How to maintain mystery and distance in a relationship

Is your marriage feeling a little too safe these days? So safe that you are bored? If so, you may need to add a little mystery to your relationship. The good news is that mystery is not something you have to go out and find. It’s present in every relationship. What you have to do is to be open to it.

Mystery is good in relationships.

• When you live with a person day in and day out you know that person so well there is little left to discover or to explore.
• That is the grand illusion of love. Love is not that you know your partner so well, it’s that that your partner is actually forever somewhat mysterious and unknown to you. That makes for the healthiest relationships.

• Spending time apart is very good for couples. It promotes togetherness.
• Each relationship has two sets of needs. One is the need for closeness, togetherness and security and the other is the need for independence, freedom and space.
• If you are too close then you become extensions of each other. If you keep too much distance all the time then you lack the connection.
• Respecting your partner’s space, and for that matter finding comfort in exploring our own space, can be uncomfortable in your home.
• You need to have a level of trust that allows you both to believe that when each leaves—even on a short walk for example, he or she will come back.

• The key to finding a balance is to cultivate your individuality and the individuality of the other person.
• Anyone who continues to develop their own sense of self, their own interests and passion, brings more life and substance to the relationship.
• There is something draining when two people have to meet all of each other’s needs. By being your own independent person you become both curious and interested in each other. You can be separate, yet very close.

• The unexpected invites mystery and keeps you engaged.
• One way to create mystery is to take risks and do something surprising.  Do something unexpected, something outside of what your partner predicts from you.
• Keep in mind, in that moment when you see something new and unpredictable in your partner, you may be slightly unsettled. But it’s in that space between anxiety and fascination that mystery is present.