Break Out of Your Relationship Ruts

A Sexual Rut

How to recognize it: Sex has become just another chore to check off your to-do list. Even when you do get around to it, the sizzle has clearly begun to fizzle.

How to bust out of it: Participating in adventurous, thrilling activities outside the bedroom (a trip to an amusement park, motorcycle riding, surfing lessons) with your other half can spice things up. Research conducted at Stony Brook University, in Stony Brook, New York, found that engaging in novel, arousing activities with a partner can reignite that giddy early sensation of being in love. If you both find sailing or water-skiing exciting, for example, "that rushlike feeling can carry over into bed, because adrenaline doesn't know where to land," explains psychologist Lonnie Barbach. "You can even restimulate those feelings by talking about the experience." Not a daredevil? It may sound clichéd, but breaking out of a sexual rut can be as simple as having sex in a different room, giving each other a massage, or listening to music that puts you in an amorous mood.