There may come a point in your life where it’s necessary to learn how to rekindle the love in your relationship. Perhaps you sit, night after night, at the dinner table wondering when champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries turned into water and dry, crusty bread. It’s easy to think: “What’s wrong with me?” at this point, and spend hours poring over every little detail of your relationship. While a little self-analyzing is healthy, women tend to take it too far and can end up missing out on the opportunity to rekindle the love in their lives. Consider this your opportunity.

How Does Love Work?

There are different stages that humans go through in love and relationships. What you need to remember is that it’s perfectly normal for the nervous flutters in your stomach to fade after a while. This doesn’t mean that you’re no longer in love. Neither does it necessarily mean that there’s something wrong with either one of you. Healthy love, like a healthy body or a flourishing plant, needs certain nutrients in order to keep growing. The difference between love that dies, and love that lasts, is in the small things.

Five Tips For Rekindling Love

1. Make time for one-on-one connections with no distractions. These don’t need to be lengthy, in-depth, two-hour soul-bearing conversations. They need to be five, ten, or fifteen minute moments throughout the day where you chat or show small tokens of affection. For some couples this means engaging in pillow talk, for others, it’s reminiscing about their early courtship days over ice cream. The point is to simply take time to enjoy being in each other’s presence, without the TV blaring or cell phone ringing.
2. Make time for sex. Sex is a vitally important part of every healthy, long-term relationship. Schedule some time during the week for a bedroom romp. If you’re afraid that “scheduling” time will take all the fun out of it, then think of some interesting ways to remind each other of your upcoming date with the sheets. Give your partner a particularly slow, sexy kiss every morning leading up to the day. Follow it up with a wink, and a short whisper about it being just a preview of events to follow. Infusing fun into pre-planned sex will go a long way towards rekindling your love.
3. Ask for what you want. We women are absolutely legendary when it comes to keeping our desires quiet and our partners guessing. Your partner cannot read your mind, even if you’ve been together for twenty-years. State specific desires, and when they’re carried out, show your gratitude. Let your partner know how much it meant to you to receive those flowers, the hour massage, or the extra cuddling. When they feel good about making you happy, they’ll be more likely to continue consenting to your requests.
4. Listen to your partner. Really, honestly, take the time to listen to what they’re saying, without taking it personally or automatically preparing what you’ll say in response. Give your partner the space to be wrong, silly, right, angry, doubtful, or what-have-you.
5. Lastly, get to the bottom of any problems there might be in your relationship. Address the little cracks beneath the surface before they become un-crossable canyons. Just as a garden requires consistent weeding, a relationship needs consistent problem-solving.

It is entirely possible to rekindle love in any relationship when both parties are willing to work towards it. With these five tips you will be well on your way to growing, and re-experiencing the love that brought you together in the first place.