Treating your sweetie to a pampering massage is a wonderful way to show love and appreciation. Experts also agree that massage between partners fosters deep intimacy, builds trust and helps couples connect emotionally. It can be as nurturing or as sensual as you want to make it.

But the biggest problem with massage is that if you don’t know how to do it, you don’t last longer than five minutes. Your thumbs hurt, your hands hurt, you don’t know if you’re doing it right, you get bored.

I’ve been teaching couples how to massage for seven years. Here are my top five tips for making your massage so good, your spouse will melt right beneath your hands.

1. Use a Quality Oil
Massage oil is cheap to buy, and getting a good quality one will make all the difference to your massage. You can find massage oil at giant box stores, health food stores or even the supermarket. Look for Cold Pressed Sweet Almond Oil or a grapeseed oil, they offer the most consistency. You can watch our video on How to Apply Oil the Sexy Way.

2. Contour Your Hands
This pinchy-pinchy business that people do on the shoulders is awful, and it’s going to hurt your hands, and probably your partner’s muscles too! For a lovely, comforting feeling, you want as much of the surface area of your hand as possible to touch your partner. Keep your palms and your fingertips down and use long, sweeping strokes to cover your partner’s body.

3. Slow Down!
There are no points for finishing first in massage! We race through life these days, so it can be hard to slow yourself down, but just stop and take a deep breath and consciously take your time with your massage. There is no rush here. Make sure you only give your partner a massage when you can set aside a good amount of time to focus on them with no distractions. This makes for a lovely experience where you can both focus on just being with each other.

4. It’s Not All About the Massage
If you want to take the focus off the fact that you don’t quite know what you’re doing with your hands, it’s all about misdirection. Set the scene with dimmed lights, candles, soft music and maybe even some treats like a fruit platter or gourmet chocolates and wine. Indulge all your partner’s senses. This will only serve to heighten the massage experience for them.

5. Give Feedback
If you’re the lucky duck getting a massage, make sure you lavish praise on your partner as they’re rubbing you. Positive reinforcement is a wonderful thing. Tell them when they’re hitting the right spots, give them gentle guidance on the level of pressure you’d like and thank them generously when they’re finished. If your spouse feels like they’ve done a great job, they’ll be much more likely to want to massage you again and again!

Denis Merkas is a massage therapist and Acupuncturist who teaches couples how to massage each other. His popular Couples Massage eBooks and live seminars have now been turned into video series called Melt: Massage for Couples so couples everywhere can learn from his techniques. Visit CouplesMassageCourses.com for more information.