It's my experience that the couple that has fun together has a much better chance of staying together.

Very few of the couples that I coach in my office or on the phone are regularly having fun. Life has gotten in the way, and fun is the last thing they are thinking of.

No room for fun

Most couples are caught up in what I call GARR - the Great American Rinse and Repeat. It goes something like this: Get up in the morning, get the kids off to school and you to work. Work all day, come home, have dinner, get ready for the next day, get the kids to bed, watch TV, fall asleep. Get up and do it all again.

This schedule leaves little room for fun.

Without the stress relief of having fun and enjoying each other, it becomes all to easy to irritate each other, bicker, and eventually become strangers.

How to have fun again

Getting back to having fun is not all that hard, it just takes some discipline.

Here's what I do with couples in my coaching practice:

1. Each person makes a list of what each remembers they used to do for fun.

2. Each person makes a list of what they would like to do for fun.

3. The couple merges their lists.

4. The couple chooses five things they would like to do for fun.

5. Schedule one thing and do it. Then another, and another, and another.

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