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By Khalid Iqbal – Founder Rahmaa Institute
This article was inspired by a presentation I heard in a conference. The speaker listed about 10 or 12 topics that she and her friends tried and were beneficial in spicing up their marital relationship. They are listed here below with her permission on top of that I listed a few more based on my personal and counseling experience. The list is still incomplete and the readers are requested not only to comment of the list but also add to it what works and what does not. Sharing your personal experience will make this a dynamic list that will help others.
1. Spice Up Your Marriage: Go for a ride
This is our favorite especially now that we have grand children. We get in our car and wonder around the countryside enjoying the scenic landscape. Often we get so much involved talking about our children and grand children that we forget the distance traveled. We cannot thank Allah enough for His blessing in giving us such wonderful children and family. We talk about the good things in life, appreciating each other, how my wife dedicated her life in raising our children and now working with the grand children, Alhamdullilah. Where we enjoyed life in good times and bad, helped each other in happiness and sorrow. During these expeditions we came across some interesting places, mom and pop ice cream and coffee shops and met many nice and loving people. This activity is number one on our list. Try it sometime and share your experience
2. Spice Up Your Marriage: Fly a Kite
This is a favorite activity in many countries but usually for men only why not do it together with your spouse. Enjoy the blue, blue sky. Relish the shapes of the clouds. Feel the firm tug of the wind on the kite string together. Let it unwind you. Open your eyes to the beauty and color around you, then look at your spouse. Really look at her/him. Relish her/him. Ask Allah to help you see her/him with the delight Allah has toward your spouse.
3. Spice Up Your Marriage: Afternoon on the River or lake
Spend an afternoon on a lake or river. Lead each other around the sand bars. Sing silly songs. Share memories. Rent or borrow a canoe or boat. Glide quietly and watch the wildlife. Have a good laugh if you get a little wet … and have extra clothes back at the car just in case.
4. Spice Up Your Marriage: Pray Together in Jamaat
Our family enjoy praying together in Jamaat whenever we are not at the Masjid. My son or I lead the prayer. All family members always pray together when both are at home at the prayer time. Ask children, grandchildren or family members to join you. Share with each other what duas you made. Share with each other what duas you would like for your spouse and you can resists, lovingly respect her/him.
5. Spice Up Your Marriage: Go to a Concert in the Park
Go to a free concert or movie in the park if the weather is nice. Search the Internet to find free concerts or movies near you. Take a picnic basket and a blanket and warm your heart with good music or a romantic movie. Remember to take lawn chairs, and one blanket in which you both can cuddle.
6. Spice Up Your Marriage: Stargaze
Stargaze together. Check out a library book on star constellations or find constellation charts on the Internet. Grab a flash light and a blanket and cuddle up together outside under the stars. Read together an interesting article, Hadeeth or Quran.
Note: If you have young children sleeping inside you can still do this.
Just use a baby monitor.
7. Spice Up Your Marriage: Decadent Dessert
Eat dinner at home but go out for a decadent dessert and tea/coffee. Go to your selected coffee shop that will bring good memories. Some coffee shops have cushy chairs by a fireplace. Buy one serving of decadent dessert and make a cushy spot by your fireplace at home. Feed each other or share your dessert with one fork.
8. Spice Up Your Marriage: Steamy Candlelight
Tuck the kids in bed. Bathe your bathroom and bedroom with lots of candlelight. (A bag of tea lights is inexpensive.) Take a hot bath or shower. Prepare yourself for a romantic evening together and go from there!
9. Spice Up Your Marriage: Plan a Surprise activity that your spouse like
Plan an afternoon fishing together, or dinner, or movie. Does your husband like to fish? Find someone to watch the children for a few hours. Pack a picnic basket or a few snacks. Head for a nearby river, creek, or lake. Let him teach you how to fish if you don’t know how, and enjoy being together.
10. Spice Up Your Marriage: Remember
Remember where you started. Look at photos from old days at the start of your marriage. Tell him / her what first attracted you to each other (even if you’ve already told it before a 100 times). Look together through your wedding album.
