Turbo Charge Your Love Life: Appreciation
Building a long lasting relationship is hard work and requires
both intensive and sustained efforts. In a brand new
relationship, such as when two partners first meet, the novelty
of the mutual reaction alone can generate excitement, desire,
and lust.
After a period of months or years, more effort is required to
keep that excitement alive. The intensity of those heady first
days relaxes into infatuation, then affection, then habit. We
take each other for granted because of a long history of caring
and mutual support.
To reinvigorate our feelings toward each other, we can seek to
rekindle that initial appreciation of all that our loved one
means to our lives. We concentrate too often on our
inadequacies. We feel that our bodies are imperfect and can
never measure up to the impossible standards of popular culture.
Repetitive, positive feedback can counter these negative
obsessions. We need to assure our partners on a recurrent,
frequent basis of our personal admiration and appreciation of
our partner's attributes.
Feeding our partner's ego accomplishes so much more than simply
creating a pleasant home environment. It develops goodwill and
the willingness to take risks and dare. It allows us the space
to discuss our feelings and our dreams. It boosts our regard for
each other and our mutual respect.
Too often we divide our lives into isolated compartments. There
is our work life, our social life, our family life, and our sex
life. No matter how much we try to keep them separate, they
spill over into each other and become inextricably mixed
together.
If there is friction or a lack of affection and support in our
everyday interactions, it will carry over into our intimate
moments. There is a tendency to think that any interpersonal
problems can be resolved by an intense session of making love.
The divorce courts are littered with the debris of partners who
recollect that "The sex was okay, it was everything else."
Assuming that you are not heading for a split but merely want to
invigorate the level of your relationship, take a look at how
the different aspects of your life inter-relate. Great sex
doesn't exist in a vacuum, it is an extension of what we are.
A warm, satisfying, continually stimulating intimate
relationship requires attention to our entire relationship, both
in and out of bed. The habit of taking each other for granted
throughout the day leads to lackluster intimacy at night.
Developing an attitude of appreciation for each other requires
awareness and a focus on each other throughout the day.
The behaviors we associate with intimacy - flirting, touching,
kissing, and stroking - stay fresh only with constant practice.
Push the demands of work and family into their proper place,
well below the primary partnership in your life, that special
union with your lifelong mate.
Try to incorporate the intimacy of your sex life into everyday
interactions. A quick telephone call or a voice mail message
reminds our partner that they are always on our mind, no matter
the demands of work and career. An e-mail listing the things we
especially love about our mate can be saved and revisited when
life is bleak and boring. A note tacked to the refrigerator can
make our partner smile with anticipation when they come home to
an empty house.
None of us can ever get too much appreciation or too much
positive feedback. It makes us feel good about ourselves, more
secure, and more confident - all qualities that spill over into
our intimate moments and put the fire back into our sexual
games.