Why Relationships Matter

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Watching TV together may feel comforting, but passive time rarely deepens intimacy.

Many couples lose the spark when logistical partnership replaces emotional connection.

Playfulness, exploration, curiosity, and shared purpose rebuild attraction and balance intimacy.

I have heard many couples in long-term marriages report, "It feels like the spark is gone." They are describing a gradual drift toward predictability and emotional flatness. Somewhere in the daily grind, lovers become logistical partners who co-exist. As schedules, finances, home maintenance, work stress, and parenting consume conversations, the relationship's vitality suffers.

The stakes are higher than most couples realize. While overall divorce rates have declined in recent years, gray divorce (the dissolution of marriages among adults over 50) now accounts for nearly 40 percent of divorces in the United States (Brown et al., 2024). Usually, these are couples who have built a life together, raised children, and weathered hard seasons. Yet at some point, they stopped enjoying each other.

In my work with couples, one of the first questions I ask is what they enjoy doing together on a regular basis. Lately, I hear the same answer: "We pretty much watch TV every night."

When most people hear the word intimacy, they think of sex. But intimacy is also a felt sense of closeness, with sexual intimacy being one expression of that closeness.

I like to describe intimacy as a wheel with multiple spokes: physical intimacy, playful intimacy, contemplative intimacy, curious intimacy, and purpose-filled intimacy. Each spoke represents a different pathway of connection. When one spoke is weak, the relationship may still move forward, but not smoothly. When several........

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