How to Keep Love Alive in a Relationship

Love is true, but yet, it is fickle. Long lasting love has to evolve and grow over the years, and at times it takes a few unique measures too. Find out how to keep love alivetake in a relationship.

Click here to read the introduction on how to stay in love.

Knowing how to keep love alive in a relationship can seem easy, but it's actually more difficult that most lovers imagine.

You have to remember you're not always going to be the same teenager who fell in love with your teenage lover. You will evolve and so will your partner.

Most couples assume they don't need to have intimate conversations or exchange thoughts about each other's views on life because they already know everything about their partner.

But what many don't understand is that we grow and evolve as individuals constantly, and our likes, dislikes and opinions too change all the time.

In the introduction on how to keep love alive, we've seen that there are just two basic requirements for a relationship to be successful.

Affection and sexual desire.

As long as we can keep these two emotions on a high, love too can be kept alive and exciting.

Find out how to keep love alive and make the relationship more exciting and fun, even as the years roll by with these simple and at times, unconventional tips.

How to keep love alive

Most lovers start taking their partner for granted over the years, and this eventually leads to boredom in a relationship. Curiosity in a relationship is the driving force in keeping love alive in a long term relationship.

When you assume you know everything about a partner, love starts to stagnate and differences start to crop up, even if the words aren't voiced out. After all, both of you grow as individuals with each passing day.

Here are a few tips on how to keep love alive in a relationship and how to bring the excitement back again, especially when it comes to affection and sexual attraction.

Avoid taking each other for granted

One of the disadvantages of long term relationships is the fact that lovers start to take each other for granted. They assume they know their partner's likes and dislikes and end up making a lot of assumptions, which can be critically wrong at times.

On the other hand, even favors and special gestures are taken for granted as the years go by. If a husband prepares a breakfast-in-bed for his wife every Sunday morning for a few months, it's a special gesture at the beginning. But as the months go by and the husband decides to sleep in one Sunday morning, the wife ends up getting upset that she wasn't served her breakfast. Likewise, there may be several other kinds of special gestures that lovers share with each other which can eventually be taken for granted.

By taking these gestures for granted, nothing really becomes a special gesture anymore. Instead it becomes an obligation. Always remember to acknowledge a gesture, however small it may be if you want to understand the secret behind knowing how to keep love alive in a relationship.

By taking each other for granted, be it an evening foot rub or a big birthday bash, you're taking away the affection behind a gesture, and turning it into an obligation. If you want to keep the love alive in your relationship, acknowledge the gestures and never ever take your partner for granted.

Surprise each other

Remember the first year of your relationship? Both of you went out of your way to buy each other birthday gifts, and every now and then you popped in a surprise just to see your lover smile in surprise. Do you still do that?

In almost all cases, couples stop paying attention to happy surprises after a few years. We want to keep the love alive in a relationship, but almost all of us stop doing anything to keep the relationship exciting and unique. It doesn't matter if it is concert tickets, a surprise vacation or even a posse of flowers. Go out of your way to make your partner feel special like you used to, and you'll see that the relationship will only get more exciting and affectionate in no time.

Celebrate special occasions

Pay attention to relationship landmarks and special occasions in the relationship. Many Valentine's Days, anniversaries and birthdays may come and go, but that doesn't mean you should ignore them because you have so many special moments all year round.

Try to make every year exciting and special in its own way. And wherever possible, try to go out of your way to make your partner feel special. You may lose a few hours or a couple of days planning something special, but the fact that you still try to please your partner and make them feel special is a sure sign that you're taking an initiative to keep the love alive in the relationship.

As long as you give enough importance to affection and sexual desire in a relationship, it's a great assurance that the flame of love will burn bright in your relationship for years to come.

Keep sex exciting

Sexual desire is by far, one of the most important requirements of a happy romantic relationship. If you want to know how to keep love alive, then your best bet is to focus on a more than satisfying sex life.

Can you remember the first time you got intimate with your partner? It may be a while ago, but you can't really forget the racing heartbeats, the passionate cold sweat and the weak knees, can you?

Now just because it's been a few years since you've been together, there's really no reason why sex can't remain exciting and heart pounding. Most people want to know how to keep love alive, but yet they don't really pay attention to sexual attraction between the partners.

Humans are built for procreation, we're one of the few species on earth that indulge in sex for pleasure. All of us want and need sex, irrespective of whether we get to have it with a partner or someone else. So if you really want to keep your love life on a high, you really have to understand the importance of sex in a relationship, and how vital a role it plays in holding two individuals together in a romantic relationship.

You may have been satisfied doing the missionary position or making love in a quiet bedroom for years until both of you start to get bored with each other bodies. But you can change all that in a few weeks. Start doing something new and exciting, be it indulging in a few fantasies or trying new things in bed or finding new places to make love with each other. It may feel awkward at first, but you'll be able to have a more satisfying and fulfilling romantic life if you can satisfy your inbuilt sexual urges.

Explore each other's sexual interests

If you want to understand how to keep love alive in a relationship, you need to understand your partner, both romantically and sexually. Individuals and their interests, sexually or otherwise, change over the years. Do you really understand your partner and their sexual interests?

In several cases, partners may be reluctant to share their secret sexual interests because of the fear of being judged negatively in a relationship. And instead of actually enjoying a great sex life, they end up dissatisfied and shrink further away from intimacy.

To keep love alive and keep the sexual intimacy on a high even as the years pass by, you need to take a few bold decisions. Speak with your partner about their sexual fantasies and what excites them in bed, be it a sexual fetish or a sexual fantasy. You have to remember that we're all human, and just like we enjoy expressing our love in our own ways, sexual desires too are unique and can be enjoyed better in its own ways.

Try these simple tips on keeping love alive and you'll be able to see the difference in no time, and enjoy a better love life that's strong on communication and enjoyable in bed.

Remember that knowing how to keep love alive in a relationship even after years of being together can be simple if you learn to understand your partner, and keep affection and sexual satisfaction on a high.