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Any tips to fixing a lull in the relationship? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 2 weeks ago by hypertext5689@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/relationship_advice@lemmy.world
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My spouse and I dated for 5-ish years starting in uni, before getting married and we're now coming up on the 10th anniversary. The spark has been missing for a while now, and I feel like we're headed towards a dead bedroom kind of situation. But not just sex wise, even just fun wise.

We're both in similar positions career wise, earn similar amounts, split chores down the middle (to the point of just alternating between what we do each week. Ex: I plan and cook this week while they do the dishes and laundry, and switch tasks the next week). No kids/pets in the mix - just the two of us.

There's a lot of love and respect between us, we rarely ever fight, and there's no obvious point of friction that I can say is the source of our issue. It's hard to even say that there's an issue unless I squint a little.

When I do squint, I can see that we're just going through the motions. We go on "fun" dates and spend a lot of time just existing without actually having fun or talking. When we do the same activities (board games, pub crawl, pottery, concerts etc) with other friends, we tend to actually have fun. This has over time resulted in a situation where we plan more and more things in groups instead of just the two of us.

We barely even talk about the exciting new things we discovered today with each other. I've caught myself looking forward to telling something to a coworker of the opposite gender, and have since limited my interaction with them. But I was actually having fun while talking to said coworker, you know?

Any hoo, any recommendations based on things that worked for you?

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[-] Azzu@leminal.space -1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

It's pretty normal. I don't think two humans are really meant to mate for life and have no other sexual partners, in fact, the copius amounts of "cheating" going on pretty much proves that imo.

Personally, that's why I'm poly, and I think that actually leads to longer, more healthy relationships, because there are no unfulfilled desires, no secrets, no need to hide anything. I can't think of any reason why I would ever break up with the person I live together right now.

I understand that that's not possible or desired by everyone, and it's not even my suggestion, I'm just mentioning it because it's relevant to my true advice:

There is absolutely no reason to talk to strangers first about this. The fact that you're coming here first instead of talking about this with your spouse indicates a lack of comfort talking about problems/desires. I for example would have almost immediately told my partner about that other opposite sex coworker I like to talk with, I suspect that you haven't. It seems to be such a big taboo to talk about interest in other people in traditional monogamous relationships. But most of the time, when I talk about interest in someone else with the partner I live with, or they with me, we actually become closer again and this interest in another person decreases, i.e. our bond gets stronger.

So my actual advice is: go talk about literally everything with your spouse. Open your heart up completely. It either leads to you two becoming closer or drifting farther apart, both of which are very desirable outcomes, since if you are completely open and drift farther apart, it means this person is not actually right for you! You might get the opportunity to look for someone that you're more compatible with! That is an amazing opportunity in my opinion, because everyone deserves to have a partner they're completely compatible with.

this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2026
32 points (97.1% liked)

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