Reviving Romance in Marriage By John Eichenlaub
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 Imagine you and your spouse are holidaying on a tropical island, among riotously colourful orchids and fruit-bearing plants. The natives greet you with an exotic dance, tempt your appetite with a sumptuous feast, then steal away into the deepening dusk. You turn to each other in the soft light of gloaming, and see desire in each other's eyes. A flurry of caresses, soft murmurs of endearment, and slow, delightful progression from first awareness to passionate satiation follow.
Given such circumstances, you would probably find· pleasure in each other such as you have seldom known. The wave of romance would carry you completely over the shoals through which you ordinarily pick a well-defined, safe, and effective passage (so familiar that it has become almost dull), and let you approach each other in a new and delightfully stimulating way. That is what romance can do to your love-making - and fortunately you can enjoy at least some of its benefits right in your own home. Admiring or worshipful attempts to please through varied setting, accompanying personal interplay, and fresh love-making technique make your approach romantic, no matter where you happen to be. Let's look at these various elements of romance, and see how you can refurbish and renew them.
1. Worshipfulness. The closeness of marriage brings to light many qualities in each of you which the other can justly respect and admire. But familiarity of ten seems to make any expression of appreciation, admiration, or respect either unnecessary, trite, or artificial. Even if you deliberately praise your partner's accomplishments, you seldom sing his or her praises as a person, or (what is more important) show affectionate admiration in your manner of speech and behaviour.
When you ask a newly-engaged young man or woman about his or her prospective spouse, you'll elicit eye-rolling shudders of enthusiasm and exclamations, such as, 'Real cool!' The words and gestures have probably changed since you were in that blissful stage, but enthusiasm for the other person remains the same. That enthusiasm once coloured every contact between the two of you, in a way which made awareness of the other's attitude towards you a powerful 'plus' in sustaining your personal and sexual self-assurance. It made caresses into endearments and intimate contact into the consummation of an affirmative relationship. Without deluding yourself or being 'phony', the chances are that you can recapture some of that spirit by addressing yourself to the respectable, admirable, or endearing qualities in your partner and letting your positive viewpoint freely reveal itself before, during, and after moments of intimacy.
2. Attempts to please. One couple whose marital problems brought them to my do or had an enviable record for going places together. They went out to dinner once a week and took vacation trips several times a year.
'Otherwise, I raise the roof,' the wife told me. 'Harry agreed to take me out. once a week, and he takes me out, or else!'
If Harry had voluntarily asked his wife out to dinner frequently, choosing occasions and restaurants with an eye towards pleasing and entertaining her, I am sure that this couple would have found their life together considerably enriched. Or if his wife had surprised him with a candlelight supper after the youngsters had been stowed in bed, an evening of true romance might have resulted. But when the occasions were treated as reluctant pay-offs of clearly regretted obligations involving no real effort or desire to please the other party, they became mere irritants.
In marriage, the things .that you do of ten make less difference than your apparent reason for doing them. If your feelings towards the other person make you want to please and gratify him or her, the gift or gesture which you choose can be quite effective even if it is very simple and inexpensive. A wife might surprise her partner with a slightly dressed-up snack which they can enjoy in the bedroom after their return from an evening out, stored in the refrigerator since midafternoon. A husband might plan a 'mystery trip' some afternoon and evening, visiting a restaurant or hotel which he thinks his wife will particularly enjoy, and perhaps arranging some small extra touch like flowers on the table or her favourite type of recorded music. Even a woman who scolds about spending the family funds unnecessarily will not only forgive but greatly appreciate such gestures - and they needn't cost very much, either, so long as you choose them with an eye to her enjoyment and pleasure.
3. Variety of setting. In books and stories a 'great lover' always has a wide couch in front of the fireplace, bearskin rugs on the studio floor, and thick-pile carpets with underlying rubber pads. Wonderful love nests, the authors seem to suggest, need lots of comfortable alternatives to banal, bed-bound sex.
Far be it from me to suggest that you lock the youngsters in their bedrooms, pun curtains over the picture windows, and start a lascivious chase around the living-room. Still, you might be surprised at how fresh your next sexual encounter will seem if you simply start love play outside of bed.
Beginning only a few steps from the traditional spot, why not try a few kisses and caresses before you get undressed? You will find that removing each other's clothes and caressing body parts as they become exposed leads to an entirely new and different approach. Even a slightly 'early start', with a few kisses and caresses while you are wearing a robe or negligee (which gives you something to shed as caresses become more intense), of ten puts your love-making on a somewhat different track.
