Is anyone’s marriage still “hot” after years of marriage? What is your secret?

[Lavare]

I divorced my first husband because we ended up becoming nothing more than roommates.

Just about to marry again at 32 and can’t say I’m not not fearful of history repeating itself.

Beyond making sure intimacy is regular. How can you maintain that flirty/hot energy. I know all relationships transition out of that passionate phase. But I definitely know some people who keep things a bit more spicy than most. If this is you. What is your secret? Any advice on keeping that chemistry?

There are a number of things you can do to keep the marriage "spicy" but depends on what you mean. The most important thing is open communication and making sure you take quality time together esp if/when you have kids. be open to listening to each other, don't judge esp in relation to fantasies and always be clear about what you need. Don't expect others to be mind readers.

Sex itself is an extension of a relationship and you can't keep it healthy without keeping the rest of the relationship healthy.

As for my best advice marry someone who doesn't make you feel like a roommate even when the intimacy is gone. A marriage isn't roommate plus sex/intimacy its two people building a life together and facing lifes challenges together always making the other person's life better.

Someone shouldn't feel like a roommate cos the intimacy is gone and you can still have a loving and wonderful relationship when those ebbs and flows happen and they will happen no matter what you do so you gotta keep working on it and loving each other through it. And don't expect it to always be hot and spicy cos we are all human and it should be a good, happy and healthy relationship when its not

I've ended up in the roommates situation with every relationship I've ever had included my DH. I feel awful because I just lose interest in intimacy, I've wondered whether it's a medical thing but the interest is there with someone new then just vanishes after a while. It's clearly a me problem but I don't know how to change it. I know no relationship stays like the early days but it does worry me. My dh is amazing and we're a real team, I think that's crucial. The post above is excellent!

From what I've read on here, not having children probably helps.

Otherwise, does it matter if it fizzles out at some point? You can move on, there are no prizes for slogging on to your deathbed for the sake of it.

After 25 years, I’ve found that there are peaks and troughs. When you’re caught up with work and family commitments, for example, it’s easy to forget to make time for each other. So you have to keep making an effort, suggest doing things together (not just sex, going out and having fun) and make sure that you’re not just talking about life’s mundanities.

Keep making the effort to be interesting to each other is what I’m saying, don’t save all your effort for other people.

Don’t have any kids

A marriage isn't roommate plus sex/intimacy its two people building a life together and facing lifes challenges together always making the other person's life better.

This is perfect @Bells3032

I wouldn't say spicy/hot because that sounds tiring, but I've been with my husband for 20 years and we like and love each other and have zero issues.

We are childfree. Life is peaceful and enjoyable.

We’ve been together 16 years (married for 10)
2 kids, 10 & under.
We share the same values and parenting styles. We never argue, disagree but never argue. We are good at communicating our issues.

We’re 50/50 with house work despite me working part time and him full - I do more childcare though.
We always find time for ourselves together, as a family or with friends.
When we have sex (twice a week) we give and take. He’s not selfish and I’m not either.

I’d say we hold love and respect for one another and I still get excited to see him every day.

I’m the same to be honest.

Two kids here and my marriage is still hot. I fancy the pants off him so that helps lol. We always make time for each other, love and respect each other. Not saying there isn’t ups and downs but it’s getting through all the hardships together and remembering why we fell in love in the first place.

17 years together, generally the more often we do it the spicer it is and the more we want it. During more difficult patches with kids and work it can be more difficult to maintain, but then we make an effort to reconnect and the passion it creates fuels good intimacy for the next lot of months.

Also the same here. Very glad to learn I’m not the only one!

This with bells on.
Communication, watching each other's back and never taking each other for granted.

I’m 36 and have been married for nearly 13 years, we got together 20 years ago.
My husband and I still try to have sex regularly (my current health is kind of putting a potato in that particular tailpipe) and he’s still the sexiest person ever.
We genuinely love each other and I cannot imagine anyone better than him to spend my life with forever. Little touches though the day, stupid little WhatsApp’s (random strings of emojis or whatever). When we are in the same room, it’s often little random ass grabs, he might kiss my neck or hold my hips, I cuddle into him, I might flash him some boob or butt. Just little things that make us laugh. Even when the kids are home we make a point of saying “I love you” at the end of every interaction, and every day we deliberately take 5 mins to have a kiss and a cuddle.
It doesn’t work for everyone, but he is my rock, and I am his girl. That’s just how it works for us.

An older friend gave me good advice - make sure you marry someone you want to be your best friend, to snuggle up with on the sofa, make you smile because the “hot bedroom action” will diminish, health often gets in the way and you need to be still getting that flutter even if you can’t be hot

Over 15 years together and two children and step children and we still fancy each other like mad. We are always intimate and cuddle/hold hands etc. I often sit on his lap and display our affection for each other openly. I do anything I can for him and vice versa. We are a team and adore being together .

