When couples recognize complacency, they sometimes assume the solution is to become romantic again.

Date nights.

Flowers.

Weekend getaways.

More sex.

Any of these may be welcome. But romance isn’t really the central issue.

Something more interesting shows up in research by psychologist Arthur Aron and his colleagues. Couples who participated together in activities that were novel and arousing—meaning stimulating or exciting, not necessarily sexual—reported greater relationship quality than couples whose shared activities were more mundane. In experimental studies, doing novel activities together also produced increases in experienced relationship quality.

This makes intuitive sense. Early relationships contain novelty almost automatically. We are discovering another person while simultaneously creating a relationship with them. There are first dates, first trips, first arguments, first sexual experiences, first introductions to friends and family. Even an ordinary dinner contains information we didn’t already have.

Over time, one of the great pleasures of intimacy is that the unfamiliar becomes familiar.

But familiarity has a cost if nothing new gets built on top of it.

Two people can become extremely good at operating a life they’ve already created while having fewer experiences in which they are still creating something together.

And this brings us back to the sandbox.

Parallel play isn’t necessarily bad play. Sometimes it’s wonderful to sit beside somebody you love while one person reads and the other watches television, gardens, plays music, works on something, or disappears down whatever rabbit hole currently has their attention.

The problem isn’t parallel play.

It’s when parallel becomes the only kind of play left.

Novelty asks something different of us. Go somewhere unfamiliar. Try something neither person knows how to do. Learn something together. Cook something you may ruin. Take a class. Travel. Hear music you’ve never heard. Put yourselves occasionally in circumstances where neither person already knows exactly how the evening is going to go.

Oh, blessed novelty.

Not because novelty magically repairs relationships, but because it creates opportunities for two familiar people to encounter one another again in unfamiliar circumstances.

You have to respond.

You have to negotiate.

You may discover something.

You may even surprise each other.

And suddenly the relationship isn’t merely the place where life is being managed. Something is happening between youagain.

Which is why I don’t think the opposite of complacency is romance.

The opposite of complacency is participation.

Participation can be remarkably ordinary.

Ask something you don’t already know the answer to.

Notice when your partner’s mood changes.

Initiate something rather than waiting for them to do it.

Say what you’re thinking instead of assuming they know.

Respond when they tell you something matters.

Create experiences rather than merely occupying the same ones.

Take responsibility for some part of the relationship that you’ve quietly allowed the other person to manage.

None of this requires becoming a different person.

It requires being more present in the relationship you’re already in.