Power In Relationships Over 50:What does "Fifty Shades of Gray" Say To Us of the Graying Set?

Power in relationships can be an incendiary topic whether it is conscious, unconscious, overt or covert.  It has a tendency to make people nervous.  So, what's with the recent popularity of "Fifty Shades of Gray" and the other two books of its trilogy that tell the story of a young woman who signs on to be the slave of  a man several years her senior.

To hear it described by the news media, Fifty Shades of Gray, is either hot mommy porn, or tiresome repetitive porn.  Evidently it isn't billed as the best written erotic novel to come down the pike, but it is still selling like hotcakes, so it must be a story with inherent attraction to readers.

Consensual, cooperative allocation of power in relationships with respect to all kinds of issues definitely makes them work better.

Tilting the power in one direction or the other because it turns the participants on apparently can make relationships more interesting and more exciting too.  As long as the way it's done has been worked out between the two people in advance, it is safe, sane, and consensual, and it works for them, who else's business is it?

Oral Sex Increases Throat Cancer Risk

Recent observations that oral sex increases throat cancer risk by transmission of the human papilloma virus (HPV) are definitely something to consider for those of us over 50.

Especially since the appearance of AIDS to the sexual scene, oral sex has been seen by many as a form of safe sex.

And for couples over 50, it also is a way around some of the sexual performance difficulties that occur more often as we age such as erectile dysfunction, dry vagina, and painful intercourse.

Now, with this more recent information, it is clear that we have to be careful about oral sex too, especially with new partners. So here is another STD about which responsible people need to be honest and disclose.

Infidelity Over 50? . . . you bet!

Many people think that once you are over 50 infidelity ceases to be an issue. They are dead wrong!

According to infidelity coach, therapist, and expert with many years of experience, Dr. Robert Huizenga, the risk of infidelity goes up at certain predictable transition periods.

How about:

• your last child going off to college? the empty nest syndrome?
  
• retiring from your job?
• one of you getting sick or disabled?
• becoming aware (I mean really aware) that you aren't going to live forever?

Those and others related to our aging process will heighten the risk. Like the warning that the road surface on bridges and overpasses will freeze before the rest of the highway and to to careful, . . . the danger of getting involved in infidelity over 50 is very real and is predictably heightened around life changing events and perception.

Be careful out there! Don't get blindsided by an affair. Learn more about infidelity over 50.

Relationship Power Anyone?

The topic of power in relationships isn't a comfortable one for most people. Can you really have a conscious relationship if you aren't conscious of the power trade offs, the power plays, the power allocation, the power sharing in yours?

Do couples start behind the relationship 8-ball because there are two people in each?

What might couples learn if for one weekend, one week, one month, one year, one of them was the openly and agreed to be the dominant one the other submissive and then they reversed it?

Which role would be harder to really get into? Which do you think would be harder for you? . . . . for your partner? Which one do you think your partner would be harder for you? Which do you think would be harder for her or him to completely take on?

How do you envision yourself taking total or near total control of how things run with the two of you? . . . . and your partner? If you had visions of black leather and complete obedience, would you be able to admit it? If you had visions of Ozzie and Harriet, would you own up to that?

Would you really do it? Or, would you fudge? Would you be afraid of what might happen if you really were in charge? (Within previously agreed on limits of course.) What would it be like to be totally submissive?

If you saw an ad for a two part/two weekend workshop led by a licensed mental health professional, would you go? Would your partner? Do you wish they would? What do you think that you might learn about yourself? About your partner? What are you afraid you might learn? What do youl hope you'd learn?

Separation Anyone? Check This Out!

What do you do if your spouse says they want a separation? that they want to move out? that they don't love you any more? that they aren't sure they ever did?

Whew! And you're thinking "I must have missed that chapter when I read the book. What the heck do you do?"

For an interesting and inspiring story of what one woman (and eventually one couple did,) check out this New York Times article on a separation. Note carefully that the well meaning advice of family and friends was NOT what led to the positive outcome!

