I have been helping men and women improve their love lives for over fifty years. It’s never been easy to find the right partner or keep our love life growing and deepening over the years. It is even more difficult when we reach middle age and beyond. By the time we reach our forties, many of us have been married and divorced, some of us more than once. We long to find a new partner, but we’ve been burned in the past and don’t want to repeat our mistakes. Even those in a long-term relationship struggle to keep our sex and love lives vital and alive.
In the past, middle age was considered a short-lived “crisis” where we did crazy things like buy a fancy sports car or trade in our spouse for a newer model. As we live longer, middle age takes on new dimensions of meaning. Chip Conley is founder of The Modern Elder Academy and author of the book Learning to love middle age: 12 reasons why life gets better with age.
“In my opinion,” says Conley, “and that of some sociologists, in a world with more and more centenarians, the average age may last from 35 to 75. Just as adolescence is a transitional stage between childhood and of adulthood, perhaps part of The role of middle age is to be a transitional stage between adulthood and old age.’
For most of human history we died well before reaching middle age. The average life expectancy in 1900 in an advanced country like the USA was 47.3 years. With all these extra years of life, we need new information to help us successfully navigate our sex and love lives.
I have written seventeen books, including international bestsellers Looking for love in all the wrong places and The Enlightened Marriage: The 5 Transformational Stages of Relationships and Why the Best Is Yet to Come. A few years ago I learned about a book by Shana James that was recommended by a colleague, Ed Frauenheim, called Honest Sex: A Passionate Path to Deepen Connection and Keep Relationships Alive. Here’s what Ed had to say,
“Shana James is like your best friend, along with the Dalai Lama and Dr. Ruth. Honest sex it’s warm, wise and funny. It will help you create not only the sex life you want, but also the rich relationships you need for true happiness.”
Who wouldn’t want to have a best friend who is a mix of the Dalai Lama and Dr. Ruth? I contacted Shana and got a copy of her book. He introduces the book with a personal sharing that reminds us of the kind of conversations many of us have experienced, the kinds of conversations that can lead to misunderstandings and problems.
She vulnerably admits the struggles she faced leading up to the divorce and walks readers through ways to turn challenges into connection and intimacy. Here’s one that got me thinking: This woman is eavesdropping on me and my wife. This is a must read book:
“Really!” I said looking over at the bottle of water at the Target checkout that my husband was going to buy on the way to Burning Man. “Like we need more water bottles? Don’t we have a dozen of them in our cupboards?’
“Mine is leaking,” he said. “You know how it goes in the desert. We can’t get involved. I’m not going to go with a defective water bottle. I remember when you got dehydrated in the desert and it wasn’t pretty.”
“But it’s plastic” I shouted, aware of the cashier eyeing us warily. “Think of the toxic island of plastic that’s now the size of Texas and killing marine life,” I said.
Here is what I wrote after finishing the book:
“As a marriage and family therapist for over fifty years, this is the book I’ve been waiting my entire career to give my clients. I’m going to tell everyone I know to buy three copies—one for you, one for your partner, and one for the friend who’s been waiting their whole life for honest sex.”
And here is some good news that will make my recommendation simple and easy. For the first time, Shana offers her widely acclaimed and best-selling book, Honest Sex: A Passionate Way to Deepen Connection and Keep Relationships Alive, for FREE. To take advantage of this wonderful offer all you have to do is click this link and you will receive a copy of her book and be able to connect with her.
To give you a little “taste”, here are the chapter titles:
- What I wish I knew before I got married.
- What is honesty and how can we cultivate mature honesty?
- How honest are you with yourself?
- Applying honesty to desires.
- What is sex really?
- What Is An Orgasm Honestly?
- The myth of happy sex.
- How to improve instead of kill your sex life with honest conversations.
- Six Basic Principles of Deeper Intimacy and Better Sex
- Conscious Related Tools.
- Relational Alchemy.
- Maturity and our inner demons.
Of course, honest sex, deepening connection, and keeping relationships alive are helpful at any age and stage of a relationship, I’ve found Shana’s wisdom especially helpful for men and women in midlife. In an article I recently wrote, “Why More Couples Are Divorcing and How to Save Your Marriage in Midlife,” I shared some disturbing trends that have been occurring in recent years.
One of the greatest tragedies I see today is the rise of midlife divorce women initiating nearly 80% of divorces. Divorce can be devastating for both men and women, but contrary to popular belief, men suffer more emotional trauma. I firmly believe that divorce is not the answer and most midlife marriages can be saved.
The National Center for Family and Marriage Research (NCFMR), co-directed by researchers Susan L. Brown and Wendy D. Manning, was established in 2007 to help improve understanding of how family structure is linked to the health and well-being of children, adults, families and communities. Recent article by Dr. Brown“The Graying of Divorce: Half a Century of Change”, offers the following findings:
- One in four divorcees in the US are over 50, up from less than one in ten in 1990.
- More than half of gray divorces are couples in their first marriages, including 55% for couples who have been married for more than 20 years.
- As the divorce rate for adults over 50 increases, so does the number of adult children experiencing parental divorce.
Regardless of your age or marital status, by picking up a copy of Shana’s book, honest sex, can help improve your sex and love life. You can get your copy here.
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