The Reality of Married Lovemaking

When writer Miriam Arond and her husband, psychiatrist Samuel L. Pauker, M.D., surveyed hundreds of newlywed couples across the nation, they discovered that 85 percent had made love before tying the knot, yet the frequency and quality of unmarried sex had little to do with the reality of married lovemaking. Nearly half said that after marriage, they didn't have sex as often as they'd like; 20 percent of new wives reported low sexual desire. For a fourth of the wives, sex meant painful intercourse or elusive orgasms, while 1 in 10 husbands experienced premature ejaculation, and 1 in 20 had erection problems. What ever happened to athletic, swinging-from-the-chandeliers, "did-the-earth-move-for-you-too?" prenuptial lovemaking? The deep, mystical, Tantric communing of two spirits? Hours of Hollywood sex complete with mood music, flickering candlelight, and satin sheets?

"The excitement of getting married gives couples a hit of dopamine -- a feel-good brain chemical that increases sex drive. For a few months after marriage, things may stay hot," says marriage and sex therapist Pat Love, Ed.D. "And while you still love each other and feel passionate about each other, the dopamine does settle down. You're back to real life. Your normal sex-drive set point kicks back in. Your expectations about married sex take over. It's the perfect time to do the delicious work of deepening your sexual bond."

"The challenge for couples is balancing a sense of intimacy and safety and security with a sense of unpredictability and creativity and eroticism," says Barry McCarthy, Ph.D., a psychology professor at American University in Washington, D.C. "When sexual intimacy is strong, making love plays a healthy 15 to 20 percent role in energizing your marriage. The paradox is that when sex is problematic, it plays an inordinately powerful, negative role in new marriages."

Understanding the real sexual issues that newlyweds face can help you keep sex fun and fulfilling -- now and for the rest of your lives. Experts say these hidden concerns can cool the hottest love life in the early days of marriage:

Mismatched sex drives. "When your sex drive returns to its normal level in the months after you get married, couples start to notice a frustrating desire discrepancy," Dr. Love says. "It's perfectly normal. You've just got to work it out."

Testosterone, the hormone of desire, fuels sex drive in men and women. But, Dr. Love says, relatively low levels of natural testosterone mean that two-thirds of all women don't walk around thinking about sex all the time. "For these women -- and I'm one of them -- you don't feel like having sex until you're already having it," she says. "That's perfectly normal. It just means you have to approach sex a little differently. You have to make time for touching, time for sex. You can't rely on being aroused to get things started. You have to start with relaxed touching and kissing to raise your arousal level."

Clashing sex-pectations. On the last night of a romantic two-week honeymoon, Priscilla and Greg Hunt bumped up against a radical difference in expectations and desire. "We had been making love three times a day on our honeymoon," Priscilla recalls. "It was wonderful, but we were about to go back to real life. To work and school and doing the dishes and responsibilities. I had to say, it's time to talk about moderation." Says Greg, "Sexuality was a real issue. We were both learning about it in our college courses, but experiencing it firsthand was strikingly different. My testosterone levels were extremely high. We were not evenly matched for libido. We had to work hard to communicate. Sexuality is a very sensitive issue -- you have all sorts of feelings and insecurities wrapped up in it."

Does marriage ruin your sex life?

Single life: loads of sex. Married life: none at all. Welcome to the apprehensive male psyche, where their impervious view of marriage is ruining its case ...

"Everyone knows that getting married ruins your sex life," my friend Jack mused after witnessing his best buddy tie the knot. "Men know that as soon as you give a girl a ring, she stops giving it so willingly. She just does it to get the man, and once she has him, the well dries up pretty fast."

I was a little stunned at his musings but my attempt to offer a counter argument quickly fell flat. "But doesn't it mean that by living together and being in love you can have it more?" I asked.
"Not when there's works and laundry and kids involved," he scoffed.

While I've heard time and time again about the belief that "married life equals no sex", (although the jury is out on how many of the 7.9 million Australian marriages this affects), I'd never quite heard a man be so open and honest about his fear of it becoming a reality. Besides, don't young married couples have a vigorous bedroom life? (If my neighbours in the next apartment are anything to go by, the proof is in the pudding!)

The married versus single sex life is an age-old question and it seems every singleton who values their hanky panky finds themselves asking the big question before they consider tying the knot: will marriage ruin my sex life?

Hence many are choosing to forgo the ceremonial stuff altogether in hope of prolonging the honeymoon period in their relationship.

Others are taking other sorts of drastic measures, like Lenny Kravitz, who recently made a promise to forgo sex before marriage altogether.

