After a consecutive 10-day span of Netflix and Uber Eats, I began to worry that this could be the beginning of the dimming of our romantic flame. I didn’t want our relationship to lose its exciting energy. We were both such active people when we first met, but the stresses and demands of everyday life left us exhausted and it was starting to seem like we’d stopped putting as much energy into ourselves and our relationship as we used to.
I decided it was time to make a change, so we got in the car and hit the road. We decided to approach the day like we were at summer camp — we rented bikes, went swimming in the lake, and played boccie ball at a local tavern.
This action-packed day left us feeling excited, alive and more connected to one another than we’d been in ages (or the past few weeks, anyway). That day we made a pact to break free of our lazy routine every weekend and be more active together through shared hobbies.
Engaging in an activity with your spouse can strengthen your bond and help you create unforgettable memories. To keep things fun and fresh in your relationship, try some of these activities together:
Explore the Great Outdoors
Take the weekend to get into nature and enjoy the serene sounds and sprawling vistas. Spending time together without distractions allows for moments of open communication and opportunities to bring out your adventurous side. Going on biking or backpacking trips can bring you closer together since you have to rely on teamwork to navigate the trails and set up your tent.
If you live near NYC and you’d rather opt for a two or four-hour hike, we love the Storm King Mountain trail, which is about an hour north of NYC, but you can choose your adventure here.
Play a Sport
If you both enjoy being athletically active, take up a sport you can play together. Golf is one you can play together until you’re 90 years old (or so the sales pitch from my golf-loving husband goes).
Tennis is another excellent activity for couples to enjoy, as it can vary in intensity and can be played with just the two of you. Or, if you want to put your tennis skills to the test, play against another couple for a fun challenge. Find couples looking for friendly competition on the USTA site.
For an extra challenge, learn an unusual sport together like kayaking, archery, fencing, or sailing.
If you and your spouse love living on the wild side, try a more extreme hobby like white water rafting, skydiving, rock climbing or drag racing. Drag racing is an exhilarating sport that helps relieve pent-up stress. Around the country, there are weekend drag races happening where cars race at speeds up to 115 mph. To equip your car, make sure it has the proper safety features and high-quality equipment. Then, fulfill your need for speed and some healthy competition by racing against each other.
Find Your Zen
Practicing yoga or meditation with your spouse is an effective way to center yourselves and find your calm. Many yoga studios offer classes for couples yoga, which increase the communication and sensitivity in your relationship.
Couples meditation is a powerful way to relax together on a daily-basis and can also come in handy during times of conflict. If you are new to meditating, there are several mobile apps that provide you with guided meditation sessions that you can practice with your loved one.
Take a Mini-Vacation
Not feeling the road tripping vibe? There are loads of last-minute vacation discounts online. Find one and go somewhere really spectacular. Traveling together is a great bonding experience.
Google Flights and Skyscanner have handy map tools that can help you find the cheapest flight. If your destination is open-ended — i.e., “anywhere with a beach” — use the map to pick the most economical locale.
A travel app I love is Very Chic, which offers curated last-minute deals if you need a romantic place to stay tonight, tomorrow or within the next couple of months. While some deals – especially in the US – are not so good, it can deliver deep discounts in Europe and the UK. BluByn is a new app with a personal concierge that will help you find the best travel deals from across the internet. Here’s a list of more great travel apps.
So take your adventurous spirit, your active lifestyle, and your insatiable curiosity and use those traits to explore and revamp your relationship. Ready. Set. Go!
After reading this, I felt like I haven’t been showering my husband with enough love. I think it’s a good thing that I realized that now before things get worse. I’m telling him that we should bond when he gets home.
How many years have you been married, Hilary? I love the two of you as a couple. Both of you are inspirational and I wanna know more about how you two stay in-love despite your successful lives. Other than this article of course.
It doesn’t have to be every day that you do something special like travel, but at least make an effort to always make things exciting. Whether it’s in the bedroom or in the kitchen, spice it up! ?
Marriage or any relationships requires effort. Which means you can’t do the same thing or eat in the same restaurant every week just because you can’t think of anything to eat that day. I used to be really upset when I start to notice that my husband no longer makes an effort to even decide for the smallest things. I hated the fact that I always had to insist that we should at least go out to eat or have dinner someplace special. I told him that he could at least make an effort to show me that hey, I know you love this restaurant and we haven’t been eating there for a while, maybe we should go? Or something like that.
That can get really annoying. Men always do that and I don’t think it’s just your hubby! They rarely decide where to eat, LOL.
What’s important is that before things get worse than boring, you realize it and start doing something about it.
Enjoying new things is important because people easily get bored. Even if we love the person down to their last strand of hair, we could still get bored. It’s human nature, I think. But we can always do something about it.
Our bonding time is usually cooking and enjoying a candlelight dinner at home. I know, that’s weird. We just turn the lights off and enjoy home-cooked meals, but my boyfriend thinks it’s the sweetest when we both cook a feast even if it’s just the two of us.
Relationships can easily get boring if you don’t try fanning the flames all the time. We’re creatures of habit and we get used to things easily. What used to be an effort for one person can become a daily habit and we no longer see the action as significant. When my husband and I’s relationship were close to falling apart, that’s what I realized. It’s not that we both stopped trying to make efforts, it’s just that we got used to the same damn thing every day. I think in relationships, you have to see the good thing in every action. Appreciate every little thing a person does no matter how basic it is. We tend to forget that marriage is composed of two different individuals with different sets of beliefs and attitude.
Thank you so much for commenting this. I agree that we just forget to appreciate even the little things or things that are still efforts but have been part of our daily habits. We always seek new things in life and we forget that our partner is the same person we’ve loved for years.
It would be completely opposite with my partner. We would both appreciate just watching Netflix and doing nothing for a change. ?
I feel like my husband would get offended if I wrote something like this. You totally said that you got bored with the relationship!