The other morning, PJ was brushing his teeth shirtless and in these completely worn-out pajama pants (you know the ones), and I walked in and told him, “You’re so damn cute.”

He had toothpaste on his face. His hair was doing something vertical. And yet, and maybe obviously, I meant it.

We’ve been together for 15 years, married for 10 of those. We’ve moved a bunch, renovated many houses without killing each other, and shared approximately 400,000 cups of coffee. And somehow, in the middle of all the routines and grocery runs and chaotic mornings getting our kids out the door for school, we still find time to flirt. It looks different for each of us, and we both have our individual ways of doing it, but still, after all these years, it’s fun.

For us, flirting says: I still see you.

When PJ texts me a winky face from the other room or sends a TikTok that just says “us,” it’s his way of saying, “You still matter to me. I still like you. And maybe also, your butt looks good in those sweatpants.”

Flirting now feels better than it did at the beginning, because there’s more history behind it. There’s weight behind the jokes, tenderness behind the teasing. When he compliments me, it hits different because I know he’s seen all of me (the tired, the cranky, the hot-mess-in-the-airport version) and still chooses to flirt anyway.

It’s not candlelit poems every night.

Honestly, some of our best flirting happens when we’re just being dumb together, like dancing badly in the kitchen, leaving sarcastic notes around the house, or seeing who can make the other laugh first when we’re folding laundry.

PJ likes to say stuff like, “You still got it” when I wear a hoodie he likes. I pretend not to melt, but I do. I 100% do.

We flirt because life gets unromantic.

Some days are just dogs barking, work stress, dishes in the sink, and one of us (okay, me) putting off replacing the lightbulb for the third week in a row. That’s exactly when flirting matters most — when nothing is “special” and you make it special anyway.

It’s how we say: “Even in the middle of all this chaos, I still think you’re cute. I still want to play with you.”

How we keep it alive:

It’s not a strategy. It’s more like habits we’ve built. Here are a few of ours:

Physical touch on purpose. A quick squeeze of the shoulder while passing in the hall. A foot under the table. Rubbing his arm while I’m driving down the road.
Saying the good stuff out loud. “You look hot in that.” Even (especially) if they’ve heard it a hundred times.
Silly notes. PJ once wrote me a note before work and I still have it, and I can’t tell you how many pictures I have on my phone of random notes he’s writing me over the years.
Daytime texts. Even just a dumb meme or a “thinking of you.”
The long look. The kind that says, “Yeah, still into you.”

Married flirting isn’t about the outcome. It’s about the moment.

We’re not flirting to get something, we’re flirting to stay connected. It’s not a prelude to anything. It’s a practice. A way of making sure we never stop noticing each other.

And honestly? When PJ looks at me like I’ve just said the funniest thing in the world, or when he raises an eyebrow at me across the dinner table, it feels like the spark never left. It just grew up a little.

Do you and your partner still flirt? What does it look like for you? I would love to know, or better yet, go send them a text that makes them blush.