Let’s be honest: keeping the spark alive in a relationship is no easy feat. No matter how amazing things start out, it’s hard not to fall into something that’s routine and comfortable. That’s why we have to continue to work at our relationship and strive to continually make it better, or else we fall into those complacent patterns and begin to take our relationship and the person we’re with for granted. But while being in a so-called “boring relationship” might mean you’ve become complacent, it might also mean that the relationship you’re in has run its course and you’ve just remained in this boring, mediocre relationship because you love each other and neither one of you have the courage to walk away. Sometimes when we know our relationship has run its course, a “boring relationship” is merely a side effect of two people who’ve checked out and stopped caring altogether.
So how do you know you and your SO have turned into that “boring couple” that you never said you would become when you first started dating? Well, there are a whole lot of signs including serious things like an alarming lack of bedroom activity, wandering eyes, or you don’t show nearly as much physical affection and PDA as you did in the first couple years you were dating. Then there’s some more light-hearted signs, such as you’ve stopped closing the door when you use the bathroom, or the large majority of your conversations are about mundane things like what you just ate, or what you’re going to eat next.
So here they are…15 ways to tell your relationship has probably turned into a boring ass snooze fest of a relationship and needs a serious wake up call. But hey, maybe boring is your thing and you and your SO are cool with your love life living at room temperature.
15You Have Nothing To Talk About
Do most of your conversations with your SO consist of you both talking about what you just ate, or what you plan on eating next? Food becomes the hot topic of conversation in a boring relationship, “Oh! I like that place we ate last time!” or, “How is your sandwich, dear?” or, “Are you hungry? What time do you want to eat dinner? What do you want to eat for dinner?” There is nothing new to talk about because you are with each other all the time, most often doing the same routine as you always do. There’s no more novelty in the relationship, mainly because you never try new things together. So you just end up talking about the mundane details of your day, like what you want to eat for dinner, what show you want to watch, or you just talk about people whose lives appear to be much more interesting than yours. What becomes clear in a relationship that has lost its luster is that there is no banter between the couple, no spark or energy between them where you can really see how connected they are.
14Your Relationship Is No Longer Fun
Boring couples don’t laugh. They aren’t playful with each other. Being in the presence of this kind of couple is not fun. Whether they ever laughed in the beginning or not, a classic sign of the boring relationship is the obvious lack of fun they’re having being in it. In a boring relationship, you usually look outside the relationship to have your fun — while your relationship is your rock and stability — you look to your friends and other places to get your gut laughs. In other words, the highlight of your week and saving grace is your night out with the girls where you can drink wine and really connect with the people who truly know how to make you laugh. This type of couple has become an old couple while they’re still relatively young — the couple who’re both consumed with texting and taking Instagram stories whenever they’re with one another. Whether they’ve forgotten how to play with each other, or never knew how to play with each other in the first place, being in a relationship with someone means that they’re one of your favorite people (if not your favorite), and so, that should mean you have fun together, shouldn’t it?
13You Don’t Get It On That Often Anymore
Not only do you rarely ever have sex anymore, but it’s almost always in the missionary position. Not just that, but you both probably think about other people just so you can get off. Most of the time you’re too tired — getting a full eight hours of sleep usually takes precedence over getting it on. And you’re probably a little concerned that you don’t do it as much as you used to. I mean, it’s probably not that bad…maybe once a week, once every couple weeks, or maybe just once a month. But it’s at the point where it’s something you consciously think about now. I bet you’ve started to keep track in your head, “Oh we had sex twice last night! OMG! Our sex life is going so well right now!” and then other times you thought to yourself, “He wants to go to sleep! We’ve only had sex once this entire week and today’s the last day of the week!” Yeah, the fear of being that sexless couple begins to creep into your head and you can’t shake it. Maybe you ask your girlfriends how often they have sex with their boyfriends/husbands. And if they say something that completely puts your number to shame then you immediately self-destruct on the inside and think your relationship is total sh*t. But you thought her number was a little high, she’s probably just trying to rub it in. She’s bat sh*t crazy you must think! But you wish you were bat sh*t crazy, because then you’d be having way more sex than you are right now.
12You Never Try Anything New As A Couple
Same normal routine. Rinse and repeat every single week. Like that couple shown in movies driving to the exact same dinner spot every Saturday night — who finally realizes through the suffocating silence of the car ride — that they’re in a marital rut. Which leads to them going completely off-the-wall bonkers and driving to a Thai restaurant instead of their usual Chinese. In the beginning of your relationship you went on adventures. You tried new activities. You signed up for that random couple’s class. You were both proudly big “YES” people. But slowly over time you stopped doing anything novel and just stuck to what was comfortable. While the beginning was exciting, now your relationship consists primarily of sweatpants, popcorn, and Netflix. Yeah, you turned into that boring couple without even realizing it. We grow individually when we live outside of our comfort zones, and it’s the same for a relationship. When we do new things and stretch ourselves, both individually and as a couple, we embrace our humanity and our spirit gets catapulted into the moment, which has the ability to spark plug a stagnant relationship and help reach layers of intimacy we reached early on in the relationship with so much ease.
