It’s almost Valentine’s Day and love is in the air. My husband and I have had a great run the past 25 years, and a lot of people ask us how we’ve been able to keep things shallow.
- Start with a shallow foundation: We built our relationship on a slab instead of a full basement. There’s not even room for a crawl space.
- Focus on the physical: We met at the gym working on our body image, and we’ve never looked back.
- Shared value system: We love food and nothing reinforces our bond like asking the question, “What’s for dinner?”
- Goal Setting: For long-range goal setting we sit down with a calendar and plan menus for a month. We like to fine-tune it with wine pairings.
- Mutual interests: We both enjoy television and can spend hours laughing at our favorite comedies, or engrossed in the deep meaning of House of Cards.
- Agreement about finances: We agreed early on that status is important and buying name brands is never a debate. This has gone a long way to create consensus with the checkbook.
- Shallanyzing: Rather than deep analysis of each other and our problems, we tiptoe into warm shallow waters. No deep dives that could be cold and shark infested.
- Low expectations: Any day can be Valentine’s Day when you don’t expect anything at all.
- Vacations without meaning: When we have time and money on our hands we go to Disney World, the happiest place on earth.
- Poor memory for details: How can you hold a grudge when you can’t remember what made you mad in the first place?
- Low threshold for excitement: Bottle return day has us trembling with delight about how to spend our reclaimed $8.35.
- Comfort with silence: Instead of ‘reading into’ quiet time, we view it as a reprieve from meaningless conversation.
- Denial: There is nothing wrong with denial as long as you are mutually oblivious.
How do you keep your relationship shallow?
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Jeez, I’ve being doing it all wrong!
Sorry my valuable tips came to you so late in the game, Mark. I think you could still adopt them though as long as you don’t overthink it.
The problem is, overthinking it is what I do best.
It sounds good to me. Of course, I have nothing to compare it to, since I have never married anyone, so don’t go by my opinion.
You don’t have to be married to utilize these tips, Kathy. You could use them to make any relationship more shallow.
In that case, I think I have been great at shallow relationships all along. 😉
Sounds like you two are deeply shallow.
We drained the pool when we got together, Bill.
Okay, we might be guilty of #3. We do love eating out. Not sure if the food is better, but it means no cooking so that in itself is romantic because my husband doesn’t want me to work to make dinner?
Why would you speak of guilt when you are recognizing the shallow side of your relationship, Donna? Instead celebrate your mutual love of food and eating out. It is the ultimate romantic evening!