One thing that is clear is that the author of the article had a solid set of beliefs about relationships, people, and her relationship. Whether on purpose, by osmosis, or just luck, something kept her on an even keel through the storm.

When we are over-50, relationships have their fair share of baggage. This can be stabilizing or de-stabilizing. From this article I get the sense that it is clearly possible to make the time and shared experiences our allies when the relationship "boat" gets tippy.

Sanford Infidelity Expanding Our Understanding?

Governor Sanford's infidelity has certainly gotten a lot of attention, but what is all the outrage, shock, and finger pointing about really? If we're not Mrs. Sanford or one of their children, what's it to us?

As Byron Katie has pointed out, there are only three kinds of problems - - my problems, your problems, and God's problems; and two of those categories are not our business. If we are staying with our own business, it seems odd that on a personal level infidelity, cheating spouses, and adultery elicit anything other than sadness, discouragement, or confusion. People are human after all.

And yet people are angry. What is different about how react to it in people in leadership positions? Why are we angry when we hear about their cheating on their spouses? Why do we act as if they have done something to us similar to what they have done to those accepted their commitment?

A way of looking at it that struck a chord with me was expressed in the Daily Tar Heel newspaper at the University of North Carolina today that asserted that the core issue in infidelity is one of whether this person is able to place keeping a commitment above self interest or not. In the case of a public official we are concerned that they are able to manage their desires well enough to fulfill their commitments to all of us.

I like that. We put this person in a position of trust that does affect us and they have shown us that they aren't up to keeping that kind of promise.

Of course it doesn't even start to address how one is most likely to be successful at meeting that high, admirable, and ( I think ) appropriate standard given that we are (as previously mentioned just in case you had forgotten) . . . . human.

Apparently faith wasn't enough for Governor Sanford, though without questioning his sincerity, demonstrably he still fell short.

Of course no one knows, but at this point my suspicion is that our efforts to be good people and to try to deny and suppress those parts of ourselves that are capable of doing bad things is at the heart of the problem.

You can find more consideration of this and related topics with particular focus on those of us old enough to know better but alive enough to still do dumb things at my website, www.better-reationships-over-50.com.

What's With Politicians and Infidelity?

The marital infidelity of politicians makes it to the top of the heap in just about any news medium.  We seem to be unable to get enough of such stories.  Aside from gossip and perhaps seeking a way to get some leverage against a politician we don't like, what's in it for us?

As it turns out there can be lots in the stories of adultery by prominent people for all of us.  These are powerful people who have a great deal to lose by cheating on their spouses.  It makes no sense.

I don't think that President Clinton,  Governor Spitzer,  Senator Ensign, or Governor Sanford sat down one day and said "I think that today I will do something obviously stupid and wrong that is likely to destroy my family, my self-esteem, and my career."  They might as well have, but they probably didn't.

Somehow, they figured that it made sense or that the rules did not apply to them or that they wouldn't get caught.  It's easy to laugh at the kid with ADD who says he won't do his homework because the school might burn down tonight,  but this looks a lot like the adult equivalent.  It's easy to see the folly in the criminal's belief that the rules don't apply to him,  but this can be the equivalent just in a different way.

The big lesson for the rest of us most likely is that when it looks like a reasonable risk to break our promises and the rules of society, there probably is a short circuit in our psyche somewhere and it is time for a cooling off period.  Time to just stop and put a space between our impulse and action.

These are not things that only bad people, stupid people, immoral people - - ( in other words people who are not like us ) do;  though these actions are bad, stupid, and immoral and people who do them earn those labels. 

There is no shortage of relationship advice available nor is there a shortage of information about the dangers of infidelity or societal warnings against it.

Clearly there is great danger in the possibility of straying in adultery, infidelity, cheating,  against which none of us is immune.   It is not about someone else. 

We had darned well better be willing to spend time and effort to attend to our mental/emotional/moral health  and  the health of our relationships

before we find ourselves needing infidelity advice.

