Putting the bliss back in wedded

Products, workshops give couples a nudge toward making time for intimacy

A local couple's gift bags are aimed at reviving romance for married couples. (Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff)

WESTBOROUGH - It's time to stay home and love the one you're with, according to a pair of local entrepreneurs.

Jennifer and John O'Connell have full-time jobs in Boston, but were inspired to create a business aimed at couples like them - happily married for many years, yet busy and stressed raising young children in the suburbs.

They recently launched Intimate Surprises from Westborough, selling mail-order gift bags with a monthly theme designed to help couples rediscover their spark.

"You finally get a little time together and you go out to dinner and you spend a lot of money and spend the whole time talking about the kids anyway," said Jennifer O'Connell. "We wanted something people could use together in private, have fun and feel closer to each other. It's an excuse and an opportunity to spend time together and be intimate."

The O'Connells aren't the only ones who see a burgeoning market in marriage these days. Bestsellers, movies, even ministers are touting wedded intimacy.

Cambridge therapists Antra and Richard Borofsky suspect it may be the tanking economy that is driving more suburban couples to their "Being Together" and "Intimacy as a Spiritual Path" workshops. The duo said they have seen an uptick in attendance at the weekend events over the past six months.

"I think couples are starting to reinvest in their relationships. In a crisis, what people value is love," said Richard Borofsky, who with his wife runs the Center for the Study of Relationships and teaches workshops to about 200 couples annually at churches and synagogues, including one in November at Karem Shalom in Concord.

"People are discovering more and more that the material things don't bring happiness and people have to go deeper. That means more attention on what does it take to create an authentic relationship or deepen the quality of intimacy in the one they have," he said.

The rest of the country seems to be rediscovering sex and marriage as well. Two hit books, Doug Brown's "Just Do It" and Charla Muller's "365 Nights," were released last year by long-married writers and parents of small children who embarked on a regime of daily sex with their spouses.

On the big screen, "Fireproof," starring Kirk Cameron and based on a Christian pro-marriage bestseller, "The Love Dare," is a hit, earning more than $30 million since its release last fall, according to distributor Sony Pictures.

In November, conservative pastor Ed Young of the Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas, made national headlines when he told the 20,000 members of his flock to embark on a seven-day "sexperiment" of daily intimacy sessions with their spouses. (Single church members were urged by Young to instead "eat more chocolate cake.")

Brown, author of "Just Do It: How One Couple Turned Off the TV and Turned On their Sex Lives for 101 Days (No Excuses)," said he and his wife, Annie, started their three-month marathon on a lark. But the experiment became a hit book. "Just Do It" is scheduled to be published in five languages, and the Browns were invited on NBC's "Today" show to discuss how it had improved their marriage.

The Browns were like many couples, making time for sex only a few times a month and "wondering why we didn't do it more," Brown, a reporter for the Denver Post, said in a telephone interview.

"The experiment forced us to put sex in the center of our relationship," he said. "Now, two years later, we don't do it every day, but the quantity and quality are upped and we are closer."

The O'Connells say the social trend is less about "the act" than about celebrating sex between committed partners as a way to bolster intimacy and spiritual connection. For that reason, their website (www.intimatesurprises.com) is careful to avoid the term "sex toys," said John O'Connell, who works full time for a Boston financial consulting firm.

"We don't want to come up in that kind of Google search. It's about the experience, not the gadgets," he said.

The gift bags, which cost about $45 per month, plus shipping, are designed for couples to open and use together, and arrive complete with ribbons, confetti packing material, and, if desired, a personal love note from the sender.

The idea seems to be catching on. Since the products started shipping three months ago with minimal advertising, Intimate Surprises has had more than 120 subscribers across the country and overseas, including a military couple serving together in Iraq, the O'Connells said.

The Borofskys said they hope to see public interest in fostering intimacy in marriage continue to flourish. At one recent workshop led by the therapists, an emotionally estranged couple admitted they had opted for the $650 class as a last-ditch effort to help repair their relationship because it was more affordable than starting divorce proceedings.

It's impossible to know if they will stay together, but the couple did leave feeling more hopeful about their marriage, Richard Borofsky said.

"Everybody is talking so much about renewable energy and conservation these days," he said. "Love is the ultimate renewable resource."

Erica Noonan can be reached at enoonan@globe.com.