Laura Corn diagnoses a pattern common to long-term relationships: as familiarity and routine set in, the small unpredictable gestures and playful spontaneity of early dating fade.

What replaces them:

• The same restaurants, the same conversations
• Predictable, low-charge physical intimacy
• Comfortable patterns that quietly crowd out novelty

Her core argument: this isn't a sign love has faded — predictability itself, not lack of feeling, is often the real culprit behind fading spark. That reframes a common source of relationship anxiety ("are we falling out of love?") as a solvable structural problem, not an emotional verdict on the relationship's health.