Greetings, fellow readersHow are you having this summer weekend? I have since yesterday a bad technological streak, the chargers of my devices do not work well, the computer mouse is failing, but here I am, in our weekly appointment of the Weekend community, which always puts an interesting touch to this part of the week. This week I choose following topic.

I am not a cold or lukewarm person. Generally when I really like something I like it and I go for it, I enjoy it whenever I can. However, when you are over 55 you understand that excesses have consequences and you have to measure what you like or you have to assume the consequences. In the case of love, excess can even end the relationship. At least that has been my experience. Since I was a child I like sweets a lot and this has created problems for me, now that I am no longer young, I am finally managing to control my addiction. But when I overindulge in sweets I know that it has bad consequences for my health.

In the case of love, of a couple's relationship, for a relationship to be maintained over time you have to find a balance that is not easy. You don't always start a relationship because you like someone a lot, because there is passion and when you see her you get excited and want to kiss her, make love with her every time you see her. Not necessarily. Sometimes you first have a connection with that person because you share common interests, common ideas, you like the way they are, but at the beginning there is no passion. That was the case in my current relationship.

When what unites you to a person is passion, but there is no other deeper connection, sooner or later that desire is not enough and that relationship will die, unless it is transformed. On the contrary, when you are united with that person by something deeper, you have with that person an interest or interests in common, and suddenly one day the spark is lit, and then the fire of passion, there is a better chance that the relationship will be more lasting. But you risk losing the friend you had initially in the process of the relationship.

The truth about love begins where the fairy tales end, “they got married and were very happy”... When you go out with a person and you are in the stage of getting to know each other, falling in love, you don't really know the person as he/she is. People in love hide their bad side, they like to feel the butterflies, the pleasure of being together, they don't want to spoil that by showing their foolish, intolerant or cruel side.

When I started living with my current partner, several changes came at once. First of all, that of living together. On a daily basis you start to get to know that person as he/she really is, his/her good side, but also his/her not so good side. Their mood swings, their annoyance when you do something they dislike, their habits that are not necessarily like yours. I also had to leave behind my country, my family, my friends, my favorite places. Because he lived on another continent and in another country, where things are different. A few months later my mother died.

My partner had been widowed 8 years earlier and during that time he had been alone. He had had no romantic relationships with other women. Passion is not intact when you are going through an emotional carousel like the one we went through. Although we managed to keep the spark of desire and we enjoyed sex a lot, there was another kind of connection between us, a mutual interest in poetry, literature and culture. He got me involved in groups related to reading and literature. Generally, emotions get into the bed, they affect the passion that can exist in a couple.

What can you do? Be patient, be tolerant, be generous, maintain communication and respect no matter what. No human being is perfect. But it is also good to get romantic, to have affectionate gestures with the other person, physical, but also to please the other person, to take care of them, to share things they like, to prepare a meal for them, to do things that make them feel that you love them. It is also good to get erotic, look for bodily closeness, dance, give a close embrace, a kiss that lights the fire.

It is not easy to maintain the spark of love. We usually find it hard to accept the other person as he or she is. We want the initial fairy tale to be maintained over time. That the person loves us and desires us as in the beginning. But that is not possible. That is what love is all about. To continue loving and desiring the person when you see them every day and share with them the good and bad moments. Love that lasts necessarily transforms, it has crises. My partner and I had at some point a crisis, a strong argument, at the time when my mother got sick. We separated.

I was very upset about some of his attitudes that I didn't like and I wanted to be with my mother. There was an abrupt ocean in between us. He got sick and I was not with him to take care of him, because I was taking care of my mother, who died shortly after. After more than three months apart, following a bad argument, he traveled to where I was and we were reunited. Mom had just died. Both of us were emotionally upset. It took some time for us to resume our relationship. We had to talk a lot. It took even longer for the passion to return.

As I said, emotions get into bed. And we are no longer young, we are more affected by changes. I imagine that the same must happen to couples when they have children, the mother turns to them, the relationship between the couple changes. Everything that affects us emotionally affects the relationship and the passion. So maintaining the passion requires working on the other aspects of the relationship. You enjoy desire more to the extent that you enjoy the other person in general. That's what I can tell you from my personal experience. Happy weekend.

Since my native language is not English, I have had to rely on the Deepl.com platform to translate this article into English.