When the going gets tough…

Last week, I had the pleasure of watching The Proposal on DVD. My husband is out of town and I often use times like this as an opportunity watch a lot of films. It is a win/win. He doesn’t have to endure movies that he would be watching simply to make me happy, and I get to do some “market research on the cultural perspective of romance” (in layman terms, I get to enjoy a really sappy chick-flick).

The main character in this film, Margaret (played by Sandra Bullock), is an orphan and consequently is extremely driven and myopically focused on her career. In fact, she has nothing BUT her career and comes across really bitchy.

While I genuinely hope that the people in my life don’t think of me as a bitchy - at least not all the time - I too am an orphan. It is the single-most defining role which shapes and molds how I see and approach life. When times get tough, my orphan voice says to me, “This is a walk in the park. At least no one has died!” When I feel overwhelmed, that same little voice whispers, “You have overcome much worse than this, so buck up!” When I start to take my husband for granted, the voice nags, “Remember that you don’t know how long you will have him so treat him well”. I am constantly guided by the learnings that I have gleaned from losing my parents at a young age. And while I still miss them desperately, I also am extremely cognizant of the fact that I would not be the person I am today had they lived. Yes, there is a sadness and loneliness which is omnipresent in my life - I believe that it is ludicrous to expect anyone who has lost a loved one to ever fully recover the piece of them which dies with that person - but I have also been given an incredible gift of perspective for which I am deeply grateful.

The English playwright and poet, John Heywood, has been quoted as saying,

“If you will call your troubles experiences, and remember that every experience develops some latent force within you, you will grow vigorous and happy, however adverse your circumstances may seem to be.”

Now, indulge me for a moment as I apply this to your relationship and sex life. If you have a desire gap with your lover (one of you wants more or less sex than the other), what experience can you glean from this state? How can you use this gap as a catalyst to deepen your communication with each other? How do you deal with financial stress which has had a “trickle down” effect in your bedroom? What about menopause or andropause or low libido or erectile dysfunction? How do you approach an illness or disability?

One of our closest friends developed severe arthritis in her early twenties and for years, it took an extreme toll on their sex life. However, a few years ago they made a choice: rather than having a bad sex life for the rest of their marriage, they would embrace the mystery that they would often not know how her body would respond. They increased their communication skills and increased their creativity so they could have a full repertoire of tactics they could take when she wasn’t feeling well. I must say that, despite chronic illness in their relationship, they have one of the best sex lives that I have ever heard about.

When we choose to see troubles in our sex lives as “experiences” and choose to learn from those experiences, the intimacy in our relationship grows to a magnitude that we previously did not think was possible.

I learned a long time ago that while I could spend my life playing the “orphan card” for sympathy, it did not change anything and would never make things better.  Is it time for you to stop playing the “poor me card” in your sex life?

Through the Eyes of Another

As I mentioned in my last blog post, Eric and I are now in Texas and just finished a weekend of activities surrounding his 20^th high school reunion. We went to the football game last Friday night for the homecoming game. Now to be honest, the entire time I was in high school, the concept of “homecoming” escaped me completely. At that time, it was simply an excuse to dress up and be given a huge mum with all sorts of bells and whistles draped from it (literally). For those of you who did not have that tradition, allow me to put a picture here for you:

Now that we are older, the term “homecoming” has an entirely different meaning. Scores of alumni from different years (5, 10, 20, 25, 35 years) came home to watch their old team play football and - in this particular case - lose. Eric went to a private school which has grown tremendously since he graduated. When the new campus was built, the alumni room was placed strategically in between the basketball gym and the football stadium with huge picture windows overlooking the court on one end of the room and the and field at the other end of the room. Designed to allow the alumni the privacy to catch up with each other AND watch the game, it was indeed the perfect place to visit.

And so we did just that. While a pitiful few showed up for Eric’s reunion, it was nevertheless enjoyable to meet with these people who had known my husband two decades ago and hear the stories from their perspective. For years, I have been besieged with reminiscings of the “good old years” and to hear the stories retold through the eyes of others was nothing short of hilarious.

This got me to thinking about Schmuly Boteach and his book The Kosher Sutra. His perspective on eroticism is that when we begin to see our lover in the same old way, the passion fizzles. We stop looking for the new things that are blossoming in our lover and we fall back on the assumption that we just know them. And after a while, that knowledge actually contributes to a certain boredom which sets the tempo of our relationship. Is there comfort in the knowledge that you have built years of history with this certain person and they understand you? Absolutely. But when all the mystery of who they are becoming as a person is removed and replaced with an arrogant assumption of knowledge and understanding, then your relationship gets in trouble.

