Keeping the Spark Alive

Conversations with Dr. Jennifer

Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife

Sexuality, Education, Health & Fitness, Mental Health, Self-improvement

4.7 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 18 February 2026

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The JFF Book Club starts 2/19, you can join HERE for six interactive discussions with Dr. Jennifer! Falling in love is easy. Staying in love requires our maturation. A few years (or decades) into marriage, it's tempting to wonder if we just married the wrong person—the passion has faded, the differences feel more irritating, and that deep sense of connection doesn't feel as natural as it once did. And while it is tempting to think that something is going wrong, really, marriage is just inviting us to stop chasing what was and to start creating something deeper. In this episode, Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife joins the Date Your Spouse team to talk about what couples can do to bring a sense of aliveness to their marriage. She challenges the idea that going along to keep the peace is an act of love, explains why duty-based sex quietly destroys desire, and offers a surprisingly simple practice any couple can try TONIGHT to create more intimacy and connection. If you're looking to create more passion and connection in your relationship, enroll in Dr. Jennifer's new Sex Worth Wanting course!

Transcript

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0:00.0	A lot of people think, oh, I must have married the wrong person. I'm not happy. What happened? How do we get back to where we were? It's not much about going back. It's how do you move forward in a way? How do you love this person? How do you make room for each other? How do you learn to value and appreciate each other, even with some of those annoying differences, part of erotic love is this sort of
0:22.4	struggle. There's a struggle in erotic love and there's struggle in bliss. There's both,
0:28.2	as there is in good sex.
0:47.3	Welcome to conversations with Dr. Jennifer, a collection of interviews on the topics of relationships, sexuality, spirituality, and more.
0:49.9	All featuring Dr. Finlayson Fife. We have a truly special guest joining us. We have Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fice. She's a licensed
0:59.5	therapist, coach, and just an all-around expert on intimacy and sexuality and committed
1:04.9	relationships. So we're so grateful to have you joining it. Thank you for being a part of this.
1:10.4	Thank you. Thanks for having me.
1:12.0	Yeah, absolutely. Today, we're going to be diving into a topic that I think a lot of couples
1:17.1	wonder about. The topic is how do we keep the spark alive? How do we keep that going? So whether,
1:22.8	you know, if you're watching it, you've been married for five years or 20 years or might be in the
1:27.3	middle of raising kids,
1:28.3	which is where I'm at, or, you know, navigating maybe a quieter house.
1:31.9	This conversation is going to be for everybody.
1:33.9	We'll just jump right in.
1:34.9	I'd love to start by acknowledging something.
1:37.5	I think a lot of couples feel, especially those that have been together for a while, that's
1:42.2	like that initial passion and desire that was there
1:46.0	when you were dating or you were newly married. And it just doesn't feel the same anymore.
1:50.3	The sex has just become routine at this point. So my question is, do you think that that
1:55.1	fading spark is like the natural course of long-term relationships? Or is that a sign that maybe
2:00.4	something deeper there might need to be addressed?
	...

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