When You Don't Know What You're Doing, the Sky's the Limit

Yeah, but what about when you do know what you're doing? . . . . . .
I am not totally sure, but I suspect it includes mediocracy, rigidity, fighting the last war, missing new opportunities, not seeing the writing on the wall. The list goes on and on. It applies to all kinds of endeavors, not the least of which is relationships.

As we age, we change. Yet, how many of us look at our relationships and see what's right here, right now?

It is so easy to not see that "what we've always done" is not working. It can be even easier to see that there are things that we have never done, perhaps even things that "we don't do" that would be just perfect now.

Chairman Mao apparently killed a lot of people in his effort to shake up Chinese culture in this regard and get out of this kind of energetic, creative straitjacket. Lots of pain and suffering resulted. What do you do to re-energize the creative forces of a whole nation? I don't know.

I do know that the best work-around for this inevitable trap that I have come across is in practicing some form of mindfulness as described on my website http://www.better-relationships-over-50.com/ . (When I first wrote that page I thought that it was just a form of meditation, hence the current title of the page, but I have since become aware of the work of Dr. Langer at Harvard who does not describe her version of mindfulness as meditation, but, rather, a kind of noticing, so I will be broadening what I refer to as mindfulness.

Internet Infidelity

If a relationship is only on the internet and no real life contact is ever made, is it an affair?

That clearly is a matter of opinion and the answer depends on the meaning you place on the word "affair".

If an affair, a case of infidelity, is a "go-directly-to-divorce-court" card, then I would say that an internet relationship would better not be categorized as an affair. It will undermine the primary relationship. It will let off pressure that would best be dealt with in the primary relationship. It doesn't help anything in the long run and is likely to lead to some real time trouble.

And, it isn't fair. You don't even really know who is on the other end of that wire in the first place. Also, they don't have to deal with all of the parts of a real relationship, so they can seem to be better than they really are. And even if they are truly wonderful people, they just don't have to deal with as much with you.

It's not unlike one partner going to a therapist and then judging the other partner from there. It isn't fair either. Sure the therapist is more understanding and appreciative. They get to see you an hour a week and then go home to their own problems.

Ah, what about being with a partner who is repelled by your sexual kinks so you leave them alone on that, getting your needs met by imaginary relationships with more open-minded folk you ask? Same principles hold, but that one is a little more complicated, isn't it? Still, these kinds of things are telling us what we need to deal with in ourselves, not what our partners should do or that we need new partners.

Internet relationships? Tempting, but better left alone. Or, use them to highlight what you'd like to get more in your real relationships, but never count them as the real McCoy.

Coping With Divorce Over 50

Coping with divorce at any age is no bed of roses. Once we're over 50 a new factor may come into our consciousness.

It is a biological clock ticking away. This time it isn't reserved for the ladies and about babies. It is all about us and it's telling us that our time is limited and our options are narrowing.

This is just as it should be in the overall scheme of things, but it can be pretty unnerving on a personal level.

The trick, of course, is to use it as focusing reality. There's lots to do and each of us can use the time we have or just lose it. Divorce at this age is very likely a distraction from important personal business in my present view. Maybe not. Any thoughts?

Divorce: Stay? or Go?

We're not going to live forever. Maybe it's time to give up on this marriage and enjoy what time we have left. Or, maybe we can keep this marriage and enjoy what time we have left. Or . . . ?

Bailing out and looking for a last chance better deal may sound logical and it may turn out to be right, but it is a decision that carries and incredible number of entanglements with it.

It makes sense find an orderly way to work through the decision and to know the options for working with what you have if you decide to stay and to do it right if you decide to go.

You might want to check out resources such as the downloadable "Should You Stay or Should You Go" by clicking here to help with how to go about it. Not only figuring what you should take into account, but how to go at it.

Retirement Is A New Deal For Relationships

One or both of you is home more now. That's great! Or is it?

Busy people can find lots of good reasons, lots of good ways, to never get around to dealing with things that bother them. Jobs, kids, maintenance. There hasn't been enough time for so long.

And, even though I read somewhere that in a recent poll over 70% of men between the ages of 28 to 40 said they would take a pay cut to have more time with their families, they don't have the time at those ages.

The chickens come home to roost sooner or later.

If it's sooner, somebody just walks out the door. In this age of no-fault divorce, that's pretty simple to do.

