How to Get the Spark Back: The 5 Things Our Editors Actually Recommend
Desire does not come back on its own, and it does not come back from a date night in a restaurant. These five things do the actual work — starting with the one most guides will not print.
Everybody knows the phrase “get the spark back”, and almost nobody says what it means. It does not mean a weekend away. It does not mean underwear that will be worn once. It means rebuilding the conditions in which desire turns up at all: rest, touch, conversation, and a bit of practical help. Those are unglamorous, which is precisely why most lists skip them.
So this list is short, and deliberately practical. Our editors spent the year looking at what is actually sold to couples in this position, and most of it is either a novelty or a lecture. Five things survived. Each was chosen by an editor who would have it in her own house, each price was checked against the retailer on the day we published, and each comes with the reason it earned its place.
1. The one most guides will not print
Let us begin where the other lists stop. Somewhere after forty-five, sleep gets lighter, stress settles deeper into the body, and arousal takes longer and wants more help arriving. None of that is a character flaw and none of it is permanent. It also does not respond to a scented candle. A well-made massager is the most direct help available, and the good ones no longer look as though they came from a novelty shop.
Aura Intimate Massager
- Four sensations in one: gentle warmth, orbital massage, air pulses and vibration
- More than twenty programs, and quiet enough to stay entirely between the two of you
- Soft body-safe silicone, a giftable box and a one-year guarantee
“It looks like something from a skincare counter rather than a novelty shop, and that is the whole point. It can sit on the nightstand without anybody being embarrassed.”
Everything else on this list improves the conditions around desire. This is the only one that does something about arousal directly, which is why it leads. After forty-five, arousal takes longer and wants more help arriving; warmth and steady pressure supply both. Aura is the one we would buy: quiet, beautifully finished, warm to the touch, and designed so that using it feels as ordinary as using a good night cream.
2. The one with the research behind it
Almost everything written about sex in a long relationship is somebody’s opinion, confidently expressed. The exception is the Gottmans, who have been recording real couples in a real laboratory since the mid-eighties and publishing what they found. Their program on sex is the rare thing in this category: instruction, from people with evidence.
Gottman Relationship Coach: Enriching Your Sex Life
- A self-paced video and exercise program led by Drs John and Julie Gottman themselves
- Modules on the secrets of good sex, building an erotic love map, sensuality and sexual safety
- Works alone or together, and can be paired with a therapist through the Gottman Referral Network
“Most advice about sex in a long marriage is one person’s opinion with a book deal attached. This is instruction from people who have spent forty years watching real couples in a laboratory.”
The Gottmans opened their Love Lab at the University of Washington in 1986 and have run seven longitudinal studies since, which makes them the rare voice in this field with data rather than anecdote. This is their program on sex specifically, and it is practical rather than inspirational: what to say, what to ask, how to build the safety that has to exist before anything else does. At $39 it costs less than a single hour with a therapist.
Desire is not a mood you wait for. It is a set of conditions you build.
3. The one that starts the conversation
The hardest part is never the conversation. It is being the person who begins it. Nobody wants to be the one who says, over the washing-up, that they have noticed. A box of questions does the beginning for you, which turns out to be the whole job.
Intimacy Deck
- 170 questions across seven themes, from the easy ones to the ones you have been avoiding
- Printed on 350gsm matte card, in a box small enough for a bedside drawer
- Includes a sealed envelope of Reflect and Connect cards to open once you have worked through the rest
“Handing over a card is easier than raising the subject, and raising the subject is the whole obstacle. Nobody has to be the one who started it.”
Couples who have drifted almost never lack affection. They lack a way in. Asking whether everything is all right in bed, over the washing-up, has never once worked, and a deck of questions removes the need for anybody to go first. This one is well made and sensibly sequenced, and at $27 it is the cheapest thing here with a real chance of changing the temperature of an evening.
4. The one that changes the room
You cannot rebuild intimacy in a room that has become a dumping ground with a bed in it. This is the least romantic recommendation here and the one our editors were most certain about: change the bed. It is also the one that fixes the practical problem, which is that two people at different temperatures have to sleep in the same place.
Linen Sheet Set with Pillowcases
- Certified European flax at 165gsm, stonewashed so it is soft the night it arrives
- Four pieces: a flat sheet, a fitted sheet and two envelope-closure pillowcases
- OEKO-TEX certified, and linen breathes in a way that cotton does not
“The bedroom of a long marriage quietly becomes a storage room with a mattress in it. Changing the bed is the cheapest way to make it feel like a room you chose.”
Nobody puts bedding on a list like this, and they are wrong not to. The sheets in most long marriages are eight years old and nobody has thought about them since. Linen also solves the practical problem that keeps two middle-aged people apart at night: it breathes, so one of you can run hot and the other cold and you can still share a bed. Twin to California King, and every size was in stock when we checked.
5. The one that is only about touch
Couples who have stopped having sex have usually also stopped touching, and the second one is easier to start again than the first. An oil gives the whole thing a purpose that is not performance: twenty minutes, no destination, nothing expected of anybody.
Undaria Algae Body Oil
- Hand-harvested Undaria seaweed in a base of passion fruit, açaí, babassu and rice bran oils
- Grapefruit, lime, cypress and mango-mandarin: warm rather than sweet, and it does not read as perfume
- Vegan and cruelty-free, in a 5 oz pump bottle, with a 9.6 oz size for people who use it properly
“Twenty minutes of being touched with no destination is more use to a tired couple than any weekend away, and this makes it easy to start.”
The most underrated thing two people can do is touch each other without it having to lead anywhere, and an oil is the excuse that makes it happen. We chose OSEA’s because it is a serious body oil from a serious skincare brand rather than something sold on innuendo: the scent is grown-up, the finish sinks in rather than sitting on the skin, and the bottle can live on the dresser in plain sight. In OSEA’s own consumer study of 53 women, all of them reported softer, more supple skin after two weeks.
How we chose
We began with what our editors have used themselves and with what the women around us say actually shifted something. We cut anything that needed a trend to justify it, anything that treats a couple as a fault to be repaired, and anything from a brand that will not stand behind what it sells with a real guarantee or returns policy.
We also cut a heavily marketed libido supplement. Its trials are small, the strongest of them began with the two groups four points apart on the scale it went on to measure, and it was published in a journal we would not cite for anything else. It may well work. We are not willing to print “clinically proven” over that.
One thing no product on this list can do: if sex has become painful rather than simply less frequent, that is a medical question and a doctor can help with it. Nothing here is a treatment.
Prices are what each retailer charged on the day of publication and are recorded on each product. Two were on promotion when we checked: the Gottman program at $39 against a $79 list price, and OSEA’s larger bottle at $84 against $100. Availability and colours change; if you find one that has, tell us and we will correct it.