Bringing back the buzz

Once the honeymoon’s over and you settle into the humdrum pattern of everyday life, it’s easy to get bored. Sex might go from something you do because you can’t keep your hands off each other to free entertainment on a Friday night because there’s nothing on TV.

Most of us assume the sex we enjoy in the first heady days of a relationship is the best we can expect, and it’s all down hill from there. But here’s the good news. It can get better over time rather than worse, and it’s easy to put the freshness back. In fact, if you’ve been together for some time, it can even become more exciting and adventurous than early-days sex.

The one big advantage an established couple has over a new one is the increased level of trust. This makes it more comfortable to ask for something different and new that might be embarrassing with a relative stranger.

To keep things exciting, you’ll have to go out of your way to make romantic gestures and suggest new approaches, but it’s worth it. You can put fire and excitement into an established relationship far more easily than you can put trust into a new one.

The hardest part about having children is the sheer wealth of time, emotion and energy you invest in them. Don’t doubt for an instant that your children are worth it, but there is a new type of stress that your relationship will undergo as you transform from couple to parents. Parents lose sleep, parents are always busy, and there is always something for parents to be doing. Parents rarely get to sleep in and in some cases, rarely get to go out anymore.