A great many people make it a habit to sit down for half an hour or so to unwind before eating dinner. Whether they serve cocktails or munch celery and olives, this chance to relax helps their appetite and digestion, while the opportunity for quiet adult conversation makes for a much more friendly mealtime hour. The same benefits of better function and improved interpersonal atmosphere of ten stern from sitting down with some light refreshments and a drink (not necessarily alcoholic) for an interlude of relaxing conversation before you commence sex play. If this transfers your early overtures to the kitchen, living-room, or even the porch steps on a hot summer night, so much the better. And if the same type of relaxed conversational interlude occurs while you walk your dog around the block, drive home from a film, or do other things which make drinks and refreshments inconvenient, there is no real loss. Quiet companionability in any form makes a good launching pad for a sexual excursion, and many different spots around the house are perfectly apt for this preparation-and-commencement.
Many couples can also occasionally enjoy a delightfully romantic marital encounter by yielding to spontaneous, unplanned (and even mildly inconvenient) impulses. Not that every such impulse is a sacred signal which takes precedence over all else. (I recall one couple who reached the verge of a break-up because the wife felt that she could never get anywhere - not even to a PT A meeting, much less to a party - on time. As she expressed it: 'Every time I get dressed up, George takes one look at me, gets the urge for sex, puts me half an hour behind schedule, and leaves me a rumpled mess.') A half-cooked dinner that delay will wreck might be more important than the extra boost spontaneity gives to sex, especially if the thought of food being ruined keeps the wife from free response.
The mere fact that the meal will be a little late doesn't qualify, however. The sudden and unexpected response each of you feels in an unplanned kiss or embrace gives too great a head start towards delightful consummation to be stifled for less-than-adequate reasons. The extra freshness and satisfaction you add to your marriage through spontaneous episodes makes it worthwhile to heed an occasional impulse which makes you late to social engagements, rumples the clothes you have no time to remove, or brings you into each other's arms out on the hard ground rather than in bed.
Privacy is another matter, and one upon which many 'spontaneous' episodes stall or founder. With other private functions, most people feel perfectly secure and 'right' if no one else can actually see them. For some reason modesty with relation to sex play and intercourse of ten goes far beyond that point. Many couples feel disturbed if anyone knows, or even has reason to suspect, what is going on. Thus many mothers hesitate to dose the bedroom door (and would not think of locking it) because 'the youngsters might get ideas about what we're doing in there,' and intercourse when there is any possibility whatever of interruption, even with plenty of chance to 'cover up and get decent', seems unthinkable.
These attitudes are sufficiently unreasonable that you might find your viewpoint liberalized considerably just by thinking it through. There is nothing wrong with a married couple having intercourse. Moreover, your children can only see sex in its proper perspective if they realize that it can and should be a part of a lifelong loving relationship. Your example, so long as it does not come to them in a way which shocks or threatens them, can only aid them in that realization. A teenager who concludes that you had intercourse from the fact that your bedroom door was closed last night and you seem unusually content this morning certainly is ready to face the fact of continuing parental sexuality, while a child who patters innoceri.tly to the bedroom do or and finds you (sornewhat flustered by the interruption) at opposite sides of the bed will draw no harınful conclusions from the experience.
Precautions against youngsters actually observing you during sexual activity make sense, both to protect their innocence and to prevent emotional upheavals from jealousy or misunderstanding; but extreme measures to 'keep them from knowing what is going on' harm not only your sex life but also your children's long-range benefit. Certainly, most spontaneous sexual impulses can be brought to fruition under circumstances which fulfil the true privacy need.
Finally, you can often arrange a special trip or occasion on which ardour will thrive. Non-boring, deferential calm rather than excitement or stimulation usually gives the best emotional preparation for sex, both for women and for men. That's why so many couples find themselves spending more and more of their holiday money on 'a good hotel' or' accommodation with atmosphere' rather than on special events and entertainments. Still others put the money they formerly spent on a couple of evenings out into a 'weekend away' at a good hotel in their own area, of ten with amazing results. Just getting away from household responsibilities and being treated like a 'big shot' seems to do wonders for most wives' sexual responsiveness (and most husbands' interest).
4. Variety of approach. You can get a lot of freshness into your love-making even if you stick to the traditional bedtime beginning simply by starting with a different position or embrace.
