Finding yourself getting lost in the mundane aspects of life and neglecting your romantic life?

You’re not the first one to do so. We often get so consumed with our busy lives — long working hours, kids, careers, household chores, societal responsibilities — that we tend to push back our relationship priorities.

It doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re consciously ignoring love. We’re putting it in the backseat while we take care of more important things in life. But soon, your romantic side may get pushed back further that one day you’ll forget how you once were.

To keep the intimacy alive in your relationship, you need to make a deliberate effort on your side. And that starts with a daily intimacy ritual.

What’s a Intimacy Ritual?

First of all, a ritual can be something that you take time to do intently and consciously. As you do a ritual every day with a purpose, you create a meaningful depth around it. 

So when you create a daily ritual for your intimate life with your partner, you’re making an effort to connect emotionally on a deeper level. As you follow your ritual, you’ll still be able to connect even when you’re too busy and forge deeper connections.

Please remember that an intimacy ritual is different from a routine. In a routine, you do tasks a little too mechanically without really taking in what you’re doing. But in an intimacy ritual, you’re very aware of what you do and are consciously trying to strengthen your intimate connection. 

5 Daily Intimacy Rituals You Can Start Today

1. Create a Morning Ritual

Mornings are the time when we’re clear-headed and getting geared up for what’s to come. You can set the tone for the day by developing your morning romance ritual. 

It can be anything like:

• Sharing your morning coffee without any smartphones or digital devices

• Going for a morning jog together

• Cook breakfast together

• One partner wakes the other up with a cup of coffee to have a morning pillow talk

2. Create a Night Ritual

In case both your days start at different times and it’s impossible to do stuff together in the morning, then create a ritual in the night.

There are so many things you can plan for the night.

• Reading a book together

• Cooking and/or eating dinner together

• Having your night-time tea without any digital devices

• Pillow talk about how your day went

• Night-time skincare rituals 

If you have different sleep styles or go to sleep at different times, you can still manage to have at least one ritual at night to unwind with each other.

3. Create an Exercise Ritual

While it isn’t an intimate ritual per se, you can still convert it. 

After working out in the gym, doing yoga at home or coming back from a jog in the park, you can have your shower together. This can improve your physical intimacy without the pressure of actually making time for sex or scheduling a kiss.

You can naturally add this shower routine once you’re done with your exercise, be it in the morning or evening. You can take 10 or 15 minutes out of your day to spend with each other. Since you’ll be all the more invigorated after exercise, you’ll be in a good mood to talk, share and explore your physical intimacy.

Plus exercise helps your overall sexual health as well!

4. Create an Eating Ritual

It’s vital for couples to have at least one meal together every day, even when both of you lead busy lives.

It’s best to try to have this meal at home, either in the morning or at night. But even if that isn’t possible, you can still try to make time for lunch at a commonplace in between your workplaces. Have this meal away from the chaos of your life where it’s just the two of you relaxing and being in the comfort of each other.

5. Create a Conversation Ritual

You can adapt this daily or on a need-to-have basis. When one or both of the couples have something on their minds and need to talk it out with the other, you can have a physical space allocated just for this purpose.

You can use this space on an everyday basis to have a short 5-min or 10-min conversation about your daily happenings or reserve it for specific serious, stress-free talks.

Decide how this ritual will look like and what you plan to discuss during this time. Is it about your family happenings, work incidents or just about the two of you reigniting your romance?

Make this your safe space to develop intense connections with each other.

You can also use this Couple Goal Digital Workbook to sit down together, share your dreams and visions and build your future as a couple.

Develop Your Own Daily Intimacy Rituals

If you don’t have any ritual as of now, start with at least one that’s the easiest for both. Once you’re comfortable with that intimacy ritual and see your bond grow, add another ritual to the mix. 

This intimacy ritual works only when both are 100% committed to it. So when deciding the intimacy ritual, make sure that both of you are okay with the time and space you plan on. Sit down and talk about the purpose of each ritual, how you want to go about it, how much time you’re willing to invest in it and the outcomes you expect.

When you set clear expectations with the intimacy rituals and purposefully perform each ritual every day, you'll reignite your passion and bring joy back to your relationship.