It's not what's going to save marriages on it's own, because it is useful in a specific environment.

When I'm away for work, I always make time to call family morning and evening, so we can keep up with our wake up togheter and spend evening togheter kinda routine. It is both specific to the situation, the family and the context. It'd be silly to call home when I'm home, as it'd be silly to say that this will save someone else marriage.

Heck, marriage doesn't even mean the same thing to different people or has the same meaning across cultures or even within the same culture across time!

Normative approaches to marriage are almost always doomed to fail precisely because of this, and that's also why counseling is largely a personalized process/experience.

What is the reward?

If I started writing literal daily notes to my wife, she’d be very concerned something was wrong. Then she’d ask why I’m wasting my time writing a note when I could have done… literally annoying else more productive lol

I've found this to simply mean that you enjoy the work you put in. Gamers can spend hours getting good at a game. Few would call it practice, they'd call it play. However, whatever you call it you need it to get good.

Whatever that thing is that you put into a relationship, it's needed.

For some people it isn't until it is. There are many things that can break a great relationship. Routine, lack of common projects, financial difficulties, personal struggle of one or both.

It has been 16 years and somehow head to pillow every night still brings a smile to my face for this amazing woman being the love of my life.

This is where it takes work. You have to accept the fact every day this is your partner, you have to wrestle with thoughts of perhaps coming across an actual ideal partner some day. You have to learn to love your partner, and do things to make them happy, not necessarily things you want to do.

Because the alternative is to just be single and die alone surrounded by no one, childless in some nursing home where nurses increasingly don’t give a fuck about you the closer you are to death.

Some people will argue being single isn’t so bad. But for a person whose goal it is to be married and share life with someone it can be a fate worse than death. And the longer it takes to get married the more of your life you are living without sharing experiences with anyone that matters to you.

> This is where it takes work. You have to accept the fact every day this is your partner, you have to wrestle with thoughts of perhaps coming across an actual ideal partner some day. You have to learn to love your partner, and do things to make them happy, not necessarily things you want to do

If this is actually your personal experience, could you share more of it?

I've always ended up dating women who absolutely love me but who I am somewhat ambivalent to after a few weeks. Most of life already feels like work to me, was hoping a romantic relationship wouldn't. But I've thought often of throwing in the towel and settling for the next sane one even if I'm bored. Because wife + kids sounds long term better than fun uncle who ultimately dies alone.

for your problem, i would want to look closely what it is that makes you feel ambivalent after a few weeks. try giving it more time to see if you still feel like that. get to know each other better, plan your potential future life together to get an understanding what each of you want from a relationship. love alone is not enough.

what i found helpful is to not focus on romantic dates but join group activities where there is no pressure to interact directly. your friends and her friends or even some other group that you both join for some activity. there is still plenty of opportunity to get to know each other that way, because you will see how each of you act around other people.