Ep 23 Are You In A Relationship Rut? Why It's Important & What You Can Do About It

Is your relationship starting to feel a little…meh?
You’re not alone—and it’s not a sign you married the wrong person. It is a sign that you might be stuck in a relationship rut.

In this episode, we're talking about what really causes that blah feeling in long-term love (hint: it's not just time), why it can be more dangerous than you think, and—most importantly—how to shake things up without doing anything dramatic or awkward.

You’ll learn:
Subtle signs you’re in a rut (that most couples overlook)
Why “just going through the motions” is quietly killing your connection
Simple, no-pressure ways to reintroduce novelty, excitement, and joy
PLUS: I’ll tell you how to get my free download, “Twenty Try Me Ideas” —a list of fun ways to refresh your relationship and stop the slow drift into “blah.”
Whether you’re already on autopilot or just want to make sure you don’t end up there, this one’s for you.

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Transcript

Kari Hoskins (00:00.974)

Hey there, friends. Welcome back to the podcast. So I kind of have an odd question for you. How exciting is your relationship? When you think about your marriage, is that exciting? What words come to mind? How would you describe it? I recently completed this entire series of classes around how to help couples who have experienced betrayal or infidelity.

in their relationship. And I was really, really surprised to learn that there's a lot of people who are still in love with their spouse, but they have an affair because they're bored. They have affairs in order to escape the monotony of the relationship. And at first I was like, what? I don't know about this. Like, A, that felt really disconcerting, but I was kind of dubious about it. And so I went home and I started researching.

and doing my own, my own, obviously research about it. And sure enough, becoming bored in your relationship can lead to lots of really negative things like unhappiness, dissatisfaction, can lead to questioning whether or not you want to be in the relationship, can lead to infidelity, like I already said, and it can even lead to divorce. And so I thought that this would be a really great time to talk to you since we're getting into summer, which...

most people associate summer with fun, a really great time to talk about this. What happens is, it's normal for us to just kind of fall into the mundane-ness of life. But when couples just start going through the motions, when you stop injecting fun, novelty, when you stop meaningful connection, when you stop digging deep in your conversations, this is when you just kind of start coasting.

autopilot and autopilot obviously is quite dangerous for your relationship. So here are some signs that you might be falling into a relationship rut. So just kind of cue in and see how many of these you may be experiencing. If you find that you are arguing more than you used to or bickering over small silly things that could be a sign that one or both of you is becoming bored in the relationship.

Kari Hoskins (02:25.358)

Not paying as much attention to each other is another sign. If you find it so much more fun to hang out with your friends than hang out with your significant other, that's another sign. Becoming more easily irritated or annoyed with each other, not expressing as much gratitude or appreciation for one another, these are other signs that you might be falling into a relationship rut. Now, boredom can honestly

creep in at any time in your relationship. But we normally start seeing the signs bubbling up around the three to five year mark, right around the time when that honeymoon phase kind of starts to go away and real life and the mundane-ness of the routine starts to kick in. But what I see happening is that when you realize like, you know, like everything's just kind of humdrum, it's not super exciting.

people will chalk it up to, well, this is just what it's like to be married. This is just what it's like to be in a relationship. And of course, yes and no, yes, because that's normal, but no, our brains crave that novelty and that newness and that's what keeps life and the relationship exciting. And so when that happens, that's your sign, that's your cue that you need to do something to mix it up. My rule of thumb is that,

If there are things that you used to do in your relationship, like let's say you used to watch a certain show or binge watch a whole series of shows or have a really fun, like favorite takeout night. If those things you used to look forward to are no longer fun for you, now they're just like another thing to check off your list. If it's boring, if it's not exciting, that's your cue that you need to do something different and mix it up before your relationship continues down.

that trajectory. So I think that, you know, it's important to note that you don't need to have this big huge dramatic overhaul. Like you don't have to be like, hey, let's go jump out of an airplane together. Unless that's your thing. But to be honest with you, the couples that I know in my life, if that like those types of things are the thing, they are not bored in their relationships. But my point here is that you don't have to do something super extreme. It can be small silly things.

Kari Hoskins (04:47.118)

to shake up your usual Friday or Saturday night. I know that coming up with new things to do can be challenging for a lot of us. And so what I did was I created a list. I just brainstormed, and I'm not gonna lie, I did use ChatGTP to help me with this, but I created this list of 20 simple things that you can do to switch up your relationship, to switch up the routine.

of your relationship. So if you're interested in getting that list of 20 things, go visit my website, kahoskins.com. It's under the freebie tab and you just have to fill out that form and then you will receive an email with the list. If you don't receive the email, then I would suggest looking in your promotions or your spam folder. But in addition to that list, I have other suggestions for you. Number one, you really need to make an effort to continue to challenge yourself

individually, personally. You need to be continuing to learn and to grow and to try new things by yourself. This is going to keep you much more engaged in life. I, at least I hate being bored and not being bored helps me enjoy my life a lot more. And it also gives you and your spouse or your partner new fun things to talk about. The second suggestion is to, the two of you go and do new things together. Take a class together.

Try a new hobby. It doesn't matter if you like it or not. If you do it once or twice and you don't like it, then fine, go to Switched Up and do something different. The point is to experience new things together. And like I already said, shake up your usual Friday or Saturday night. Grab that list. You can also think back to things that you used to do that you no longer do. Try that again. Maybe go revisit some of the places that you used to go, or maybe you used to play...

softball or volleyball or used to go to the beach and you're not doing that anymore. Revisit those things. That will really help you. I think it's fun. I think a great suggestion is to play hooky. So have both of you, I'm not going to advocate calling in sick, but maybe you take a personal day and you go do something totally random on a Thursday together. Just that one little thing can literally help your relationship over the next couple of months.

Kari Hoskins (07:07.874)

The third suggestion is to stay connected to your friends, to your friendships, not just individually, but as a couple. Research does show that married couples who have a very active social life and a pretty big social network tend to feel more happy and satisfied and less bored in their relationships than those who don't. So I think that is a great suggestion. And my last suggestion here is to continue to learn

new things about each other. Look, y'all, it does not matter if you have been together for five years or 50 years. There's always something new to learn about yourself and about each other. I, of course, am a big advocate of those conversation questions. I get mine from Amazon. Esther Perel has some. The Gottmans have some. There's just like random people that have them. There's would you rather questions like,

Would you rather be sticky for the rest of your life or would you rather be itchy for the rest of your life? Silly, would you rather questions are even fun and can shake up your normal conversation. It can get you away from talking about the neighborhood drama or the calendar. It gets you laughing and talking about more fun things. So these are just some suggestions that I have for you to try to keep your relationship fun and interesting and a little bit more exciting.

So if you think that you are falling into a relationship rut or you certainly know that you don't want to, make sure to grab that list from kahoskins.com. I also suggest and challenge you to do one new exciting fun thing this week for your relationship. Okay, my friends, that's what I have for you today. I will talk to you next week.