Sex File: Our son has moved home and we miss our sexy empty nest 

When adult children leave home, the opportunity to have a second honeymoon in an empty nest is a real bonus

Picture: iStock 

My husband and I were sad when our grown-up son flew the nest, but I have to say it was a boost for our relationship - especially our sex life. We were naked a lot more often. Now our son has lost his job and moved home, it has ruined things a bit and we can't be spontaneously romantic around the house. What can we do?

Although sexual frequency declines with age, couples who are in loving, longstanding relationships often find that the sex they do have actually improves. When the psychologist Miriam Forbes at the University of Minnesota analysed patterns in data collected from more than 6,000 people who had been followed over a period of 18 years, she found that as people got older, they placed much more emphasis on the quality rather than the quantity of their sexual encounters.