11You Can’t Remember The Last Time You Partied Together
Perhaps you can’t even remember the last time you were drunk or partied at all. In the beginning of your relationship, you went on party dates, always hit up parties together, and did so many social things as a couple. You remember times when you’d be out with each other and friends getting drunk and you’d jet home early so you could have crazy, wild, drunken sex. But as time has rolled along, and your relationship progressed, you started to hibernate and frequented social things far less often. I mean, you probably still drink, but you haven’t been DRUNK. You still have the casual glass of wine or two around the house, but you don’t really get party drunk anymore. Movie nights and Chinese delivery have taken over your life. Now whenever you do get together with friends for drinks — or you do venture out of your cocoon as a couple for a night on the town with friends — you start getting tipsy pretty much immediately. And you say things like, “I can’t even remember the last time I was drunk??” or “My god how my tolerance has gone down!!” as you’re seriously puzzled trying to figure out the last time you felt this good (drunk).
10You Never Go On Dates Anymore
Another way to tell you are in a boring relationship is you never go on dates anymore. You used to be so good about finding that one night every week where you got dressed up and went out together and did something romantic. But over time that regular weekly date-night-out turned into lazy nights in. After enough times where one of you cancelled, you both gave up on the whole idea. Now your relationship has become one massive chill session. There used to be romantic dinners, nights where you planned a whole evening with food, drinks, and a whole long list of events, but now you just saddle up on the couch or lie in bed and watch YouTube videos and listen to random podcasts. While you enjoy the comfort, you miss the whole idea of going on dates and feeling romantic. You should never stop dating your partner — even long after you’ve been together — but truth is couples who are in boring relationships forgot about dating each other a long time ago.
9Your Only Friends Are Other Couples
Your only friends are other couples because your single friends gave up on you a long time ago. After enough nights of them trying to get you to come out, and you bailing or flaking or saying you were staying in with your SO, they just stopped calling. For a while you were able to hold onto them by managing to be that “cool relationship person” who still went out all the time. But over time you got so deeply entrenched into a comfortable relationship that you just couldn’t relate to each other anymore. Eventually your most like-minded companions became another boring couple and one giant cheese board. That grew into couple’s vacations, couple’s dinner parties and New Years get-togethers, and low key game nights. Your whole social sphere turned into one giant double date. While your single crack head friends might be too much for you to handle at the frequency you’re living at now, those single friends are also your benchmarks to gage if your relationship is sucking all the fun out of you, so you best keep them around.
8You’ve Stopped Doing Things For You
You used to have a whole life before your relationship and things you loved doing just for you. You used to have passions, hobbies, and things you loved doing because they made you feel good and helped you carve out your identity as an individual. But your relationship took over your entire life and squashed all those things you used to love doing in the process. Now all your energy is put towards your SO and making sure he’s happy. Your relationship became such a time and energy investment that you no longer felt you had the time to do those things, no longer saw them as important, and forgot about your identity as an individual because you had this identity as a couple now. Couples quickly become boring couples when the people in the relationship stop doing the things that allow them to maintain their own identity outside of the relationship. The relationship falls flat because both people have accommodated (suppressed) themselves to the relationship, rather than brought their own light and uniqueness to the relationship, which makes for a much more interesting and dynamic partnership — when two complete people continue to do them, while meeting in the middle as a couple.
7Your Partner/Relationship Is Your Entire World
Is your SO the only person you hang out with? Do you still see your friends on a regular basis? Definitely a major sign that your part of a boring couple is you have no life outside of your relationship. Friends and people from the outside are going to be less likely to want to get together with you if it seems like the only thing you ever do is spend time with your SO. If you make no effort to connect with people and do things outside your relationship, your life and your relationship are both going to become stale pretty quickly. The most interesting couples are when both people in the relationship lead full, well-rounded lives. A good relationship should give you the courage and confidence to go out into the world and do you with more swagger, but it should never impede you from reaching your true potential as an individual. Or else, you might end up becoming one of those boring couples that never does anything interesting, and thus, never has anything interesting to talk about.
