My spouse and I dated for 5-ish years starting in uni, before getting married and we're now coming up on the 10th anniversary. The spark has been missing for a while now, and I feel like we're headed towards a dead bedroom kind of situation. But not just sex wise, even just fun wise.

We're both in similar positions career wise, earn similar amounts, split chores down the middle (to the point of just alternating between what we do each week. Ex: I plan and cook this week while they do the dishes and laundry, and switch tasks the next week). No kids/pets in the mix - just the two of us.

There's a lot of love and respect between us, we rarely ever fight, and there's no obvious point of friction that I can say is the source of our issue. It's hard to even say that there's an issue unless I squint a little.

When I do squint, I can see that we're just going through the motions. We go on "fun" dates and spend a lot of time just existing without actually having fun or talking. When we do the same activities (board games, pub crawl, pottery, concerts etc) with other friends, we tend to actually have fun. This has over time resulted in a situation where we plan more and more things in groups instead of just the two of us.

We barely even talk about the exciting new things we discovered today with each other. I've caught myself looking forward to telling something to a coworker of the opposite gender, and have since limited my interaction with them. But I was actually having fun while talking to said coworker, you know?

Any hoo, any recommendations based on things that worked for you?

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[–] 3 points 1 month ago

The best phrasing of this is missing "otherness" in your partner. You know enough about your partner that you've stopped being with your partner and started relying on your patterns and memories.

Some have phrased it as comfort, some as lack of adventure, what's always worked for me is to see my partner through different eyes (and falling in love again).

Go visit and watch them at work where they're competent and seen by others, or put yourselves in a new challenge/situation and see how you perform (this could be an adventure or vacation, but also hobby or context), or learn things independently of eachother and share the excitement (instrument, language, craft, dancing), or just leave room for independent personal development and let your partner surprise you with thoughts, problems and perspectives alien to you.

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