This weekend, I had the privilege of seeing my husband through the eyes of people who had not seen him for years. I was able to watch their expressions and hear their comments. Some reflected the man I know. I heard stories of mischief and sacrifice and how rarely he got “caught”. Some described a man foreign to me. One lady talked about how nice and sweet my husband was in high school. Now, I think my husband is the most incredible man alive, but “nice” and “sweet” wouldn’t even crack the top ten list of words which spring to mind when I describe him. But that again is because I have a certain perception of who he is as a person. And her perception was radically different. And she gave me new insight into how people perceive him to be - at least twenty years ago. And that is good information to have too.

Being open to seeing another perspective is important. Because we can often get blinders on about our spouse and we neglect to see what is right in front of us. When his co-worker raves about something he did that was amazing, do you think of all the things he has failed to do around the house or do you catch a new glimpse of how he succeeds? When a man’s gaze lingers a little bit too long on your wife, do you label him a “creep” or do you have a renewed appreciation for what it is that he is looking at? Do you even notice at all?

You don’t have to be at a twenty-year reunion to pay attention to how people react to your spouse. Next time the two of you are out in public, pay attention to how others treat him/her. How do the people around you behave? Do they appreciate things that you have missed? Have you assumed too much for too long? How can that change your perception of your relationship?

The State of Our Union

My husband and I just recently celebrated our 11^th anniversary and, as is our tradition, we had our annual “State of Our Union” conversation. Typically, we go out for a fancy meal, order a bottle of wine (or two) and talk and talk. This year, however, we were vacating in a beautiful condo and so we decided to stay in, get Indian food take out, and have our conversation after Riley had gone to bed. Since we were not in our own house, it still felt “away” from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. (And this is one of the most important aspects of the State of Our Union.)

During our SOOU talks, we always look back over our past year of marriage together and discuss what we have achieved together:

• What were our marital successes?
• What were our marital failures?
• Did we discover anything new that really worked for us as a couple?
• Did we like each other more this year than last year?
• Did we like each other less?
• Were we still growing as a couple beyond our roles of mom and dad?

Then we look to the future and dream about what we want to see in the upcoming year.  This is where we can really use our imaginations to paint the perfect year for us.

• What will it look like?
• What will we do?
• How will it be different?
• What will make it better?
• What will be the best thing about it?

And then comes the really big piece.  We each get to ask one thing of each other. Anything we want. And that is the thing that we commit to working on in our marriage all year long. One year I had to work on combating my selfishness (this was early on in our marriage - I am completely cured of that now). One year, Eric had to work on helping around the house without being asked (he had always been superb at doing what I asked, but I was tired of being the traffic cop in our relationship when it came to the house). One year, I had to work on actually listening to and implementing the advice that Eric had for my business (up until that point, I was incredibly adept at listening to the input from anyone else other than him - even if the advice was exactly the same). One year, Eric had to work on dressing up for our dates (yes, the fact that I got all dolled up while he threw on a t-shirt and scruffy old tennis shoes infuriated me). Some years, we had very serious things to ask of each other. Other years, there were some small yet significant things that were driving us nuts.

This year, after Riley was tucked in bed and we had poured the wine, we had more than usual to reflect upon. When we had done our SOOU talk last year, we were living in a different city with different jobs, different circle of friends, and a vastly different perspective on life. While this past year has been fraught with change - some very good and some very challenging - we have a deeper sense of who we are as a couple than ever before. We have created another year of history that we alone share. We have another year upon which we will look back and say to each other, “remember when…?”. And we are once again living another year saying, “what if we could do…?” And that is one of my favorite things that makes us uniquely “us”.

What are some of the things that make you and your lover uniquely “you”?

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Reigniting Excitement

After our first child, my husband and my sex life seemed to slowly die. We weren’t unhappy with each other, just tired and busy and exhausted when we fell into bed. Passion was a wonderful but faded memory for us in our marriage.

Then I got introduced to Eryn-Faye. She brought perspective back to us. She taught us such simple and straight forward thinking. Suddenly we had passion back like never before.

Our 2 year old had been destined to be an only child – until now. I guess we should have realized that having sex again would up our chances for pregnancy, but honestly we were just enjoying each other too much to think about it!!

~ Soon to be Mom of Two