Rivka: You might be listening on our podcast. Maybe watching a Youtube video. And whatever the case is today we want to talk to you about boredom in a marriage because we have a lot of readers writing to us things like, “I love my husband, and he’s such a great dad and he’s a great guy, but I’m bored. What can I do? Should I leave?” And so we want to address this topic. We’re approaching our eighteenth year together.
Shlomo: (jokes) This is not a personal topic.
Rivka: So let’s talk about boredom in a marriage.
Shlomo: So what are some of the things that are signs of boredom or what is it that you actually think you should be doing? I think a lot of these ideas about what we should be doing in a relationship or whether we’re bored or not is on is based on what we see on social media. People are looking on Facebook and they see that so and so went on vacation somewhere or look how much fun they’re having and of course looks can be deceiving. Because behind the scenes they could be hating each other’s guts but look like they’re having a great time where they’ll be going on an exotic vacation, so all because you see other couples doing things doesn’t mean that they have a good relationship. It doesn’t mean that somebody’s not cheating or someone’s not going to be getting divorced tomorrow. I sure hope not – but just want to put that in perspective for you so kind of getting outside of that external world and thinking about inside of me, what is it that I really need to have in our relationship?
Rivka: And that’s an interesting point because it can be really easy to fall into that trap of what society is posting or talking about and it seems like everybody else is having this or the Fear of Missing Out Syndrome. Fomo. And it seems like as we get busier and more bigger lives than it’s like the space grows bigger that we need to fill in the boredom. I’m just thinking for instance you know when I was a kid, I never saw anybody posting about exotic vacations in Italy or the Dominican Republic and I never really thought of those places as attractive destinations but now I see everybody posting about Italy, and everybody posting by Dominican Republic or maybe not so much now but and it’s really widened my horizons and it’s widened the things that I want because it’s just out there and I see it now.
Shlomo: That they should be attainable and then why are we not doing that is the question. And sometimes we need to think, well how old are these people? Someone’s been working for forty years, they’ve retired, they’ve amassed wealth, they might be able to do these types of things. They don’t have the same type of responsibilities as a young couple that’s raising children. So we have to look at reality as opposed to what you’re seeing out there. We’re not saying you should be bored at home and just doing things like making lunches and folding laundry all day, depending on who’s working, who’s at home. It’s important to spice up your relationship, it’s important to have excitement. It’s important to do fun things together. And that’s one of the things that we encourage couples to do. We have exercises where we actually “plan” fun, how boring! But because people are not having fun it’s important to actually schedule to make sure that you have a weekly date, weekly high energy fun activities that you can do together with your spouse so that you can have fun. So it is important but it’s also just as important not to think that because I’m not doing this (having fun) that my relationship is over, that I should marry someone else because if you have responsibilities you’re not going to be able to have… your life’s not going to be all fun and games so...