Relationships exist for a lot of reasons simultaneously, and long ones will become more and less about different reasons at different times. For people raising

Relationships exist for a lot of reasons simultaneously, and long ones will become more and less about different reasons at different times. For people raising kids together, the relationship can often become dominated by the practical partnership of family-rearing because it’s so consuming. You do that parenting thing all the time and you love your partner for what they add to it and that feels like plenty. That project becomes so fundamental and sufficient that a lot of other parts of the relationship can quietly fade even while the relationship as a whole is very strong. Consciously investing in sharing (or romance, or sex, or travel, or career encouragement, or business partnership, or whatever) can help revive and sustain the multidimensionality of the relationship, and keep it strong and richly satisfying as various other parts wax and wane. Of course, you can also just have a great relationship that rides a “no (conscious) effort” vibe and it can be a long and exciting and rich relationship too. It’s not like there are rules. There’s just no reason to question the OP’s relationship just on the grounds of them choosing to put in some extra effort.