Break with routine: breathing life into your relationship if you are bored.

Above all

respectfully accept that you are both different.

You are unlikely to ever feel, think, communicate, love in the same way, because you are genetically, biologically and psychologically different.

Break with routine

breathing life into your relationship if you are bored

Listen to the music

that you each enjoyed when you first met. Read the letters you sent to each other (if you had any at all and have kept them!). Wear the aftershave/perfume you wore when you first met - your brain will do the rest!

Be cunning and plot ahead!

If you have children, forget about sex being spontaneous.

Consult your GP and/or a psychosexual therapist,

if you feel 'dead from the waist down' or if you are struggling with any other sexual problem - regardless of your age.

Decide to do something completely out of the ordinary together.

If you both like the cinema - go to a theatre performance instead. If you like opera, go to a football match. If you like watching videos, go for a six-mile hike. If you normally go to a football match, go to a tennis match instead. Life can become ever so serious when you have bills to pay and a job to do and you may have little control over that.

Stop 'rehearsing' what you dislike about your partner,

you routinely make yourself more miserable. Decide that you are going to remind yourself of your partner's best qualities.

Put a big cross in your diary

at least for one evening a fortnight and ensure that you keep that evening for the two of you. A relationship is like a plant - if you don't feed and water it, it is going to die!

You each need a hobby,

time for yourself and your own set of friends, as well as sharing leisure time. Take up a new hobby, investigate what your local Adult Education Centre has to offer. There is no need to feel threatened if you spend enough time together and all is well between the two of you. It is unrealistic to expect your partner to meet all your needs.

All of these activities can help to put 'credit' into your relationship's account', so do the ordinary things you do for and with one another in every day life: shopping together, showing an interest in each other's daily experiences, comforting, etc. You can deal with a big 'bill' - adverse event(s) - much better if you have enough credit in your account. Time to change the routine!

Have the children stay elsewhere for the night.

Cook a three-course meal for your partner (or buy ready made stuff and pretend!). Dress up for the occasion - get changed in different rooms to add to the surprise.

Plan ahead.

Spend at least a couple of weekends a year together away from the children. It does not have to be expensive: visit family, go camping (particularly if you normally spend your time in hotels), hire a bicycle, or the other way around - save up and go luxurious, if only for one night

Take the television out of your bedroom.

A bedroom is for sleeping. Make love, just be tender, or listen to music or a spoken book together instead of watching television.

Organise a surprise

picnic at six in the morning to see to sun come up and listen to the morning chorus of the birds, or picnic at midnight and watch the stars.

Brainstorm together,

write down any idea to change your regular pattern you can think of, however silly it might initially seem. Sift later and plan for the best.