Marriage Counsellor and Psychologist Shivani Misri Sadhoo

Couples Therapist Shivani Misri Sadhoo Says, Learn the Signs and Ways to Rekindle Attraction within Your Relationship

For a relationship to grow, certain things have to be in place: love: to maintain the bond, tenderness, and care that drew both the partners together. Trust: a vital foundation every bond requires to promote a sense of security between significant others, and definitely—attraction—because passion added with excitement keeps the fire burning in any successful relationship.

It’s difficult to put any of these factors above the other, this is due to the fact they all work in sync to keep a relationship going. However, knowing that your spouse experiences an electrifying thrill from mundane things such as your smile, how clothes fit on your body, or maybe even simply watching you work in your element, is a feeling that is not easily traded in a relationship.

This is why at the initial signs that you no longer spark a fire in someone you love, it could feel more than a little unsettling.

This blog by leading marriage counselor Shivani Misri Sadhoo tells about specific signs that might indicate a decrease in how attractive your spouse finds you. In case signs are there, you will also learn ways to rekindle the lost attraction.

Here are some red flags that may indicate that your spouse is facing difficulty to see you as attractive.

What are the signs that suggest your partner is not finding you attractive?

Your spouse is spending more time away from you

When your partner is spending more time away from home or from you. This could be worrying. Yes, it is also true if you and your partner are spending less time together is not always a concern. Sometimes individual spaces are needed. But if your partner repeatedly gives excuses as to why they can’t talk or spend time together. Then it is a sign of losing spark.

Putting less or no effort into the relationship

A sad indicator indeed. Your partner is putting no or less effort in the relationship. Planning activities become things of the past, and getting responses through phones and texts becomes daunting. This is painful specifically when earlier your partner was diligent in making you special early on.

Waning love life or intimacy

An important factor to determine is how your spouse feels about your physical relationship is to examine your sex life. What does getting intimate generally feel like? Are you and your partner taking time to speak and discuss it? This particularly could be noted in married couples. A drastic change in pattern while getting intimate indicates how attractive your partner finds you. When intimacy is completely missing or there is a lack of it, this is a sure sign your partner is losing interest in you. Or another sign is when your partner getting intimate becomes just a general routine for them, they do it just for an obligation nothing more than that.

Frequent fighting

Sometimes small fights are fine, but if your partner has become more irritable towards you and does not waste any opportunity to quarrel with you even on the slightest of issues. It is a sign of waning attraction.

What are the Ways to rekindle the attraction within your relationship?

Knowing your partner no more finds you attractive could be painful. But being aware might be the vital cog to transforming your relationship. Here are some ways to rekindle the lost spark shares Shivani.

Have an open communication

Speakto your spouse openly and honestly about the alteration you have noticed in their attraction to you. Learn how they view you, or if your conduct has changed to an extent that might be causing them to pull away. Knowing all this could give you a clue or two that will take you towards resolving the complexities.

Spend some time apart

Spending time apart does not mean completely cutting off entire communication. It is vital to check from time to time while being apart. But when you spend some time apart by going on some solo trip or going on a vacation with your friends, this may give your partner the opportunity to miss you and also a chance to rediscover your lost self. Perhaps a reunion after this brief separation could ignite lost attraction even more.

Do basic romance

Just remember how you met earlier. With your partner’s indulgence, you would be able to take your relationship back just to the good old days. Go on dates again. Take care to groom yourself and look good again. Send intimate texts or go to movies or dinner dates. Keeping close to your partner and breaking the monotony could help revive the lost attraction.

Scenario: You look back on life post your last, specifically toxic breakup with a newfound sense of contentment and peace. You were in a relationship with someone who hardly ever valued your time and was never emotionally present. Then started the gaslighting: denying your feelings, not acknowledging at all the very real issues plaguing your relationship, always looking for an easier way out. Sounds familiar? Perhaps for many.

Your relationship always hurts you and you are still trying to come to terms with reality. You are not thinking about falling in love again, since it is out of the question for you now. You are now terrified of love. Fearing if you fall in love again, someone may again take the part of you and turn their back

Shivani says individuals who have had traumatic breakups show physical and emotional signs of distress. In several cases, intrusive thoughts occur. The abandonment issues simply got worse while a few lose the ability to care about others and keep a distance. In certain scenarios, trauma is not mandatorily a by-product of a bad romantic relationship but has deeper roots during childhood.

What are the ways to come out of trauma and fall in love again?

India’s eminent Couples Therapist Shivani Misri Sadhoo shares some ways to come out of trauma and fall in love again.