6You’ve Started Going To The Bathroom In Front Of Each Other
There are some things that should be kept private in a relationship — no matter how long you’ve been together — and closing the door when you go to the bathroom is one of those things. In particular, closing the door when you go number two! Okay…I can see how a simple pee where you’re scrambling for the toilet could warrant an open door, or at least a slightly closed door, but number twos should be a closed door policy at all times! And no sneaking in the bathroom to sh*t quietly while they’re in the shower, either! Of course the comfort level is going to to increase the longer you’re together, and start living together, but you should do your best to stick to a closed door bathroom policy! Chances are you if you’re doing number twos with the door open, you’ve become just a little bit too comfortable with your relationship. And it’s time you close the door for a while and inject some mystery back into your relationship.
5Your Eye Has Started Wandering
Has your eye started wandering? One of the most telling signs that you’re in a boring relationship is that you’ve started noticing people outside of your relationship. You are also noticing other couples and are potentially envious of what they have. Now, more than ever, you find yourself asking questions like, “Am I supposed to be with the same person for the rest of my life?” While on social media, you start creeping people from your past or anyone who’s caught your eye recently. Perhaps you even follow someone on Instagram who you chatted with briefly on a night out with the girls. While you would never actually go through with anything, you know your relationship has become a little too comfortable if you’re legitimately curious about people outside of your relationship. It’s at this point where you realize you’re at a turning point in your relationship — you either need to find a breakthrough in your current relationship and discover new energy, or start appreciating things you’ve taken for granted, or actually go and end it.
4You Cuddle More Than You Get It On
You could say that you’ve potentially entered that boring relationship territory when you cuddle more than you have sex. While cuddling is a huge part of a relationship, it’s most often proceeded or followed by sex. But in a boring relationship, it tends to be cuddling proceeded by cuddling, and then followed by more cuddling. Cuddling becomes the only real form of physical intimacy this couple partakes in on a regular basis. Like that old couple gently holding each other while they patiently wait for death to arrive, this couple is seemingly cuddling to their death as well. Cuddling is single handily one of the best parts of a relationship, but if the amount you cuddle totally blows the amount you have sex out of the water, then it’s likely evident there is a lacklustre energy in your relationship and sex life.
3You Never Dress Up For Each Other Anymore
Earlier on in your relationship you had your weekly date nights and got dressed up for one another. You used to take so much pride in the way you looked around each other. But over time you just stopped putting in the effort. It used to be exciting to have those nights where you went all out for each other and put on a hot little dress and made him pine for you like a lovesick little puppy. But over time those sweatpants came on and never came off. Of course you’re going to get more comfortable as your relationship progresses — which means you will be more comfortable dressed down around each other — but that doesn’t mean you should completely let yourself go. It’s fun to get dressed up because it shows that you still care about impressing the other person. No matter how long you’ve been together, it’s nice to show the other person that you still care enough to TRY! So it’s safe to say you’re probably deep in a boring union if you can’t even remember the last time you’ve seen your significant other put together for an outing with just the two of you.
2You Never Show Affection In Public
You know those couples that seem so straight edge with each other when they’re in public? Standing far apart, never showing any affection to each other like their whole relationship has a giant stick up its ass? Perhaps they used to do that sort of stuff earlier on in the relationship, but now they’ve settled down into more of a partnership than a romance. But hand holding, kissing each other hello and goodbye, as well as saying “love you” when you leave each other, and cuddling and embracing each other in public is vital for romance. Love requires action — meaning you have to continue to work at it and take action to keep love alive. And showing little displays of affection in public is a love habit that helps keep the flame burning. If you never show those small signs of public affection, then you’re far more likely to become lazy and complacent in your relationship. Over time, these types of habits become compounded with other things to help create boring relationship types. I understand not everyone is into PDA, but holding hands and giving little kisses is hardly even considered PDA, and has actually been proven a habit of happy and successful couples.
1They’re More Your Friend Than Your Lover
Your significant other is definitely a combination of your friend and your lover, but if you find they’re weighed heavily to the friend side of the equation, then it’s very likely you’re in a boring relationship. While your SO should be your best friend and someone who you love hanging out with, you should still view them in a very romantic and lover sort of way. Over time there is going to be a natural pull to the friend and partner side of things, which is why you need to continue to take action to make sure the romance and lover end of the spectrum is constantly being rejuvenated. By far one of the most common reasons why people end relationships — or complain about the state of their relationship — is when the attraction wanes and they feel like they’re more friends than lovers. This type of state either leads to a breakup, a stale and settling type of relationship, or a complete relationship rejuvenation. It’s also important to note that there are couples who have been together for decades who are still smitten and completely taken with their partners, so a relationship that feels mostly like a friendship is not characteristic of every long-term relationship.
