YOU’VE LOST THAT LOVING FEELING? How to Make a Love U-Turn…

(Note: The post below is from the book STOP *EFFING YOURSELF, by Dr. Sean Kenniff)

YOU’VE LOST THAT LOVING FEELING?

How to Make a Love U-Turn…

By Sean Kenniff

You have fallen out of love–you are sure of it. You might still love your partner, but you are no longer “in love” with him or her. Looking back, you recall a time when your partner sent your heart and mind racing with excitement. Every moment seemed magical. But now those times have vanished, and it seems like all that passion was just smoke and mirrors, a cruel trick. You still obsess about your partner but now only in a very negative way. You ask yourself over and over, How could this have happened? How did hot and heavy become cold and lonely? Why am I staying in the relationship? Who am I fooling? Am I condemned to a passionless and pointless future?

Signs you may be falling out of love with your partner.

• 1. You are physically repulsed by your partner.
• 2. You cringe before kissing.
• 3. You constantly point out your partner’s faults.
• 4. You feel like a fraud.
• 5. You married for money, sex or security.
• 6. Your basic emotional needs are not being met.
• 7. You don’t respect your partner.
• 8. You no longer care if your partner has sex with someone else.
• 9. You avoid talking about the future.
• 10. You are never happy at home.

Unfortunately, it is easy to fall in love but hard to stay in love. As your relationship changes with time, you must change along with it–and change requires work. If you have not been adjusting and growing within your relationship, now is the time to start. Falling out of love is usually a painfully slow process. So time is on your side.

Here are some tips on how you can make a love U-turn.

Create a Love Concept.

Define what you mean by love. For most people, love is an abstract concept, and writing some thoughts on paper will help you see what you have in your relationship and what you are lacking. Write down an explicit definition of love, the actions that you consider demonstrate love, and all of your other love expectations.

Take a Reality Check.

Compare your love concept to what you read in books, watch on television, and see in the movies. If your love concept is strikingly similar to the dramatic love concept, you have been terribly misled. If books and the mainstream media accurately portrayed the amount of tedium in real-life romances, you wouldn’t read or watch. Make sure you are not holding your relationship up to a ridiculous Hollywood standard.

Identify Changes.

Think back to a happier time in your relationship, and write down ways both you and your partner have changed. Were you more attentive, seductive, and forgiving? Identify ways in which the relationship has fundamentally changed. Are there other obligations interfering with your ability to love each other? Have children entered the picture? Has one partner lost a job or received a promotion? Examine how all of these changes are related and try to figure out some simple solutions.

Time to Talk.

After creating a realistic love concept and identifying changes in your relationship, it is time to have a thoughtful and candid conversation with your partner. Your partner may have similar concerns. And when two people drift away from each other, they drift away at twice the speed. Assure your partner that you are committed to improving your love relationship and keep the conversation solution-oriented.

Act Lovingly.

Love is a feeling, but it is also an action. It is a noun and a verb–and verbs usually imply action. You cannot be passive about love. It will not magically reappear in your relationship. You must give love to get it. Make specific and unambiguous efforts to demonstrate your love for partner at least once a day. Like a bank account, you have to deposit love before you can withdraw it. You must start giving the love you want in return.

Starve Your Resentment.

Don’t focus on feelings of resentment and hostility. When people fall in love, they often develop a positive obsession for their partners, and it creates constant excitement. When falling out of love, the obsession turns negative and becomes constant resentment. You must do your best to block these negative thoughts.

Feed The Positivity.

Do your best to acknowledge the positive qualities of your partner. Identify what is right about your partner and your relationship, and then tell your friends and family about them. You might be surprised at the reaction. They might just tell you how lucky you are. Getting this kind of positive feedback will strengthen your relationship.

Let it Go.

Don’t hold onto past resentments.

Seduce Each Other.

To add some passion into your lives, make sure you are seducing each other on a regular basis. Look your best. Express desire–or fake it. If your sex life has turned boring, be open to spicing it up a bit. Have fun, make love, and hang out like you used to.

What is Missing in Passion, Make Up For With Intimacy.

While you may never recapture the passion you had with your partner in the first years of dating, you should make efforts to become increasingly intimate. Like passionate love, being understood and cherished is also a fundamental human desire. Feed your partner’s desire for intimacy–it is the glue of all long-term love relationships. Concentrate on safeguarding your partner and attending to their emotional needs.

Dr. Sean Kenniff is the author of STOP *EFFING YOURSELF and ETRE THE COW. Click on the book cover above to purchase.

The “I Do” Blues: Postnuptial Depression

THE “I DO” BLUES: Postnuptial Depression

By Sean Kenniff, MD

  A wedding is usually one of the most joyous days in a young couple’s life; a time to celebrate love and hope for a lifetime of happiness. But for some newlyweds the big day is soon followed by a big letdown. 

  “It should be described as the day the prince falls off his horse, and we change from girls into women,” one blogger writes. 

  “What begins the day after marriage? Misery,” replies another. 

  In many cases once the honeymoon is over, humdrum reality sets in, and that can leave unprepared couples coping with postnuptial depression-also called the ‘I Do Blues’. 

