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There was a post on Medium on PS I LOVE YOU called, “The Silent Relationship Killer You Never See Coming” about how the silent relationship killer is basically routine and sameness.

The author, Barry Davret, compared relationships to a song that you love so intensely you listen to over and over again obsessively, but then suddenly, you are done with that song.

Couples, he says, set weekly and daily routines after that initial burst of frantic attraction and then? They get bored of having intercourse every Saturday, date night every Friday, laundry every Monday.

If they’re polite, they’ll still ask each other how their days went, but they won’t actually care about the answer because the answer is always the same.

He writes

“Look back on the last six months. Does it feel like it was one day lived 180 times?”

How do you defeat being bored in your relationship?

He suggests two tips to not be bored

• Occasionally be spontaneous
• Pursue separate passions

This has never happened to us. As you can tell from our random thoughts, we’re weird. We’re so weird especially when we’re alone. I will fall down laughing because of the things Shaun says.

We think that Barry has it right, but he also has it wrong.

Yes, people get dulled by routines and because of the comfort in routines, and that might be partially be because they've stopped doing things on their own. But it's also more about empathy and building walls around yourself so you don't get hurt. The person you're in a relationship with sees you warts and all? And that, my friends, can be a bit scary.

To have a relationship that lasts and evolves you have to do the following things:

• You have to find humor in yourself and each other even during the bad times.
• You have to blow off the assumption that you know absolutely everything about your significant other as if they are a blank piece of paper rather than a living, breathing, changing organism. There is still mystery in them even if you aren’t seeing it.
• You have to be willing to be vulnerable so that your partner can see that mystery inside of you. There is nothing dull in courage and it takes courage to be vulnerable.

How does this relate to writing? Hold on! We’re getting there.

WRITING TIP OF THE POD

Our novels and characters also need to have tiny doses of the unexpected to keep people from being bored. We want to have each character have differences and not be the same. That sameness, that lack of diversity? It makes Johnny a dull boy. Insert quirks into your characters.

DOG TIP FOR LIFE

Even when you’re on the same walk that your person always takes you on, there’s going to be a nuance in the smells you sniff up on the side of the road. Rejoice in that nuance. Seek it out. Live in the moment. It’s a good way not to be bored.

SHOUT OUT

The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song?  It’s “Night Owl” by Broke For Free.

Big News!

I just published a super cool adult novel. Gasp! I know! Adult! That’s so …. grown-up?

You can order it here. Please, please, preorder it.

So, um, please go buy it. I am being brave, but that means that despite all my reasons for doing this, I’m still terrified that nobody will buy it and I really, really love this book. A lot.

carriejonesbooks.blog