If it's later, it rears it's head with retirement or slowing down of one or both partners.

Don't be surprised. Don't be ashamed. It happens. .. . . . A lot.

Be ready. Take it as a new phase of your ongoing relationship cycle and wonder what new experiences lie ahead this time around the circle.

Attraction and Knowledge

How we think we are going to like someone we haven't met yet depends on how much we know about them. The more we know about them, the less likely we are to think that we will like them.

That was a conclusion drawn from a psychological study done using descriptions like the ones you find on social networking sites and dating sites and then asking respondents if they thought they would like the person. So labels like "enjoys the outdoors" or "enjoys quiet times alone" were more likely to get positive response than say "avid deer hunter" or "gets engrossed in caring for his stamp collection".

Makes sense. Good psychological research should make sense. We live the topic everyday afterall.

Also helps understand the romance stage in the cycle of relationships better. Lots to like at that point and little to have to accommodate to, whether it's a new relationship with a man or woman, a new baby, or a boss or employee.

It gets challenging, and really interesting, as all the unique details start to fill in.

Menstrual Cycle/Money Cycle?

Researchers at the University of New Mexico, Geoffery Miller and Brent Jones, have compared earnings of lap dancers with where they are in their menstrual cycles and have found that when they are ovulating, they make significantly more money per hour. I believe it was $30 per hour more than when menstruating and $15 per hour more than the rest of the cycle.

How does that happen? I don't think anyone knows yet.

Does it mean that you should never buy a used car from a woman who is ovulating, or that female salespeople and in other business roles should time their dealmaking to their cycles? No one knows that yet either, but the Harvard Business Review may be holding a spot for those results as soon as they come out.

And, to those of us in the age range where most women have stopped ovulating, does it mean anything at all?

Strength-building Exercise - How Are You Doing?

The more reading I do to support and add to my website, on relationships over 50, positive aging, etc., the more I cannot get away from the fact that strength building exercise is extremely important as we get older and I'm not doing it and neither are most of my friends.

The stronger and more flexible we are, the more we are likely to move around and do things, and the less likely we are to fall and hurt ourselves. That in itself is convincing to me, but I still don't do it.

How are you doing with regard to exercise? What has made it work?

Still Working On Relationship Problems?or perhaps trying to avoid the working?

Believe it or not, there are good reasons to believe that the second choice is more effective.

If all the taping, wiring, watching in John Gottman's relationship lab out there in rainy, gray Seattle has brought us any new information on relationships, it may be that the simple things count the most.

Take away the operational definitions and big words and those studies look to me like they suggest that being friends, treating each other from positive assumptions will go further than deep understanding and psychological explanations.

If it's feelilng like work, we're probably going at it the wrong way!

That's good news. Even for us natural grumps.

In fact, when I finish this post I am going over to my website and change my page description from "working through relationship problems" to . . . . . . . well . . . I'm not sure. Maybe something will come to me. Any ideas?

What's a Senior?

One of the first things that Bernie Zilbergeld ran into when he set out to study senior sex and relationships was that he didn't know what to call the age group he was researching. Seniors, elderly, golden-agers all fell flat with both Dr. Zilbergeld and the people he talked with.

He finally settled on calling us "matures". Hasn't caught on yet. Probably never will.

The question is whether we actually need a particularly peppy name or not. Given that children and grandchildren have a tendency to become apoplectic at the very thought of old people in general, and their old people particularly, engaging in sex beyond the bare necessities to have brought them to this earth, it's probably just as well to stay out of the public eye.

As long as we don't get freaked out over their freak out, things should be just fine.

"Better Than Ever"Do You Believe It?

Do you believe it when Bernie Zilbergeld titles his book Better Than Ever:Love and Sex in Midlife? I mean, do you believe that as Zilbergeld says, sex at any age is still sex? and that sex is good at any age? and that people of all ages continue to enjoy it?

Or, are you getting buffaloed by the media images of sex? children's and grandchildren's discomfort with the whole idea? fears of more losses if you let yourself get into it?

Bernie Zilbergeld is a real expert and an engaging writer. This book is very encouraging.

There's a review of Better Than Ever here. Take a look to see if it looks like it's worth a read. The book is a favorite of mine, so don't expect the review to try to talk you out of it.