  “Building a happy, productive partnership is not easy.  The unrealistic expectations set up by our culture, media images of connubial bliss, romantic novels and song lyrics soon prove to be impossible to create, and reality then sets in,” says Dr. Tina Tessina.

  Dr. Tessina, better known as “Dr. Romance,” is a distinguished California psychotherapist and author of the book, Money Sex and Kids: Stop Fighting About the Three Things That Can Ruin Your Marriage. She says both men and women are at risk of postnuptial depression, because their expectations are often out of step with day-to-day marital life. 

  “Any situation in which the expectations are unrealistic can be considered a ‘set up’ for disappointment, which some people experience as depression,” she says. 

  In the months leading up to the wedding day the bride and groom often become the gravitational center of activity for family and friends. Some couples, especially the brides-to-be, spend so much time planning a wedding that they often fail to plan a survival strategy for the days afterwards; and when the wedding day spotlight disappears, so can a sense of purpose.  

  “People who are emotionally resilient rise to this challenge and work together to solve the problems and improve the relationship.  Those who are not resilient sink into despair and depression, and stop trying,” Dr. Tessina says. 

Signs of postnuptial depression may include

• 1. Lack of energy
• 2. Emotional withdrawal
• 3. Lack of sexual intimacy
• 4. Feelings of hopelessness, or despair
• 5. Frequent crying
• 6. Sleeplessness

  Roughly half of all U.S. marriages end in divorce, so it is normal to have some reservations about the sustainability of a new marriage, or suitability of a new spouse. It’s also difficult for some to move from the ‘me’ mindset of being single, to the ‘we’ mindset of being married. Unfortunately few people want to talk about postnuptial depression for fear it might trigger some trouble-in-paradise rumors, but experts say couples should communicate their difficulties to each other, and a professional. Antidepressant medications can help in severe cases, but most cases of postnuptial depression can be treated effectively with psychological therapy.

  “Counseling will also help you handle situations more effectively,” Dr. Tessina says, “and help you not create more drama and dysfunction in the relationship. “ 

  The best way to avoid postnuptial depression is through careful planning and maintaining perspective. First try not to put overblown significance on the wedding day. Certainly it is an important day, but it is still just another day. Before the big day it may help to delegate wedding responsibilities wherever you can, think about having a less lavish reception, try to avoid obsessions or being a perfectionist, and talk to friends and family about your stress. 

  It’s important to remember loving relationships are like flowers; they blossom quickly, need constant care and change with the seasons. Just watch out for the thorns and expect bees. 

Sean Kenniff, MD is a neurologist, radio host, and television journalist in Miami, Florida. 

Tina B. Tessina, PhD, also known as ‘Dr.Romance’, is a licensed psychotherapist in Southern California with over 30 years of experience counseling couples and individuals. She is the author of thirteen books on relationships including Money, Sex and Kids: Stop Squabbling About the Three Things That Can Ruin Your Marriage. Dr. Tessina also writes the Dr. Romance blog, and is a Relationships Expert for Redbook Love Network, Divorce360.com, and she answers relationship questions at Yahoo! Personals. She can be reached by visiting her website  http://www.tinatessina.com

What is Worse? This or That?

What’s Worse, This or That?

by Sean Kenniff, MD 

What is worse: being obese or suffering from anorexia nervosa? 

Statistics show anorexia nervosa has the highest fatality rate of any psychological disorder. Up to twenty-percent of those affected will die from the condition if left untreated, and roughly three-percent die even with therapy. Obesity also kills, but much more slowly. The mortality rate for people suffering from anorexia nervosa is higher, and they tend to die at much younger ages when compared to an obese people of the same age. For an obese twenty-five-year old woman the risk of dying is around 0.1%.

What is worse for parents with children: Having a gun in the house, or a swimming pool in the backyard?

In the book Freakonomics by economist Steven Leavitt, statistical analysis reveals that having a swimming pool is roughly 100-times more risky than having a gun in the house. According to Leavitt there are 6-million residential swimming pools in the U.S., and more than 500 children drown in them each year-so roughly one child drowns for every 11,000 swimming pools. Meanwhile there are more than 200-million guns in the U.S., but fewer than 200 deaths in children under the age of ten are due to firearms. Simple math tells you that the risk of having a gun in the home is just 1-child death for every 1-million guns.

What is worse: smoking marijuana cigarettes, or smoking tobacco cigarettes?

This question appeared in an editorial in the British Medical Journal in 2003. From a legal point of view marijuana is certainly worse. But when it comes to your health tobacco cigarettes are a much bigger risk. Two large studies failed to find an increased risk of death associated with cannabis use. While there are plenty of carcinogens in marijuana smoke, people do not tend to chain-smoke the drug-so the overall exposure to those carcinogens is much less. And most marijuana smokers cease smoking the drug in early adulthood. Cigarettes pose a much larger personal and public health risk. However this conclusion comes with a caveat: perhaps the main reason people stop smoking marijuana after a certain age is because of its illegality. As we age we are less likely to commit these kinds of criminal activities. Decriminalization of marijuana may lead to more prolonged smoking and perhaps more deaths. But overall cigarettes are much worse. In the United States tobacco use contributes to roughly 1-in-5 deaths.

