I so seldom express my anger, that I am pretty terrible at it. Instead of anger, it comes out has bitterness, meanness and being just plain grumpy — not helpful at all for actually addressing the issues that are contributing to my anger.

Which is why I found these excerpts from the Gottman’s book Ten Lessons to Transform Your Marriage so surprisingly spot-on:

One key is to recognize anger as a positive emotion. In fact, images from brain scans show that we experience anger on the left side of the brain, along with feelings of amusement and intense interest. Unlike sadness or fear — which are experienced on the right side of the brain and cause us to withdraw from the world — anger can stir us to engage with others, to take action, and to get involved.

Like all emotions, there’s a logic and purpose to anger. We typically get angry when we see injustice, believe we’ve been treated unfairly, or encounter an obstacle to achieving our goals. If we can learn to use anger constructively, it can inspire us to make positive changes on our own behalf — to try harder, to fight for what’s fair, and to communicate more passionately. We can use anger to italicize our language so that other people can hear and understand how strongly we feel about an issue.

When you can experience anger as a positive, constructive force in your life, you may no longer feel as if you have to keep your anger hidden all the time. You learn to express it, so that others can better understand your experience, which leads to less resentment and a better chance at problem solving.

In marriage, couples may improve their relationship by reacting to each other’s anger with this same kind of respect. If you approach your partner’s anger with the idea that there’s a logical, legitimate reason behind his or her feelings, then you may be able to use that anger as a resource for improving your marriage.

Responding to your partner’s anger with open-ended questions helps to show that you’re listening and also helps keep you from responding defensively. Here are some suggested responses:

• “You seem really upset about this, can you tell me more?”
• “Is there something I can do that would help?”
• “What other feelings is this conjuring up for you?”
• “What is the most upsetting part of all of this?”
• “What kind of resolution are hoping for?”

And one final question for you, the reader, and for myself:

“Who would you express your anger to if you knew they would listen and respond with respect?”

Anger as a Catalyst for Improving Your Relationship is a post from: Living Sexuality

As I was looking for a quote by David Schnarch (something along the line of “if you don’t desire sex, it’s probably because the sex you’re having isn’t very desirable” – I think he wrote that in Passionate Marriage), I came across an interview he did. I bookmarked it so I could come back to it later. I try to ingest as much Schnarch as I can. Which reminds me, I really have to get his new book, Intimacy & Desire.

Tonight as I was reading the interview, I was reminded again how much I appreciate his approach to relationships. I thought I’d share this specific answer with you because it pretty much sums up my whole article. 

Q. You propose that the very way we think about sex and sexual desire sets couples up to have difficulty. Please explain.

A. People have been taught that “sex is a natural function.” However, the sex that comes “naturally” is reproductive sex; intimate sex is an acquired ability and developed taste. The notion that “sex is a natural function” leads couples to believe that sex and intimacy emerge full-blown unless some “blockage” is in the way. But usually, getting the sex and intimacy we want doesn’t involve removing a block, it involves growing up. Usually we just think of sexual desire as physical cravings (like horniness and “blueballs”). Desire involves wanting your partner — not just wanting sex — and we often don’t want to want our partner because it makes us vulnerable.

As we get older and as our relationships mature, we can’t sit around waiting for desire to suddenly show up at the end of a busy day. We need to take the initiative to make space – physical, emotional, mental and spiritual – for desire. Too often, people assume that they just aren’t attracted to their partner anymore, that they’re too old/fat/busy for sex, or that the solution to their lack of desire is to get a new partner. Instead, Schnarch would argue (and I would agree) that this apparent impasse is actually a time for growth.

Q. What do you mean when you say that intimate relationships are “people-growing machines?”

A. A good marriage is not smooth, and marriage is not reducible to a set of skills. People have difficulty with intimacy because they’re supposed to. It’s not something to be “solved” and avoided. Problems with sex and intimacy are important to go through because this process changes us. These are the drive wheels and grind stones of intimate relationships. The solution isn’t going back to the passion of early relationships because that’s sex between strangers; it’s about going forward to new passion and intimacy as adults. If we use relationships properly they make us grow into adults, capable of intense intimacy, eroticism, and passion-having sex with our hearts and minds, and not just with our genitals.

What do you think of Schnarch’s assertion that problems are important to go through? How might the frustrations or conflicts in your relationship be an opportunity for growth?

Desiring Desire is a post from: Living Sexuality

The degree to which we can be clear with our first family about who we are, what we believe, and where we stand on important issues will strongly influence the level of “independence” or emotional maturity that we bring to other relationships. – Harriet Goldhor Lerner, Ph.D.

Your first family is your context for learning about the world and about relationships. Often we don’t realize how thoroughly we have been shaped by our families until we leave home and experience a different world — perhaps realizing for the first time that some families exist, and even thrive, by attending to very different beliefs and values about what a family “should be.”

How we hold the ties to our first family has a big impact on how we hold the ties to our intimate partners. If the best way of dealing with your parents has been to distance yourself from them, either physically or emotionally (or both), you will probably tend to also distance yourself in intimate relationships. If you never learned to respectfully disagree with your first family (while still maintaining your Self), then it can be difficult to do it later with a partner.

