"When we first managed to have a weekend away together without the children, we argued all the time. We had catch-up fighting to do. When you have little kids you can go for two years passing in the corridor, living on the memory of when you used to be in love. You need to ask each other, `how's your life going?'"
Sex can become a minefield, too. "Tiredness, especially for women, is often a barrier," says Biddulph. "If a man takes his share of the childcare and housework, the couple are more likely to have sex. It's hard to feel loving towards someone who you are angry with for not pulling their weight. You have to be creative, too, just to have time together. I know couples who go home in the middle of the day to be together."
While it might seem idyllic to do everything together as a family, Biddulph cautions against it. "We find that couples with strong relationships, who have been together for a long time, often take a holiday separately once a year. Being separate for a while creates an electrical charge between you."
David and Maureen are an example of such a couple. Both 40, they have been married for 15 years and have two children, aged nine and six. They spend a week or so apart each year; David playing golf, Maureen on work-related trips. "You have to be terribly good friends for your relationship to work once you have kids," says Maureen. `We go out together at least once a week for a meal and to watch a film.
"It's an expensive way of maintaining a relationship -- about US$160 a night once we've paid the babysitter -- but eating out is important because it makes you talk. The children need to know that we lead our own lives and we are together because we want to be."
If you can't remember why you are together, Biddulph advises seeing a marriage counsellor and working at your relationship. "It's not that I don't believe in romantic love but in most societies in history, people are thrown together and learn to love each other," he says. "In our society, love starts as a blessing and continues as an accomplishment."
How Love Works is published by Thorsons.
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