The Health Blog

Here were some of the recommendations in this area.

1. Your spouse should be introduced to all of your friends at least once. Each of us needs distance and our own chance to be free and be a “non-spouse” once in a while, but super marital sex depends on total disclosure. Make sure your spouse knows everybody you know.

2. Never, but never, criticize your spouse to someone else or in front of someone else. Marriage is for intimacy, and that includes the dignity of both sexual and problem-solving privacy. One angry wife stated, “Unless you want to have sex with me in public, don’t try to screw me in front of our friends.” Take your spouse with you when out with your friends sometimes. There is no rule that all groups must match up gender for gender, couple for couple. Maybe your spouse could become a different type of friend to you by seeing your friends and relating to them in different settings. This was the idea behind the “managed-a-trois” assignment discussed earlier.

3 If you are putting more effort into your friendships and into your interactions outside of marriage, stop and ask why. Your primary energy, including your emotional and physical presentation of yourself, should be for the marriage.

4. When your spouse is available, take advantage of it. Time is always a problem, so talking on the phone or spending time with friends while your spouse “waits” can cause subtle and sometimes not so subtle messages of lack of concern or feelings for your partner. Try to schedule most of your calling and visiting when your spouse is not available or when you have mutually planned some time for other friends.

5. You do not have to be inseparable. Go to some couples’ parties without your spouse when this seems convenient. One reason for friends is that they provide variety, different points of view and feelings. If one or the other of you feels that you are going to a dinner or party reluctantly or as a favor, discuss the possibility of going alone. Your host or hostess will probably be shocked at first, and rumors of your impending divorce will start immediately. You know better, and that is what really matters. Show off. Show them that your super marriage is strong enough to allow for independence.

I have described six of the “dirty dozen” problems that can affect super marital sex. You and your partner have reviewed each issue together and come up with some of your own plans for dealing with these problem areas. Dealing with loss, parenting, parenting your parents, working and loving, finances, and working others in and out of your marriage are strong challenges in themselves, so take a break here before going over the last six problems. Stand up and hug. If you have some time, have some super sex. You’ve earned it.

*222\97\8*

We need to stop and realise that there have been other times in our life when we have made major changes. Although these changes were external, we still feared change because we did not really know what lay ahead. We may have felt this fear when we started work, went to university, got married or had children. That fear is the same as we are feeling now. If we can remember those other occasions we will see this fear is not unique. We have felt it before. Back then, we went ahead and did what we had to do, still feeling unsure, still feeling the fear, the aloneness and isolation. This time, although the changes are internal, the fear is no different.

All we know at this stage is that we are walking into unknown territory and it can seem easier to stop where we are, despite our unresolved difficulties. What we don’t know is that the unknown territory is that of the self. As the ‘disordered’ self breaks down it can mean the birth of our real self.

*103\94\8*

If you decide there is a certain procedure you will not allow under any circumstances, make sure that you tell your surgeon so very clearly, both orally and in writing. Read the consent form that you are asked to sign prior to your operation very carefully. On most forms you are expected to agree not only to the operation, but also to ‘further alternative operative measure as may, in the opinion of the surgeon performing the operation, be found necessary during the course of such operation.’ Do not sign this form as it stands — write in the procedure that you will not permit. Sign your addition in the presence of a witness, as well as signing at the bottom of the form.

Alternatively, if you wish to ensure that only the operation you have agreed to and nothing else is done, you would also have to make this very clear to your surgeon beforehand. Tell him or her directly. In addition, cross out the disclaimer on your written consent form, write ‘only’ next to the name of the operation, and sign this as well as signing at the bottom of the form. In this way you will be giving consent only to the operation that is named on the form. If a technical name is written on the form, ask for it to be explained fully. You could even cross it out and write a description in your own words of the operation you are agreeing to if you want to be quite sure that your wishes are clearly understood.

*228/40/1*