Question: 

I have a good marriage. But I'm bored of my wife, and she is bored of me. Neither of us have done anything wrong, we just simply have lost the excitement for each other. This worries me as we haven't been married all that long. Is this normal?

Answer:

You're going through a crucial stage. Everyone faces it. How you deal with it is vital to your spiritual future. And you can learn what to do from a caterpillar.

We go through life in this world like a caterpillar climbing a staircase. For the caterpillar, stairs are a challenge. After a short upwards incline, the caterpillar reaches a plateau, a long flat surface that is not going up at all. Things go smoothly for a while as the caterpillar traverses this surface, until the he hits a wall. It seems like the end of the road. The journey can go no further.

But after bumping into this wall, the caterpillar looks around and realises that the journey is not over at all. The only way is up. So the caterpillar starts climbing. He then understands that this was no dead end. It was the next step upwards, to reach a new height. What seemed like an obstacle was actually an invitation to go higher.

The same happens in life, and in marriage. After an initial high we come to a flat period, where things just coast along. Eventually we hit a wall, a frustrating blockage, where we feel uninspired and indifferent, and it seems there is no way out. This is normal. We are being beckoned to go to a higher level, to raise ourselves above our current state and reach upward. It is at this moment that we need to look up and start climbing.

The marriage you had before this slump was good for then, but for now it is not good enough. As time passes, your relationship has to grow. Which means you need to reach deeper within yourself, find new levels of commitment and giving, and discover new levels of depth in your partner. The boredom you're feeling is a good sign - it means you are ready to graduate to a new level.

Life can't always be a steep incline. That would be too exhausting. The plateaus give us time to reenergise, and are just there to prepare us to go to the next level. The challenge is in front of you. Grab it, and caterpillar your way to new heights.

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