Today my wife and I have been married for 25 years. It’s been fun for us so far and I look forward to the years to come. Here are some of the things I’ve learned over the years.

Marry the Person You Can’t Live Without (and Who Can’t Live Without You)

Don’t settle. Don’t marry the logical person. Marry the person who fills you with lust, laughter and longing.

Everyone Marries the Wrong Person

No matter how well you choose each other, there will be a time (or maybe even times) when you are convinced things are so bad they will never be better. Recognize that this feeling is normal and in almost every case things WILL be better. Don’t make a permanent choice (like having an affair or getting a divorce) because of a temporary problem.

Marriage Isn’t About Sex, It’s About Partnership

You get married because you want to be there for one another over the long haul. Marriage says “I’ll be there for you no matter what happens to you. When you are weak, I’ll be there. When you screw up, I’ll be there.”

But You Better Have Lots of Sex

While marriage isn’t about sex, if you want to have a successful marriage you better have a lot of sex. Spontaneous, movie sex happens, but not too often. You need to plan time and energy to maintain an active sex life. Not only will you both enjoy it, it will create a stronger bond between you.

Date Your Spouse

Once a week or more have a date night. If you don’t have the money to “go out,” stay in and rent a DVD. Send the kids somewhere else. A few times a year—as many times as possible—go away for a romantic weekend.

Maintain Your Appearance

We are all going to age and won’t look like we did at 21. Despite that fact we can maintain our appearance. Dress nicely even when you are home with your spouse. Watch your weight and exercise. If you are a woman learn to use make-up. Men, try shaving—even on weekends. Not only will you feel more sexy, you will be more sexy.

Be a Cheerleader for Your Spouse

No, I don’t mean buy an outfit and roll play. What I mean is that you need to be the person who always believes in your partner and cheers for their efforts and successes. Your success as a team is highly dependent on how much you believe in your spouse and your spouse believes in you.

Let Someone Else Correct Your Spouse

When your spouse screws up—and (s)he will—chances are your spouse knows it already. Even if (s)he is not yet aware of their faux-pas, someone will be sure to point it out to them. Let it go. Let your need to be right go. They need to have you be a cheerleader, not a coach.

Make Time to Be Alone

Put the kids to bed. Every night. Get up early to have coffee together. Ride to the store together even when you don’t both have to go. The best indicator of marital happiness is how much time partners spend together.

Let Your Needs be Known

When you need something—whether it is a hug or a weekend with the boys fishing—tell your spouse. Don’t expect them to read your mind. Don’t think you are being selfish and “shouldn’t” ask. If you are going to succeed as a couple you need to be able to get your needs met in the relationship.

Supply What Your Spouse Needs

When your spouse tells you they need something from you, do all you can to provide it.

Trust Without Reservation

For your marriage to work you must allow your spouse into the deepest part of your life. Yes, they might hurt you. Yes, it can be scary. But that’s why you committed to them and they committed to you.

Have Kids Even Though You Can’t Possibly Afford Them

You can’t afford to have kids. Have them anyway.

Ask Your Spouse About Their Day and Really Listen

Ever day plan to take some time to let them talk about their day. Be their cheerleader (see above) and let them give you as many details as they choose.

Hope you find these tips helpful. Feel free to add any of your own below.

Art by Debi Levendusky

Sex & Marriage - Don’t Let Life Get in the Way of Having Sex

By Alyssa Johnson at RemarriageSuccess.com

Sex in marriage can be difficult when you’ve got kids and numerous demands on your time. It’s just not the same as it was when you were newly married and could run around the house naked if you wanted to. The spontaneity of sex gets stiffed a little too because there are little ones whose needs have to be taken care of as well.

But…

Always putting those little ones needs above your own as a couple is a dangerous choice. You need to keep that marriage strong and your sexual relationship is an important aspect in protecting that marriage from all of the other outside pressures. Your sexual relationship is one aspect that the world at large has nothing to do with. It’s just you and your spouse celebrating one another and your relationship.

Men and women’s sex drives are different. There’s no getting around that. It’s important to “work with what you’ve got” and understand how those differences can be used to your advantage rather than see it as something to “deal with.”

