Perhaps early in your relationship, one of the few places you could be alone together was in a car. The wonderful thing about a vehicle, whether car, truck, SUV, or motor home, is that it insulates its occupants from the world's intrusions. Alone with your partner in a moving or parked car allows for intimate conversation, touching, or kissing, with nothing but the radio or outside traffic to affect your focus on each other.

The world is full of "lovers' lanes" where couples park and communicate in darkness and anonymity. Such semi-isolated places are too romantic and rewarding to be relegated to the raging hormones of adolescents. Find one in your neighborhood and use its ultimate privacy to regenerate the "just we two" spirit of your early years.

If there is a drive-in theater near you (now few and far between it seems), then go out for an evening movie that you can enjoy and discuss together without the distractions of a surrounding audience. Laugh yourselves silly or scare yourselves to death, the movie is only a medium to get you together for a few hours.

The speed of our lives and the lack of spare time available often requires that we take the fastest route to wherever we're going. If the distance is a few hundred miles or less, see if you can arrange your schedule to drive rather than fly. Contrast the noisy, cramped cabin of a commuter flight with the quiet solitude of a drive through the countryside.

Your initial reaction may be one of boredom and frustration: "It just takes so long to get there." Reframe your perspective and realize that the destination is unimportant; it is the journey with your loved one that is the center of your being. Enjoy the togetherness of the journey no matter where the road may lead.

Virginia Bola, PsyD

Dr. Virginia Bola is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist, a vocational expert, a social commentator and a self-admitted diet fanatic. After 20 years of owning a vocational rehabilitation company, she is now Manager of Clinical Operations for a major MBHO.

She has authored numerous articles on the psychology of weight control, the emotional correlates of unemployment and job search, social issues, politics, and the graying of America.

Her latest book, completed in June, 2005,is Diet With An Attitude: A Weight Loss Workbook, an interactive manual providing the reader with personal guidance and encouragement in the battle to lose weight. It takes an irreverent approach to dieting while providing innovative and therapeutic exercises for self-exploration, confidence-building and emotional self-support.

Her earlier book, The Wolf At The Door: An Unemployment Survival Manual, provides unemployed workers with therapeutic exercises, self-exploration, and confidence-building worksheets combined with specific, step-by-step techniques for finding work.