It doesn’t seem like your partner loves you anymore.
He doesn’t seem happy when he wakes up in the morning and sees you lying next to him.
This makes you feel unloved and undesirable.
Your sex life with him is equally bad.
As he makes love to you, you can tell that he isn’t happy.
He goes through the motions, but clearly wants the whole ordeal to be over.
Additionally, you rarely hear him give you compliments anymore.
Whenever you get compliments from him, you are the one who is dragging those compliments out of him.
No matter how much you go out of your way to look sexy for him, he overlooks it, choosing instead to keep doing whatever it was he was doing, acting as though you don’t exist.
It’s no wonder that you are now wondering about how two partners who are supposed to be in love with each other should great each other in the morning.
The thing is, greeting each other in the morning with love and attention takes work.
It’s easier to express this love and attention when the relationship is relatively new.
In the early stages of a relationship, you are experiencing a constant rush and influx of dopamine.
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter in the brain that enhances pleasure.
He was new to you, and you were new to him.
It was exciting.
Your hearts skipped a beat whenever you thought of each other.
In the early stages of a relationship, it’s so much easier to express your love for each other without requiring too much from each other.
With a constant influx of dopamine, you two were lovebirds without a care in the world.
Unfortunately, couples commonly make the mistake of thinking that this euphoric feeling in a relationship lasts forever.
It doesn’t.
Love is work.
Once you are no longer in the early stages of a relationship, you no longer have a constant influx of dopamine to keep you happy.
This is where the real work to keep a relationship begins.
The real work begins after the honeymoon phase, which lasts six months to two years.
If you don’t do the work to lay a strong foundation for the relationship during the honeymoon phase, the relationship is bound to suffer.
One of the first things that takes a hit is how you greet each other in the morning.
It goes from kisses, compliments, cuddles and words like “I love you,” to ignoring each other with your backs to each other, as you look through your smartphones, seeking attention from the outside world instead.
The longer this lasts, the worse it gets.
The rest of your relationship suffers.
There are less dates, less words spoken to each other, and a general unease whenever you are around each other.
It takes work to keep waking up to each other with a greeting that warms the heart.
Laying a foundation in a relationship means that you are constantly communicating with each other about how you feel in the relationship.
You are keeping each other accountable, spotlighting where a partner has done right and where a partner has done wrong.
This enables you to keep doing what works for the relationship and avoid doing what doesn’t.
Furthermore, you are constantly exposing each other to new activities so that you never get stuck doing the same activities over and over again, which leads to burnout.
Laying a foundation keeps you from taking each other for granted.
With a healthy foundation, you don’t miss a beat after the honeymoon phase has expired.
You wake up in the morning and start by greeting each other with a warm smile and sustained eye contact, eternally grateful to have each other as lifelong partners.