For women, a difficulty is that if they don’t have sex frequently, they can start losing the desire for it. It just sort of falls of the radar. This is easy when women are burdened with household and child rearing responsibilities along with a full-time job. There’s so much to get done that sex never makes it to the “to do” list.

Men, on the other hand, just become frustrated and irritable when the sexual relationship is less than what they want. It’s very difficult for men to understand why their wives aren’t interested in having sex at the drop of a dime. Most men’s thinking goes something like this: “It feels good, right? Then why not do it if you’re tired to help you relax and feel better?!”

This is one of those eternal conflicts in marriage that couples need to learn how to sort out effectively. The bottom line, however is that you DO need to maintain your sexual relationship no matter what the external pressures may be on your marriage.

One option for doing this is to schedule sex. Now I know you’re probably thinking, “How romantic!!” But, take a minute and think about it. Obviously you’re having a hard time fitting sex into your routine right now. You make the time to run the kids to their activities. You make the time to go to the dentist. Why? It’s on the calendar and you’ve made a commitment to do it. While scheduled sex may not be spontaneous, it can be romantic. You’ve got the opportunity to anticipate it and prepare for it. Don’t cram a bunch of stuff into those days. Take it easy so you wont’ be so tired. Just the anticipation of it may actually help your desire level.

Give it a try a few times. Make it every bit as much of a priority as all of the other things on your “to do” list. It shouldn’t be something that you squeeze in if you feel like it or have time. It should be one of the top 3 priorities of the day!

Art from Loving Sex

Alyssa is a remarriage expert. She specializes in working with divorced families who are planning to remarry.

She provides high quality resources and support to these newly emerging step families. In addition to her website, Alyssa provides remarriage and step family coaching to clients in person or on the phone.

She, along with a collegue, developed a divorce recovery class for children (FACT - Families Accepting Change Together) . Her desire is to work not only with the children, but also their parents to help everyone adequately prepare for a remarriage with the goal being to avoid a redivorce and achieve remarriage success!

Want to learn more about creating a more fulfilling sex life with your spouse? I want to invite you to download our audio, “Daytime Parents & Nighttime Lovers” by visiting http://www.RemarriageSuccess.com/9117audiosignup.htm

Are you remarried and trying to build a step family? If so, why not become a member of our Tip of the Week? Each week you’ll receive an information packed tip with tons of resources and supports to strengthen your marriage and step family. Learn more by going to http://www.RemarriageSuccess.com/tip.htm

(Article originally appeared at EzineArticles.com)

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Characteristics of Infatuation

During this time, you feel as though the two of you were made for each other. You think that God truly made this person for you. Everything about him is perfect and nothing ever bothers you.

You stay up for hours just talking and you never run out of things to say to each other. You can’t believe that you finally found your soul mate. All this time, you have been looking and you finally found him.

You know that it must be real love because you have never felt this way before. You have such love, admiration, and desire for this person. The sex is absolutely amazing, it is truly a spiritual connection.

The thing about infatuation is that it eventually wears off. The infatuation stage of love is caused by the chemicals in your body reacting to the chemicals in your partner’s body. This biological connection is what we call “chemistry“. The bigger the difference in your DNA from his, the stronger the chemistry.

Infatuation is Necessary

There is actually a very good reason to have the infatuation stage of love. This creates a strong foundation of love for the relationship. You create wonderful memories and good feelings that you can look back on fondly. This love will help you weather the ups and downs of a life together.

You need to remember that eventually the infatuation will wear off. This is when the real relationship begins. You will see your partner for who he really is. Now you can begin to create the life and love that you have always wanted.

Art from Evangelos Vlasopoulos

To read her blog go here: http://PassionBlog.Wordpress.com

To find out more about her coaching go here: http://www.ingenio.com/Coach+Terri

• How to Save Your Marriage
• How to Understand Your Husband’s Crazy Brain
• How to Get What You Want in Marriage

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This book will help you BOTH find happiness and fulfillment.
Just click here to begin having the marriage of your dreams!

“My ex-wife still tries to dominate me and interfere in my life. I have moved on and have a new woman. My teenage daughter and I have a very good relationship but whenever my ex-wife is around I am reminded why I divorced her. How do I get her to understand she is divorced and must get a life of her own?”

Your mutual connection, the daughter whom you co-parent, will remain integral to both of your lives. It will therefore be to the advantage of all concerned if you remain kind, forthright and strong in all of your dealings with the woman whom you once loved enough to marry.