Instead of embracing face to face, for instance, let the wife lie partly on her side facing away from her husband. He lies on his side, snuggling against her body from the waist down. When she turns her head and upper torso towards him, they can readily kiss and embrace. The man's hands rove readily over areas of breast and abdomen, which can only be clumsily reached in face-to-face postures, and caress of the thighs and genitals from either front or rear (if the wife draws up her knees slightly) offers stimulating variety· from the beaten path. Later the erect penis can be snapped against the wife's genital area, rubbed against it, or brought into superficial sexual contact while stroking of the breast, abdomen, thighs, female organ margins, and clitoris continues to build feminine excitement.
You might also try letting the husband sit on the side of the bed while his wife lies on her side with her chest on the husband's lap. One of his arms is around her back and shoulders, and the other is free for caressing her breasts, thighs, abdomen and female organ, all of which are readily in reach.
5. Personal interplay. A man usually gets a great deal of emotional satisfaction from the feeling that his spouse devotes herself completely - body, mind, and emotion - to him as a person, for himself alone. His wife generally feels the same. During advanced love play and intercourse, this feeling is especially important. Anything which you can do or say which makes your partner more aware of your total affectionate dedication to highly personal love-making improves the romantic nature of the occasion.
Total dedication involves concentration on kisses, caresses, murmurs of endearment, and other communication related to love-making with every other consideration pushed temporarily out of your mind. In the ultimate embrace, you commune totally with your wife or husband without reservation or distraction. Both of you should prepare for this state by devoting yourselves totally to each other during the final build-up of excitement.
You make your love-making highly personal partly by your viewpoint towards it. If sex has always been part of a meaningful relationship for you rather than a series of manipulations or stimulations, sex automatically intertwines with 'love' in your mind. You build this mental and emotional linkage every time you have intercourse in the heat of passion or out of desire to please and serve someone you love. You kiss a person, not a pair of lips. You caress a person, not a rounded breast or well-muscled chest. You come into physical communion with a person, not with organs whose stimulations could be matched by a well-designed machine.
Moreover, you commune with this person in their special role as a sexual being, male or female, with the other elements of your relationship momentarily on the shelf. You do not climb into bed with a functioning partner in household management or child-rearing, or even with a functioning intellectual and cultural companion. Your spouse may serve all those roles on other occasions, but interplay based on these roles has no place during fundamental man-woman exchange.
Only words which communicate your feelings, affection, and regard for the other person have any real meaning or place, now. Link your partner's name with 'dearest' or 'darling' or 'beautiful' or 'beloved'. Sigh or murmur in heartfelt appreciation as your excitement mounts, voicing instantly and uncritically any exclamations or sentiments which come to your mind - even expressions you have used a thousand times convey your feelings instead of seeming trite. When you start intercourse itself, murmur ecstatically 'Ohhh - ohhh - ohhh -' in rhythm with the movements. Voice your pleasure with a glad exclamation when your partner gives you a spasm of delightful sensation by twitching the penis or rolling the hips, and fill the air with glad cries and exclamations during each other's climax. The word 'you' and your partner's name belong in these utterances, too both of you enjoy sex more if you are constantly aware of each other and of each other's concern for you. But that sconce is only with the fundamental person - the body, the emotional being, the woman or the man - not with your partner in any other enterprise.
You can put more romance into your love-making by refurbishing and renewing its several elements.
Worshipfulness, or at least enthusiasm for the other person, which reveals itself in your gestures and approach, was heartfelt in your early days of romance. Can't you find enough qualities which deserve admiration to get at least some of this feeling back into your relationship now?
Attempts to please. Your reasons show through, both in day-to-day living and in love-making. A sincere effort to please your partner without worrying about what you will get out of it of ten pays big emotional dividends through reawakened romance in marriage.
A variety of settings, both within your own home and in properly chosen holidays or outings, helps to make your sex life more romantic. Try a romantic interlude before undressing, or a few moments of anticipatory sex play before you start for the bedroom. Don't let extreme views on privacy limit you to 'bedtime only, and in the dark' just because you have children. 'Second honeymoon' weekends or holidays of ten prove quite effectively romantic, especially if you strive for an atmosphere of non-boring, deferential calm instead of for exciting recreations.
Variety of approach helps to make your love-making romantic. A different beginning changes the whole path to climax, and makes, love-making seem much fresher and more romantic.
Personal interplay helps romance if it aids basic man-woman communication and awareness of each other's feelings. You personalize by using the other person's name, by voicing your feelings and expressing appreciation for whatever your partner does, not by taking the companionship of the livingroom into the bedroom.
Source: "New Approaches to Sex in Marriage"
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