The day begins like any other.  You wake up on your side of the bed and she’s clear on the other side with her back to you as has become the norm of late.  You take a quick shower and fix your own breakfast since she stopped preparing it for you weeks ago.

Work is slow so when out of the blue she calls to invite you to lunch you gladly accept.  Lunch is awkward as you both struggle to find topics and you know something is really amiss when she uncharacteristically inquires about how the Lakers are doing.

When the server brings the bill she snatches it off the tray.  You thank her, make a joke about how hell must be freezing over then get up to give her a goodbye kiss when she ask you to sit back down.

You anxiously comply hoping nothing is wrong with your offspring or your mom when she matter-of-factly announces that she’s unhappy, knows you are too, and tells you she’s divorcing you.  As she walks away leaving you in a daze, a process server creeps up behind you and serves you with divorce papers.

“What just happened here?” you ask yourself.  Finances are fine, you aren’t having an affair and you’ve never hit her in 15 years of marriage.

Wait, did you just say 15 years?  Well look no further. You just may be the latest victim of the dreaded 15 year fizzle.  The 15 year fizzle is what happens to many couples when the love, excitement, attraction, and respect simply dies.

Maybe he got tired of looking at her mom hair and watching her hip to waist ratio diminish.  Maybe his male pattern baldness, beer belly, and snoring finally got to be too much for her.  Maybe going out on “girl’s night out” with her single friends made the grass look greener on the single side of the fence or maybe his middle age crisis is making him yearn for new booty one last time.

Whatever prompted it, the real issue is that for most of us, 15 years is the line of demarcation between married for life or that one last opportunity to hit life’s reboot button.  By 15 years you’ve heard all of each other’s stories, often times more than once.

Some of the cute quirk’s they had in the first ten years are now annoying flaws: Her propensity to be late is no longer tolerable; his smelly socks in the living room grates your nerves; that brother in law who’s always hitting you up for a loan has reached the tipping point.  Obviously, they no longer appreciate all you do for them like fixing his plate or fixing her car because they no longer thank you for it or brag about it to their friends and family.

And then there’s the sex.  For the first ten years he got excited whenever he saw you in a nighty, now he doesn’t even look up from his laptop when you enter the bedroom butt naked.  If you wait for her to initiate sex, like she did the first dozen years, you could go more than a month in monk mode.  Upon completion, he doesn’t get you a warm towel any more, she doesn’t want to cuddle anymore, and neither one of you can wait to grab your phones to reconnect with social media.

Bottom line, you aren’t “in love” anymore and just loving each other is not enough for many couples.

So how do you avoid the 15 year fizzle?

1. Rededicate yourselves.  Nothing gets a woman’s juices flowing like a wedding.  Suggest a rededication ceremony in year 14.  That will give her a year to plan and spend money. A money spending, planning woman is a happy woman who will start looking at you as her groom again.
2. Buy him something big.  A 60 something inch TV for Christmas.  A Rolex watch for his milestone birthday, a trip to Cancun.  Usually the man handles the major purchases so your expenditure of it on his behalf will be a huge turn on.
3. Get rid of the kids.  Send them to visit a relative for a month during the summer and DATE! DATE! DATE!  Use that time alone to do all the things you don’t get to do when the kids are around.  Go to a concert, an amusement park, a strip club. Maybe even sky dive or bungee jump.  These activities will allow you to reconnect on a romantic level and rediscover why you got married in the first place.
4. Engage in PDA’s, hold hands, and kiss like kids.  Strangers’ reactions to you will be a turn on for both of you.

Do many of the items on my list seem costly?  Well it’s not as costly as attorney fees, splitting up assets, or alimony/child support.  Now you’ve been warned, and forewarned is forearmed.    You can thank me at your 20 year wedding anniversary.

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