Take care of home before it starts falling apart, not after.
By Henry Adeleye on July 24, 2015
The past week, I found myself (not on purpose) watching a new show called Seven Year Switch. The premise of the show is that after about seven years, people's marriages start falling apart due to a lack of interest and an overall falling out of love. Never to miss out on an opportunity to make a show out of people's struggles, the producers thought it would be a great idea to swap husbands and wives with other people having similar issues in their marriages. This is the mistake many people make.
After a few episodes of the honeymoon stage, where everything is going well and the swapped couples are completely forgetting about their real spouses, reality is starting to set in with their "new" husbands and wives. Despite all the homemade muffins and sweet nothings, they're starting to miss the things the people they originally married did. And for the rare guy who actually may like his swapped wife more than his real one, he's doing things for the swapped wife that he stopped doing for his real wife. After making the swapped wife breakfast, he was asked if he makes his real wife breakfast. His response was that she doesn't do anything to deserve it anymore. But the stranger he just met somehow does. You have to wonder if this is why the new relationship is going well while his marriage is souring.
Either way, one thing's for sure: The grass isn't always greener. Most people crush on someone they view as perfect, never thinking that this person has flaws just like their significant other, and even more so, just like themselves. The grass isn't greener on the other side. It's greener where you water it. So, instead of constantly thinking there's something better out there, or there's something you're somehow missing, try to make sure you're doing everything to keep the love you have now alive. Keep doing the things you did to get him or her and you'll find that what you have can endure.
I have a close friend who broke up with his long-time girlfriend around February or so (it's hard to keep track). He was one of those guys girls swear doesn't exist. Smart, good head on his shoulders, chivalrous, etc. As is usual with these types of guys, he ended up with someone he shouldn't have, and as hard as they tried, arguments, alcohol, and irrationality got the best of their relationship. Instead of addressing these issues while they could've been fixed, his now ex is trying to do everything to show she's changed, in an effort to win him back. Too little. Too late. It's never a good idea to wait. That wasn't supposed to rhyme.
If you're a big HGTV fan, you'll notice that about 93.7% of their shows are based on fixing up old and decrepit houses and essentially letting a buyer get a new house for a fraction of the price of an actual new house. It's crazy to think that the previous owner could've had a great house in a great neighborhood had he or she just maintained it instead of letting it fall into disrepair. The same holds true for our relationships. Don't wait until it's too late to take care of home.