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The 100 Most Asked Questions About Love, Sex and Relationships
I humbly dedicate this bookTo my beloved Teacher,Whose Light has kindled my own,Whose Love has made me whole,And Who, in a sublime and miraculous instant,Answered all my questionsBy revealing the Truth to me.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Dear Reader
Love and Intimacy
1 How do you convince a workaholic partner to put more time and energy into a marriage?
2 Is it natural for the passion to disappear after years of marriage?
3 If a relationship takes a lot of work, does that mean something is wrong with it?
4 How do you deal with a partner who is a flirt?
5 How can I stop mothering my husband?
6 How can I help my partner break through the emotional barriers she put up because of her painful childhood?
7 Is it possible to “fall back in love” with someone after years of feeling dead and disinterested?
8 How can I get my husband to pay as much attention to me as he does to our children?
9 How should you handle a partner who smothers you with too much love and affection and is too possessive?
10 How can a couple learn to trust love when they’ve both been badly hurt in past relationships?
11 What does it mean when your partner won’t introduce you to his family and friends?
12 How do you heal old emotional hurts from the past so you can have a healthy relationship with your partner?
13 How important is sexual chemistry in a relationship? If it’s not there in the beginning, will it develop over time?
14 How do you motivate someone to want to change and open up emotionally?
Compatibility
15 Why am I only attracted to the wrong, “bad boy” type of man, and feel no sexual chemistry with the “nice guys”?
16 Can a relationship work when you’re in love with your partner’s potential?
17 Is there such a thing as being too “picky” when choosing partners?
18 Can long-distance relationships work?
19 How important are cultural differences in a relationship?
20 Is it damaging to a relationship when one partner is still controlled by his parents?
21 Why do I always fall in love with people who need rescuing?
22 Can a big age difference between two people hurt the relationship?
23 Can a relationship with an addict (drugs, alcohol, etc.) work?
24 Why do I keep choosing unavailable partners?
25 What signs should I look for in the beginning of a relationship to make sure I don’t end up with someone who’s bad for me?
26 Can you ever be 100 percent sure that someone you’re with is the right one for you? What qualities should you look for in a partner?
Commitment
27 How long should you wait for a partner to make a commitment?
28 How soon in a relationship should you expect a commitment from your partner?
29 Should you stay with someone who isn’t over his ex-partner?
30 Is it right to stay with someone even when you know inside she’s not the right one for you?
31 How can you tell if someone is really committed to the relationship?
32 How can I tell if I have “commitment phobia”?
33 Is there such a thing as falling in love too quickly? What does it mean if a person experiences this often?
34 Should you wait until you are 100 percent sure that someone is right for you before you make a lifelong commitment?
35 Should a couple live together before marriage?
Communication and Conflict
36 How can I get my partner to express his feelings to me?
37 What do you do with a husband who refuses to discuss problems or work on the relationship?
38 How can I get over my fear of conflict and be more honest with my partner?
39 How important is it for a couple to be totally honest with one another? Is there such a thing as too much honesty?
40 How can I learn to control my temper?
41 Why do my wife and I fight all the time? How can we stop?
42 What can I do about a partner who is mean?
43 How do I deal with a partner who is physically abusive?
44 What does it mean if a couple never fights? Can this hurt a relationship?
45 How can I ask my partner for what I need without sounding like I’m being too demanding?
46 How do you handle a partner who is very critical of you?
47 Is there a way to detect symptoms of trouble in your relationship so you can solve the problems before they get too serious?
