How To Keep The “Fire” Alive In Marriage

Many people wonder, “Where did the “fire” go in my my marriage?” “What happened to the spark?”

Remember the wedding day?

On that day, you’re full of love for her.  You’re burning with passion.  The emotions are high and you could never imagine not loving this person with every fiber of your being.  

Fast forward a few years, add a few kids, the stress of a home, work, bills, and “life” and that energy seems to fade a bit.  

You don’t talk like you used to.  You rarely, if ever, have sex.  You fight regularly, usually over stupid things.  You’re constantly running the kids from place to place.  

You’re not lovers any more, you’re roommates.

Maybe you feel like that “fire” has gone out?  She tends to piss you off more often than she makes you happy anymore.  Are you sure you even still love her anymore? Does she love you?

How do you get that “fire” back in your marriage?  

How do you keep it lit?

My wife and I will celebrate our 13th anniversary in August.  We have more fire now in our marriage than we ever have.  We’re still hot for each other like a couple teenagers.  

But it wasn’t always that way.

My marriage has been through every up and down, good day and bad that you can imagine.  We’ve dealt with the damage of my intense porn addiction, my adultery, mental illness, and eating disorders.  We went through a year-long separation, the beginnings of divorce proceedings, and custody issues.  We’ve faced being on food stamps, getting through college, and working multiple jobs.  All this with two kids.  

Yet, we’re still together, stronger and more passionate than ever.

HOW?

When we said, “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness or in health, to love and to cherish till death do us part” we meant it!

We had an extremely tough conversation at one point and decided we were going to make this work no matter what.  We decided we were going to do the work necessary to keep our marriage strong and the “fire” burning hot.

Here are four ways to keep the fire from going out in your marriage:

1. Have a purpose and a mission outside of each other.

You need a purpose in life.  If you don’t have one, you’re wandering.  You have to have a reason to get out of bed each morning.  

What are you passionate about? What is your mission in life? 

This is the reason you do what you do. The reason you work so hard. God put you on this earth for a purpose.  He has a plan for you.  

But let me give you a warning.  Your purpose and your mission CANNOT be your wife and family.  

Yes, they should be number one in your life after God.  But they themselves cannot be the mission.  Your purpose is something much greater than yourself or your family.  It’s your reason for existing.

When you have a mission, your wife will follow.  She doesn’t want to “wear the pants.”  She wants you to be a leader and lead the family forward.

Lead your family ON the mission, don’t make them the mission.

2. Stay in great shape

Many couples “let themselves go” after marriage.  They got their partner, so they don’t feel the need to look good for them.  

The pounds start adding up and the energy starts going down.  Apathy sets in and you just don’t care anymore.  You get lazy.

Then after you let your body get lazy, you start getting lazy in other areas.  You start drinking more, which just perpetuates the problem.  You get lazy in hygiene and grooming.  Before you know it, you hardly recognize yourself anymore.

Maybe you say you’re going to get back in shape.  You might even join a gym.  But once it gets difficult or inconvenient, you throw in the towel and go back to your lazy ways.  

Then you wonder why your wife doesn’t seem attracted to you anymore and never wants to have sex.  Would you want to have sex with you?

A man who has mastery over his body can have mastery over anything.  

It’s not just the obvious health benefits of staying in shape and looking good.  It’s about having discipline to do hard work.  It’s about pushing through when things get hard.  It’s about control over your impulses.  

Workout together with your wife.  You WILL bond together when you’re working on yourselves. If she needs to get in shape too, she’ll follow your lead.  You know damn well telling her she needs to get in shape won’t work.  So be the man and set the example for fitness in your home.  

Being physically fit and working on yourselves together will keep excitement in your marriage.

3. Never Stop Dating

So many couples stop dating after they get married.  Life becomes stale, boring, and predictable.  

There is little to look forward to.  You end up looking most forward to going to sleep at 9:00 on a Friday night.  

To keep the “fire” alive in your marriage, don’t ever get complacent.  Being married doesn’t mean you get to stop being a gentleman and stop wining and dining her.

Stop being a screwball husband.  She doesn’t think your farts are funny.  She doesn’t like the crude jokes or sarcastic humor.  If you wouldn’t do it in front of her while dating, don’t do it now.  

Be a Ricky Ricardo, not a Homer Simpson.  Be a Gomez Adams, not a Ray Romano.

You still need to romance your wife.  Why do you think there was so much passion and fire on your wedding day?  Because she felt beautiful.  She felt loved and desired.  

If you want a wife that’s very feminine and passionate, you must be a husband that’s very masculine and strong.  

She can’t be the woman she wants to be unless you’re the man you should be.  

Never stop dating.  Go out together, often.  Get dressed up every once in a while.  Do new and exciting things.  Be unpredictable.  Have a little mystery to your life.  

Do these things and the fire will stay alive.

4. SEX.  Lot’s of sex.

Married sex shoud be better and more satisfying than single sex.  If it isn’t, you’re doing marriage wrong.

Sex is an essential part of the marriage covenant.  It is the highest level of intimacy and culmination of everything else in your marriage.  

Show me a sexless marriage, and I’ll show you a failing marriage. 

“But my wife doesn’t want to have sex with me!”

B.S.  She doesn’t want to have sex the current you.  She doesn’t want to have sex with the purposeless, apathetic, out of shape, slob that you’ve become.  

If you take care of the first three points in this article, you won’t have to worry about the fourth.  

If you’re addicted to porn, don’t be surprised your sex life suffers.  You’ll end up preferring to watch porn over having sex with your wife. 

Sexless marriages don’t cause porn addiction.  Porn Addiction causes sexless marriages.

Break free from porn, and watch your sex life blossom.  

Sex is not just good for marriage, it’s a requirement for marriage.  The Bible commands couples to have regular sex. 

“Do not deprive each other of sexual relations, unless you both agree to refrain from sexual intimacy for a limited time so you can give yourselves more completely to prayer. Afterward, you should come together again so that Satan won’t be able to tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”

1 CORINTHIANS 7:5

Husbands and wives are supposed to have regular sex. It is how marriage was designed. Read through the Song of Solomon. Its description of the man and woman’s intimate relationship reads like a kinky romance novel.

Great marriages have great sex.  To keep the fire burning, keep your “loins” burning.. 

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Marriages don’t have to become stale over time.  They can grow and mature and become more passionate even after decades together.  

All it takes is putting in the hard work.  Great marriages are kept great by the determination to keep the fire alive no matter how hard things get.  

Love is a decision, not a feeling.

My marriage is proof that marriages can overcome hardship and thrive.  If you follow these simple steps and put in the effort to make your marriage strong, you will keep the “fire” burning. 

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