5 Intimate Things to Try With Your Partner, Whether It's Been a Day or a Year

Whether it's the honeymoon stage or decades of marriage, it's never a bad idea for parents to spice up their intimacy. Try these five expert tips to enhance your sexual experiences.

1. Describe to each other your top three turn-ons. You may discover something new, possibly even something critical to your partner’s pleasure. —Sari Cooper
2. Touch each other in ways that aren’t sexual. Renowned relationship expert John Gottman, Ph.D., advises a 20-second hug and a six-second kiss every day. Communicating with your bodies is maybe more important than how you communicate verbally. —Dr. Emily Nagoski
3. Complete Dr. Gary Chapman’s 5 Love Languages test. It can help you learn how you and your partner prefer to express love to each other. Armed with this info, you might pick up on ways he’s been trying to show his affection that you’d missed in the day-to-day bustle. —Wendy Talley
4. Think about new ways to get each other in the mood. Rituals are something we do to create magical spaces in our minds, to indicate transition into a different state of being. What ritual can you practice that will shift you out of the mundane and into the erotic? It could be eating certain foods, wearing sexy clothes, taking a bath together, words you say to each other, lighting, turning off your phones, locking the door—anything that tells your brain that what’s going to happen next is joyful and pleasurable. —Dr. Nagoski
5. Take a moment to acknowledge: You’re trying, and it’s kind of messy, and it’s not perfect, but it’s OK. You still both care. That attitude is important. Above all, couples have to be resilient. —Dr. Daphne de Marneffe

A version of this article originally appeared in Parents magazine's June 2020 issue as “5 Things to Try With Your Partner, Whether It’s Been a Day or a Year.” Want more from the magazine? Sign up for a monthly print subscription here