There is a bonding benefit to doing fun adventurous things with your spouse. Life gets routine. Kids arrive and the focus of activities changes. Life gets busy but less of it is spent with your spouse. For many this is a slow cooker recipe for marital discontent. I think that putting thought into finding something adventurous and challenging with your spouse can help reinforce the bond between you. It is common knowledge at least on TAM that the neural chemicals within the brain help form and reinforce bonds with others. Dopamine is one such chemical that is associated with the infatuation stage of a relationship. As the relationship matures the chemicals that are triggered in the brain are ones more associated with long term bonding like oxytocin.
My idea is that we should use this knowledge to plan activities with our spouses that trigger some of the excitement/infatuation stage chemicals to inject newness into our relationships. Doing adventurous things will achieve this as well as things outside of your comfort zone. Obviously doing high adventure activities like skydiving, whitewater rafting and climbing will bring an instant thrill. The problem is that for many these activities are too much and too expensive. However by choosing to do something together that is outside of your comfort zone you should be able to achieve a similar release of chemicals. If you and your spouse can take an activity that is outside of your comfort zone and learn to master it together you will be possibly be forming a new hobby with all the excitement of something with high adventure. It could be something like karaoke, public speaking or open mike night. It could be a large remodeling project or anything that involves the unkno wn.
I want to hear from others on TAM. What you do to keep the slow cooker of relationship death at bay? Do your activities involve adventure and the unknown?
My idea is that we should use this knowledge to plan activities with our spouses that trigger some of the excitement/infatuation stage chemicals to inject newness into our relationships. Doing adventurous things will achieve this as well as things outside of your comfort zone. Obviously doing high adventure activities like skydiving, whitewater rafting and climbing will bring an instant thrill. The problem is that for many these activities are too much and too expensive. However by choosing to do something together that is outside of your comfort zone you should be able to achieve a similar release of chemicals. If you and your spouse can take an activity that is outside of your comfort zone and learn to master it together you will be possibly be forming a new hobby with all the excitement of something with high adventure. It could be something like karaoke, public speaking or open mike night. It could be a large remodeling project or anything that involves the unkno wn.
I want to hear from others on TAM. What you do to keep the slow cooker of relationship death at bay? Do your activities involve adventure and the unknown?
Put the internet to work for you.
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