This.

Sex dwindles in a relationship when it becomes another chore, to be squeezed in with the washing and changing nappies. If you just treat each other like housemates then yes you will eventually lose all desire for each other.

You need to keep enjoying each others company. Non sexual contact and making each other laugh etc. is more important, the sex happens when you still fancy each other, so you need to keep doing the stuff that made you fancy each other in the first place, kissing, touching, silly jokes etc.

Sometimes it takes a lot of effort, especially when life is tough. You need time for simply cuddling and chatting, but when life is busy that can be something that gets sacrificed.

I've been with my husband for 17 years and we have a 3yo and a 6mo and are very flirty etc and have sex regularly. It's all about the wider relationship - we have genuine respect, care and thoughtfulness towards each other, and we're best friends and have a laugh together.

A big one as well is that other touch comes without expectation. Having a cuddle, holding hands, even flirty touching and flirty comments throughout the day, it doesn't come with pressure that it means it'll go any further, it's just fun. But it keeps the closeness and the playfulness there

This sounds like a journo post looking for content inspo tbh

40 years together, in our 60's. I wouldn't say it's hot but it is deeply warm.

Menopause obliterated my libido, but we could talk about it, and sometimes laugh about it. And he was never, ever huffy about a sex drought.

Shared laughter is the thing that keeps our relationship out of the 'housemate' zone. Being able to laugh at ourselves, being able to poke very gentle fun at each other, being able to see how the small disasters of life are due to our own shortcomings (the broken car in the middle of a country when neither of us had a clue what was wrong, nor spoke the language - and the broken car meant we couldn't charge our phones to use some kind of google translate).

Deliberate acts of love. I mean the non-sexual things that show that you take notice, you've heard and you act - buying a pot of his favourite marmalade; not picking up my phone if we're watching tv (a particular bugbear of his); booking tickets for a gig because I know he liked the band; finding little ways to surprise and delight each other; finding new things to do together (we tried pickleball recently!)...

This will probably sound shallow and awful, but my wife and I (60) are pretty much the same size as when were married 35 years ago. Some of our bodyparts aren't as firm as they were, but we both still wear the same sized clothes as we did, and still fancy the pants off each other (one daughter, 30). Look after yourself and the sexual attraction will still be there.

I mean, I think there are peaks and troughs like another poster said, but we’ve been together over 20 years and still have a ‘spark’. I have always fancied my dh a lot so a strong attraction helps and we’ve never let our sex life go off the boil. That’s not to say we’re at it all the time, but it’s been pretty consistent and if for any reason it’s not, we talk about it, we don’t bury our heads in the sand. The other thing we do is plan when we will have sex, we’ll literally say ‘when do you want to have sex?’ Or ‘shall we have sex tonight?’ it sounds very unromantic and not at all spontaneous, but it works for us and keeps our sex life regular. We can change our minds, but if we do we always reschedule. We’ve been scheduling sex from before having children too, but it was definitely needed more post children!

Personally, it’s done a circle for us. Lots of sex in the early days, tailed off when we had young children. Life felt tough, he pulled his weight, but there wasn’t energy for sex when we got to bed. Our relationship felt like teammates for a time- passing ships in the night and tag teaming childcare. We did argue (still do occasionally) and have definitely had our ups and downs. But we’ve been together since I was 17, I’d never be without him.

As the children have gotten older we are finding our feet again in our 40’s. My parents are amazing, we get regular weekends away together these days and our sexlife (although not as often as we’d like) is great. We understand and trust each other implicitly. It’s not all hearts and roses- sometimes it’s all out ferocious fire! But I’d say hold on through the rough bits, it might just come bloody fantastic at the other side. I feel incredibly proud and lucky in my imperfectly perfect marriage.

Hug, hug, hug. Hold hands sitting on the sofa together. Reminisce about your romance and your love. If you disagree or argue, sorry isn’t a taboo word. Make love often and have sex often too!!! Remember that one day your partner may not be there to say “I love you” to, so say it often and mean it.

This is us exactly, over 30 years together. I think the thing is no relationship stays the same for that long, there are ups and downs and feelings do fluctuate especially if you have challenges but we always maintained a very regular sex life which I do think helps to get you though rough times. There have definitely been times when it’s felt more like a task but it’s a bit like exercise, if you stick at it during the tough times motivation returns eventually. When we were younger sex was more spontaneous and I found it quite a pressure to be in the mood when he was but these days it’s rarely spontaneous which I think has helped me enormously and I enjoy it more than ever. I adore him more and more as we get older and he has become softer and more demonstrative because we’ve seen vulnerability in each other and we have held each other up. But, it takes effort, sometimes a lot of effort. Our relationship is 30 years in the making. I think you have to expect your relationship to change and perhaps that’s the key.