I’m sitting in bed writing this, having just had breakfast in bed brought to me by my wonderful lover. It was just a cup of tea and toast, nothing flash, but what a difference it’s making to my day! It’s a small thing, but it’s a significant thing.

It’s the sum of these small things that set the quality of your relationship. Equally, it’s the sum of small neglects that stultify a relationship, flat-lining it. When a relationship flat-lines, there’s generally not a lot of sexual desire.

Maintaining sexual desire is a challenge for busy modern couples are so often tired and/or distracted. Couples who find it easy to move into sexual play are ones who keep themselves simmering, so to speak. That is in large part a reflection on how the two of you are relating as a couple. It’s the culmination of all the small things you do to, for and with each other so feel good about each other, appreciate each other and enjoy each others company, that you create a mood in which you want to enjoy each others bodies in delicious sexual play.

A couple I’ve been working with for a while announced at a recent retreat that the thing that had made the biggest difference to their sexual relationship is that every day once the kids are in bed they spend ten minutes or so just chatting over a cup of tea. That’s all. Yet that small amount of time every day is enough to connect them and leads them on to making love, when the mood takes them.

My parents told me many years ago that their secret to a long and happy marriage was that my father has brought my mother breakfast in bed virtually every day of their married life. I’ve inherited my mother’s appallingly bad ability to function in the morning, so one of the best things my partner can do for me is breakfast in bed too - just tea and toast keeps me loved-up and sexed-up! 

So, what are the small things that mean a lot to you? And what are the things that mean a lot to your partner? How can you keep the connection between you strong through small and frequent acts of kindness and affection? It can be words, it can be touch, it can be actions, it can be gifts and it can simply be spending time together. It’s easy in the early days, before the risk of complacency sets in. Over the longer term you need to take up the challenge of keeping it going.

Just like everything else good in life, such as health and wealth, it’s the small constant positives that lead to on-going success, just as much as the small constant negatives lead to failure. Frittering away money and leading a slothful life will affect the quality of your wealth and health in the same way that neglect of your partner will affect your love life. Constant regular savings and an active life with a nutritious diet will enhance your wealth and health.

In the same way small, regular expressions and tokens of affection will fill up your love bank.