The New Male Sexuality (28 page)

I’m sure you’re not happy to be reading about this. Everyone I know is afflicted by busyness and feels great pressure to do all the things they think they have to do. To hear that you probably should be putting more time into your relationship may feel like another burden, yet there it is. There are no good relationships that do not involve and require lots of quality time together. I knew a self-employed man who was away five days a week virtually every week, being home only on Saturday and Sunday. While courting his fiancée he had largely given up his favorite sport, but at a certain point he wanted to get back to it. She went ballistic when he called her during the week, informed her of this, and asked which day she wanted to spend with him. When she responded she wanted both days, he said that wasn’t possible because he wanted to start spending most of one day every weekend playing golf. Trying to placate her, he mentioned that he was calling her before his golf buddies and giving her the choice of days. She was not placated, and he was not pleased.

He also wasn’t pleased when I suggested that if he was gone five days of every week and wanted a decent relationship, he might have to consider significantly reducing the amount of time he wanted to spend playing golf. He looked at me with a combination of anger and sadness and asked in a quiet voice, “Why can’t one day be enough for her?”

The answer is simply that, like it or not, good relationships take time, more than most of us expected. But we should know better. Anything we want to do well takes a lot of time—work skills, staying physically fit, parenting, and so on. Human desires are infinite, but time and energy are not.

Very often you can’t have everything you want. You have to give up one valued goal in order to achieve another. Maybe you can’t work as many hours as you have been, go to as many meetings as you do, take as many classes, or entertain as much and still have the kind of relationship and sex life you want. Something has to go, maybe several things.

The man in the example above had several choices. One was to play golf on his business trips, so he wouldn’t have to do it at home. Another was to play golf Sunday morning, but only for two or three hours and spend the rest of the day with his partner. Another was to rearrange his work so he could be home more often. Yet another, God forbid, was to give up golf altogether. Or, if golf was that important to him, give up the relationship. As it was, he didn’t have to decide. His fiancée realized that there wouldn’t be much relating if she married him, and so she left.

At least two kinds of time together are important. One is regular dates when you do what people usually do on dates: eat in or out, dance, take walks or bike rides, attend movies, plays, or musical events, and so on. Every couple I know who has a good relationship does this. They have certain days and times reserved for their dates, and when on a date they don’t bring along work. They most certainly do not do what I’ve seen a number of people do since the invention of the cell phone—talk on the phone while on a date in a restaurant or in a movie theater. These regular dates should be supplemented by getaways of various lengths. Most couples get along better and have more sex when they’re away from home, so it’s a good idea, even if you have young children, to spend a night or two away from home as often as possible.

If you’re not already doing this, it would help if both of you pulled out your appointment books and wrote in times to be together for the next few weeks and then to keep those dates as if your lives depended on it. Although there’s no rule you have to make love, you should plan to have fun. And there’s to be no work done, no calls to make or take, and no chores. Every couple needs at least one or two dates a week. Without this, there is no relationship.

Another kind of time together that is needed is shorter visits every evening, or almost every evening, when you check in and catch up on each other’s day. These visits need not be long—sometimes five or ten minutes will do it—but they do serve to keep you up to date and in touch. I realize you have to take care of the children, make and eat dinner and clean up, go over your to-do list for tomorrow, and take the dog for a walk. But can you also find a few minutes to catch up with your beloved? Some couples do this while walking the dog.

2. Get to know and keep learning about one another
. An important purpose and outcome of spending time together is to really know each other. Consider these questions: Do you know your mate’s birthday? The thing she’d most like to do on a day off? The project, person, or activity
she’s most concerned about these days in her work? The project, person, or activity she most likes about her work? Her best friend(s)? Her worst nemesis? Where she hopes things will be in five years? If you can’t answer these questions accurately, I wonder if you really do know her. I’d be willing to bet she can accurately answer these questions about you. Women usually can because they pay attention.

How do you determine these things? Simple: by asking questions, listening, and paying attention.

Here is a simple exercise that can help. For the next month, every day before you separate for your day apart, ask her what she’s most looking forward to that day and what she most fears. When you get together for your time together in the evening, ask about these things (for instance, “How did the meeting with Madge go?” or “Was the new boss as bad as you thought?”). If you do nothing more than ask these questions daily, I guarantee you’ll learn a great deal about your spouse, and I can almost guarantee she’ll be appreciative. By the way, if you realize you don’t know the answers to the questions I posed above, or aren’t sure, why not just ask her? It’s amazing what you can learn by asking.

3
. Administer lavish doses of C and A (compliments and appreciations)
. I’m astonished by how many couples rarely say anything nice to each other. All the nice things that were said during courting (“You were so funny at dinner tonight,” “You look so hot in that outfit,” “That was an incredible insight you had,” and so on) seem to have been forgotten, and now we have either silence or criticisms. Many women weep when they tell their friends or therapists how long it’s been since their men paid them a compliment.

