24 - Wednesday, November 11, 1987 -— North Shore News

Lifestyles

Q: AFTER 14 years of a good marriage (1 am 32 and my
husband 40), he is in the mood for sex much more often

than I am.

1 just fet it happen, but a good
deal of the time I am not really in-
volved and that bothers me. It is
not that he complains, not even
that I mind, but is it a bad sign for
the future that I am less interested
than he is?

A: In so many couples it is the
way you describe — that one part-
ner has a more regular sexual ap-
petite than the other. And what
you are doing is just the right
thing.

It isn’t written down in my book
of sexual law that both partners
have to be participating at the
same level at every single sexual
encounter. It seems that you are
not unhappy, but only concerned.

Perhaps he senses something
lacking, or that you will be in-
creasingly less interested even

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though you are the younger one,
or that you may be aging too fast,
sexually.

I say don't worry. Only don’t let
yourself feel pressured to reach
orgasm, or to have actual inter-
course, or in any way go beyond
what you feel willing to do when
your own level of sexual interest is
not high.

Couples can agree that one
partner wil! pleasure the other, or
take. part affectionately without
dutifully trying to make the earth
move.or the stars blaze in the sky.
It is no more necessary for both to
take part at the same !<vel every
time thanit is for both partners to
climax at the same moment, as the
old sex manuals used to tell us was
the right behavior of mature and
well-mated lovers.

Q. It happens too often that I
am preoccupied with business and
financial matters when my wife
wants my attention or to make
love. Iam aware of this and it isn’t
right, but I don’t have the knack
of turning off the worries for a
given time — an hour, an evening,
a weekend. They flock to my
mind. And they aren’t imaginary,
either.

But I feel that life is slipping by
and I am not taking from it or giv-
ing to it the pleasure that I should,
either companionebly, personally
or sexually.

A. Sometimes the best advice I
can give to someone who says ‘‘I
can’t seem to do something”’ is to
say ‘‘Just do it.’’ That is definitely
the short cut to mary desired
things, instead of thinking ‘‘How
will I get myself into the right
state of mind to do what I
should?”’ Just do it. But I will give

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you a couple of ideas for breaking
out of the worry habit.

First, every day during the
workday take a big 15 minutes at
least to do something totally un-
productive like taking a walk
around the block, going to the
roof and watching the traffic or
doing some mind-emptying exer-
cise. This will be good for your
head and it will help you to do
later what you want to do with
your wife — set aside a time for
you and her to talk, make love, or
just be together without those
preoccupations.

These set-aside times will rest
your mind, too, and help you to
think better when you return to
your concerns. And you have to
tell yourself that sex is good for

oods

you — good for your body and for
your brain, much in the same way
that sleep and nourishment are
good for them.

Thinking on and on of problems
when energy is to.. is mere worry-
ing, which has been defined as
low-grade thinking.

And this: It may be that your
wife’s needs get to seem like one
more demand on you, like your
business and your mortgage and
whatever. What your wife has the
right to ask of you, even if you
know you ought to give it, even if
you want to give it, may be some-
thing you resent. There is a simple
way to unload the resentment. Do
some simple thing all for yourself.

Once | told an executive not to
come back to my office until he

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lifer

had gone to a sporting goods store
and bought himself a basketball. I
knew that he had been a schoolboy
athlete before the burdens of the
world descended on him.

He bought the basketball and
took it to a court and lost track of
time and all those concerns in that
simple pastime — and his wife, his
children and his work all benefit-
ted.

deadline Dec. 1, 1987

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