11. Spice Up Your Marriage: Turn up the heat in the kitchen.
Bake his/her favorite dessert together or bring her breakfast in bed. While the treats bake, show a little romance with each other. You’re married!
12. Spice Up Your Marriage: Send cut flowers from the garden.
Send fresh flowers to work with your spouse to freshen up his / her desk or drop by on his / her lunch break with lunch and fresh flowers. Better yet surprise your spouse by a bouquet of flower delivered to her/his work or home. It doesn’t have to be a special occasion to send flowers to each other.
13. Spice Up Your Marriage: Volunteer together.
Talk together about a cause that means a lot to both of you or find a volunteer opportunity that your spouse is keen on and arrange to volunteer together. Perhaps you could mentor a younger couple together, spend a weekend building a Habitat for Humanity home, put together gift bags for the homeless and deliver them together. Pick out a Compassion child to sponsor and correspond with, or visit an elderly person who is lonely.
14. Spice Up Your Marriage: Love Notes
Leave love notes in unexpected (but discreet) places inside your spouse’s folded underwear so he/she finds it when getting dressed, under the lid of his shaving cream, on the sun visor in his/her car. On napkin in his / her lunch. Make them sweet, funny. Be careful not to make them too steamy, you don’t want to embarrass him/her in case someone else finds them.
15. Spice Up Your Marriage: Praise
Praise each other for small things that you like, cooking, dress, beauty, (Be genuine in your praise, make sure you mean what you say) Make a point to praise your spouse … within his/her earshot to a friend or family member.
16. Spice Up Your Marriage: Foreign (love) language
Learn a foreign language together …… or at least a few key phrases … and talk to each other in that language.
For example:
Sign language is an easy one. We like to make it a habit to wave goodbye to Dad as he goes to work each morning. We’ve adopted the “I Love You” sign to accompany our goodbyes and goodnights.
17. Spice Up Your Marriage: Appreciation
Tell your spouse something you’ve really admired about her/him lately. Mail gentle loving notes of appreciations to each other. Write something that brings a smile. Build him up. Encourage him. Examples might be: Just wanted you to know I really appreciate how you’ve handled the kids lately. Your patience with them and your love for them is evident. I’m proud to be parenting with you. Thank you for giving the kids a bath last night so I could get off my feet … even after you’d worked all day. You are so good to me. I don’t say it often, but you are my hero. Thank you for taking such good care of our sweet family. I notice. And I so appreciate all you are and do for us.
18. Spice Up Your Marriage: Ask Each Other!
When you have time alone together, ask each other: what is one thing you could do to make your marriage better. Pick the right time to ask (when both are relaxed and ready for such discussion), give each other some time to think about it, and prepare your heart to accept his answer lovingly and thoughtfully. You might be surprised at the answer!
19. Spice Up Your Marriage: Play Games
Play games together. After the kiddos are in bed, grab a card game or board game, talk, and have fun together. Surprise your husband one night and spice it up! Play winner takes all: Whoever wins gets to pick the “activities” that night.
Hint: If you win, choose something that your spouse will love. Don’t use it as another opportunity to snub your spouse. Make it a win-win.
20. Spice Up Your Marriage: Spruce Up
Spruce up for your spouse. Spend a little extra time each day sprucing up in the morning and before your husband gets home from work. Wash your face, add some lip gloss, fix your hair, and wear something fresh and pretty. Add a bright smile and enjoy being beautiful for your husband. You’ll feel more attractive and he will appreciate the results.
21. Spice Up Your Marriage: Make An Investment
Open a love bank account – Make an investment in your marriage. We make investments of time, money, and resources every day. We put gas in the car, pay bills to keep the lights on, buy groceries to feed the family, water the plants. But when was the last time you invested in your marriage? Want to keep it alive and running well? Invest in it! As an anniversary gift to each other, plan to go to a Islamic marriage bliss event together. The conference doesn’t have to be the day of your anniversary, but make a commitment and plan the details as a gift to each other. Truly, it’s an investment you will never regret. How to find a good marriage retreat or conference? Check with your own Mosque or other Muslim Organizations Ask friends which conferences they recommend.