48 Is it possible to have a good marriage when your partner is a control freak?
49 Should you tell your mate bad things from your past even if you’re afraid it will hurt the relationship?
50 Shouldn’t my partner understand how I want him to love me without my having to explain it all the time?
51 Why do men hate talking about emotional issues late at night?
Sex and Physical Affection
52 How can I get my partner to give me more physical affection when we’re not having sex?
53 How can I get my partner to initiate sex more, instead of waiting for me to always be the one who wants it?
54 Is it okay to have sexual fantasies about someone else when you’re making love to your own partner?
55 What should a couple do when one wants to have sex much more often than the other?
56 Why can’t my wife just have spontaneous sex sometimes?
57 When is the right time to start being sexually intimate with a new partner?
58 Is it possible for a couple to rediscover their sexual desire for one another after it has disappeared?
59 How can a couple with children maintain a spontaneous, exciting sex life?
60 How can I overcome some childhood sexual trauma and have a normal sex life?
61 How can I tell my partner I don’t like the way he makes love to me?
62 Why is it that men don’t know how to touch women the right way and in the right places?
63 Why do men experience premature ejaculation?
64 Is it okay for my husband to look at porno magazines?
65 How can I get my partner to slow down during sex?
66 How can I get my partner to do more than just lie there during sex?
67 How can I learn to have an orgasm when my partner and I make love? What does it mean if I can’t?
68 How can I get my wife to give me more oral sex?
69 What can I do to really please my husband in bed?
Cheating and Infidelity
70 How should you deal with a cheating partner who denies having an affair?
71 Should you give a cheating partner another chance?
72 Do one night stands mean anything?
73 Should you continue an affair with a married man who won’t leave his wife?
74 After your partner has an affair, should you just forgive and forget? How do you learn to trust again?
75 Is it acceptable for a cheating partner to still see the person she cheated with after the affair is over?
76 Is there such a thing as an emotional affair? Is it as bad as a sexual affair?
77 Is it possible to be in love with two people at the same time?
78 Should you trust someone with a history of infidelity?
Breaking Up, Starting Over
79 How can I get my partner back?
80 How long should it take to recover from a breakup?
81 How can I learn to trust men again?
82 When is it too late to leave a loveless relationship and find happiness?
83 Should you continue to spend time with an ex-lover as a friend after you break up?
84 How can you break up with someone without causing that person pain?
85 How do you know when a relationship just isn’t going to work, and it’s time to leave?
86 Should you stay in an unhappy marriage for the sake of your children?
87 Is there such a thing as having been hurt too much to even want to give a relationship one more chance?
88 How soon after getting divorced should someone start dating again? How do you know when you’re ready to have a relationship?
89 Is it harmful to continue having sex with your ex-lover?
Living and Loving
90 Is it appropriate for a widower or widow to start dating again even if his grown children disapprove?
91 Is it true that a woman shouldn’t pursue a man or initiate a relationship because he will lose interest without the challenge?
92 How soon should a single parent tell a prospective partner that she has children?
93 What’s your opinion of bachelor parties? Can they have a damaging effect on a relationship?
94 How can I find a good therapist? What should I look for?
95 If you have a friend who is in an abusive relationship, should you try to help, or mind your own business?
96 How do I deal with the negative influence of my husband’s ex-wife on our relationship?
97 What should you do as a parent when you hate your child’s choice of an intimate partner?
98 What do you do about a partner who insists all the problems in the relationship are yours?
99 Is it normal to feel jealous of the attention my wife gives to the dog?
100 Do you believe there is such a thing as a soul mate? Can we have more than one soul mate?
Index
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
Dear Reader,
Everywhere I go, and I mean everywhere, people ask me questions about their love life. I can be eating dinner in a restaurant, standing in line for a movie, sitting on an airplane, or walking down the street—it doesn’t matter—and someone will approach me with a question they’re desperate to get answered. I’ve talked to men and women about the most intimate details of their relationships in the strangest of places, from the dressing room of a department store, to the galley of a jumbo jetliner crossing the Atlantic in the middle of the night, to a hiking trail in the California mountains, to the restroom of a museum in Paris.
What do people ask me? ANYTHING!!! I’ve had a salesperson ask me if I thought she should stay with her boyfriend even though he was sleeping with his ex-wife … while I was buying underwear! I’ve had a Marine officer roll down his car window and ask me to explain why his girlfriend was mad that he went to a friend’s bachelor party… while his vehicle drove alongside mine at fifty miles an hour! I’ve had a security guard at an airport ask my advice on how he could give his wife an orgasm … while he X-rayed my carry-on bags! Then there was the time a cab driver was intent on discovering the secrets of getting women to be attracted to him and (as I discovered later) drove me miles out of my way in order to prolong the ride!
However unusual the circumstances or delicate the questions, most of the time I’m happy to offer my answers to the people who approach me (that is, unless I’m in the middle of chewing a mouthful of food, or trying to have an intimate night out with my husband!!). The reason is simple: I have great respect for anyone who has the honesty and courage to search for the truth about love, sex, and relationships. I believe that most of us need to ask ourselves and the people we love more questions, questions that will help us live with more integrity, love with more success, and move through our days and nights with more peace.
After almost twenty years of teaching about personal and spiritual development, it dawned on me that there were certain questions I kept hearing over and over again, at my seminars, through letters, on call-in radio and television programs. They are the kind of questions that anyone who has ever been in an intimate relationship needs the answers to. They are the questions you’ve asked yourself when you’re lying in bed late at night, the questions your friends call and ask you when they’re having a hard time, the questions whose answers you wish you’d had before your first date.
I wrote this book to be like a “love encyclopedia,” offering you information in various categories to help you with whatever you’re going through at a particular time in your life. You can read the book from beginning to end, or just turn to a section that specifically applies to your issues right now. And whenever you’re having an argument with your mate, or when you’re wondering how to handle a particular situation in your love life, or when a friend in a romantic crisis calls you up asking for advice, look through the list of questions, turn to that page, and you’ll find the answer.
If you’ve read any of my other books, you know that I believe creating successful relationships takes a lot of commitment and hard work. So obviously, The 100 Most Asked Questions about Love, Sex and Relationships isn’t meant to be a cure-all for every personal issue you are faced with in your love life. My hope, though, is that what I’ve offered you in these pages will help connect you to your own inner wisdom, and guide you to discover the answers that are already waiting for you in your own heart.
