What Keeps Our 41-Year Marriage Fun (Besides Sex)

From silly pranks to impromptu dance-offs, here's how we maintain a strong and happy relationship

Marcia Kester Doyle,

AARP

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Published November 05, 2025

a couple rides a tandem bicycle through fall foliage

Monica Garwood

Welcome to Ethels Tell All, where the writers behind The Ethel newsletter share their personal stories related to the joys and challenges of aging. Come back Wednesday each week for the latest piece, exclusively on AARP Members Edition.

I met my husband on a blind date in 1982, and it wasn’t his looks that attracted me. It was his humor. I laughed more during our first night together than I had in the past year, and that’s when I knew he was a keeper. Here we are, 41 years married, with four adult children and five grandkids, and we’re still best friends in love. What’s our secret? We laugh every day, and we know how to have fun — and surprisingly, it doesn’t always include sex.

Of course, intimacy is important in a relationship, but there are other significant components to keeping a marriage healthy, such as open communication, a strong emotional connection, trust, respect, gratitude, empathy, compromise and shared goals. Although we’re in our 60s, our relationship feels like we’re still in our 20s — we’ve remained young at heart, with a sense of curiosity and playfulness.

Here are 15 things we do to keep the fun in our marriage:

1. We support each other’s interests. I was never a sports fan, but my husband loves football and taught me the game. Now we root for the same team and sit side by side on the couch to watch the games in our matching team gear. In return, he appreciates my love for writing and is always willing to read and edit my articles before I submit them.

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2. We ride a tandem bike. My husband and I walk together for exercise, but he recently surprised me with a bright yellow tandem bike. It takes concentrated team effort to keep the bike steady while we ride. Still, my husband always looks over his shoulder to see if I’m actually pedaling instead of drinking a margarita while letting him do all the hard work. I’m sure we’re quite a sight as we wobble along on our yellow two-seater through the neighborhood.

3. We prank each other often. Harmless pranks go a long way in keeping things interesting. It’s often simple things, such as sneaking up on each other and yelling “Boo!” or leaving a fake cockroach on the kitchen counter or turning off the bathroom lights while one of us is showering. I once sent him off to work with an adhesive lunch-meat wrapper stuck to the back of his shirt, so he retaliated by thoroughly soaking me with the hose while I was outside relaxing. These silly pranks bring a lot of laughter and lightheartedness into our lives. We’ve also had plenty of food fights (and water pistol and shaving cream fights, too). Lately I’ve threatened to shave off his eyebrows while he naps, so now he sleeps with one eye open.

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4. We’re still besties even while living in close quarters. After buying our first RV, I worried we’d get on each other’s nerves traveling in a 21-foot home on wheels. But it has been quite the opposite! We love snuggling up together on the small Murphy bed with our dog, prepping meals together and watching the glorious sunsets from our little camper with a glass of pinot grigio.

5. We’re foodies who love to dine out. Nothing delights us more than a date night at a new restaurant where we can explore different cuisines and soak up the ambiance. It’s always romantic when we have the chance to dress up and hold hands across a candlelit table for two.

6. We share a passion for history and anything nostalgic. We enjoy exploring historic towns, listening to nostalgic music and watching old black-and-white films. If we’re not tuned in to the History Channel, we’re bingeing Twilight Zone episodes with a bowl of popcorn between us.

7. We love to play games competitively. Whether it’s a serious game of cards, cornhole, Trivial Pursuit, chess or bocce ball, we’re both in it to win it.

8. We never run out of things to talk about. There’s always plenty to discuss — work, family, politics, vacation ideas, the latest neighborhood gossip or simply reminiscing. But we’re also happy to sit quietly together and enjoy the comfortable silence between us.

9. We like doing DIY projects together. This usually involves gallons of paint, dirt, wood, pavers and plants. We’ve bonded more over DIY projects than most activities.

10. We have impromptu dance-offs in the kitchen. Yes, it’s a competition to see who can pull a muscle the fastest while trying to twerk — a performance our adult kids definitely do not want to watch.

11. We make (and keep) traditions. Holidays and birthdays are always special occasions for us. The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, Christmas light shows, Renaissance festivals, Halloween trick-or-treating, July 4th BBQs in the neighborhood and Super Bowl parties are all part of the fun. Birthday celebrations are also notorious for being loud, large and full of special surprises.

12. We text each other jokes, silly memes and TikTok reels. We also have emoji wars, but mostly it’s the funny, relatable TikTok reels that keep us laughing when we’re supposed to be working.

13. We like surprises. The good kind, not “Honey, there’s a wolf spider in the shower!” My husband loves to surprise me with flowers or candy. In return, I leave love notes in his lunch. Sometimes it’s the smallest gestures that are a larger symbol of our mutual appreciation.

14. We enjoy trying new activities together. We’re not daredevil adventurers; you won’t find us climbing Mount Everest or skydiving. But we’re not sitting around, either. We like cruising to the islands, RVing at state parks, playing with dolphins, Jet Skiing, swimming with stingrays and getting matching tattoos on our anniversary. Up next? ATV tours, zip-lining, horseback riding, sailing and hanging out with some friendly capybaras at a café.

15. We share our grief. Although we laugh together often, we’re also not afraid to shed tears in front of each other. We’ve been through so many losses over the years — our infant son, parents, siblings, friends and numerous beloved pets. Rather than letting the grief consume us, we console each other and hang on tight for however long the pain lasts. There’s no timetable on grief, but the mutual support and understanding we share help ease the sting of loss. Surviving those hard times together has only deepened our love and brought us even closer.

All in all, we’ve learned that real intimacy, developed over years of comfortable companionship and doing whatever it takes to make each other happy, outlasts sex. Of course, long-term love has its imperfections (and we’ve had our share), but the fact that we’d still choose each other again after 41 years of marriage says it all.

AARP essays share a point of view in the author’s voice, drawn from expertise or experience, and do not necessarily reflect the views of AARP.

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Marcia Kester Doyle is a Yahoo Life Columnist and the author of Who Stole My Spandex? Life In The Hot Flash Lane. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, The Independent, U.S.A. Today/Reviewed, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, AARP, Woman's Day, Country Living, House Beautiful, and many others. You can find her at marciakesterdoyle.com.