7 ways to spice up your marriage

The heck with "date night"

How long have you been with your partner? Are you starting to feel like the spark has left your marriage? Don't stress ... we feel your pain! It's totally normal to feel like your marriage has fallen into a rut. That's why we compiled these 7 tips to put the chemistry back into your relationship. Try them ... you won't be dissapointed ...

Don’t do it — or feel bad that you don’t — just because you’re “supposed to,” especially if you just wind up staring into each other’s eyes and talking about flu shots. You can do that at home — with much cheaper drinks. One Manhattan mother of two reports that for their big (recession-friendly) nights in, she and her husband get takeout and sip (chug) cheap bubbly from their fancy flutes. (“A flute just feels eventful,” she says.) If you can afford it, do go out when you can. And do it with childless friends or go to an absorbing show or movie — anything that gets you out of the axis of parent. And if nighttime sitting (or being catatonic at 9 p.m.) is an issue, heck, squeeze in a date-morning, meet for lunch. “It’s all about breaking the routine,” says couples therapist Esther Perel, author of Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic. “Family life depends on consistency and predictability. Romance and the erotic are about everything else.” 

Stop being friends

On Facebook, that is. “It’s a terrible idea for spouses to be Facebook friends with each other,” says Ian Kerner, Ph.D., co-author, with Heidi Raykeil, of (best self-help title EVER!) Love in the Time of Colic: The New Parents’ Guide to Getting It On Again. “Relationships are already filled with enough banality. I want to preserve what little mystery there is, which means I don’t need to see my wife’s latest check-in with her third-grade pals on her Superwall.” 

Get We-mail

But wait! You don’t have to, like, swear off the technology entirely. Perel suggests getting a secret your-eyes-only email address just for each other — not for “pls pick up Muenster” and “remember B’s ballet stuff” — but for loving and flirtatious messages only. 

Spontaneity, schmontaneity

Buzz-killing as it sounds, you might need to start scheduling time for intimacy — or at least committing to once a week, by hook or by crook (which, bonus, could force you to get creative). “Ruts beget ruts,” says Kerner, noting that when you go without, your body actually becomes accustomed to lower and lower levels of testosterone. On the flipside, he says, couples (not just parents) who are intimate at least once a week report better relationships and quality of life overall. 

Postpone that argument

You know that fight you always have? Stop having it. Make a three-month plan for not solving problems, suggests couples therapist Sharyn Wolf, author of This Old Spouse: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Restoring, Renovating, and Rebuilding Your Relationship. The money fight, the recycling fight, whatever: you’ll have it on May 15, time TBA. Until then, not a word. “See what you’d be doing if you weren’t having that fight,” says Wolf. “Sometimes it uncovers something else that was really bothering you; sometimes it gives you so much energy you take on something new. And sometimes you realize maybe it wasn’t such a huge deal after all.” 

Use "we" when you fight — and in general

You’ve probably heard this one, but they just checked again and found that spouses who use pronouns like “we,” “our,” and “us” when describing points of disagreement are better able to resolve conflicts than those who use “I,” “me,” and “you.” (Note: no fair using the royal “We,” as in “We feel that you suck.”) 

Engage in "chore-play"

That’s Kerner’s term, and it’s a nod to the kabillion studies showing that husbands and wives who do more housework together have more sex. It has to do with cultivating teamwork, circumventing resentment, and, especially for type-As, the sense that you’ve earned the opp and created the space (perhaps literally) to get it on. “Researchers in the Netherlands found that the key to female arousal seems to be deep relaxation and a lack of anxiety,” says Kerner. (The key to deep relaxation and a lack of anxiety seems to be living in the Netherlands.) But don’t wait until the to-do list is done; that’s pretty much not going to happen. Acknowledge what isn’t done, make a plan for who’ll do it when, and then have at it. 

Warm Regard, Sara Pandian