11 Keys To Lifelong Romance Every Day : Part 1

Keeping love and romance alive is pretty simple, really. All it takes is both giving and receiving.

A little bit of attention will reap a great deal of affection. Here are the first 6 of our 11 Keys to Life Long (and everyday) Romance.

1. HUMOR: special nicknames, private jokes, laughing with appreciation at one another's clever wit and funny comments

Nicknames: Judith calls Jim the "Towel Thief." There's a cute story behind it. Jim calls Judith "Oat Muffin." That's not quite as gooey a it sounds.

We joke about:  Jim being a "ditz" because the doors to his memory bank always seem to be open.

 Judith being "the princess" because she's very sensitive to noise and discomfort of any kind (ever heard of the princess and the pea?). Jim loves to pun in response to which Judith often groans (with affection) Judith sometimes turns into a wee child. There's the story about the time she "bonked her footie."

2. PLAY: water fights in the pool, wrestling together with the dog, feeding the birds in the park, licking cake batter off the beaters and one another's noses, silly cards and gifts.

We:
** feed the horses and donkey down the road
** take moonlit walks in the snow
** make bets over almost anything, with ice cream being the ususal payoff
** give little funny gifts with special meaning (dog pencils for Jim who was a dog in another life) teddy bears for Judith (who never got to be a kid when she was little) and wind-up, mechanical walking hearts for Valentine's Day or just whenever.

3. AFFECTION:
** touching one another
** kissing just for fun
** cuddling while watching TV
** saying "I love you because.........(and describing why)
** buying the other's favorite foods at the market
** special time in bed before getting up in the morning
We often tell each other how much we enjoy living with one another
We hold hands almost all the time when we're walking
We kiss in the kitchen while making dinner
We hug a lot And we leave special love notes around the house from time-to-time

4. CURIOSITY: Every one of us wants to be known and valued for who we truly are. Having someone we love be curious about us is genuinely flattering. It's also the least known and often most powerful aphrodisiac everyone has available with merely a sincere question.

After almost fifteen years together (fourteen married) we are:

** Still curious about one another's childhoods and past life experiences.
** We ask about differences of opinion re: movies, news stories, people we meet, politics and social issues
** We want to understand one another's feelings when hurt, disappointed, committed to some project, joyous over a football victory, pleased with a specially made dinner.

5. CELEBRATION: making a meaningful and fun event for birthdays and wedding anniversaries, promotions, new house, new dog, a debt paid off, anything you care about

** We celebrate the day we met as being as important as our wedding day.
** Rather than exchange gifts for our birthdays and Christmas we take ourselves on a romantic trip around that time (our birthdays are in December too).
** We still keep a Memory Book with photos and memorabilia that celebrates our life together (now 13 volumes full, working on the 14th.

6. RITUALS: anything meaningful that a couple enjoys doing on a regular basis, like special tailgate parties before football games, helping the homeless every holiday season, toasting to one another at dinner each night, adding one more special plant to the garden each spring, caring for the baby together, washing dishes. (Romance can be enjoyed in even in the smallest and most mundane of daily events).

** We hold hands on take-off whenever we fly
** We add Christmas tree ornaments with photos of us to our tree each year
** We play aunt and uncle to three sets of children in our town and shop together for the gifts we give them for the holidays
** And we collect heart shaped things.

Look for the continuation of this article, called “11 KEYS TO LIFELONG ROMANCE EVERY DAY : Part 2".

About the Author:

Judith Sherven, PhD and Jim Sniechowski, PhD work together to share with other couples the strategies they’ve discovered for keeping love and romance alive for a lifetime. To claim their secrets, go to http://www.makingtheordinaryextraordinary.com.