To keep a relationship alive, it is paramount to spend quality time with your partner. In this our technology age, it is becoming increasingly difficult to carve out the necessary time to nurture our relationships; things are moving too extremely fast, there is barely time for many things. Most especially when our time is consumed with long work hours, helping kids with homework, transporting them around to their schools and picking them up after their extra-curricular activities, getting dinner, cleaning up and going through the bedtime routine, what time is left for us to spend with our spouses?
Unless you become frank with yourself and organise the time for your relationship, other less important things will crowd in and take what precious little time you have. Pick a night that will be “date night” (thank God we are still in the Valentine mood) with your partner and make a game out of being as creative as you can be.
While a lot of couples pretend Valentine’s Day is unimportant to them, truth is, the extra expense that comes with acknowledging the day is really what scares people. Indeed, love should be celebrated daily irrespective of how financially buoyant one is. You will find below activities that don’t cost a thing, but are richly rewarding if done with love. Try to see how many things you can do without even having to spend money.
Here are some ideas on how to spend creative time with your partner without spending money.
Play cards – perhaps strip poker.
2. Watch a movie together.
3. Get some finger paints and create your own body art with each other as your canvass.
4. Go carting; there is one at Lekki Phase 1, just around Oriental Hotel.
5. Work out or exercise together.
6. Watch a movie “Chic Flick” together
7. Sing to each other.
8. Review or create a photo album or scrapbook of your memories together.
9. Play a board game – perhaps chess, Scrabble or Monopoly.
10. Go to a book store, grab a drink and read for hours.
11. Plan and complete domestic chores together. When done, reward yourself by making love in the room you’ve cleaned.
12. Give each other a massage.
13. Cook something together.
14. Play catch – football
15. Sit outside and read poetry to each other.
16. Dance together.
17. Take a shower together and wash each other – everywhere.
18. Go on a picnic.
19. Take turns being each other’s genie in a bottle by fulfilling your partner’s every wish and fantasy. Give him/her a surprise, by buying him/her that item s/he has always wanted.
20. Go bike riding (power bikes, and not okada please)
21. Go swimming
22. Give each other a manicure or pedicure.
23. Go somewhere crowded to people-watch and laugh with each other about silly things you find people do.
24. Go to a free outdoor event, a stage play or perhaps a concert; you can check out Onikan/TBS.
25. Take a bubble bath together.
26. Be creative and engage in sexual role plays. Be anyone you’d like to be for the night and who is also exciting for your partner.
27. Do a prolonged strip tease for each other.
28. Incorporate food into your love making – chocolate syrup, whipped cream, fondue, strawberries, anything you and your partner enjoy.
29. Spend an evening just talking with each other. Talk about the things you have done, plans you have for the future, important people in your lives or current events.
Do feel free to add your own or to repeat your favourites as often as you’d like.
The main point is not to see how kinky you can get or outdo one another. The idea is to keep your relationship alive by making time together a priority. It is important that you find things to do as a couple that you can both enjoy. If you have vastly different interests, then you can enter this with the spirit of taking turns and each agree to happily participate in the activity chosen by the one whose turn it is that week.
As long as you make a habit of making your relationship a priority and allocating time each week for rejuvenation of the feelings that attracted you in the first place, then you stand a good chance of staying together for the long haul.
Please don’t let insidious boredom enter into your relationship through the back door. This is what frequently happens when we are busy placing other things ahead of our time for each other. You know what I mean – the job, the kids, our friend or family in crisis, etc. There will always be a competing interest for the time you’ve set aside for each other.
No outside force should be allowed to invade your relationship. Make sure to create opportunities for you to do things together without outside influence. With more than 50 per cent of today’s marriages ending in divorce, make this small investment in making your relationship work. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. What’s stopping you? Start today!