Are Senior Relationships Mostly Chickens Coming Home To Roost?

Are most senior relationships either monuments to "settling" or just plain awful . . . or is it just the crowd I am aware of? Or, . . . . do we just not care as much about anything as we get older? As a group are we a stable boring bunch or cynical cheaters, adulterers, backroom porn customers, lonely drinkers . . . . or is there something better somewhere else that everyone knows about that I missed when I last looked around?

I certainly do not claim to know the answers to this, but I do know that people look at me kind of funny when I say that I prefer to do things with my wife, that I don't have side conversations about which I don't tell her, that we are as involved in all aspects of our lives as we were when we first met.

Over a quarter century ago now a favorite aunt was waxing eloquent one evening about how one settles into a relationship in such a way that sex and love are assumed and don't need to be affirmed all the time. To which her husband, arguably as perfect a gentleman as I have ever met, spoke up saying "If that is your idea of marriage then I say that your idea of marriage is a crock of shit." That really got my attention especially since I had never heard him talk that way.

I recounted the story to another aunt who smiled and said "Yes. He is and always has been a genuine romantic." I already knew that she and her husband were real romantics too. They both assured me that they had their share of arguments and didn't agree on everything, that they just did it behind closed doors, but I never saw a hint of that. Just genuine affection and mutual respect. If they said they kept that even when they were angry with each other, I believed it. I still do.

I chose to pursue the latter. Truthfully it has been quite a challenge, but not one I intend to back away from. And that's where it stands now.

Alcohol Kills Relationships: are you having an affair with the bottle?

Alcohol problems kill relationships. It's as simple as that. Check out the page that that lead sentence links to and you can find some straight dope from a variety of sources. It isn't all that encouraging news, but what is is.

So, that ol' devil booze messes us and our families up. We've heard that more than a few times, but we don't have a problem with it, me and you, do we? It's those other guys who get out of control.

Not so quick! Unfortunately, as we get older, it takes less alcohol to have bigger effects on us. It sneaks up on us and what was just fine ten years ago can be over the top now. I don't know about you, but when I went through some of the self-screening checklists it made me think a bit more carefully about how I use alcohol.

Not fair you say? Well of course not. Neither is needing less calories to maintain the same weight, but that's the way it is. What are you going to do about it?

There are all kinds of infidelity and they don't necessarily involve other people. Is drinking your affair? Check it out.

How To Have An Affair?

Want to know all the ins and outs of how to have an affair? Just ask the magic internet.

Of Course there are websites on how to have an affair! Why not? Afterall, it's not kinky sex, drugs, or firearms, so let's put it up there and see how much money we can make.

On second thought, it very well could be kinky sex, drugs, or firearms if you give it enough time.

Holding the belief that solid, exciting relationships are among the best things in this life, especially as we get older, I can't really tell who's the crazy one here : me, the people who put these sites up, or their readers. Maybe everyone. Maybe no one.

Who knows, but it seems pretty crazy to me.

Coping With Infidelity

Infidelity happens . . . a lot (if published statistics can be trusted.)

Even if you cut the estimates that are thrown about in half, it's still a lot. Too much for something that is so corrosive to everyone involved.

So, once you know it has happened, how do you cope? You do have to cope whether--

• it is still going on right now
• it has just ended
• it was 23 years ago and it never quite goes away.

There is quite good information on the things you have to accomplish to cope with infidelity.

The problem that I see is that even when you have determined what you need to do, you still are left with how to do it.

And, the "how to" part is the sticking point. Each of us steps into these emotionally charged situations with our own baggage (our own history, our own beliefs, and our own type of social support.) That means that while knowing that we have to accomplish "a", "b", and "c" to come out the other side back on our feet, reasonably sane, the actual path that we walk in doing it has to be fit to us.

One size does not fit all.

Saving Your Marriage

Saving your marriage, especially when one of you doesn't particularly seem to want to, can feel like a very tall order indeed.

