How to Flirt With Your Partner and Keep the Spark Alive
Entry No. 136 ·
By The IF Team
To flirt with your partner, do what you did at the start, with everything you know now. Tease them gently, compliment specific things, catch their eye across a crowded room, send a message that has nothing to do with logistics, and make time to be playful together. Flirting in a long relationship is less about seduction than about signalling, again and again, that you still notice them and would still choose them. Research on playfulness, shared humour and everyday appreciation suggests those small signals do a great deal to keep a relationship warm.
If you have stopped flirting with each other, you are in very good company. Comfort, routine and full calendars push it out without anyone deciding to stop. The good news is that it comes back quickly once one of you starts again, and the other usually notices within a day.
Noticing someone and letting them know is also the spirit of IF, an app where people say what they feel honestly, attached or single and whoever it is that has caught their eye. Feelings that started in real life go into IF in plain words, and wait to be acted on until the time is right. For couples, the person worth flirting with is usually sitting across the table, and this guide is about them.
Why couples stop flirting
Early on, flirting is how you find out whether the feeling is mutual. Once you know, it can start to feel unnecessary, or even a little silly. Conversations fill up with plans and errands. Tiredness wins. And after the first rush settles, as it does for everyone, flirting can seem like a relic of the honeymoon phase rather than something you can choose.
None of that means the attraction has gone. It usually means the signals have gone quiet. Flirting is how you make the feeling visible again.
Why it is worth bringing back
Playfulness turns out to matter in adult relationships. Studying couples who had been together for years, researchers René Proyer and Kay Brauer found that partners tended to match each other in playfulness, especially in their enjoyment of good-natured teasing, and their wider work links playfulness with happier relationships. Laughter helps in a particular way, too. A review of 39 studies found that humour a couple creates together was strongly linked to satisfaction, while simply being a funny person was only weakly linked. The inside joke, in other words, is doing real work.
Appreciation is the third ingredient. In a daily study of couples, noticing and feeling grateful for a partner’s small, thoughtful acts worked like a booster shot for the relationship. A flirtatious compliment is appreciation with a wink, which may be why it lands so well. Keeping that warmth flowing is part of what makes a relationship last.
Ways to flirt with your partner in person
- Catch their eye across a busy room and hold it a second longer than usual.
- Compliment something specific rather than general: the way they handled a difficult phone call, how good they look in that jacket. How to compliment someone has more on making it land.
- Tease them about something they are secretly proud of, never about something that stings.
- Bring back an old inside joke at an unexpected moment.
- Make a small fuss of them in front of friends, the way you might have when you first got together.
- Meet at a bar and pretend, for the first ten minutes, that you have only just met.
- Hold hands on the walk home, or rest a hand on their arm while they are talking.
- Dance in the kitchen when a good song comes on, however badly.
Small flirts for busy weeks
Flirting does not need a free evening. Some of the most effective gestures take seconds:
- Leave a note in their coat pocket or bag for them to find later.
- Make the hello at the door a proper one: a long hug, a real kiss, a moment before anyone mentions dinner.
- Say one appreciative thing over breakfast that has nothing to do with chores.
- Save them the last biscuit, and make sure they know you did.
- Send a message mid-afternoon that asks for nothing: “Thinking about you.”
Ways to flirt over text
Messaging between couples tends to collapse into “Did you get bread?” Slipping something else in changes the tone of the whole day:
- “Still laughing about last night.”
- A photo of something that reminded you of them, with no explanation needed.
- A countdown to seeing them: “Four hours. Not that I’m counting.”
- A voice note instead of a text, just to say hello.
- A playful challenge for later: “Rematch at Scrabble tonight. Prepare to lose.”
Flirting by message has its own rhythm, and how to flirt over text goes into it in more depth.
Playfulness, not performance
Flirting with a partner should feel like play, not a test of how charming you can be. Pay attention to their style: some people love being teased, others prefer warmth said straight. If a joke misses, laugh it off and try something else. And never use “I was only joking” to cover a dig. Teasing works because both of you know it comes from affection.
When one of you feels awkward
If flirting feels strange after a long gap, say so. “I miss flirting with you” is itself a flirtatious thing to say, and it lets your partner know the next wink is not a mistake. Start small, with one compliment or one silly message, and let it build. Being a bit awkward together is a kind of closeness too.
Flirting fits naturally into planned time as well. A date that feels like a date makes it easier, and date night ideas has suggestions for evenings that do not follow the usual script.
Noticing someone else is not the same as flirting
Being in a happy relationship does not stop you noticing other people, and an occasional crush on someone else is common. It is not a reason for guilt. What would hurt your partner is acting on it secretly, or lying when they ask, and flirting with someone else in secret can be a first step towards both. If a feeling for someone else keeps coming back, having a crush while in a relationship looks at what it may mean and what to do with it.
Where IF fits: never an app for flirting on the side
Is a dating app on your phone a kind of flirting on the side? On most, it could be. IF was built so that it cannot.
IF is for saying what you feel, honestly, taken or not, about whoever has caught your eye: people take a feeling they have already developed in real life, put it into the app and act on it when the time is right. The key is that every message stays hidden until you are both single. If one of you has a partner, nothing on IF can open — no chat, no match, no back-and-forth — so all you can send is an IF, sealed and up to 250 characters, that waits instead of flirting. That is why IF suits people in relationships better than any other dating app, and why having it protects the relationship you are in rather than putting it at risk. Making it official on IF empties your Likes and chats without closing your account, so you can still receive IFs.
Say a friend from work has been on your mind for months. Your IF could be as simple as: “This isn’t me flirting — I’m happy where I am. But you’ve made this year so much brighter, and you should know. Maybe one day I’ll get to take you to dinner.”
Noticing someone else is part of being human, not a failing. Sending one is nobody else’s business: you owe no one an announcement, your partner included, and keeping quiet about it is perfectly fine. Secret flirting that tips into cheating, or a lie to cover it, would hurt the person you flirt with at home. An IF does neither. Your first one is free: say it once, honestly, and let the seal do the waiting.
Questions people ask
Is it normal to stop flirting in a long relationship?
Very. Routine, tiredness and busy lives push it out, and the early rush settles for every couple. It is not a sign that attraction has gone, and it tends to come back quickly once one of you makes the first playful move.
How do you flirt with your partner over text?
Send something that is not about logistics: a reference to a shared joke, a photo that made you think of them, a countdown to seeing them or a playful challenge for later. Keep it light and specific to the two of you; that is what makes it feel personal rather than generic.
What if flirting with my partner feels awkward?
Say it out loud, lightly: “I miss flirting with you.” Then start with something small, such as one compliment or one silly message. Awkwardness fades quickly when you laugh about it together, and your partner is likely to meet you halfway.
Do couples who flirt stay together longer?
No study can promise that, but research on playfulness, shared humour and everyday appreciation links all three with happier relationships. Flirting is a mix of all of them, which suggests it is a habit worth keeping.
Keep noticing your partner, and let them know. And if a feeling for someone else ever needs an honest place to rest, an IF is that place, sealed until the timing decides.