If you want a great relationship, compliment your wife as often as possible. What about her do you find beautiful, striking, attractive, exciting, fascinating, or sexy? What makes you glad to be with her? There’s no such thing as overdoing it in this department. I’ve never heard a woman complain that she can’t take all the compliments and that she’s ready to rush out and have an affair with someone who doesn’t tell her good things.

I address compliments and appreciations in more detail in
Chapter 10
, but for now you might want to take it as an assignment to give your partner at least one specific compliment or appreciation every day for the next two weeks.

4
. Be liberal with physical affection
. Compliments and appreciations are one way of showing your interest and affection. Physical touch—holding
hands, cuddling, hugging, kissing, rubbing her thigh in the car or the theater—is another and equally important.

5
. Be present
. There’s no point spending time with your partner or touching her if your mind’s not in the same place as your body. You have to attend to and be present with your partner if it is going to count.

Some people think being present is a mystical concept. Trust me, there’s nothing mystical at all about it. If you have children, you know how often they’re not present when you talk to them. Being present is the opposite of withdrawing or spacing out. It means being fully attentive and present—listening to yourself and her, and expressing yourself as appropriate.

This is the old ’60s idea of “be here now.” Whatever you’re doing, do it. If you’re talking to a woman at a party, look at her. Don’t let your eyes keep roaming around the room as if you’re looking for someone better. If you’re having a talk or getting affectionate, don’t turn on the television or keep glancing at a magazine. If you’re being affectionate or sexual, don’t bring up extraneous matters. Talking about sports or business does not work in the bedroom, although I’ve been surprised to hear how many men bring up these subjects.

Men are superbly attentive when they first meet you. But after we’re an item, their attention span seems to reduce to four seconds except when they’re working or watching sports. It’s infuriating to try to talk to someone who’s glancing at the TV or a paper.

I like a man who’s all there when we’re together, especially in bed, really focused on us and what we’re doing. I don’t like guys who space out and I don’t know where they are. It’s like they’re marching to a different drummer, and since I have no knowledge of the drummer or the beat, I feel totally abandoned. They can drum their own song when they masturbate. When they’re with me, I want a duet.

All of us frequently put out what relationship expert John Gottman calls “bids for contact.” That is, we try to get the other person to pay attention to us. The direct bids are easy to spot—for example, “I need to talk to you.” The indirect ones, however, are just as important and not so easy. For instance, when your partner says, “Looks like it’s going to rain today” or “There’s a deer in the backyard,” we have to assume she’s trying to engage you in a conversation. A man who is present or conscious notices these bids and responds accordingly by turning toward his partner and
accepting the bid or, if necessary, explaining why he can’t at that moment. The unconscious man doesn’t notice or, even if he does, just continues with what he was doing.

6
.
Take your partner’s feelings, ideas, and opinions seriously
. Many men don’t take women seriously in bed or outside it and are dismissive of their feelings and ideas. This is a sure route to a miserable relationship and sex life. I know very few men will jump up and admit, “Yeah, that’s me, I don’t really care what she wants or says,” but I’ve witnessed it in therapy thousands of times. The woman offers an opinion about anything—what school to put the children in, where to spend the family vacation, what to do in bed—and the man continues on as if she hadn’t spoken at all.

Check yourself out on this issue. One good way is to ask your partner whether she feels you take her seriously. If so, that’s great. But if she says no, you might want to do something about that. Listen to her ideas, see what value they contain, and accept the ones that make sense. Even if you think your idea on what school the children should attend is better than hers, don’t just dismiss hers. Tell her what you see as the advantages of your plan and why it might be better than hers. Have a discussion with her, always treating her ideas with respect, and observe the results.

7. Take complaints and anger seriously but with equanimity
. Gottman determined in his research that healthy relationships were greatly facilitated by the man’s not getting upset about—that is, not taking personally—his mate’s anger. I say more about this in
Chapter 12
, on listening, but suffice it to say here that it helps to take her anger simply as information. There’s something she really wants you to understand. If you can listen and understand without getting angry, defensive, or crazy yourself, that’s excellent.

8. Enjoy carnal delights together
. Lovemaking is another “glue” that keeps a relationship strong. There’s no need to say more about it here, because it’s the topic of this entire book.

CHAPTER TEN

Expressing Yourself

Learning to be more forthcoming about my personal feelings has not always been easy because I was brought up in a family where mum was the word. For several months I had to remind myself to say something personal to Dana before I left the house every morning, and every evening when I came home. But the payoff has been terrific—she is very appreciative of this openness—and it’s gotten easier over time. Now it’s kind of automatic and the result is a much stronger marriage.—
Man, 39