Unwritten Rules of Relationships

This is a topic that came up when Naomi and I were having one of our many conversations about love, life ,dating and sex.  The question is simple. When did you start having great sex?  Not just slam bam, thank you ma’am plain sex.  I am talking about the type of toe curling sex when you are confident in your body and you really know how to please your partner to a point where you both leave feeling great!  You know, the time when you noticed sex changed and you really knew what you were doing as a grown man/woman.

All of us would love to believe we were born as these great sexual dynamos, but the truth is most of us; damn near all of us, really have no clue as to what sex is all about when we actually first start having it.  Most of start having sex in the teenage years.  In my day, we started having sex during our late teen years. Today that may be a tad off considering how young kids are having sex now. Who knows when it starts. Seems like these kids are starting as early as age 10!  [Anyway, that's another topic for another day.]

As teenagers, we think we know what we’re doing, but we don’t have a clue.  Back in the day, sex was like a roller coaster ride.  You were just happy and excited to be on the ride, but before you knew it, it was over and you didn’t know what happened.  Very few teenagers are connected to themselves enough to truly have great earth shattering sex! Most of the time, teenagers are just recreating something in their heads or something they’ve seen in a video, movie or porno.  Its not too much different once we become young adults, college student or of “legal” age (18 – 24/25 ) .  These are the years when you have a lot of sex that doesn’t seem to really have a purpose to it.

During these young adult years,  guys definitely tend to subscribe to the motto “quantity not quality”.  Guys are trying to get their hands on as many girls as they can handle.  For ladies, they seem to go through what we call “the freedom years”.  Many girls are getting away from their parents for the first time and they start experimenting more with sex.  However, after speaking to many women about this, it seems young girls don’t go after sex with the same reckless abandonment as men do during these years.  Guys have sex on the brain 24 hours a day 7 days a week; not Love but SEX!!  Woman on the other hand are dating, but are still leaning towards marriage and family.

This brings us to the late 20’s early 30’s.  Many people said this is when they really started to find themselves sexually.  More women have said they really started to know their bodies and understand what they want and how they like it.  However, it seems to me in the late 20’s and early 30’s you really become an adult.  And in being an adult, life and more importantly, love changes.

Great sex happens when love is present.  No matter how much people want to deny it.  The greatest sex comes from the people you have feelings for and care about.  Let’s be honest. Is that one night fling really better than the sex between you and someone you truly love and care about? It’s very interesting how everyone seems to have that one person that “opened” them up sexually and that is when sex changed.  Maybe it was that woman/man you connected with and brought out the “freak” in you.  The key to becoming a great lover is letting yourself go.  The more you let go and really be in the moment with your partner, the better the sex will be. Your special friend/lover is that person who was able to bring feelings and emotions from you that you never thought you had.  Most importantly, you trusted that person enough emotionally to let go and really experience GREAT SEX!!!

So, when did you start having great sex?

How did sex change for you as an adult?

20 years ago, Dr. Ellen Kreidman wrote a book titled “The 10 Second Kiss” and people are still talking about it to this day. I don’t know about you, but I love to kiss. I think kissing is the most passionate intimate act of love. In many relationships, things get stale and people tend to be less affectionate towards one another for whatever reason, but if these couples would make an effort to kiss their significant other every single day for 10 seconds; I guarantee the stagnancy would disappear. This goes back to couples being in charge of their relationship. They have to work at being close and connected to one another. There is no magical relationship genie to come and sprinkle love dust over you. You just have to make the effort to put whatever is missing back into your relationship. A good start is making a a commitment to each other to have a daily 10 second kiss; even if you don’t want to initially. You’d be amazed at how much a simple 10 second kiss can improve the passion in your relationship.

Is the passion stagnant in your relationship or marriage?

What are your thoughts about kissing?

Are you too tired for intimacy in your relationship? This topic has been on my mind for the last two weeks. While watching the Sex in the City movie, the topic “Too Tired for Intimacy” popped in my head. This was motivated by the Miranda story line. If you haven’t seen the movie; I’ll quickly give you an overview, so I guess this is somewhat a movie spoiler.

MOVIE SPOILER ALERT: So in the movie Sex in the City, Miranda and Steve were going through a serious sex drought and Steve eventually cheated on her. Miranda’s complaint was she was just too tired. She works full time, they have one child and they’re taking care of an elderly parent with progressing Alzheimer’s. So due to all of these factors, they’d managed to go six months without sex; I repeat – six months without sex.

Although this is a movie, the scenario applies to real life. I hear women talk about how tired they are and how their sexual drive has decreased since having kids all the time. So this is obviously a relevant topic. We’ve all seen a million talk shoes with couples on there talking about this very thing and I’m quite sure one out of five of your married friends has discussed this with you.

I know some women are going to down right hate me for the next couple of paragraphs I’m getting ready to write, but I have to say it for it may save your marriage. In marriage or people who are in deeply committed relationships; intimacy is just as important as communication. The intimacy a couple shares between one another is crucial to the nurturing of your relationship. Your relationship is like a garden and if you fail to water that garden, it will indeed die. A garden has to be tended to, just as your relationship does. I hear so many women say they’re too tired to have sex because of work/mom responsibilities. I hear this from working moms as well as stay at home moms. Here are a few points to ponder on.

1. It’s not just about having sex. It’s about connecting on an intimate level with your spouse. Being in tune with one another.

2. Intimacy should never be considered a “task”. If you feel it is such, you seriously need to change your thinking.

3. The kids do not come first – YOUR MARRIAGE DOES. If your marriage is healthy, your children will be healthy….marinate on that for a minute. Read it twice if you must.

4. Keep your marital bed a marital bed. Do not allow your children to form a habit of sleeping in your bed. Your bedroom needs to be your private domain. (Note: this does not mean you don’t love your children. However, it does mean you are committed to placing barriers where they need to be placed for the sake of retaining a level of privacy between you and your spouse).

Intimacy is one of the key factors in keeping a couple engaged and connected to one another. Often people think marriage takes care of itself, but that is far from the truth. People have to truly commit to making a conscious effort to do everything in their power to keep their garden watered. This includes making time for intimacy.

Questions to YOU:

• Do you feel intimacy is important?
• Are you suffering from an intimacy drought?
• What are your thoughts on this topic?