Getting Past The Plateau: What To Do When The Honeymoon Phase Is Over

Whether you realize it or not, you’ve seen the relationship plateau before.
It looks like this: At first, everything in a relationship is new. Then it’s not. The relationship stops growing. It ceases being exciting and stays the same.
Over time, this kind of relationship ends up doing one of two things: It either falls into a rut (think of every “boring marriage” sitcom you’ve ever seen), or it spirals to a disastrous breakup.
Don’t let it happen to you. Here are a few things to focus on to make sure your relationship doesn’t plateau:

Understand How A Relationship Plateau Happens

The first step here is to understand exactly how a plateau happens. When you first meet someone, there are all kinds of things happening in your body. There are the butterflies in the stomach. Your heart races. You practically feel drunk with infatuation.
It’s an awesome phase.
But it doesn’t last.
When you get to a certain level of comfort with another person, these kinds of hormonal blasts start to dissipate. Your heart doesn’t race. You don’t get nervous around them.
This is totally normal and doesn’t mean you’re “falling out of love” with this person. You’re just moving past the puppy love phase and starting a real, mature relationship.
But here’s the thing: Without those fluttering emotions, many people don’t know what to do. As a result, the relationship stops growing because it has nowhere to go.
The key to a thriving relationship is in what you do when the “butterflies” wear off. 

Keep Having “Firsts”

One of the major reasons that relationships plateau is painfully obvious: because they’ve stopped growing.
Compare it to your own personal growth: Did you put your life on autopilot and stop trying new things, stop going to new places, or stop learning? Or, will you always keep growing?
Look at your relationship the same way. If you’re always trying to learn more about the other person or have new experiences with that person, then it’s nearly impossible for that relationship to get stale.
Explore new places in your own town. Explore places in the next town over. Learn a new skill together. Go on a damn adventure every once in awhile.
Too often, people don’t think of their relationship as something that needs progress. Don’t be one of those people.

Focus On What You Do Outside Of The Relationship

While it’s incredibly important to grow together in your relationship to avoid the relationship plateau, it’s equally important to grow on your own.
Putting your energy into your relationship is a great start, but if you’re a zombie in the other areas of your life, then what are you really bringing into your relationship?
We all thrive on progress. Change is always going to happen. We’ll get skinny. We’ll get fat. We’ll get smart. We’ll change jobs. Change is a given. Progress, though isn’t.
By spending time on your own personal development and personal growth, you can constantly bring fresh ideas and new opinions into a relationship. Your relationship avoids plateauing because you avoid plateauing.

Let Her Get To Know The Real You

Some people keep their partner at a distance. It makes sense at the beginning when you’re first starting to date. You might be a little nervous or guarded and want to make sure you can trust this person before you start getting intimate and personal.
But as the relationship goes on, the goal should be to break down as many of those walls as you can. That’s one of the most important ways a relationship can grow — to get to know that person more personally and more intimately.
By keeping her at arm’s length, you are essentially stopping your relationship from ever developing past a certain point.
No amount of world travel, sexual experimentation, or candlelight dinners can ever make up for someone who isn’t transparent with their partner.
By opening up and trusting the shit out someone, you can help ensure that you’ll avoid the relationship plateau.