22. Spice Up Your Marriage: Make Your Home a Haven
Make your bedroom a haven for you and your husband. Celebrate your marriage. Scatter photos of the two of you together, reviving good memories. Keep your home including bedroom de-cluttered; don’t let it become the dumping ground for “the stuff that has no home.” Make it a place of peace and rest, fun and passion for both of you.
If your bedroom isn’t a haven, right now schedule a day or a weekend on your calendar to clean it up and make it romantic and restful. Or if that seems overwhelming, pledge 15 minutes a day to improvements. Your marriage is worth it!
23. Spice Up Your Marriage: Romantic Weekend
Go away for a romantic night or weekend at a bed and breakfast, hotel, or cabin.
24. Spice Up Your Marriage: Massage
Give a massage. Give your spouse a foot rub, hand rub, scalp massage, back massage. Sitting around together talking or reading? Take his/her feet or hands and massage them. Walk up behind your wife while she’s cooking and massage her neck and shoulders. Is your husband sitting down, and you are still puttering around the house? Stop, sit down, and spend 15-30 minutes together. Ask him about his day. Don’t give a teaser massage –just enough to get him or her to drop the shoulders, then walk away. Linger. Focus on your spouse. If time is of the essence and you can’t linger, promise him or her to follow up after the kids are in bed: “Wow. You are really tense. Tonight I’m going to give you a shoulder and back massage. Set aside some time before we go to sleep to relax and let me rub those knots out.” Men, here’s a note: If you’re the one giving your wife the massage, let her know the massage is just for her …you don’t want her to reciprocate that night, and it doesn’t have to turn into an amorous, passionate encounter(unless she wants it to, of course).That will help her relax during the massage. Loving your wife this way encourages her to love you in ways you enjoy. And, of course, incorporating massages into intimate encounters is a wonderful way to “spice it up,” too. If your community college offers a brief massage class take it to learn some basics that will translate into an investment in your marriage.
25. Spice Up Your Marriage: Walk Together
Take a morning or evening walk together. For couples with young children, this might be later when the kids are older. But if it’s possible, make a habit of walking together. No ipods. Just walk and talk together. Make it a ritual. Walk in your neighborhood. Meet at the park after work. Tramp through the woods. Walk after young children are in bed and older children can watch after them. Build healthy bodies and a healthy relationship. Talk about things you can’t talk about when the kids are around. Become better friends. Use this time to reconnect, listen, and encourage each other. Pray together about any concerns or praises that came up in your conversation.
26. Spice Up Your Marriage: Build Anticipation
Build anticipation. It is well known that building anticipation is one of the best ways to spice up a relationship. creative and build anticipation in your marriage. Authors Linda Dillow and Lorraine Pintus give inspiration in a Family Life Today™ CD series called Intimate Issues: Plan a weekend getaway or an evening alone but only give your spouse hints that you have something special planned for him or her on Friday night. Build anticipation by giving your spouse one item or hint a day until the special event.
Or set an intimate “date” with your spouse and remind each other throughout the week (even in front of other people):“Don’t forget, honey. We have a meeting Friday evening at 8:00.”Along the same line, leave him a love note on the steering wheel of his car: “You. Me. Tonight. @ 9:00”Send her a reminder e-mail. Leave him a voice mail. Be creative! Build anticipation.
27. Spice Up Your Marriage: Smile
Smile! Practice smiling at your spouse. Meet your husband / wife with a smile when he / she comes home from work (no matter how hard your day was).When you talk on the phone to your spouse, smile; A smile can be heard in your voice.
So there you have it:
Time to quit being discontent and choose joy. It’ll do wonderful things for your marriage. Encourage your spouse with a joyful heart and a smile on your face. Remember: It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and an angry person. Rasool Allah Said: Smile is charity Also some wise person said: Smile is contagious, so keep on smiling a quarrelsome person (wife or husband) is like a constant dripping on a rainy day.
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