"It's just a promise I made until I get married," he told Spin Magazine. "Where I'm at in life, the women have got to come with something else, not just the body, but the mind and spirit. It usually trips them out, but that's the way it's going to be. I'm looking at the big picture."

Trippy indeed. (Although I've heard many blokes attempt to use that line to actually get into a woman's pants in the first place. And apparently it works wonders!)

But perhaps my mate Jack, and that infamous Newsweek cover story titled No Sex Please, We're Married is wrong.

After all, a recent study actually succeeded in busting the myth that women aren't as into it as men, proving that it's actually when women are in committed relationships that men and women actually share similar attitudes towards sex.

And in case the blokes are scoffing at the findings, they actually have scientific legs! Carried out by researchers at the University of Florida and published in the journal titled Sex Roles, it seems while women might not be so into it on a casual basis (although some readers of this blog would vigorously disagree), the study proved that women don't hold back when "romantic feelings" are involved.

The researchers reckon that society dictates that single men are expected to think and want sex more than women and according to Paul Perrin (one of the study's researchers), "what society tells us we should be often translates into actions".

Yet through the study, he discovered this: "Once they enter a relationship, however, the pressure on men to have sex is not as strong and the pressure on women to not have sex goes away."

And according to the infamous Newsweek's story, a study carried out in 2002 by the National Opinion Research Centre at the University of Chicago, actually found that married folks have 6.9 more sexual encounters a year than those who haven't tied the knot.

So perhaps Jack is wrong after all. But as Erica Jong once said, "Yes, wild passionate sex exists ... But it is occasional. And it is not the only thing that keeps people together. Talking and laughing keep couples together. Shared goals keep couples together."

bea wain/two love and hate songs (1939-1941)

I Love You, You Love me

Love & Loss

"Let Go and Grow"

I can practically guarantee that, if you are continually frustrated in your efforts to grow either by meeting someone new after a failed relationship, or finding a new career path, or even new friends, that there are vestiges of holding on to earlier events which are stopping your progress.
I become more and more convinced that in order to move ahead in your life you really have to leave behind what is behind.
The biblical metaphor for this phenomenon is Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt as she looked behind her to see Sodom burnt to the ground.

Unless we let what has passed truly be over, its ghost continues to haunt us, and actually hampers the arrival of the wished-for event.
This process can actually go on for years.
So if there is anything right now that you truly want and it is just not happening, ask yourself what you have not let go of that might possibly be in the way.
Here are several steps to help you achieve the "Let Go and Grow" process in your own life.

hindi love song comedy

Below are some of my favorite quotations I've found on the subject of love

Below are some of my favorite quotations I've found on the subject of love.

"Love has the power of making you believe what you would normally treat with the deepest suspicion." - Mirabeau

"When you love someone, all your saved-up wishes start coming out." - Elizabeth Bowen

"Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight." - Phyllis Diller

"I detest 'love lyrics.' I think one of the causes of bad mental health in the United States is that people have been raised on 'love lyrics." - Frank Zappa

"I should like to see any kind of a man, distinguishable from a gorilla, that some good and even pretty woman could not shape a husband out of." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

"A kiss can be a comma, a question mark, or an exclamation point. That's basic spelling that every woman ought to know." - Mistinguett

"You'd be surprised how much it costs to look this cheap." - Dolly Parton

"I feel like Zsa Zsa Gabor's eighth husband on her wedding night: I know what I'm supposed to do... I just have to figure out a way to make it interesting." - many attributions

"The most wasted day is that in which we have not laughed." - Chamfort

"Thou art to me a delicious torment." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

LOVE THE BABY

Learning to accept love from others - from ANYONE and from ALL is equally important than saying "i love you". the art is to recognize the near infinite number of different ways others practice to tell YOU or show you THEIR love is what we all need to learn and practice again.

if you reject part of their love - then YOU are an active factor of emotional AND spiritual stress for others. if you manage to reject most of other peoples love - then it would be MUCH better for all others to be WITHOUT YOU as it is much easier to spiritually grow without additional know stress-factors. if you happen to have a partner who repeatedly or near permanently rejects many of YOUR ways of showing and proving YOUR love - TALK to him - seriously and firm, if nothing changes, then it is time for immediate divorce.

every child of God has a divine right to be able to GIVE love in as many different ways as God OR you created. continuously, every day, every hour, eternally. including physical / sexual love and all varieties of direct love between 2 partners. every child of God has a divine right to RECEIVE love in many different ways - ever-changing ways - every day.