Include your “new woman” in as many interactions with your ex-wife as possible. This will serve as a constant reminder to your ex-wife that you have, in fact, moved on.

As an aside, I’d suggest that while your ex-wife’s behavior continues to elicit a strong reaction from you, you may not have “moved on” as much as you might think.

You remain as powerless over your ex-wife as you were when you were yet married. I’d suggest you take time to evaluate the reasons she can so effectively get under your skin. What is it about you, that her behavior so gets to you?

Art by Lynne Lancaster

Rod Smith has taught family therapy and courses on related topics for various institutions, primarily The University of the Nations, in many locations around the world. His “YOU AND ME” newspaper column is widely enjoyed in South Africa where it has been published daily for almost to 7 years.

So valued are Rod Smith’s methods of intervention that high-profile, highly conflicted families have flown him half the way around the world to assist in finding some manner of resolution to seemingly insurmountable dilemmas.

Rod writes the Difficult Relationship Blog and is available to help you with your own difficult relationship issues. You can reach Rod via email Rod@DifficultRelationships.com OR “RodeSmithMSMFT” on SKYPE.

• How to Save Your Marriage
• How to Understand Your Husband’s Crazy Brain
• How to Get What You Want in Marriage

Get Aaron’s New Book
How To Seduce Your Wife Tonight
FREE!

This book will help you BOTH find happiness and fulfillment.
Just click here to begin having the marriage of your dreams!

A woman writes, after ending her affair…..

“Wow! I happened to fall upon this site and I am so amazed at all the responses on this matter. I am not proud of what I am about to say but I fell in love with a married man. It started out as a professional relationship, but he flirted and pursued me and eventually I relented.

I believed him when he said, “nothing would change between us professionally.”

I believed him when he said “I have never done this before”….but little clues led me to believe different.

The fact that when his wife called him on his cell and he answered (while I was present) he would look me straight in the eye and not act nervously at all. Another time (I tested this) by hugging him while he was conversing with her, and he did not wince, or push me away at all!

So, either, he really hated her, or he is very used to this situation.

I wised up and left this relationship. She caught on, and I could tell that she had dealt with this before. She wasn’t even angry, it was more like: “Here we go again.”

I feel sorry for her. He is (so-called) “high profile.”

He makes a good living and they have several young kids. It hurt to leave, because I did love him. I probably still do,…but bottom line is it was so wrong!

One doesn’t intentionally try to get into these situations….at least I didn’t….it just happened, and like a fool I fell for his charm.

Don’t be stupid like I was…..realize…that if he really loved you. He would leave her for you….but then…..”buyer beware”….you just might get what you wished for! Hmmmm………? No Thanks. I don’t want to spend MY marriage looking over my shoulder and babysitting my husband…..just like it has been stated previously….if he did it to her? What is to stop him from doing it to you? What makes you better? You are NOT the mother of his children, you do NOT own property together, you do NOT have a history together….so why wouldn’t he cheat on you too?? Just an FYI….take it from someone who knows….

Here’s an update: AFTER I broke it off with him I ran into a girl at a nightclub and she told he that he had sex with one of her co-workers! Now who would have thought?”

This comment was left on the article found here: rodesmith.com/2006/01/13/the-seductive-nature-of-an-extramaritial-affair/

Rod Smith has taught family therapy and courses on related topics for various institutions, primarily The University of the Nations, in many locations around the world. His “YOU AND ME” newspaper column is widely enjoyed in South Africa where it has been published daily for almost to 7 years.

So valued are Rod Smith’s methods of intervention that high-profile, highly conflicted families have flown him half the way around the world to assist in finding some manner of resolution to seemingly insurmountable dilemmas.

Rod writes the Difficult Relationship Blog and is available to help you with your own difficult relationship issues. You can reach Rod via email Rod@DifficultRelationships.com OR “RodeSmithMSMFT” on SKYPE.

Art here.

• How to Save Your Marriage
• How to Understand Your Husband’s Crazy Brain
• How to Get What You Want in Marriage

Get Aaron’s New Book
How To Seduce Your Wife Tonight
FREE!

This book will help you BOTH find happiness and fulfillment.
Just click here to begin having the marriage of your dreams!