If you’re having difficulty handling the inevitable anxieties of an intimate relationship, perhaps it will help you to think through a few questions:

1. How does my family engage in physical and emotional intimacy?
2. What patterns from my first family have I adopted or rejected?
3. Where unhelpful patterns are showing up in my current relationships?
4. How can I move toward a healthier way of handling anxiety and intimacy?

For further reading:

The Dance of Intimacy: A Woman’s Guide to Courageous Acts of Change in Key Relationships
by Harriet Goldhor Lerner, Ph.D.

Passionate Marriage: Keeping Love & Intimacy Alive in Committed Relationships
by Dr. David Schnarch

Both of these books are available for pennies on Amazon.com – so do yourself a favor and buy them!

First Family and Intimacy is a post from: Living Sexuality

And yet….

Isn’t that stress sort of…satisfying? Doesn’t a part of us crave that sense of mystery, that sense of taking a risk for love? Is that, perhaps, part of the allure of an affair — to experience something new and adventurous, to adore (and be adored) the way one is at the beginning of a romance?

Ah, such is the tension of a long-term commitment. As much as we want our veins pumping with the passion of infatuation/lust/love — we also want to “settle down” and settle into a comfortable life with someone. Strong relationships are built upon a foundation of trust and dependability. Yet, that stability can grow rather stale.

The key is to understand that a vibrant long-term relationship requires the ongoing balancing of these two desires. It can be done!

President Obama shared his experience of this balance in a 1996 interview with the French newspaper Le Monde entitled “An Intimate Conversation With Michelle and Barack Obama.”

“Sometimes, when we’re lying together, I look at her and I feel dizzy with the realization that here is another distinct person from me, who has memories, origins, thoughts, feelings that are different from my own. That tension between familiarity and mystery meshes something strong between us. Even if one builds a life together based on trust, attentiveness and mutual support, I think that it’s important that a partner continues to surprise.”

The surprises don’t have to be huge. A small simple gesture, when out of the ordinary, can snap you out of the domestic doldrums.

What can you do in the next 24 hours to surprise your lover?

A Sense of Surprise is a post from: Living Sexuality

A good marriage is not smooth, and marriage is not reducible to a set of skills. People have difficulty with intimacy because they’re supposed to. It’s not something to be “solved” and avoided. Problems with sex and intimacy are important to go through because this process changes us. These are the drive wheels and grind stones of intimate relationships. The solution isn’t going back to the passion of early relationships because that’s sex between strangers; it’s about going forward to new passion and intimacy as adults. If we use relationships properly they make us grow into adults, capable of intense intimacy, eroticism, and passion-having sex with our hearts and minds, and not just with our genitals.

Read the full interview.

Marriage is a People-Growing Machine is a post from: Living Sexuality

And like Michelle Obama notes in this video, our kids notice that we make time for each other and it gives them a sense of security – as well as a good example.

Date Nights is a post from: Living Sexuality

This makes a lot of sense in sexology. So much of what turns us on and turns us off is not as much about what we are actually seeing — but about the feelings (memories) we associate with those things.

This is empowering — We can change our perception of sex by creating more healthy and happy memories.

David Schnarch, author of Passionate Marriage (one of my favorite books about couples and sex) notes that the reason so many people don’t desire sex is that the sex they’re having isn’t very desirable — on a physical, emotional and/or a spiritual level. They aren’t creating enough meaningful memories to make sex desirable.

And maybe that is why there’s a difference between “looking at” someone and really “seeing them.” We can look at someone or something and become sexually interested, but it’s a different thing to “see” someone and desire them sexually.

Could this be the secret to keeping sex alive in long-term relationships? Perhaps the visual turn-ons aren’t as hot or strong as they used to be, but the history (the accumulation of memories) is what can make sex meaningful, and therefore desirable.

Our culture focuses on how we look to others, but satisfying sex comes from how we are seen by others.

Agree?

Seeing is Remembering is a post from: Living Sexuality

I interact with people with sexual problems on a daily basis. Here are just a few of the potential “harmful psychological and physical effects” of abstinence:

• Vaginismus – the body’s unconscious response to a perceived threat (read: a penis). The vaginal muscles constrict to prevent penetration. Vaginismus results in unconsumated marriages, painful sex, and relationship problems. (Interesting note: Most women with vaginismus were raised in religious/conservative homes.)

• Belief that “Men need sex” and “Women need emotions” - Do you see how this mindset creates a double-bind? Women feel that it would be odd or wrong for them to enjoy sex, but yet feel like they must do it in order to satisfy their husband. A lot of “wait for sex” texts reinforce this unhelpful (and wrong) way of understanding men, women, sex, and emotions.

• Rapid Ejaculation – a lot of men who delay sexual relationships become so used to their masturbatory habits that they find it difficult to transition to having intercourse. They carry the shame and guilt from their “lustful” abstinent years into their relationship.

Please note that I am not saying that pre-marital sex does not have the potential for negative consequences. It absolutely does … have the potential … to cause “harmful psychological and physical effects.” But so does abstinence.

Photo by Jacob Bøtter

Warning: Abstinence May be Harmful to Your Health is a post from: Living Sexuality

I am so glad there is some serious PDA going on in the White House (and I don’t mean Barack’s Blackberry!)

More on the Obama’s body language

One Month of Obama (Love this pic) is a post from: Living Sexuality

found at http://people.tribe.net/earline

Marital Rating Scale, circa 1939 is a post from: Living Sexuality