Unmask and counter the traumatic experiences

People are mostly unaware of the patterns that are an outcome of traumatic experiences. If you are fearful of falling in love again, it could be because you are holding on to a pattern of mistrust. Actively acknowledging, addressing, and countering your trauma with a therapist is the first healthy measure in the process. Find a qualified counselor who can navigate how many levels of trauma can impact you. It is a journey you should take in a safe environment. Do not lose patience. Unmask your traumas in a systematic and gradual method rather than startling yourself into it.

Understand trauma is just a part, not your complete self

A parts approach to navigate through traumas. Trauma never completely goes away and anyone telling you the same otherwise is only deluding you. But you can regulate it. You start by acknowledging that your traumas do not form the whole of you but just a part of you. Otherwise, you will end up giving your traumas plenty of power.

Re-develop your self-esteem

Once you acknowledge and understand your trauma plenty of healing can begin happening. Coming out of a traumatic relationship not just means the ostensible loss of the relationship itself, but also a loss of your sense of future. It is essential to keep the two separate in order to re-cultivate a healthy relationship with yourself. Your identity gets attached to them and you cannot imagine your life without them. This is why, it is vital to stay away from any casual sex and hookups. Everyone wants to heal quickly and move on swiftly but there is a shortcut. Take your time to heal. A break-up is a good time to reset. Search inward and begin with trusting yourself again.

Form a healthy support mechanism

People mostly become victims of confirmation bias—seeking and concentrating just on those experiences around them that confirm their fears. Let’s say you had a break-up and you constantly surround yourself with people who also faced a break-up and they are constantly feeding your mind with something. This is in spite of the fact that your circumstances are completely different from theirs. After all, all break-ups are not the same. This is an outcome of confirmation bias and you need to avoid validating your fears. It is important that you do not surround yourself with people who will belittle your experiences or gaslight you. Surround yourself with positive people or at best seek a therapist.

Be rational with evaluating the threat

Probably the sole bright thing about coming out of traumas, specifically in romantic relationships, is that you end up being truly aware of any red flags. That is if you are not repeating the same pattern again. But mostly, in the process of avoiding any red flags, people end up being overly cautious with potential partners. It is vital to not be hyperactive. You need to distinguish between red flags and the normal imperfections in any relationship.

Probe yourself, and how it serves you

When you end up isolating yourself because of bad past experiences, that way you simply end up further hurting yourself in that process. You need to interrogate yourself: What are you safeguarding yourself from? By living in an illusion, that no one will have the ability to hurt you if you do not go out, you are anyway still going to hurt because of the loneliness that comes with that mindset.

Probably, marriage brings about the biggest transition in an individual’s life and no matter how ready he/she might be, it will always take the person by surprise. When you begin living with your spouse, changes are bound to happen. Some will bring joy, while others may challenge your patience and sanity. How you adapt to those challenges marriage throws at you and adjust to the changes, will further dictate the course of this lifelong relationship, says Shivani.

So, through this blog renowned couples’ therapist, Shivani Misri Sadhoo shares a few changes and challenges the sacred bond of matrimony would bring in your life.

There will be Several Vulnerable Moments

When you begin your conjugal life with a partner, he or she will gradually discover your strengths and weaknesses. You will share your deepest secrets, and desires and tell them things, which you may not have told anyone before.

But when you share such intimate details with a person, you are bound to feel vulnerable. There will be times when you would wonder if you have done the right thing by revealing it all, but this is what marriage is. Everyone and every circumstance will demand that you trust your partner with your heart and soul. It will not be simple initially, but things will fit into place with time.

Relationship with In-laws Might not be what you Hoped for

We have sufficient Hindi movies and TV serials highlighting the strained relationship between a daughter-in-law and her mother-in-law. It is only natural for people to form a perception of the partner’s family much before even they are married.

However, an individual would only get to know how that relationship would alter his or her life only post getting married. It could be for the good or in the predicted lines of what we have seen in TV shows or movies, but one thing is certain—it will create a deep impact on your life.

Responsibilities will Increase

Under usual circumstances, responsibilities, when shared between two individuals, will decrease. But not in marriage. With every passing year, you will end up getting more responsibilities. And by responsibilities, it is not merely meant for materialistic goals.

When you are married to someone, you also have to bear the responsibility of looking after his or her well-being. And your partner will also have to do the same. The weight of responsibility can at times be overwhelming but when you do a fine job, the rewards will also be manifold.

