Sex For Dummies. Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer

are some other ideas for sharing time with your partner.

       Go for walks: There’s no better time to discuss something than when you go for a stroll.You have privacy because only the two of you are there.You have few distractions. Leave your smartphone home (unless a real emergency is pending).By walking, you’ll be expending energy — energy that may otherwise be used in fighting. You’ll find that, if you discuss issues while being active instead of passive, you’ll be much less likely to squabble over the little things.

       Go out on dates: I know that if you have children finding the time and the money to go on dates can be hard, but having some extended periods of time that you can devote to each other is really important. If you don’t have any grandparents around, try to find another couple with whom you can exchange baby-sitting duties. If you can’t afford a fancy restaurant, go to McDonald’s, order your Big Mac to go, and park somewhere quiet for an hour or so. Better yet, make your own picnic lunch.

       Get a lock for your bedroom door: I’m always surprised to find couples who don’t have this little necessity. Your kids need to know that sometimes Mommy and Daddy want to be alone — just to talk or for other, more private reasons. A hook-and-eye type lock costs only about a dollar, and it can be the best investment you ever make. This not only offers you privacy, but it also teaches your kids that loving parents need their alone time too.

       Turn down the volume: Some people seem to always need background noise, be it the TV or music. Even if the noise is not loud enough to stop conversation, it’s still a distraction to conversation. Because time for communication is already short, both of you have to give each other your full attention if you want to really impart information. And when you get in your car together, don’t automatically put on some tunes. Drive time can be great conversation time.

       Organize and prioritize: With busy schedules, not getting scattered is hard. You keep saying “We’ll talk soon,” and even though you share the same living space, soon becomes later and later becomes never. Yes, you have things that you must do, but are they all more important than talking to each other? Make a list of what you have to do (dress the kids, walk the dog) and put conversation with your spouse as close to the top as you can. In fact, you should set aside some time every day, or at least every week, which is your time when you can talk about important matters. Make this a ritual for yourselves.

       Turn off your phone: Just because there’s a ringtone or little chime telling you’ve got a new email or text message doesn’t mean that it always gets first crack at your attention. Sometimes you just have to decide that you won’t make room for interruptions. If the two of you have finally found time to sit down and have a conversation, interrupting those precious moments makes no sense. Nobody is more important to you than your spouse, right?

      Keeping together when you’re apart

      In the days when the only way to communicate over long distances was with pen and ink, people actually wrote to each other. Now that the typewriter is passé, and we have computers and e-mail to make writing easier, people do it less and less.

       If you have half an hour, and your spouse isn’t around, write him or her a letter. Explain how you feel so you can get a jump start when you do get the chance to talk. How your letter gets there — via post office, text, or e-mail — is up to you.

       You can also jot down brief messages on sticky notes and leave them someplace where your spouse is sure to see them. Just make sure that those short notes aren’t always passing on a chore, or your spouse will dread seeing them rather than view them as something to look forward to.

      

Writing yourself notes about what you need to communicate to your partner is a good idea. How many times have you said to your spouse, “I had something to tell you, but I’ve forgotten it”? If you’d written it down, you wouldn’t have that problem. So next time, do just that.

      Letting communication between you and your spouse drift away into nothingness is very easy. Communication is something that you have to work at, and both of you have to put it near the top of your list of priorities.

      Sex and marriage

      Even though most people don’t state the word orgasm in their marriage vows, being able to derive sexual satisfaction with your spouse is certainly implied. But the sexual union between husband and wife brings more to a marriage than just the easing of sexual tensions. It also brings intimacy, which is another important component to the glue that holds the two of you together.

      A marriage needs intimacy because it shows the world, and proves to the couple themselves, that they really have a special bond between them. That doesn’t mean you can’t set any boundaries, but the fewer you have, the more intimate you will be. And I’m not only talking about physical intimacy. Being naked together is certainly a good feeling, but you also have to let your partner see into your psyche. If you hide your hopes, your dreams, and your desires from your spouse, then you become strangers in some very basic areas, which is not good for a marriage.

      

You can also carry intimacy too far and think nothing of, say, burping loudly in front of your spouse as if he or she weren’t there. That’s not intimacy; it’s just gross. No matter how intimate you are, you should never lose respect for your partner. Now, if your intimacy stretches into the bathroom, then there’s certainly nothing wrong with exercising any bodily function in front of each other, but that notion doesn’t give you license to turn the rest of the house into a toilet.

      Don’t play games with each other

      What ruins the intimacy between a husband and wife is when they play games with each other, which means when they keep score.

       He did that, so I won’t do this.

       She didn’t let me do this, so I won’t let her do that.

       Last year we didn’t go to the dance, so I won’t go to his family picnic.

      Every time you look up at that scoreboard, you destroy a piece of your marriage. You aren’t supposed to be on different teams; you’re supposed to be on the same team. Remember, if one of you wins and the other loses, the relationship always loses!

      Now, even teammates squabble. Perfect marriages don’t exist; things will go wrong, and you’ll have your ups and downs. But if your goal is to be perfectly intimate, to be as close to each other as possible, then you’ll work those problems out and continue to make progress. If you stop thinking that way — if you start believing that your relationship is a competition — then very soon it will become one, and it will cease to be a marriage.

      

You can find no better feeling in the world than being one with the person you love. During sex, the intensity of that oneness can be terrific, but that feeling is also a source of strength and comfort 24 hours a day. Work toward having the kind of marriage where you really do feel that you’re in this life together. You won’t regret it, I promise you.

      

And if your sex life isn’t what it should be, or what you’d like it to be, then I suggest you devote some time to reading Chapter 14 on how to spice up your love life.