Life
How To Add Adventure Into Your Relationship
Adventure keeps life interesting. A lot of relationship experts recommend that if you're looking for tips to add a sense of adventure to your relationship, then you should hop a plane to a country where you don't speak the language and get lost in the history and culture there. Those kind of tips are obviously an amazing way to get some adventuring under your belt, but they also require a lot of money and time off from all of life's responsibilities. That's not a luxury many of us get too often.
That doesn't mean that you can't spice things up. During my time as a Planned Parenthood Certified Responsible Sexuality Educator, I talked all kinds of couples through simple solutions to making their lives together more exciting. The shared experiences will bring you closer and the new sights and sounds will help you shake any stubborn boredom that's been hanging around in your lives.
In fact, you don't have to leave your town, or your house, for that matter, to inject your relationship with a new, more adventurous spirit. Sometimes you just have to be open to change and willing to accept life as it comes. Here are some more things you can do to feel like you're squeezing all of the life you can out of, well, life.
1. Go On Adventures
I mean, it sounds pretty obvious once you see it in writing, but going on adventures will make your relationship more adventurous. Sometimes my wife and I just get in the car and flip a coin to determine if we will go right or left. We've ended up in some pretty spectacular places and seen plenty of new sights right in our own town. You don't have to have the money or time to travel the world to spice things up a bit.
Shared adventures make you feel closer to your partner. Plus you'll have killer stories to tell your squad, and everyone will think you're the coolest, most interesting kids at the lunch table, even if you're never more than a block from home.
2. Do Things That Scare You
There's nothing wrong with spending your weekends in a pile of sweatpants and snack foods, if that's what you do. But every once in a while, broadening your horizons and doing something scary will up your adventure quotient. Maybe skydive on a random Saturday morning or hike that really steep cliff that makes you a little nauseated to look at. You don't have to be in actual danger, you just have to tiptoe out of your comfort zone a little bit: Even a game of laser tag or a super scary movie can be an adventure.
3. Open Up Your Options
It's pretty weird how not technically doing anything, but just being open to doing something, can feel like a huge life change. For example, when I was looking for a new job last year, my wife and I decided that we would entertain opportunities from all over the world, and if the right opportunity came up, we'd make the big move. We didn't actually do anything adventurous, but we felt adventurous AF. Even if you know in your heart that you won't move far away, opening up your life to new possibilities is sometimes all you need to get a new spark or a bigger perspective on things.
4. Try Crazy Sex Stuff
Naked adventures (or leather-clad ones) can be just as exciting as travels or new opportunities. The big must-have for sexual adventures is communication. Have a chat about what you're both willing to do and what is absolutely off the table, so that you each have some guidelines for pulling out surprise moves or planning wild evenings. Hotel sex in your same town can feel pretty wild. S&M stuff might totally be something you never knew you loved. Bringing home a third partner might be the adventure you've been looking for. Even just sexing up your kitchen counters can be an adventure.
5. Break Up Your Routine
Take the same vacation every year? Do the same thing every weekend? Spend all your evenings watching Netflix? Just replace one of those things with something new. Make Friday nights date night and vow never to do the same date twice in a year. Rearrange your furniture. Sometimes a yearning for adventure is really just a craving for something new on any scale.
6. Make New Friends
If you're stuck in a rut, adventurous friends can be the cure. Get back in touch with old friends who seem to always be doing something cool, and tag along from time to time. Go somewhere like a club or bar and befriend the couple that's laughing the loudest. Or, if you're like me and a loud club is your worst nightmare, go to some MeetUps or local clubs to find like-minded people. Do cool stuff with them! Plus, when you're on other types of adventures, talk to locals, make friends with the people next to you on the plane, and be social with strangers. You never know when the stranger on the bus will become your new best friend who lets you use her timeshare in Peru.
7. Take Up A New Hobby
Take a photography class together on Wednesday nights, then take pictures in the city or on hikes (or take sexy pics of each other in a private boudoir session). Take a cooking class, then invite your friends over for a meal you've never made before. Learn Photoshop and make killer holiday cards that have everyone you know cracking up. Just always have something on tap that you can do or learn to keep things fresh and interesting. That's how you make a life filled with adventure and excitement.
Just don't get caught up in comparing your sense of adventure to other people's senses of adventure because when you play the comparison game, you always lose.
