We’ve all been inspired to see very long term relationships - couples still going strong in their 3rd, 4th, 5th decades and beyond. There’s a difference between couples who merely cohabitate long term, and those who “keep the spark alive.” So what’s the secret to a long lasting relationship that doesn’t lose its passion?

There are probably as many answers as there are enduring couples, but we can generally group common responses into a small handful of categories. We’ll reduce these to: health and loving communication.

Health and Passion in Enduring Relationships

It’s an old adage that “health is wealth,” and few who have been with and without health and wellness will find fault with this saying. Health can be considered as something we experience in our bodies, but it’s also an aspect of our minds. And just as nature imbues us with a certain degree of physical and mental health, there’s much that we can do to promote both in our own person.

Healthy relationships frequently exist between two people who, individually, care for their own health. When we exercise, control our weight, and practice good hygiene, we work with nature to promote physical wellbeing in our bodies. A healthy body tends to produce a healthy mind, and this combination tends to create a partner who is kind and caring to the other partner.

A steady attention to health also helps with attraction and sexual harmony, even as the decades roll along. In addition to diet, exercise, and hygiene, there are numerous natural herbs and supplements which can further promote sexual health. Blessed Thistle can promote reproductive health in younger women, but also may provide all-important respiratory benefits in older people. Chaste Tree may promote fertility in young women, hormonal balance in middle aged and older women, and prostate health for men.

These two are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to herbs that promote sexual/reproductive health, especially for older adults. Metagenics, Integrative Therapeutics, and DesBio all have sexual health products aimed at people in various life stages, and you may find one that feeds into your long-standing relationship in a very happy way.

Loving Communication in Long-Lasting Relationships

In addition to healthy bodies and minds, multi-decade couples find ways to create passion through loving communication. Communication is more than conversation. It’s a way to promote intimacy and happiness between partners. The benefits of love are self-evident in healthy long term relationships, these people tend to live longer, live with less illness, heal more quickly, and live with less pain.

But these benefits aren’t a given, they are most closely associated with relationships in which both partners feel secure, appreciated, and “tended to.” It’s possible to be in a long term relationship in which stress and discord are the norm. These relationships tend not to last as long as their mutually supportive counterparts, and they tend to be less physically healthy all the while. Studies show that people who feel unwanted in a close relationship have higher levels of inflammation than people in close relationships, for example.

It goes without saying that it’s easier to passionately love someone who loves you back, than someone who neglects and tears you down for decades at a time. As with the physical health of both members of a lengthy partnership, the health of the relationship itself has a great impact on the “passion” that either partner will have access to at any particular time.

If you are in a long term relationship, you already know the benefits and challenges that result from such an arrangement. If you’ve managed to maintain passion all the while, congratulations on a job well done. If you want to revive passion in a relationship that has seen it wane, start with these steps, and you may be able to restore what once was.