What is worse: being married and miserable, or happy and single? 

Research shows happily married couples live longer than singles, and the health benefit of being in a happy marriage is more profound for men than it is for women. People in positive marital relationships have lower blood pressures and reduced levels of stress hormones when compared to unhappily married couples. And a recent study from BYU researchers found unhappily married people have a higher blood pressure, and higher stress hormones than happy singles and happily married folks. So being unhappily married appears to pose the biggest risk to your health. But before you think about heading to divorce court, several studies have shown divorce can increase the risk of death. So try to make your marriage a happy one. 

It’s also important to mention that overall never-married people face the highest risk of death (unhappy and happy singles combined). A study published in 2006 found never-married people faced 5-times the risk of dying from infectious diseases, were 38-percent more likely to die from heart disease, and faced twice the risk of dying from an accident, homicide, or suicide.

What is worse: air pollution or being exposed to second-hand smoke?

Air pollution from industrial pollutants and motor vehicles accounts for 3% of all U.S. deaths according to an article in the European Respiratory Journal. A study from University of Southern California in 2007 found children living near a major highway (within 500 meters) were more likely to have asthma, other respiratory diseases, and were more likely to have reduced lung function and reduced lung growth. Living close to a busy highway has also been associated with an increased risk of heart disease and some cancers. Air pollution alone causes between 22,000 and 55,000 deaths each year in the U.S. according to government statistics, but the National Resources Defenses Council says air pollution is responsible for 64,000 deaths each year. Particulate matter and benzene are thought to be playing the largest role in causing the health problems. 20-million Americans live under air pollution that contains more than 32 toxins at levels 100 times higher than the EPA deems acceptable. The World Health Organization says worldwide there are 2-million deaths due to air pollution each year. So how does second-hand smoke compare? The American Cancer Society estimates exposure to second-hand smoke causes roughly 3400 lung cancer deaths and between 22,000 and 69,000 deaths from cardiovascular disease each year in the U.S. There are approximately 21-million American children (35%) living in homes where they are exposed to second-hand smoke. So the numbers turn out to be roughly the same.

Prescription for More Sex, More Often

More Sex, More Often

by Sean Kenniff, MD

   For many couples sex that used to sizzle starts to fizzle. In the U.S. the average married couple has sex fifty-eight times a year-that’s just a little bit more than once a week-and many couples have much less than that. Good communication is essential for all healthy relationships, but seduction may be as important-and many long-term lovers have simply forgotten all about the art of seduction. 

These are the Seven Surefire Secrets to Seduction that promise to cure that bedroom boredom.

#1 Tell your lover a sexy bedtime story

Experts often say the brain is the most powerful sexual organ in the body and one good way to engage it is with fantasy. So conjure up a story and share it with your lover at bedtime. It can be about a princess, a pirate, or a real person. Tell your lover how you want to be pleased or how you intend to please them. Just don’t hold back! Getting graphic really gets the brain going. 

#2 Say it, before you do it

Like professional athletes who visualize victories, the brain must be primed before the body can perform. It could be a breathy phone call at work, a dirty note left inside a purse or a briefcase, or just a racy text message. For some people the anticipation of sex can be nearly as rewarding as the act itself. So build anticipation and let the momentum take care of the rest. 

#3 Bedtime is adult playtime

There are plenty of toys and adult themed games on the market, but sometimes it’s better to get creative with the games you might already have around the home-plus they’re a lot more discreet. So try playing a few hands of strip poker, give naked Twister a spin, or just tickle your funny-bone with a game of erotic Operation. Just roll the dice and use your imagination.

#4 Set the scene and look the part

If you want an Oscar-worthy performance set a scene that engages as many of the five senses as possible. So try some dim lighting, scented candles, delicious finger foods, wine, feathers, satin sheets, fluffy pillows, rose petals or romantic music. Use many of these sense stimulators in combination. And don’t forget to touch your lover often. Touch is perhaps the most primal of the five senses. Shower, shave, and dress the part.

#5 Just do it

Call it the ‘Nike Philosophy’: even if it seems monotonous experts say making love on a regular basis is critical to sustaining a healthy sexual relationship. Once couples stop having regular romps it is often difficult to get back to previous levels of activity. It’s like going to the gym: the hard part is getting there, but once you start sweating it is always well worth the trouble.

#6 Have a naughty night out

Forget date night! Instead try a naughty night out. Maybe take your partner to a striptease, an adult toy store, a theme room at a motel, or even the back seat of your car. Pretend to meet in a bar and pick each other up all over again. Basically if it feels like you are doing something wrong you probably have the right idea.

#7 Novelty

Break life’s monotony by adding everyday novelty. The brain responds to novel situations with increased awareness and heightened senses. Changing your routine by doing different things throughout the day also raises levels of feel good neurochemicals in both men and women.

It’s important to remember that a lack of sexual desire or inability to perform sexual activity can sometimes be a sign of a serious psychological or medical condition. So if you want to have more sex, more often, but are physically unable to do so, make sure you discuss the problems candidly with your doctor.