Are you an adult and do you still pash?

Every evening when my husband gets home from work he swoops me into his arms and kisses me with the heat and passion of a budding romance.

Actually that’s not true at all, we’ve been married for over 20 years. In truth  he comes home and asks what’s for dinner. Then he begs me to get off the computer.

And honestly I am okay with that (except for the having to make dinner aspect). We love each other dearly and he is my best friend in the world but I’m a little over the tongue pash as a daily ritual. I’m even over it as a monthly ritual because it just doesn’t happen.  I was delighted to read that I am not alone.

Naomi Reilly writes for the Daily Mail:

My first date with my husband was spent kissing, unapologetically, in the corner of a Soho wine bar.

From what I remember, it was great. Our enthusiasm for such overt osculation went on like this for the best part of two months.

We kissed everywhere and anywhere — at Michelin-star restaurants, high-level work events . . . the cheese aisle in Sainsbury’s. We didn’t care. Friends would tell us to: ‘Get a room.’ Family members would look down at their shoes whenever we were near.

But that was then. Ten years and two babies later, it would be fair to say we’re far from the serial snoggers we once were. In fact, we can barely remember to give each other a peck on the cheek in the mornings.

Long-term love doesn’t have to eradicate kissing, but I think you’ll find in most cases there’s an obvious dwindling effect. Last year the British Heart Foundation ran a survey that revealed almost one in five (18 per cent) married people don’t kiss their partner for an entire week, while two in five kiss for just five seconds or less when they make love.

This is because the thrill of a new relationship is much more likely to induce Spontaneous Passionate Kissing (SPK) than when you hit the comfortable stage. Surely, it’s only natural that when those oxytocin-induced highs start to fade, so do the kisses?

…In our experience, you just get to the stage when SPK isn’t as appealing. It starts with the realisation that morning breath is actually quite revolting. Then it becomes more about the fact there are other pressing matters to attend to — like filling in your child’s homework form or changing the Hoover bag.

Leisurely and protracted pursuits such as smooching on the sofa for hours on a Monday evening are all very well — if you don’t have a life. Then there are the children to think about. Surely, they’d rather chew off their own arms than watch their parents wrestling it out in a game of tonsil tennis?

I caught some married friends really going for it in my kitchen at a dinner party I was hosting the other week. I was disconcerted to say the least.

I felt like pulling them to one side and saying: ‘Stop embarrassing yourselves! You’re in your 40s, you’ve been married 15 years, you have a mortgage for goodness sake.’

But it also made me faintly suspicious. Why the need for such a public show of affection? Was their marriage in trouble? I’m not sure what’s led me to believe SPK is so often linked to showing off but frankly, a married couple who feel the need to exchange saliva in public is peculiar, isn’t it?

Is it peculiar? If you are in a long term relationship do you still kiss like you did when you first met ? Do you think the passionate kiss has place in a long term relationship?