One way to look at it is that once you decide that saving your marriage is something that you want to try to do, then you enter into a series of personal explorations to be able to answer the important questions involved that are very likely to have positive effects on the rest of your lives together or apart.

Even if you can't make the necessary corrections to start healing this realtionship, you had better know what went wrong so that you don't just repeat the same mistakes in the future with someone else. There's no better way to accomplish this than for the two of you to try to make the necessary repairs right here right now.

The questions and introspection involved aren't easy, but not doing them can be just plain dumb. Some examples of topics on which you need to know where stand include your beliefs on

• The importance of marriage
• The importance of keeping the promises that you made when you married
• Each person's needs to keep themselves safe
• The well being of children
• How the opinions and attitudes of family and friends are affecting your choices
• How long is a reasonable time to work at it before you give up

What a person "should" do if their partner

• Is an alcoholic or drug addict
• Is having an affair
• Has had an affair in the past
• Has an anger problem
• Is abusive
• Is in jail

- - - - - -

When your marriage is in trouble, there is no shortage of people who know just what you should do. They mean well. They want you to be safe and happy. They don't want you to feel like they are siding with your rotten spouse. But, they cannot really know what is best for you! Only you can figure that out.

Find a variety of resources and tools for undertaking this mission and then see which ones work for you. It is your life, your marriage, your challenge when all is said and done.

Infidelity Becoming NormalDoes that make it not cheating?

Infidelity is becoming so prevalent that it may be considered the norm, if not now, soon, some researchers say.

In a thought provoking blog post on infidelity, Genevieve Beaulieu-Pelletier, a PhD candidate at the Universite de Montreal’s Department of Psychology and author of a new study, is quoted as saying that

• studies suggest that the chances of a relationship suffering from infidelity are now somewhere between 40% and 76%
• such high numbers have implications for what is considered normal
• infidelity correlates strongly with an avoidant relationship personality style
• avoidant relationship style is most often a result of poor parenting

Whoa! If you care about committed relationship, sounds like you've got one foot on an impending betrayal mess and the other on a banana peel.

Of course, this is a researcher talking and all the caveats about research apply--

• we don't know how strong the observed correlations were (statistically significant and real are often two different things)
• we don't know if the respondents were telling the truth (we do know that males often exaggerate reports of sexual behavior of all sorts to researchers)
• we don't know who the respondents were
• if you've ever taken an abnormal psychology class, you know that defining normal is very difficult (just because "everyone" is doing it doesn't make it right)

It is, however, as noted earlier, food for thought. Is infidelity really cheating if we know going into a relationship that 40 - 76% of people undertaking this venture are going to experience infidelity to that relationship? Or, is it the norm, an expected part of a relationship? That seems to be the gist of the post.

I don't know.

If you bought a toaster that you knew delivered electric shocks to 40 - 76% of people who used it, would you have grounds for a lawsuit if you bought it figuring you would be one of the 24-60% who didn't get shocked? I mean, those other people who got shocked were probably careless, right? And it is a beautiful toaster for a very good price.

Well, that example didn't clear anything up for me. Afterall, when you're in love when have rules, probabilities, or anything else ever mattered? That's just part of the romance stage of relationship development.

For me, I think that our mothers had it right when they told us that just because "everyone" was jumping off a cliff, that didn't make it a good idea. However you frame it, whether you call it cheating or not, infidelity is very painful, destructive behavior.

GPS LingerieInfidelity/Cheat Buster?

Infidelity of cheating spouses may be facing a serious challenge. (Or, maybe not. It has stood up to a lot of heat over the centuries and come out stronger than ever.)

Just when you thought that relationship craziness had gone about as far as it could go, brace yourself - - GPS lingerie!

No, it's not designed to facilitate the finding of a misplaced brassiere.

The embedded chip is designed to make it possible to keep track of the location of a beloved wearer of said lingerie at all times, from anywhere with computer access. Not surprisingly, people are already calling it the new chastity belt.

Wow! And I thought cell phones were amazing. How about this one? Heard about it on the NPR show "Wait, Wait. Don't Tell Me" today. They swore it was for real. Hmm.