In love,
Barbara De Angelis
July 25, 1996
Los Angeles, California
1 How do you convince a workaholic partner to put more time and energy into a marriage?
I feel like I’m always competing with my husband’s job. He’s an attorney and works sixty to seventy hours a week, not to mention most weekends, which doesn’t leave much time for me and our two boys. When I complain, he argues that he’s doing this for us, and points to our lifestyle, which I have to admit, is very luxurious—we have a beautiful home, a boat, a vacation cabin (which we hardly use), and all the money we need. The only thing missing is him! He blows up when I call him a workaholic, and tells me I’m being ungrateful. Is he right? How can I convince him to pay attention to us?
Men tend to define themselves by what they are doing, rather than what they are feeling, so it’s no surprise that your husband has gotten caught up in the “doing more must mean I’m successful” mentality. That’s the way society, and perhaps his family background, has trained him. He may feel like he’s on a treadmill, running as fast as he can, and he doesn’t know how to stop. Along with this, he may have other unconscious emotional reasons for working so hard. Some workaholics actually use their business to avoid intimacy and to maintain a sense of control over their lives. After all, it’s probably easier for your husband to feel in control when he’s doing business than it is when he’s interacting with you and your children, and dealing in emotions, needs, and all that amorphous stuff.
Here are a few of my favorite methods to wake up workaholic partners. Whether or not these approaches are effective will depend on how addicted your mate is to the illusion of power and control that work gives him.
1. Give him some perspective. Have him close his eyes and imagine that he’s at the end of his life, on his deathbed. As he looks back on his life, ask him to share what moments will have made his life truly meaningful. What, in the end, will really matter to him? You can bet he won’t say “I can die happily because I closed ten big deals in 1997,” or “I feel content with my life because I owned a five-thousandsquare-foot house,” or even “I feel at peace because I left my children a lot of money.” No, the moments that really matter, the moments that will have filled his life with meaning will be moments of love, connection, and sharing. I call these “real moments,” and he probably isn’t having enough of them because he’s too busy doing the things he has decided are more important. Tell him you want to share more meaningful time with him.
2. Use fear to scare him into slowing down. Sometimes this is the only thing that works to snap a guy out of his workaholic stupor. Ask him how he would spend his time if he knew he had only one month left to live. (Trust me, he won’t say “I’d work like a dog for twelve hours a day.”) Then remind him of some men he knows of who have died at his age, either accidentally or of natural causes. The truth is, we never know if a day, or a month, or a year will be our last. We live as if we have all the time in the world, and we don’t. Share this anonymous quote with him:
First I was dying to finish high school and start college.
And then I was dying to finish college and start working.
And then I was dying to marry and have children.
And then I was dying for my kids to grow up.
And then I was dying to retire.
And now, I am dying, and suddenly I realize,
I forgot to live …
3. Use guilt as a last resort. Ask him to imagine what his children will say about him when they are grown. Does he really think they will look back on their childhood as happy because of their big house and expensive toys, and not care that they hardly saw their father? Does he really think that they don’t care that he is hardly ever around? All children really want is to feel they matter, that they are important to us. The toys and treats may buy the children’s silence now, but when they grow up, they won’t even remember what he bought them—they’ll only say “I hardly knew my dad.” And they will wish he hadn’t sacrificed “for their sakes,” because whatever he leaves them will never be as valuable as the cherished memory of a good-night story, a game of catch, or the sight of Mommy and Daddy snuggled close together on the couch.
2 Is it natural for the passion to disappear after years of marriage?
My husband and I have been married for eighteen years and are more like best friends than lovers. We have sex very infrequently and have settled into what I would call a “comfortable” relationship. There’s a part of me that longs for that passionate emotional connection we used to have, but many of my friends tell me I’m being unrealistic, and that all couples feel this way after years of marriage. Am I expecting too much?
Relationships don’t just lose their chemistry overnight. It takes years of neglect, not making the marriage a number-one priority, not talking about your needs, not resolving and healing hidden resentments, and not actively learning how to make love work. All these unhealthy emotional habits are what takes a couple from feeling “in love” to feeling like roommates.
I strongly believe that you do deserve to have a marriage that grows in love, passion, and connection year after year. Is this realistic, even in an eighteen-year relationship? Yes … IF both partners decide to do what it takes to rekindle the passion and learn some of the skills you were never taught about successful loving. Start by sitting down with your partner, taking his hands, and telling him how much you miss the physical and emotional closeness you used to share. (Believe me, he misses it too!) Without blaming him, tell him you want to work toward transforming your “comfortable” relationship into one that is intimate and exciting. Tell him he deserves more than he’s getting, as you do. When you both recommit to learning how to love, and use some of the skills I teach in my books and programs, you’ll find renewed levels of communication, closeness, and excitement.
