Every long-term relationship has a turning point. But there’s something almost imperceptible about the way affection fades in long-term relationships. It drifts away, unnoticed at first, until one day you realize you can’t remember the last time you reached for your lover’s hands, or the playfulness that now requires effort. You can’t even remember the last time you flirted with each other, or the last time you felt like lovers.

Affection also slips away in the missed opportunities and silent resignation that maybe this is just how things go. But what if it doesn’t have to? The assumption that love will maintain itself without maintenance isn’t helping.But as relationship researchers Dr. John Gottman and Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman (who have spent decades studying what makes relationships work), point out in his book Eight Dates, that playfulness is not optional and neither is affection “extra” in relationship. Desire cannot sustain itself—it’s vital, as vital as commitment, trust, and shared values. It’s what makes love feel alive rather than just something you maintain out of duty.

Yet, in so many relationships, playfulness is the first thing to go. Life gets busy. Stress pile up. Conversations become transactional. The inside jokes stop. The affectionate texts fade. The long, drawn-out kisses become quick pecks, and even that may feel forced. And maybe, without even realizing it, you and your partner have stopped being two people who delight in each other’s company and have become two people who simply co-exist.

Fights Come and Go, But Indifference Leaves Nothing to Come Back to

Ask anyone who’s been through a separation and they’ll likely say it wasn’t one major incident or a single event that broke them. It was the absence of warmth, or weeks of emotional distance that turned into months, then years. A relationship can survive a fight. What it can’t survive is indifference.

So, how do you hold onto intimacy so you don’t wake up one day feeling like strangers under the same roof?

1. Ask the Questions You’re Afraid to Ask and Talk About What Actually Matters

The hardest conversations are often the ones we need to tackle. We assume we know what our partner needs, but do we?

Have you asked them lately:

What does romance mean to you now, compared to when we first met?

What makes you feel loved and desired?

These questions might feel unnecessary if you’ve been together a long time, but that’s exactly when they become most important. Relationships change, and so do the people in them. What made your partner feel loved five years ago might not be what they need today. And if you’re not checking in, you might not realize your partner feels more like a roommate than a romantic partner.

Another big one that rarely gets asked is asking what sexual fulfillment looks like for them.

People avoid this question for all sorts of reasons: fear, shame, the worry that the answer will make them feel inadequate. But silence doesn’t prevent problems, it creates them. If there’s distance growing between you, avoidance will only make it wider.

2. Find What’s Standing in the Way of Fun

Life is full of stressors—work, finances, kids, mental health struggles, exhaustion—life happens, and it’s okay. Sometimes, it’s not that you don’t want to be affectionate, it’s that you’re too drained to even think about it. But ignoring this doesn’t make it go away. Instead of brushing past it, acknowledge it. What’s killing the playfulness? What’s making affection feel like an obligation rather than something natural?

Yes work might be draining every last ounce of your energy, but what if one of you feels like the other has checked out emotionally. What if there are years of small disappointments that have hardened into distance.

Sometimes when people feel disconnected, they often don’t fight about the real issue. Instead, they argue about who forgot to take the trash out. Who spent too much money. Who isn’t pulling their weight with the kids. But underneath it all, the real problem is something much deeper:

Do I feel valued? Do I feel chosen? Do I feel wanted?

You can’t fix what you don’t acknowledge.

Even if you’re in a tough season—maybe with a newborn, a demanding job, or personal struggles, you can still recognize the impact it has on your relationship. Affection doesn’t have to disappear entirely, but it does need to adapt.

3. Make The Time (When You Can)

We don’t lose affection because we stop loving each other. We lose it because we stop prioritizing it.

There’s a scene in When Harry Met Sally where Billy Crystal’s character talks about the moment you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with someone: “You want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.” But what happens when you’re ten, fifteen years in and the urgency has faded?

Start being intentional.

If things aren’t completely broken, there’s always a way to bring back the fun. Schedule a date, even if it feels forced at first.

We schedule meetings, we schedule workouts—why not schedule fun? Not because spontaneity is dead, but because prioritizing connection is just as important as anything else in life. Plan a night where you go out of your way to make each other feel special. Leave a note in their bag, send a text just to say you’re thinking of them, laugh at an inside joke.

Sometimes, the most powerful thing you can do is simply show up. And if you want to really surprise your partner? Show affection without an agenda.

Surprise them with something small; an unexpected compliment, a note left on the bathroom mirror, give them a touch that lingers a little longer than usual, kiss them and hold them with no expectation. If intimacy already feel transactional—like affection only comes when sex is on the table—it’s time to reset.

They might assume you’ve done something wrong and you’re buttering them up for an apology. But imagine how good it feels when they realize… nope, you’re being sweet.

4. What If It Feels Exhausting or Too Late? (It Might be Time to Address Deeper Issues)

All of this might sound nice in theory, but in practice? Not so much. If the idea of having fun with your partner feels absurd or if resentment has built up so much that you can’t even imagine flirting with them, that’s not something you fix with a date night. That’s something you fix with honesty. And maybe, with help, whether that’s through couples therapy or an honest, no-holding-back talk about what’s been lost.

It’s up to you to recognize that something is broken but still worth fixing. But if you’re still here—if you still care—then this is the reminder you might have needed: The best relationships aren’t the ones that never struggle. They’re the ones where both people choose, over and over again, to keep showing up. To reach for each other, even when life is exhausting. Because love doesn’t just die. We let it.