sims that are married or in a relationship

Yes. I make sure my married couples talk to each other. I try to make sure my Global Superstar kisses his wife and says goodbye before he heads out the door to whatever activity his job calls him to. If he hosts a Fan Meet & Greet, he brings his wife along. They used to dine out fairly often, but that is incredibly bugged, lately. It may curb their habit. He also tends to his toddler children. He's not afraid to change diapers, either, which is good his wife just presented him with a set of twins.

Oh, and I play on autonomous, too. That way, it's nice to catch my Sims being sweet with each other all on their own.

I love hearing about these sweet couples. I cant give any advice because although I have a married couple I think they had too many kids. Now they barely have time for eachother. Ugh.

i tend to focus more on each sims' personal goals rather than maintaining the relationship of my married sims. them getting married or, more specifically, having had a kid together, was just a means to continue the legacy

but when i do want my married sims to have more love in their relationship, i get them to do small things like kiss each other on the cheek every now and then. keeping the romance bar high

if you have City Living, they could go to the romance festival together. if you have Dine Out, they could go and have dinner together one night. have them spend time together any time you can

i think it's very difficult if there are a lot of kids, though. i've never had more than 3 at a time and i've never really had much trouble maintaining the love between couples (though to be honest it's not really at the top of my priorities). maybe try having less kids and see if that improves it? it may be a one-or-the-other situation; can't have a lot of kids and a well maintained, loving relationship between the parents. but maybe not

I think a lot of comes down to the story you make up in your head. As someone else mentioned, leaving some autonomy can help, cause then sims with a high romantic bar will seek each other out. I've had my sims autonomously serenade each other when inspired, give each other passionate kisses, or even duck out to a closet for a make out session! I also like to pay attention to my sims whims, and so that can help as well--seeing the little blurb above the sims head saying they want to kiss, whoohoo with, get married to, or make a baby with their significant other helps make it feel like the sim is actually invested in the relationship lol.

Aside from that, I'll just second what else has been said here--making little moments can go a long way.

The main thing I do is make sure they have a high Romantic relationship with each other -- which may mean a bit of spamming once in a while. But the higher the romantic relationship, the more likely they'll autonomously act autonomously. One of my older saves I had a married couple who were constantly flirting with each other; if they were both working in their study. one Sim would autonomously start Serenading the other, or they'd blow kisses to each other. Made it a bit harder for them to get work done but it was worth it -- if I want my Sims to focus on work I'll have them work alone and lock the door.

"Babykittyjade;c-17158798" wrote:
I love hearing about these sweet couples. I cant give any advice because although I have a married couple I think they had too many kids. Now they barely have time for eachother. Ugh.

This is just too real for me. Also it's so hard to have a bunch of kids in the game and have a loving fun couple. Even when older kids help you just feel bad. Like they should be living their own lives.

My favorite couple have maxed out friendship and romance bars, even though they just survived glitchy triplet toddlers with wild streaks. One thing I do is always try to have them go to bed at the same time, even when one is not very tired.

I think the key is to get a high friendship level between them, even before hooking up romantically.
I had a couple that were quite low in friendship for some reason (I tried, believe me!) and they would occasionally decline the other's romantic gestures.

@Sindocat OMG that first picture--too cute and precious!