Transparency - the new buzzword

Word is out that businesses had better realize that transparency wins in today's marketplace. Trying to fool consumers with hard sells, deceptive offers, and fake blogs will get caught every time. Sooner or later. So you might just as well be honest and let things sort themselves out.

Same goes for relationships. Question is simply how to do it? More on that soon.

Hint: this goes deeper than "good communication."

Mind-Body Connections

For every change in the mind, there is a change in the body. And, for every change in the body, there is a change in the mind. It is as though they are on two sides of a ring or a circle so that there is no way to move one without moving the other.

I came across a quote to that effect by a neurophysiologist over twenty years ago.

I always think of that when someone says that anxiety or depression or something else is chemical. Well, yeah, the mind and body are electrochemical systems. So what are you telling me that everyone doesn't know?

Push the circle on either side and the whole thing moves. The hard question is, can you use that to consistently get a desired result? The drug guys are trying to get better and better at making what we want to happen happen without other stuff we don't want (side effects) coming along for the ride. More power to them. I hope they get it right.

In the mean time, if I can regulate my breathing, change my thinking, relax my muscles, be mindful of myself and the world around me in new ways, or do whatever else I can to push that mind-body circle toward health, happiness, and sanity, I want to be doing it. Side effects suck. Sometimes entering the circle from the chemical side is the best or only option, but I like to be pretty sure of that before I pop the pill.

If There Is No Sex, Is It an Affair? Is It Infidelity?

When it comes to relationships is "No Sex - No Infidelity" the equivalent of the sports saying "No Harm - No Foul"?

In an interview in the December 2007 issue of the Harvard Business Review, John Gottman, PhD, says no. The most important things that lead to harm from relationships outside the primary relationship is more about friendship, feeling appreciated, feeling listened to, feeling valued than about sex.

He made a powerful case for this point of view. What he didn't do was really give, me at least, much of an idea of what to do to keep it from happening and wrecking your relationship.

It was clear that if you can't both go to the party, then the two of you had better do some pre-planning an have a non-defense treaty about how you'll talk about it after.
While not saying it explicitly, Dr. Gottman was clearly calling for some attention to the relationship before the inevitable unexected comes along.

Find some general discussions and advice at www.Better-Relationships-Over-50.com.

Erectile Dysfunction: Exactly What Are You Having the Most Trouble Coping With?

When a guy in an intimate relationship is experiencing erectile dysfunction there is going to have to be some coping by both partners, but coping with what?

Is it coping with -

• loss of sex?
  
• loss of sex as you're used to it?
  
• fear of what it might be caused by? dying?
  
• changing identities?
  
• embarrassment?
  
• having to work out something new?
  
• having to talk with each other in deeper ways than you've ever done?
  
• general grieving a loss?
  

It helps sometimes to work our way through a pathway of inferences to get an idea of what we're dealing with. Most simply stated this involves noticing

• what all the available information on the topic includes
  
• which pieces of information have we chosen to focus on
  
• why we picked those out of all that was available
  
• what those pieces mean to us
  

Following the thread, we can ask ourselves questions like . . . ."because?" . . ."and then?" . . ."and that would mean?"

Drill down far enough and many, if not most, things that are looking bleak start to soften up around the edges, to not be quite as serious or insoluble as they appeared in the darkest hour.

Creative "work arounds" don't often show up when we're thinking like we've always thought.

An interesting approach to getting a new view of hard topics can be found in Byron Katie's work that is described in Loving What Is. It's not the only way to go (Michael Brown's The Presence Process and/or Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now are going at the same things from slightly different perspectives) but it an easy place to start.

Impotence - Is the Medical the Easiest Part?

Impotence or erectile dysfunction, depending on how precisely you are defining it, is one tricky affliction.

While the medical world has made huge advances in treating it in the last few years, I can't see that it has gotten any easier in that other realm - -> in between our ears. Who the heck is comfortable talking about not being able to get it up?

Did Bob Dole and the ads on TV at sports events for Viagra, Cialis, etc. make it easier to talk about? Or just strengthen the determination no be be "one of those guys"? I don't know.

I have tried to put it in a perspective that would make it most likely that a reader would be able to do something about it at my website on the pages linked here.

Hope it helps get into gear. Good sex in any form that is good for you is too good to miss out on.