Does the wearer know the thing is in there? If so, why not just drop your bra off at the library, go where you want to go and pick it up on the way home? How long before some eager entrepeneur comes up with just such a service? (Well, it's no crazier than the product itself.)

Stand by. It is only a matter of time until someone will be surgically embedding these things inside people's bodies . . . . "You say you'll never cheat on me again? You'll do anything to come back? . . . well, there is something you can do."

James Thurber's "war between men and women" marches on!

Isn't there anything else we can do?

Conflict In Relationships

Conflict in relationships has been described as having two major components, respect and control, that must be considered in crafting any effort to avoid or resolve it. If it feels to us that the other person does not respect us and that we have no control over what is happening, the stage is set for trouble. It's an explosion just waiting for a match.

Then it is time for anger to step onto the stage. Here we are feeling disrespected and not having our thoughts, feelings, and/or needs given any value. What do we do? Most likely we get mad.

Through anger we can get an illusion of being in control. If we are big enough, scary enough, or sharp tongued enough, we may actually be in control of the situation for a fleeting moment. The problem is that it is knot lasting and it certainly does not build better relationships.

So, watch out for anger. It is a sign that we aren't feeling respected and in control. What we need to do is find ways to focus our attention on the issues of respect and control and not on whatever it was that set us off. (The trigger itself is a fakeout. Notice it and go deeper.)

For a good discussion of how this plays out and specific strategies, look at the book Make Peace With Anyone by David Lieberman, PhD.

How To Attract WomenHow to Attract Men

Courses, books, and programs on attracting men and on attracting women have been around for a long time.

Who do you think of when you think of someone buying and applying the lessons in one of these courses? Do you see someone who is desperate? . . . who is opportunistic? . . . a manipulator? . . . someone interested in personal growth? How old are they? What has their experience been in relationships to date? Have you ever been tempted by one of these offers?

Could this kind of thing be of use to you? Like so many things . . . that depends!

If you are in a relationship now, how about being more attractive to the one you're with? Novel idea? Let's hope not. The longer we are in a relationship, the more we change and move away from the younger people who started out, the more we need to have our eyes, ears, and hearts open to who and what is in front of us right now. It need never get boring.

If you think that improving on how you come across to other people in general and how attractive a potential partner you are doesn't pertain to you or that there's nothing that you can get out of it, you might give it some more thought.

Of course if all you seek is a few new tricks to get other people to do what you want, then it probably is a waste of time and money.

If you are looking for new ways to go about relating consciously to other people, genuinely, and in ways that feel good to you then you probably would be able to pick up a couple of ideas about how you might change ways that you habitually look at other people and yourself.

Putting attention on the process of how you relate to other people can bring big rewards. And, as we get older and have more and more unexamined habits and beliefs, doing something to shake things up a bit can be even more fruitful.

Why Mindfulness In Relationships?

Conscious mindfulness in any of its many forms is a very attractive way to support, nurture, and build relationships.

This may seem kind of funny when you first think about it since it doesn't involve anything in particular about what we should or shouldn't do, what we should or shouldn't feel. It doesn't speak directly to any of that.

Rather, it focuses on how we relate to our own inner experience and our experience of the world around us. As best I can tell, the idea is that when we get that clear and straight we naturally find our own best ways to be with each other.

An attractive thing about the mindfulness approach to relationships is that while it probably will end up including the wisdom of the ages, the common sense, and the best practices as we act from our mindful perspective, I don't have to try to remember rules, skills, and the like.

That's good because no matter how good such things are, no matter how right they are, where are they when you need them. I don't know where they go in the heat of need, but I do know for sure that they go somewhere. Hence the old observation that when you need your communication, listening, and stress management skills the most, you're the least likely to actually be able to use them.

Mindfulness. Check it out. A number of workable approaches exist. You will probably be able to find one that feels right for you.

