe dissatisfaction that leads to a lot of dissatisfaction within dating relationships right now, that we kind of latch on to somebody because of a certain attribute or a certain quality or something that's very attractive in them to us, the sooner that we can realize what's truly important to us. And then also if that person can meet us there, then the easier, not that it's easy, but the easier that it will be to understand if somebody can meet us in that space to be able to create the connection versus wasting weeks, months, years where it's obvious that they that they can't. So if we go back to my example that I just shared, if I don't have that reciprocity of stimulation emotionally and intellectually, if we can't, you know, I can talk and I can talk with sarcasm for days on end. If I can't be met in that way, if we have a different sense of humor and it just doesn't match, match up, then that may be a sign of like, hey, you know what? Um that's really important to me, and I'm not feeling that, even though we may have the chemistry and the connection tenfold, if it may be something that that I can see earlier on that's not a match. And so we're not continuing that just because we're not latching on to something and just continuing it because we hope that it changes. We're just accepting them for who they are and if they can match us and if we can match them with where we are in that moment. And along those same lines, I'll give you like a bonus one. This wasn't one I was gonna talk to you, but just something that I was thinking about here is that we want to think about when the relationship's right, there's no there's no one person that wins. It's not like I win, you lose. Because if you get what you want by convincing that other person to accept the structure or accept this or that about the connection, and it's not actually what they want, well then it's really not a win. Or if they get what they want, um, let's let's say like they, you know, in the avoidant uh sense, if we go back to attachment styles, in the avoidance sense, a lot of times they will want to keep things undefined and not clear by choice because labeling can make them feel trapped. And so they like to kind of live in that gray area, that ambiguity. And so if you let them do that, but you really desire clarity and and forward movement and a connection, then that's not really a win either, because you're you're letting them get what they want, but it's not meeting you where you need to be met. It's not the goal isn't for one person's needs to be better than the other or to be met and not the other. The goal is discovering whether there's actually a middle ground where you can meet each other and be able to carry on that connection. Thanks again, Bobby, for that question. If you'd like your question answered on the podcast, feel free to reach out. My email is ct at themindfulsp.com. Ct at the mindfulspx.com. Or you can leave me a message with fan mail. You can do that by going to wherever you listen to this podcast. Should have a text link in the description that says fan mail. You can click that, send me a voice or text message, and would love to hear from you wherever you may be listening. Just on a recent episode, we got a listener from Virginia. Love to hear from you, whoever you may be out there listening in the great state of Virginia. And one last favor to ask if you can leave a five-star review wherever you listen to this podcast, it really helps you expand the reach and get new listeners to be able to see the podcast, show up in their feeds. Thank you again for being here. Appreciate you. Have a good rest of your day, good rest of your week, and we'll talk soon. Thanks.