The ‘old’ song from John Cougar Melancamp came into my head this morning. “Life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone.”

I started thinking about this and how that reminded me of too many married (or formerly married) people we know. The song could say: “marriage goes on long after the thrill of marriage is gone”.

But now we have a problem, because marriage is supposed to last forever. One husband, one wife, for life. What do we do if we get to the point in our marriage where the thrill is gone and we no longer ‘want’ to be in the marriage.

Well first of all, take the word ‘if’ out of that previous sentence, because guess what… EVERY marriage gets to that point. There is nothing wrong with your marriage when you arrive there. A couple of generations ago couples knew what to do when that happened… they just stayed together! Period. End of discussion. And guess what, when they arrived at there 50th wedding anniversaries they really really were happily married! It’s a strange phenomenon. Too bad too many couples today will never get to experience it!

The problem is that in our selfish, entertain me, give me what I want, make me happy, immature world we all live in, we somehow think that the ‘thrill’ we first experience with our mate is supposed to stay that way for the rest of our lives. But we can attest to the fact that once that initial thrill is gone, and you hit the wall, that if you’ll just decide to stick it through you WILL get over the wall, and a whole NEW thrill arrives. No, seriously!!!

We hit that wall as a couple a number of years back. From our vantage point now years later we can tell you with 100% truth that the thrill we have being married NOW is way better than the initial thrill. The initial thrill was hormone charged and immature. Now our relationship is deep. It is based on a shared history that we created together. It based on mutual love and respect…. and it was HARD FOUGHT FOR!

When you hit the wall in your marriage, it’s not time to get a new mate… it’s time to start over with the one you have and dig deeper. Grow thick roots as a couple and watch your relationship grow stronger and taller than you ever thought it could. It’s worth it. It is really, really worth it!