itch

I remember when my husband & I had to attend our compulsory ‘pre marriage’ counselling session in order to be married in a beautiful little church I found and fell in love with. I remember feeling ‘quite the student’ sitting down, back straight, being spoken to about marriage and how it was inevitable we would have many ups and downs to face in the years ahead including the ‘seven year itch’. As I walked away from that meeting, I remember thinking, I love this man so much, is it possible I won’t feel the same in only 7 years time?

The ‘seven year itch’ is a term some refer to as a time where the love and happiness between a couple takes a downward turn. But if it’s at the seven year mark can’t we just enjoy married life in the meantime and mark it in our Google Calendar to prepare us a few months before hand? Nope… Is anyone immune to this? Of course… and what do we do if we start to get itchy? Well…The seven year (or thereabouts) is the likely timeframe because generally speaking at this time we know pretty much everything about our partners. We have been through the ‘getting to know you’ ‘butterflies in my stomach’ stage, the ‘honeymoon’ phase, life was content a few years ago, but today it’s the same as it was yesterday. You may begin to question, where has the fun ‘us’ gone? And if there are kids in the mix, well…a fun weekend has an entirely new meaning, the budget (oh yes there is a budget now) is different too, sleep…what is that? and its likely (highly likely) that sleeping with your partner is exactly that ‘sleeping’… hopefully for your sake in a deep sleep to block out the snoring of your partner and two little kids who are taking up just enough bed space to leave you to balance your body on the very edge of what was once your side of a very comfortable bed.  Life changes, but if we get stuck looking back at the past, it becomes very easy to forget to appreciate the present.

I have to admit, having seen a snippet of the previews, I was really looking forward to watching channel sevens new reality show “Seven Year Switch” and although it’s only early days, it certainly has me hooked. The show follows four couples whose relationships are (putting it nicely) in a rough patch and they just don’t know how to get back to where they used to be. As the weeks progress will see the couples separate and switch spouses/partners to a partner who perhaps is a little more like them in terms of their personality.

I don’t know about you, call me crazy (many others have I’m sure) but if you and your partner are close to calling it quits, down to your last attempt before its all over, doesn’t the concept of sending your partner away on a break to a beautiful home (spa and all) with another well suited woman sounds slightly insane?

Well it is a social experiment after all because as far as I am aware I can’t find any feature in advanced search to add a new ‘like minded’ beau to my water view holiday house booking so where does that leave the rest of us? What can we do to stop that scratching the minute we start to itch? Surely if no one has come up with some kind of ointment by now, maybe we better get back to basics and consider this; try to stop looking back at what you were as an individual and what you were as a couple years ago. Life has changed now and so it should, embrace it and look forward to the future. Find happiness within yourself and try not to dwell on what you used to do or look like, it doesn’t make sense to be what we were five or ten years ago, otherwise we wouldn’t grow as people. Keep positive and seek comfort in knowing that no married couple will ever tell you that marriage is easy.