rejected love is one of the very worst spiritual situation that EVER can or could happen to anyone in God's entire creation. hence learn to recognize ALL different ways others use to tell you "i love you" or to show it or make you feel their love.

friends, family members, your children, your employer, your employees, neighbors and anyone else may have a deep desire to show YOU their love and it is YOUR DIVINE DUTY to learn to accept THEIR full love.

different people have many different ways expressing love. basically anyone who wants to talk to or with you, who wants or seeks your company may do so to seek an exchange of love in either way or both directions. exchange of love may start in a very powerful way in the very earliest childhood. here a few examples how OTHERS may express THEIR love for YOU:

* a baby loves breastfeeding - that is first a receiving part - the baby RECEIVES milk from mother and included WITH the direct flow of milk there is a direct and proportional FLOW of metaphysical LOVE from the "bosom-chakra". the baby ACCEPTING milk from mama says "i love you" by accepting mother-milk. after feeding the baby may want to sleep skin to skin at the bosom - to enjoy the FLOW of metaphysical love that keeps on flowing. it enjoys mothers aura and love and by ENJOYING mother's skin to skin contact shows his love for mama.
* if baby rejects your milk directly from your bosom - then your love is possessive or selfish - selfish love is hard and painful to accept or digest and baby may prefer to live WITHOUT your love rather than with selfish or possessive love.
* a few weeks later a baby may smile and a smile is an expression of happiness. happiness occurs when baby receives love from mother AND mothers fully absorbs all love from baby. a baby - remember that - is AN ADULT SOUL using a small and growing physical body that FIRST needs physically to adapt to the capabilities and potential of that soul. whatever the reason for an incarnation - the baby usually can LOVE - give AND receive - more and better than most parents. love is silent. a smile may be accompanied by a huge flow of love from heart to heart from soul to soul.
* a b aby wants to be hugged - but it also wants to hug mother, father, sisters, friends and any loving person. when YOU establish direct body to body - even more - skin to skin contact, then every normal baby is fully open for the FREE flow of love in both directions - simultaneously. if you have "no time" for baby and give it away to a baby sitter, then you reject baby's love and create spiritual DAMAGE to that baby !
* the more time you spent face to face, skin to skin with your baby, the more you learn to appreciate the many different ways of giving love as well as receiving love from the baby.
* b aby wants to communicate with you - to tell you sweet loving words - but you are listening with your ears instead of using your MIND and heard. baby can communicate in a telepathic way during pregnancy and after - just as easily as YOU can speak words. a newborn wants to make sure YOU know how much baby loves YOU and that baby most likely came to HELP YOU, to give LOVE to you, to be your little sunshine here on earth in your heart.
* baby grows up and starts crawling around and experience this "funny" and very dark planet. baby tries every energy it can see or feel. and whenever baby sees something special it brings you that special piece to show YOU "i love you" in different ways.
* baby may bring you some beetles, some gravel stones, minerals, flowers, ... ! baby KNOWS what is good for YOU - do YOU know what is good for YOU ? most likely NOT !!! can YOU FEEL energy ?? can you feel the energy of minerals or flowers or trees ??? are you fully aware of the energy of a butterfly or a glow worm for example ??? can you instantly feel the healing effect on your aura and physical body any flower brought to you by your children ???
* children grow up with an open heart - open for angels, for god and most metaphysical aspects of earthly life. children can feel the aura of humans and animals near by. and children often are searching for small objects that appear nice to them and bring them to you - as a gift of love just for you. it is their way of saying "i love you".
* later on baby starts to make drawings and gives them to mama, papa and friends. as a gift of love.
* and still later baby is a small child and learns to talk and SING - and sometimes sings just for you. baby wants to be WITH you even as it grows up. the growing up baby wants to share, to help, to WORK WITH you whatever you work - baby wants to share and help you. cleaning, washing, gardening, mechanical work, carpenter work, it is the children's ways of showing their love - being WITH you - near you - where ever you are, what ever you do. it is their divine birth right.
* if whatever YOU do is TOO "dangerous" or "wrong" for baby or child - then it also is TOO dangerous or "wrong" for YOU.
* babies and children love to play WITH YOU - rather than with toys - with you means with your body ! fathers are to be strong and YOU are the living toy for your children - by accepting YOU as their playmate of first choice - specially during the first several years of an incarnation - baby tells you "i love you more than anything else - just YOU - no toys of plastic, wood or metal ever can replace YOUR skin to skin body to body love and presence. it is YOUR having time for them that shows them that YOU are open to give AND receive LOVE.
* and if after hours of wild or sweet playing WITH you, they become tired and need a nap - they again show you one more times their appreciation of YOUR love and YOUR aura by hugging you and falling asleep IN YOUR ARMS !
* angel babies always want to fall asleep IN YOUR ARMS as well as wake up in your arms.

