Jupiterimages via Getty Images “Enjoying short and intentional kisses and making that a priority is a way to prioritize intimacy in your relationship," says sex therapist Megan Fleming. A few years back, sex therapist Vanessa Marin and her husband of 13 years, Xander, initiated a bedtime policy in their marriage: Before they fell asleep every night, they vowed to make out. As Marin explained in a viral TikTok video last year, the couple had started to experience a rough patch when it came to physical affection.
While the earlier days of their relationship were marked by “wild, passionate make-out sessions,” the urge was mostly gone now. And whenever they’d kiss, it felt to Marin like a lead-up to sex, which she wasn’t always in the mood for. Advertisement “I was also noticing that I had developed something that I call ‘the bristle reaction’ in my therapy sessions,” Marin told HuffPost.
“I was bristling whenever Xander was trying to have physical contact.” Marin genuinely wanted to be physically affectionate with her husband, though, so she made a modest proposal: What if they made out every night? It didn’t have to be for long ― on nights when they were especially tired, even just five or 10 seconds would do ― but there did have to be tongue. (What good is making out without a little tongue action?) Advertisement “Most nights, though, we prefer to stretch the make-out session out” to one or two minutes, Marin said in her video, which has over 8.