Certainly, you will Yearn for some Me Time

Companionship is a wonderful thing. Post-marriage, the starting days will be nothing but full of sheer joy. You would see new things that may have remained unobserved till now. You will be spending plenty of time together—be it visiting friends and relatives post the wedding or shopping for household items. The world you kept for yourself, your bed, your room—all the things will now have two people in it.

And there will come a time when you will wish that you could spend some time alone, simply like the way you did before you were not married. And such thoughts will be immediately followed by a feeling of guilt. Believe it this is not simple.

Money will be an Important Factor

It is easier said than done, that love is all you need to keep you happy. But only love cannot provide the food on your plate or the roof to live under. Only money can. You will need to have a bigger house, probably buy a car and when you have a family, you will need money to pay for your kid’s school fees. Marriage can teach even the most carefree individual about the importance of money in his life.

You Might not Fall in Love with your Partner

It may sound strange but not all married couples fall in love with each other. Though there are exceptions who tied the knot after falling in love. In several arranged marriages, where the would-be-spouses only get to know each other shortly, hope to find love post-marriage.

Now, love may happen but there are also probabilities that they may never fall in love. Moreover, plenty of couples fall out of love after being married for a long time. Does it mean their marriage too falls apart? No, not for everyone though.

Some habits die hard. Especially if habit or experience is developed during childhood days. That impact lasts for many years. Maybe you know the ways your childhood impacts your relationships. Maybe you have never thought about it. We see the impacts of bonds and relationships.

From a normal perspective, strong bonds are what keep us grounded, feeling confident and secure in ourselves and the world around us. We all need and desire to feel safe and secure; this is what motivates a lot of us. Sadly, we get stuck in our (not so helpful) coping strategies that ultimately deny us of this and we often don’t even realize we do this. Especially in our adult relationships.

Have you ever wondered why you do the things that you do? Have you ever looked at yourself objectively and asked yourself, “What’s really going on for me?” Well, it could be time to think on those lines Eminent psychologist, marriage counselor, and relationship expert Shivani Misri Sadhoo states 3 ways your childhood impacts your relationships.

1.      You Don’t Trust Easily

Trust is the base of any relationship. When you as adults find it difficult to trust others, it may be due to deep-rooted issues from your childhood’s past ruptures with the people you were easily supposed to trust. If your parents or relatives neglected you, abandoned you, emotionally or physically victimized you, criticized you and created a relationship that was based on terms and conditions, you don’t realize that you deeply feel a sense of insecurity as you evolve into your environment and sense of self as you grow.

This doesn’t mean your parents didn’t love you, and this doesn’t mean you don’t love your parents. This may mean that the tools they had weren’t always productive. Often, your parents “did the best that they could with what they had,” but that doesn’t mean the impact of those means or lack of it should be dismissed. It had an impact.

If your parents or guardians don’t give you the unconditional space to be human-like have emotions, mess up etc. Then you start internalizing emotions and start adapting to your insecurities by not trusting others around you and becoming protective of yourselves in many different ways.

2.      You Always Need A Lot Of Assurance

If you forge an insecure bond with your parents or guardians in infancy and childhood, (whether it’s because they were helicopter parents and never allowed you to have any sense of autonomy, or because they were never around you), you deeply develop a sense of insecurity and doubt in yourselves.

Maybe you weren’t given the reassurance as a child that was required for you to feel a sense of confidence in yourself to explore and make mistakes; maybe you weren’t ever acknowledged, to begin with. Might be you were acknowledged too much and everything you did was criticized or validated in a positive way. If everything you did in our parent’s eyes was unseen or seen under a microscope, or seen through rose-colored glasses, you weren’t given the space or freedom to feel confident in our own achievements, shortcomings, and mistakes.

How does this impact your relationship? Fine, to start, you may find yourself really defensive and it may be because you’re feeling insecure. Instead of giving your partner an opportunity to reassure you, you push them away with your defensiveness because you are struggling and don’t know how to soothe or feel comforted.

3.      You Feel Panic Immediately When You Perceive Your Partner Is Pulling Away

It may be illogical, but in those moments your brain isn’t able to reassure you that you are just being illogical and you have nothing to worry about. If you experience an immediate or overwhelming sense of panic when you perceive your partner is shutting down, moving away and or leaving you, this may be due to your childhood experience.

If you experienced any abandonment growing up, this deeply rooted trigger can become extreme in your adult relationships. You may find yourself feeling immediately upset and needing to repair an issue immediately in order to soothe the panic and fear. This may ultimately push your partner away if they want space or are afraid of conflict and the two of you may find yourselves in a difficult situation.