Wow, I'm impressed! Y'all have great relationships! Very refreshing, and what a contrast to the horror stories I hear most of the time!

My hubby is probably the second or third most aggravating person I have ever met! However, I have taken it on as one of my life's missions to remind myself that he's not the #1 most aggravating person in the world, and when I can't find anything else to be grateful for, I can look at that, look at the fact that even with his totally natural human faults, he's a good guy, he's not perfect, but God knows neither am I! OK, that's the tongue-in-cheek part...

One way that I help keep the love alive (married or 2 years, together for 6)is by telling him every day stuff that I really, really like and love about him. Because I think about this all the time, how handsome he is, how good we fit together physically, the way he keeps working until he makes me laugh when I'm feeling rotten (which is a great deal of the time), how loving and considerate he is when he's at his best....

He's a person I really, really want to praise, highly and frequently. I tell him how much he lifhts up my life, and how much he turns me on, and I do my best to make him laugh. I try to not let an opportunity to appreciate him pass me by. I think men in general need to hear praise from their partners, and Raul in particular needs me to build him up (in truthful ways, of course).

We also are good about saying please and thank you. That may sound trivial, but I think it's important, and it's one way to not take your mate for granted. We kiss a lot, little pecks on the cheek or on the lips. We make eye contact a lot, too.

One thing that Raul did at the very, very start of our relationship, and I'm not sure why he even thought of this, but this one thing makes him a relationship GENIUS in my opinion! He told me, not long after we met, and when we admitted to each other that we were deeply in love, that the honeymoon would never end. He said that 4 years before we were even married! And we have made it our goal to do whatever we had to to keep the spark alive... and it has not been hard to do, either, despite all the hardships!

He loves me. He just *loves* me, and he refuses to stop loving me. That's really all I ever wanted, besides a writing career, heh heh! Seriously, part of our success is me finally understanding what's important in my life -- what I've wanted most is just to love and be loved in return -- just like the Nat King Cole song "Nature Boy," except I'm the Nature Girl.

Even in the worst of times, he's looked me straight in the eye and told me that the honeymoon was not over. That in my illest moments, or months, he tells me how much he loves me and needs me, that he just couldn't make it without me. Even at times when I'm flat on my butt in bed, and I don't even smell so good, and I look worse than I smell, he looks me in the eye and tells me all those wonderful things... and he *means* it.

And so the spark never really goes out. And we keep on falling back in love with each other when things get stale. We even consider it a bit of an adventure riding the bus together!

P.S.: This is a guy who never once bought me flowers! Even though he knows darned well I want them. Well, once he bought me a pen with a plastic sunflower glued to the top of it -- my favorite flower, but the pen didn't write worth anything! He does give me gifts frequently, actually, but he just doesn't feel natural giving me flowers!

<grin> It's something you just can't really communicate to someone who hasn't experienced it, yes? What's it's like to find that person who is your true home.....

This is a fantastic topic! I wanna hear / read more!
Love,
Lil