What is your absolute favourite dessert? The one that makes your mouth water, even if you just ate a 5-course dinner? The one you would gladly get up for in the middle of the night, for one more bite?
Let's say it's chocolate cake - and not just any chocolate cake, but the particular recipe from this one patisserie across town... And one day, you win the lottery, and decide to get it delivered to your house, freshly baked, every night for dessert.
It's simply paradise, the harmony of aromas, the richness of the taste, the complexity of flavours. Oh how much you love it! Night after night, you are looking forward to it, and from the first spoonful it makes you swoon.
After a year or two, you still enjoy it very much. It is not quite as beguiling anymore, not quite as "new", but you're still very happy with the arrangement.
Your friends envy you, seeing you have the best dessert in town, or so it looks. And you are well aware how lucky you are. You never could have dreamed of anything better than that.
Ten years go by, and every night, you've had chocolate cake, the best in town. I bet that by now you may be thinking "yep, I love chocolate cake, it is still my favourite dessert, but oh, what wouldn't I give for a slice of lemon meringue pie..."
Marriage, when it comes with an side-serve of monogamy, is a little bit the same. You chose the best man or woman you could possibly imagine spending your life with, you have the best partner you could ever have wished for, so what could go wrong?
Desire is about seeing the other and being seen. How many of us stop seeing the most beautiful landscape in the world, just because we happen to live there? It is not so much taking it for granted as becoming blind to it.
Our brain is wired to notice changes, not sameness - a simple survival mechanism, using our brainpower where it is most needed. So, eventually, we notice the other less, they don't "stick out" anymore in our field of vision, having become (too) familiar.
So what can we do about this? Are we condemned to choke on our chocolate cake, give up on dessert, or as one of my friends jokingly suggested, marry someone new every 10 years?
I don't think we have to be that drastic. I believe that if we chose our partner wisely, they are still someone we really like, 10 years later. And if so, then it is worth working on our self to keep the romance alive. How?
By remembering what attracted us in the first place.
By becoming aware of their wonderful sides again.
By making an effort to remain attractive (this is not about Botox but rather the sort of effort we put into seducing the other - if tracksuit pants didn't feature prominently during your courtship, why would you think they are ok now?).
And, maybe most importantly, by talking about it.
Our desires, our hopes, our fantasies.
By making them a subject of conversation, like they were at the beginning.
If you enjoyed this post, you may like this one on Madame Bovary and infidelity.