Tending the homefires

Instead of panicking at the first signs that passion's lost its edge, long-term couples must trust that with time and perhaps a little effort, their physical relationship can improve. 'If there's something negative going on in the relationship it will be reflected in a couple's intimacy,' remarks Alperen. 'Some couples think their problem is sex, but usually it's something else: either poor communication, or perhaps a lack of trust, or one partner wanting to dominate the other. They have to be committed to working on the problem instead of fleeing at the first sign of trouble.'

This willingness to tackle difficulties is what saved Jaye Teplow's marriage to her husband Darius. 'There was one point during our marriage when the spark completely went out of our sex life,' says Jaye. 'I was too involved in a family crisis, Darius was working all the time and had stopped confiding in me and sharing those day-to-day details. In terms of sex, our relationship felt dead.'

Instead of letting the problem drift until it was too late, Jaye says that she and Darius made an effort to begin communicating more, and over time their sex life improved. 'It's always going up and down,' says Jaye. 'One year, we'll both have other things on our minds. But the next year we'll rediscover each other erotically. And if one of us is unhappy, we talk about it.'

Alperen agrees with this strategy: 'Most married people argue at some point about sex or money. The best solution to talk about issues as they arise, instead of clamming up and allowing them to fester.'

While most psychotherapists would prescribe the talking cure, some couples prefer the giggling one. 'It sounds corny, but we laugh a lot, says Kristin Berneys, a 37-year-old fashion stylist who has been with Fred, a sports marketing director, for nearly a decade. 'Sometimes our relationship is heaven, sometimes it's crap. But even if the world was falling apart, Fred would have me in stitches. If we didn't laugh so much, we'd probably have killed each other long ago.'