Has Sex Become Taboo ?

I know you’re asking, “WAH?” but think about this.  How many married over-forty-somethings do you know that say they aren’t having sex?

How many friends do you have married 20+ years and they complain they never have sex with their spouse? I know, I know…stress, kids still living at home, activities and commitments wear us all thin. Those are all great reasons but are you feeling less connected to your spouse? Are all your conversations about the kids, making ends meet and the next disastrous expense you’re about to have to pay for? Has sex become an afterthought? When you finally get a relaxing evening are spending it watching an adult TV show, Chinese delivery and asleep by 10?

I’m not saying this isn’t legit but in the realm of taking care of everyone have you neglected each other? When you get an opportunity to fluff yourself up does your spouse even notice? Have you forgotten what intimacy is? Are there days you wish you had some but your spouse just isn’t on the same wave length? Do you even care anymore?

Life has us putting out own basic physical needs on the back burner.  I’m talking food, shelter and feeling connected to someone. We all want it. No one wants to be truly alone but are there days in house full of people you feel alone? Your spouse is doing their part of the work for the household, i.e. working and bringing home a paycheck, cleaning, cooking, laundry, but you feel disconnected. Has being intimate the last thing you think you have time for?

Now chat with your single forty-something+  friends.  What do they talk about? If they’re in relationships they talk about intimacy. If they aren’t with anyone they’re looking for someone interested in providing it.  Many of the people I’ve talked with mention how they’ve realized how important intimacy and sex are in their relationships. Most are divorced and had lost intimacy with their spouses. A lot of them thought they had hormonal issues or ID and have since discovered this is far from the truth. Not making intimacy and sex a priority caused their lack of desire. Some of them were very surprised to find that 40+ year olds (and 50+) have just as much desire as they did at 30 (hence, 50 is the new 30). For most function isn’t an issue either. 

If sex has become a taboo activity in your home, bring it back! Date night, mini-vacations for just the two of you, and adding toys and flavored lubes can all help bring the spark back.  Remembering what brought you together in the beginning is a good place to start. And never forget to read. I’m not talking Penthouse and Playboy, but blogs or books about intimacy and foreplay. Learn to enjoy one another again. 

Linda Bolton

Linda's first book, a contemporary romance, has a tentative release date of Dec 2012!

www.lindabolton.blogspot.com

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Opposites Attract

We've all heard the expression "Opposites Attract", and I guess it's true. Take my wife and me. We could not be more polar opposites. In fact, the areas of similarity are miniscule, and yet we just celebrated our twelfth anniversary!
I am a man who likes order; she is comfortable with a desk that looks like a dumpster. I prefer to read the Sports section first on Sunday; she goes straight for the comics. She grew up as The Beatles ruled; my childhood fell during disco and then hard rock. Therein, I believe, lies the source of our differences.
My wife is 16 years my senior. She was born during the 50's, me at the very end of the 60's; she's still angry that she wasn't old enough to go to Woodstock. I attended a couple of rock concerts, I think.....not sure.....hard to remember. (Just kidding.) She wanted so badly to be a flower child and haunt the Haight; I was perfectly satisfied to attend college in a major party town - Columbus, Ohio.
My wife is definitely a Vietnam-era woman; her brother served there, and when her parents ran a Greyhound Bus station, she saw tear-filled goodbyes between soldiers going off to war and their families. My early years were spent in blissful ignorance of war, except for the stories my father's friends told me.
I'm a numbers man. Math came easy to me; I majored in Finance in college. My wife is a words person (she believes numbers are a foreign language and she should have gotten credit in that area when she was forced to take geometry in high school). She has written poetry and short stories (her preferred forms of writing), and has been published online and in print. Though my career is in finance, I have also become a writer, with two self-published novels available. Words are not my friends; I feel I conquer them every time I write a novel. I am grateful for spell-check; spelling is not something I do well.
Our writing styles are very different. I schedule time to write; she writes when the Muse strikes. This means she has a purse full of notes scribbled on restaurant napkins, the backs of receipts, and pages torn out of her address book (later she can't remember why the R's are gone...). I sit down in my recliner, turn on my laptop, and write for one hour. I take a break. I edit my books the same way. I have a certain number of pages I commit to in one day, and I'm not satisfied until I can cross that off my "to-do" list.
In spite of our differences, my wife and I get along great. We don't always agree on things: sports, politics, religion, or where we should go on vacation, but we always agree on one thing: neither of us can imagine spending the rest of our lives with anyone else!

We're very different, but it works.

Joseph Rinaldo