Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Re-Kindling that Old Flame

Dear Rabbi Boteach,
This is the age-old question - when the kids have left the home and life comes around to you and your wife, how do you rekindle the flame that you had when you were first married?  How do get my wife to fall in love with me again after 21 years of
marriage?

 

Frank in Philly

 

Dear Frank,

 

You romance your wife 21 years after the exchange of vows by behaving just the way you did when you first tried to woo her. Treat her like a new woman. Be as curious about her now as you were in your first years of marriage. Explore her in the same way. Show her there is still so much about her that you don’t know. Ask her about her childhood. Get her to tell you stories she still has never told. Ask her to empty the contents of her heart to you. Stare at her the way you once did. Call her from work to tell her that you’re calling for no other reason than you were thinking about her. IN essence, treat her like she is single and you are still wooing her. Have an affair with her, as if she were forbidden to you. Call her up in the middle of the day and tell her you’ve booked a hotel room to meet her at. You get the picture, right?

Good luck, Frank.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach