Being in a relationship and being in a healthy relationship are poles apart. A study that followed married couples into their eighties found that the quality of their bond, not money, luxury, or grand gestures, predicted how happy and healthy they would be (Waldinger & Schulz, 2010). To put it together, how partners act towards each other in day-to-day life is more important than just getting along. The Self-Expansion theory helps to explain why so many relationships are exciting at first, but that doesn’t mean that people love each other less at that point. (Aron, Norman, McKenna & Heyman, 2000).
As a relationship grows, the “all new” feeling fades, and everything starts to feel normal, which is when many people believe it’s failing and say “we lost our spark”, but that’s just the newness wearing off. Keeping the spark alive isn’t about trying harder at love. It means deliberately creating activities that make you feel close with little effort.
Relationship science shows ways to keep closeness: how you talk to your partner, especially in stressful times (Gottman & Levenson,1992). How they plan their days and find new shared experiences (Aron et al., 2000), and how playful they are in everyday little moments (Proyer, Brauer, Wolf & Chick, 2019). How they take responsibility for their actions and meet each other’s emotional needs (Reis & Saver, 1988), and how well they work together as a team.
Read More: 14 signs you are in a Healthy Relationship, According to Psychologists
5 Fun Games
Learning can become more interesting and interactive when games are included in the process. Here are five simple games that can make the learning experience more engaging and enjoyable
1. The 36 question game
Partners take turns asking each other a series of playful-to-deep questions, building mutual vulnerability. Effective communication in a relationship leads to the person feeling cared for, understood and validated by their partners (Reis & Shaver, 1988). The 36 Question Game is a little question-and-answer game you can play with your partner wherein you can take turns asking each other the most mind-boggling questions ever! From as small as “Would you still like me if I turned into a worm?” to the deep questions like “What is your most terrible memory?” Aron and his co-researchers found that this particular back-to-back question-and-answer game could create real closeness between partners or people because it creates mutual vulnerability. In roughly 45 minutes, it works better than an ordinary chit-chat session Aron, Melinat, Aron, Vallone & Bator, 1997)
2. A Nostalgic Date
Couples relive a memory by dressing the same, revisiting the same places or food, and talking through what they felt, bringing the butterflies back to life. A day planned out for you and your partner to revisit the beautiful memories spent together. Dress up the same way you did that particular day, if possible, even visit the same places you did, and have the same food. Talk about exactly how nervous or happy you were. You could also look through old photos, retelling “Our first Date” or favourite trips.
This activity is really the very approach Light’s team took to raise oxytocin. Couples were told to talk together about a happy memory before hugging or holding hands, just so they could “recreate” the sense of closeness they felt in that earlier moment. (Light et al., 2005) Couples who engaged in novel, slightly risky activities and shared experiences together reported significantly greater increases in relationship satisfaction than those who participated in pleasant, everyday activities (Aron, Norman, Aron, McKenna, & Heyman, 2000).
Read More: What is the secret of Relationship Satisfaction?
3. Tease & Please
Couples set aside a “teasing zone” of harmless jokes and inside jokes that stays loving rather than critical. A playful activity couples can add: Tease and please, plan a day in a week wherein you have a teasing zone, making harmless jokes the sort that makes light fun of each other without turning hurtful along with keeping their inside jokes going. The important limit is that it stays loving instead of critical; the point is laughing together, not a joke that lands badly.
Being playful, especially the kind that is aimed at your partner and includes gentle teasing, is often tied to happier relationships, and it also seems to boost sexual satisfaction (Brauer, Sendatzki, Scherrer, Chick, & Proyer, 2021). It’s not simply about having fun together in a broad way; teasing and private jokes in particular give couples a low-risk way to talk, ease tension, and create a shared identity that others are not part of (Proyer, 2017)
4. Small Things Said Out Loud
Partners set a regular time to share what’s been bothering them, big or small, without blame, so both feel heard, and small frustrations don’t pile up into bigger conflicts. Intimacy grows in a repeating cycle: one partner reveals something vulnerable, the other replies with understanding, validation, and care (Reis & Shaver, 1988; Laurenceau, Barrett, & Pietromonaco, 1998). Set a time each week or month when partners sit down and share whatever’s been bothering them, big or small: from “you slept on my side of the bed” to “the night after our fight, I cried myself to sleep.” The rule is simple: nothing is too small to mention, and nothing is said to assign blame.
The goal isn’t about winning but to ensure both people feel heard. This is much like the “State of the Union” meeting, a weekly structured talk from researchers John and Julie Gottman, based on decades of studying what sets thriving couples apart from struggling ones. The key idea: partners can’t solve a problem until each feels truly understood; when one can say “Yes, that’s exactly how I feel; you get it,” real problem-solving becomes possible instead of defensive back-and-forth. A regular time to air small frustrations before they build up isn’t about ending conflict; it’s about stopping conflict from quietly piling up until it becomes too big(Gottman & Gottman, n.d.).
5. Out of the Ordinary
Partners try something new and exciting together, like a class, a hike, or a new city, to experience the novelty. Couples can create new shared experiences with each other, whether it be signing up for a class, going hiking, exploring a new city, trying a sport, or even doing a fun lab challenge. It doesn’t matter what the activity is necessarily; what’s important is that it’s new and exciting. Based on the self-expansion theory, couples who participated in novel and exciting activities together reported being much happier with their relationship compared to couples who did more familiar pleasant activities together. The thrill and excitement generated by the new experience ends up being psychologically attributed to the relationship itself, rather than to the activity alone (Aron, Norman, Aron, McKenna, & Heyman, 2000).
How Couples Can Adjust These Activities
The psychological mechanism behind each one stays fixed, but its form should not. None of the research behind these five activities says “do exactly this.” It shows why something works, and couples must find their own version of that mechanism, not copy the study’s exact activity. Reis and Shaver’s intimacy model focuses on how an interaction makes an individual feel intimate rather than on what it actually is.
For A to feel close to B, they need to view their responses as understanding, validating, and caring. Their view will be formed by their own history, expectations, and personalities (Reis & Shaver, 1988). Thus, the same behaviour can mean different things to different people. For example, asking a question, joking, or hugging may feel like affection to one partner. However, the same action can feel like an invasion of privacy to another. Therefore, there is no universally correct or incorrect form of intimacy. Instead, what matters is finding the ways that help each person feel close to their partner.
Read More: “Who Do You Love More?” Why Comparison Complicates Relationships
Conclusion
Lasting bonds between people do not come from big, dramatic acts of love. Instead, they grow out of small choices that you make again and again. For example, you can tell each other something honest and true. You can also try a new activity side by side. Similarly, you can joke around in a light and playful way. Finally, you can say out loud when you notice something good happening.
When you look at the psychology behind these activities, they all point to one simple truth. In other words, the bond between two people grows stronger when each partner keeps showing up for the other. Most importantly, they do it in ways the other person can truly feel and receive. These activities aren’t fixed or work for everyone. What matters most is that both people are willing to change. Moreover, they need to keep adjusting together. In the end, it is about picking one another as partners, over and over, without stopping.
References +
- Brauer, K., Sendatzki, R., Scherrer, T., Chick, G., & Proyer, R. T. (2021). Revisiting Adult Playfulness and Relationship Satisfaction: APIM Analyses of Middle-Aged and Older Couples. International Journal of Applied Positive Psychology, 8(S2), 227–255. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41042-021-00058-8
- Cortes, K., Britton, E., Holmes, J. G., & Scholer, A. A. (2020). Our adventures make me feel secure: Novel activities boost relationship satisfaction through felt security. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 89, 103992. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2020.103992
- Larsen, N. B., & Barton, A. W. (2025). How do couple relationship interventions improve individual well-being? The role of relationship confidence. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 52(1), e70104. https://doi.org/10.1111/jmft.70104
- Johnson, M. D., Lavner, J. A., Mund, M., Zemp, M., Stanley, S. M., Neyer, F. J., Impett, E. A., Rhoades, G. K., Bodenmann, G., Weidmann, R., Bühler, J. L., Burriss, R. P., Wünsche, J., & Grob, A. (2021). Within-Couple Associations Between Communication and Relationship Satisfaction Over Time. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 48(4), 014616722110169. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672211016920
- De Netto, P. M., Quek, K. F., & Golden, K. J. (2021). Communication, the Heart of a Relationship: Examining Capitalisation, Accommodation, and Self-Construal on Relationship Satisfaction. Frontiers in Psychology, 12(12). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.767908
- Tartakovsky, E. (2023). The psychology of romantic relationships: motivations and mate preferences. In Frontiers in Psychology (Vol. 14, p. 1273607). PubMed Central. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1273607
- Reis, H. T., & Shaver, P. (2018). Intimacy as an Interpersonal Process. Relationships, Well-Being and Behaviour, 113–143. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203732496-5
