Here are 10 tips to bring back the passion in your marriage:

1. Change your pattern of initiating sex 🏁🔞🔥

Maybe you are denying your partner or coming on too strong. Avoid criticizing each other and stop the “blame game.” Mix things up to end the power struggle. For example, distancers may want to practice initiating sex more often and pursuers try to find ways to tell their partner “you’re sexy,” in subtle ways while avoiding critique and demands for closeness.

2. Hold hands more often👐🏼

According to author Dr. Kory Floyd, holding hands hugging, and touching can release oxytocin causing a calming sensation. Studies show it’s also released during sexual orgasm. Additionally, physical affection reduces stress hormones – lowering daily levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

3. Allow tension to build 📈🔥

Our brains experience more pleasure when the anticipation of the reward goes on for some time before we receive it. So take your time during foreplay, share fantasies, change locations, and make sex more romantic.

4. Separate sexual intimacy from routine 🔞❌🧹

Plan intimacy time and avoid talking about relationship problems and household chores in the bedroom. Sexual arousal plummets when we’re distracted and stressed.

5. Carve out time to spend with your partner 🕯🥂❤️

Try a variety of activities that bring you both pleasure. Have fun courting and practice flirting as a way to ignite sexual desire and intimacy. Dr. Gottman says that “everything positive you do in your relationship is foreplay.”

6. Focus on affectionate touch 👁🙌🏼❤️

Offer to give your partner a back or shoulder rub. People associate foreplay with sexual intercourse, but affectionate touch is a powerful way to demonstrate and rekindle passion even if you are not a touchy-feely person.

7. Practice being more emotionally vulnerable during sex🔞🍓

Share your innermost wishes, fantasies, and desires with your partner. If you fear emotional intimacy, consider engaging in individual or couple’s therapy.

8. Maintain a sense of curiosity about sexual intimacy 🔞❓

Experiment with new ways to bring pleasure to each other. Look at sex as an opportunity to get to know your partner better over time.

9. Vary the kind of sex you have🆎🔥🔞

Have gentle, loving-tender, intimate, and highly erotic sex. Break up the routine and try new things as sexual needs change.

10. Make sex a priority 🔞🥇❗️

Set the mood for intimacy before TV or work dulls your passion. A light meal along with your favorite music and wine can set the stage for great sex.
Even if you are not a touchy-feely person, increasing physical affection and emotional attunement can help you to sustain a deep, meaningful bond.
The good news is that allowing your partner to influence you can reignite the spark you once enjoyed. In fact, Dr. Gottman reminds us that friendship is the glue that can hold a marriage together:
“Couples who know each other intimately [and] are well versed in each other’s likes, dislikes, personality quirks, hopes, and dreams are couples who make it.”

Learn how to rekindle your sex life with the Gottman Relationship Coach program. Enriching your sex life
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