When Your Man Is Cheating

When your husband is cheating, there is the question of whether you should confront the other woman or not. It certainly can be a scary possibility, but apparently it can be worth doing . . . if you do it right.

Given that being the partner who finds out that they are being cheated on often results in emotions very similar to those experienced in PTSD, getting out of a passive role has the possibility of being very therapeutic . . . again, if you do it right.

Dr. Robert Huizenga discusses confronting the other woman and gets specific about what to do and why in a recent post on one of his sites on the topic of infidelity.

Looking at the questions that the coach asked in this article we can get some ideas about why and how one might go about this.

• What is the purpose for doing it? What do you hope to accomplish? to learn? to understand? to make happen?
• What do you plan to do with what you find out? Are you really looking for new information, or are you seeking to make a case for what you have already decided?
  
• Are you ready for how you will deal with the possible strong emotions that you are likely to encounter from the other person and within yourself? Playing out as many possible scenarios as you can think of in your head in advance of a stressful situation has been shown to result in a better performance in the actual situation, even if what actually happens is different from anything you had prepared for. (For more on this see Psychocybernetics by Maxwell Maltz, MD. It's an old book, but extremely useful and a pleasant read.)
  
• What support do you have in place to process what you find out?

Should you talk to the woman who has been with your cheating husband? I don't think that anyone can really answer that for you. Certainly doing it impulsively, without a plan and a reason, lowers your chances of having it turn out to be a long term positive.

Getting an overview of infidelity before you move into your own specifics and the actual decision making about whether to confront or not and how you will do it is probably well worth the effort.

Financial Infidelity?

Financial infidelity is an idea that I had never heard before, but it made perfect sense after I thought about it a while. It also really brought home just how high the bar is when it comes to really being true to a relationship.

The concept of financial of infidelity was spelled out recently in a book by the same title which was reviewed well in the Huffington Post blog. This doesn't involve another person as in the case of a man having a secret bank account to pay for prostitutes or hotel rooms, it is less clear cut.

Basically, the idea is that when one partner spends money and hides the fact that they have in one way or another, they are being untrue to the relationship. They aren't really working as a team at that point and it is corrosive. In this case I think cheating describes what's going on better than infidelity.

In an example in the Huffington article, a woman considers buying a new bicycle and keeping it in the nighbor's garage so her husband won't find out. Sounds kind of goofy at first, but think about it in terms of the relationship. They apparently don't respectfully confer and agree on expenditures, which is a red flag whether she buys the bike or not. She is also thinking about keeping a secret and enlisting the aid of her friend in doing it, which is a sure fire way of drifting further apart.

The end result, at best, is likely to be that they increasingly run on parallel tracks, a sad but apparently stable situation that many couples view as relationship success. The problem is that it doesn't take much to de-stabilize one of these. It can be something as simple as getting to know a couple whose relationship is closer, more respectful, and . . . . well, happier, and then it is only a matter of time before it falls apart.

Actually, it might be looked upon as a material manifestation of emotional infidelity, the tricky little relationship time bomb that I discussed before here.

Save Your Marriage

Frankly, when someone tells me that they want to save their marriage, I can't help but cringe and wish them good luck. Must be something about my own beliefs that probably would be good to work on, but the idea of "working on" a relationship is to the end of that relationship and the getting a house in the suburbs with a golden retriever is to having kids in some circles.

Maybe this comes from my male perspective. I don't know. Much of the talking and listening approach to such endeavors is a decidedly feminine undertaking.

Still, ending a marriage is nothing to be taken lightly. I don't care how many divorce attorneys are divorced and how many divorce service ads imply that if you just get through this, things will be so much better.

Once you get "through this", you are both who you were before you started, but you have a lot less money and a whole new set of problems to cope with.

Anyway, there must be a more productive way to look at saving your marriage than the one I have carried in my head and heart like a virus where it seems like a long, hard, slog that is ultimately doomed anyway. There are lots of good reasons to believe that it need not be that way.

There have been some really excellent efforts to spell out in usable terms how to save your marriage which I have been studying. And, I am impressed.