3. Connect in spite of distance and busy schedules.

We understand how life can be — you’re traveling every week for work and your partner always seems to have work events on the nights you’re actually home, or you’ve just been ships passing in the night lately because of your entirely opposite (yet equally cluttered) social calendars. Is there ever an end to the chaos? Not really, which is why it’s important to learn to work around the limitations of time and space. You can still connect with your S.O. and create that spark when you’re separated! For couples dealing with a difficult travel schedule, matchmaker and relationship expert Bonnie Winston suggests choosing a book and taking turns reading chapters to each other over the phone each night, which will build a nightly routine around intimacy, instead of just watching TV alone. Similarly, licensed marriage and family therapist Rajani Venkatraman encourages busy couples to keep the romance going with small gestures. “Romance and passion do not rely on constant physical presence,” she says. “In fact, they thrive quite well on the gaps between connection, as long as we keep the connection well fed. Leave your lover a note tucked in the cereal box, a heart drawn on the misty bathroom mirror, a sexy goodbye kiss as a promise of more.”