do you realize the many ways YOUR children around you are using to show their love to you ? are you always saying YES to EVERY such occasion or do you say NO sometimes or often ?

any damage caused by YOUR rejection of baby's love or children's love needs to be healed by someone BEFORE a child becomes mature for a partnership. such healing often takes more than an entire incarnation - that means many children have selected a situation that was so hard and empty of love that they have a "broken" heart beyond the actual incarnation, while others may need many years or decades beyond childhood until they become ready for a mutual love within a partnership.

look at the high percentage of divorce and look at all the NON-divorced partnerships which can NOT divorce because their culture prohibits divorce. look at all the partnerships and families with drug and / or alcohol problems. all these are children having grown up in a environment and society empty of love - they have neither received all the love they deserved AND NEEDED nor were they allowed and given a chance to GIVE all the love they WANTED to give.

if a baby or child WANTS to be near you, WITH you - it is the first way of saying "i love you". because loving to be WITH or NEAR you also means:

* i love your love
* i love your aura
* i love your smile
* i love your face
* your energy
* i love what you have to offer in your heart
* I am HUNGRY for YOUR love, all kind of love YOU have to give me - your baby !
* my hunger for YOUR LOVE, for your presence, shall show YOU how valuable YOUR love is - for me as well as in general to ALL mankind AND to God. as YOUR LOVE expressed in your time you share WITH me is the single most valuable you ever have to offer - to me as well as to ALL and to God !!!

.... but i am always aware that YOU need love - and me - your baby - i am willing to GIVE you all my love - to smile at you, to hug you, to kiss you, to touch you, to caress you, to bring you flowers, and plants, and many many smaller or larger objects to show AND PROOF YOU my love - as much as you need.

the more YOU are ready for most direct exchange of love - skin to skin, eyes to eyes, heart to heart and soul to soul - the more happy all. baby is ready for most direct and most efficient love !! always !!! are YOU ready to accept direct efficient love from your baby and children ? or do you attempt to SUBSTITUTE YOUR direct love with TOYS, sweets and material goods rather than with YOUR time that allows YOU free flow of love - giving and receiving love requires TIME together without any interference by TV or other distractions - just YOU and baby !

Let Me Count The 3 Ways! of LOVE

First kind of love:

The "IF kind of love" says, "I will love you IF you do things my way, IF you give me gifts, IF you become a good provider, IF you get a good report card at school." It is a conditional love based upon future expectations. If these conditions are not met, then like a legal contract, love is broken. This is a selfish love because it is solely based upon future expectations. It is love that must be earned. Most marriages fail because they are based upon this conditional love. Children are often heard saying, "I will be your friend" IF you let me play with your new toy; till then I hate you. Thus the IF kind of love is a fickle unstable love. This is the childish love we are all born with. It is a worldly love of natural instincts. We need to mature out of the IF kind of love!

Second kind of love:

The "because of" kind of love says, "I will love you BECAUSE you are now young and beautiful, BECAUSE I now desire you, BECAUSE you are now popular, BECAUSE you are now in good health or wealthy, BECAUSE I feel good when I am with you." This kind of love is common among teenagers because it is solely based upon the others current status. The BECAUSE OF kind of love is also doomed to failure in marriage. When someone proclaims, "I have fallen out of love" they have fallen out of the "because of" kind of love, not true love. This kind of love is not in tune with reality when it demands that things stay the same in an ever changing world. Like the If kind of love, it is unstable and fickle. It is full of doubts and fears for what tomorrow might bring.

True Love:

True love is the "in spite of kind of love". It says, "I love you IN SPITE OF your faults, IN SPITE OF being fat and ugly, IN SPITE OF the times you are selfish and inconsiderate, IN SPITE OF when you sin against me," True love is unconditional. It is the love that God loves us with. It is a love we don't naturally possess but must learn. It is an enduring love that doesn't even keep a score card. It will always be there tomorrow regardless of what we have done today. This is the kind of love that 50th "golden" anniversaries are made of. Romans 5:6-8 says, "For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the very good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Notice the contrast between conditional and unconditional love in this verse. Christ didn't die for us BECAUSE we were very good and worth dying for. Rather He died for us in SPITE OF the fact we were worthless sinners. Oh "to know the love of Christ which surpasses comprehension,"