I have been reading a book by one of my favorite authors called “Passion,” by Barbara de Angelis. Today I have decided to share an excerpt from the book about keeping the passion of love alive. Keeping the passion alive is especially important in preventing an affair, but also while recovering from an affair. This sort of ties in with Doug’s post from yesterday about building and maintaining the fences around your relationship. This passage really struck a chord with me and I hope that it does with you as well:
de Angelis says “We can learn a lot about the passion between two lovers by thinking about what we intuitively know about building and maintaining a fire. When you first meet someone and fall in love, you carefully court and seduce him or her, adding the right amount of intimacy, the perfect amount of commitment until the fire of passion flares up between your hearts and your bodies. For a while, the blaze burns brightly on its own and you grow accustomed to the joy it brings into your life.
But one day, you realize that there is less light, less heat between you and your mate, and that, in fact, it’s been that way for a long time. You don’t feel the same intense degree of physical attraction, the same desire to unite, the same stimulation you once felt with each other. “The passion is gone,” you may conclude, “I guess I’ve fallen out of love. This relationship is over.”
How many people ask themselves at this critical point in a love affair, if the fire of passion has died down simply because no one has been tending to it, because no one has added the fuel necessary to keep it burning? How many people walk away from the smoking embers of their marriage, certain that the fire has died out, without noticing the coals of love still contain enough heat to reignite the flames, it only they are given a chance?
Respect the fire of passion, the fire of love. Understand that to stay alive, it needs to be honored, to be cared for, to be tended as diligently as you would tend a fire you had built in the wilderness to help keep you warm and safe from harm. Feed the fire of your love with kindness, communication, appreciation, and gratitude, and it will always blaze strong and brightly for you.”
There you go! You know what to do now!