The important thing to remember here is communication. Often, as couples settle into their marriage, they start to become complacent. They feel as if there is no further need to put any effort into their relationship. Both people fall into a routine and life just happens without giving any special attention to it. This is the main problem with marriage today.

If there has not been a consistent effort from both parties then now is not the time to focus on that: this is more of a survival period. This is the time that you both need to sit down together and talk. No arguing, and no finger pointing: just talk.

This is the time to be brutally honest. Write down everything that you love about the other person. Make the list as long as you can. Now, look over the list. When was the last time that you told the other person how much you love these traits about them? People love to feel wanted and this would be a good time to start letting the other person know that they are, in fact, wanted.

Ask the other person if there are things you can do to make the marriage better for them. Couples always go out of their way for each other until they marry. Then, they settle in for the long haul and things start to slip. Recognizing an area that needs improvement shows that you are genuinely interested in working on it. Showing effort and concern shows the other person that you do to want to give up and they shouldn’t either.

If communication has broken down too far then do not be afraid to bring in outside help. Counselors are trained to listen and will not take sides. And sometimes seeing things from an outside perspective brings clarity to the problem.

Many people want to save a marriage, but they might just feel so frustrated that they think it is too late. There is always time to start the healing process. Communication, patience, understanding and love are all important parts that must work together in order to be successful.

This topic and more is discussed in the Magic of Making Up ebook. Learn the right and wrong things to do to get your ex back here

Does love make you live longer?

Everybody agrees that being loved is a wonderful feeling. Knowing that somebody cares for us is hard to explain in words, but it sure feels good! Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if you smiled a little bit just now thinking about the people that love you. And though true love towards someone doesn’t require that they love you back, I bet you just so happen to return love to those who love you most.

Loving others means you are unselfish when dealing with them. Caring for someone else’s happiness and well-being takes your focus off of you and puts other people first. This can be a marvelous way to reduce stress that would otherwise steal years from our lives.

Another quick answer to the question “does love help you live longer” is, “hate sure makes you die sooner”. Hating others only increases other negative feelings and stress. Have you ever felt a certain something pumping through your body when you hate someone or something? Your whole physiology changes. Besides, it’s wasted energy, because those that are the subject of our hatred either don’t care how we feel, or have no idea how we feel.

One more aspect of love and longevity is that love often gives us a reason to keep on living. Men and women throughout the world have survived horrendous situations (man-made and natural) only because they focused on seeing their loved ones once again. If that’s not a testament to the life-extending power of love, I don’t know what is!

The connection between emotional health and physical health is still not completely understood. However, there are clear links between the two. The human body is, in many ways, greater than the sum of its parts. Another way to look at it is if we are in prime physical shape, but are emotional wrecks, then we are not getting all life has to offer.

Let’s be realistic for a moment, shall we? Love may not keep you from getting hit by a bus when crossing the street, but it can make recovering from such an accident more bearable. Even if love can’t be proven to help you live longer, I know I would rather have a few short years of loving someone, instead of having several lifetimes without any love at all.

There are two easy ways to use love to increase the quality of life. The first is to show love towards others. That not only includes family and friends, but everyone you deal with in some capacity. The second way can be a bit trickier for some: allow others to love you. Keep the following phrase in mind as you go about your day, and see what a difference it makes. The phrase? “Let love happen”.

This topic and more is discussed in the Magic of Making Up ebook. Learn the right and wrong things to do to get your ex back here

Of course, if you’re really in love with your ex you could make an effort to get back together. There’s no guarantee that anything you do will get you back together, but you could still try. Often, being genuine and just making it really clear that you don’t want to lose your ex will be enough to move them to give it another chance.

If cheating was involved in some capacity, then their wanting to come back is less likely, but it’s still possible. If you cheated, you might think it’s going to be harder to get them back.

But if they cheated and that relationship has ended, it’s still harder to get them back once they’ve been with someone else. And it’s going to take a long time for you to start trusting each other again.

It’s important for you to decide that if your ex gives in and comes back, how will you keep from falling into the same patterns the next time around? You can say, “I’m still in love with my ex!” until you’re blue in the face, and that won’t chance whether or not you have problems in the future.

It’s really easy to be in love with someone. But making a relationship work is tough and time consuming. And you have the added difficulty of overcoming a break up. You can try to convince your ex that if you get back together you’ll change your ways, and maybe they’ll believe you.

But the best thing you can do is simply show that you’ve changed your ways, without saying much about it. Actions really do almost always speak much louder than words, so the things you do are going to be noticed more by your ex than the things you say.

It’s important to say the right things, too. But it’s more important to do the right things. If you’re really still in love with them then you should want to change your actions dramatically, at least right now. When you think your actions might make a difference it’s easy to feel like you can change many things about yourself.

What you have to determine is whether or not you can really follow through with it. There’s no point in making promises to your ex that you’re not going to be able to keep.

If you have any doubt that you’ll want to make the changes that you or your ex feel are necessary, then you shouldn’t promise that you’ll make them. Though you say, “I’m still in love with my ex, “ you have to remember than only lasting changes will matter, not just a fast change to win them back.