Yes, Dear. Tonight Again / Marriage and Sailboats - 6/10/08

[Smartmarriages]

- 365 DAYS IN A ROW
- SAILBOATS AND MARRIAGE

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- 365 DAYS IN A ROW

Amazing that this article uses so many Michele Weiner-Davis concepts and
even what you'd think were her trademarked phrases (sex-starved marriage and
"just do it!", but doesn't quote her.  She'll have plenty of time to comment
in San Francisco in her Thurs keynote, The Sex Starved Wife.  - diane

Yes, Dear. Tonight Again.
The New York Times Sunday Styles
By RALPH GARDNER Jr
June 8, 2008

LET¹S say you and your spouse haven¹t had sex in so long that you can¹t
remember the last time you did. Not the day. Not the month. Maybe not even
the season. Would you look for gratification elsewhere? Would you file for
divorce? Or would you turn to your mate and say, ³Honey, you know, I¹ve been
thinking. Why don¹t we do it for the next 365 days in a row?²

That¹s more or less what happened to Charla and Brad Muller. And in another
example of an erotic adventure supplanting married ennui, a second couple,
Annie and Douglas Brown, embarked on a similar, if abbreviated journey: 101
straight days of post-nuptial sex.

Both couples document their exploits in books published this month, the
latest entries in what is almost a mini-genre of books offering advice about
the ³sex-starved marriage.² The couples, though, are hardly similar. The
Mullers are Bible-studying steak-eating Republicans from Charlotte, N.C. The
Browns are backpacking multigrain northerners who moved to Boulder, Colo.
The Mullers¹ book, ³365 Nights,² is rather modest and circumspect in its
details. The Browns¹ book, ³Just Do It,² almost makes the reader feel part
of a threesome, sharing everything they used to stimulate sexual desire
(it¹s hard to visualize and even harder to explain). . . .

To many spouses, ³married sex² may sound like an oxymoron. And
³married-with-children sex² may sound like that elusive antimatter. Indeed,
reigniting a couple¹s desire for each other has fueled an entire therapeutic
industry ‹ from Kinsey to Dr. Ruth to Redbook. According to a 2004 study,
³American Sexual Behavior,² by the National Opinion Research Center at the
University of Chicago, married couples have intercourse about 66 times a
year. But that number is skewed by young marrieds, as young as 18, who
couple, on average, 84 times a year.

Either way, those statistics put the Mullers and Browns in Olympic-record
territory. That they thought a sex marathon would reinvigorate their
marriages might say as much about the American penchant for exercise and
goal-setting as it does about the state of romance.

But the couples may also be on to something. ³There¹s a strong relationship
between rating your marriage as happy and frequency of intercourse,² said
Tom W. Smith, who conducted the ³American Sexual Behavior² study. ³What we
can¹t tell you is what the causal relationship is between the two. We don¹t
know whether people who are happy in their marriage have sex more, or
whether people who have sex more become happy in their marriages, or a
combination of those two.²

Do these couples provide any answers? Did sex every single night make them
happier in their marriages and in life?

Charla apparently had no intention of writing about ³the gift,² as she
euphemistically refers to it. She was simply a homemaker and marketing
consultant, who in 2006 wanted to give her husband a special 40th birthday
present.

³This is something no one else would give him,² she said in an interview.
³It didn¹t cost a lot of money. It was highly memorable. It met all the
criteria for a really great gift.²

For the complete article see with photos:
 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/fashion/08nights.html

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- SAILBOATS AND MARRIAGE

A Sailboat Ain¹t A Marriage
For the past 20 of our 48 years of marriage we¹ve owned a sailboat.
Halekulani¹s her name. That is Hawaiian for ³A Good Place.² We¹ve been
³liveaboards² for weeks at a time and weekenders as often as other
commitments allowed. She¹s been our second home all along the East Coast
from Nova Scotia to the Bahamas. We are writing about sailing because that¹s
been as important a part of our lives as ACME, and, we think it is a
wonderful metaphor for marriage ‹ ours anyway.

For the past 20 of our 48 years of marriage we¹ve owned a sailboat.
Halekulani¹s her name. That is Hawaiian for ³A Good Place.² We¹ve been
³liveaboards² for weeks at a time and weekenders as often as other
commitments allowed. She¹s been our second home all along the East Coast
from Nova Scotia to the Bahamas. We are writing about sailing because that¹s
been as important a part of our lives as A.C.M.E., and, we think it is a
wonderful metaphor for marriage ‹ ours anyway.

Remember David and Vera Mace¹s three myths of marriage?

    *  Myth 1: ³The marriage will take care of itself.² Sailboats, we think,
are a lot like careers, businesses, and marriages. They don¹t take care of
themselves. They have to be nurtured. Sailboats have to be hauled every so
often for bottom painting. Varnishing bright work, waxing hulls, polishing
brass, engine oil changes and tune-ups, always something in need of
attention. Our sailboat, like our marriage, requires work. Yet mysteriously
the ³work² often turns out to be part of the fun, the satisfaction.

    * Myth 2: ³The romance lasts forever.² (Marital joke: anyone married
more than two weeks has grounds for divorce.) Even if you¹ve never been
sailing, it¹s hard to believe you haven¹t dreamed about it. Ghosting along
in gentle breeze under a full moon on Long Island Sound. Reaching along at
six knots heeled to the gunwale way down east off the coast of Maine. Spying
on fish through your dive mask in the infinitely clear azure waters of the
Bahamian out islands. Motoring through Georgia¹s coastal creeks and marshes,
knowing that from a distance a sailboat looks like a weird tractor mowing
through a wheat field. Romantic? Wonderful! Last forever?
      Well, not riding out Hurricane Erin in Hope Town Harbor, Abaca, and
not with a dead engine six miles from home after a five-hundred-mile cruise,
and not when the anchor drags at 3:00 A.M. in a crowded harbor, and not when
the bilge inexplicably fills itself with seawater, or a visitor misuses the
head. No, the romance doesn¹t last forever, but it never drifts far away
either.

    * Myth 3: ³We are compatible.² The co-captains on Halekulani, when they
are truly honest, share some serious differences. Louise will report her
pleasure with a peaceful anchorage and a quiet time to read. Don will fixate
on a short cut across a sound and Louise will assert the need to follow the
chart. Louise loves to linger in familiar harbors. Don wants to up anchor
and go. After a long day on the water Louise is ready to meditate. Don¹s off
in the dinghy to investigate a new landfall. Probably we¹re 90% compatible.
Still that 10% of incompatibility has a way of rocking our marital boat
fairly severely from time to time.

Thanks to A.C.M.E. and others, we have tools that equip us to weather fronts
that disturb our marital waters. We have a manual of smarts and parts on
marital engine repair and preventive maintenance. We have sounders that let
us navigate clear of the shoals our relationship occasionally encounters. We
have charts and cruising guides that help us plot a course that¹s agreeable
to both of us. Best of all we have an on board player that hymns
Halekulani¹s theme song: ³The romance can last forever!²

Don and Louise are an A.C.M.E. trained and certified leader couple from
Savannah, Georgia. They presented a Saturday afternoon seminar entitled You,
Me, Us: The Couple Connection at IMEC 2001.

For a WEALTH of couple resources, visit the ACME website:
http://www.bettermarriages.org

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