Love & Marriage #02 - Creating a Powerful Relationship

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Love & Marriage - Issue #2 - March 2003

1.	Ramblings	Our Relationship as a Guinea Pig...
2.	Feature Article	Creating a Powerful Relationship
3.	Sex Advice	I'm Afraid to Initiate Sex
4.	Experts' Tips	Jealousy, Lies, Marriage Gone Sour...
5.	What's New	The Art of Lovemaking - E-Course. Check it Out!

Ramblings

We didn't realize how big the demand would be for relationship, romance and sexuality advice, tips and resources.
We've only been online for one month, and we're already getting 200-300 visitors to our website every day. Our newsletter mailing list has almost tripled in four weeks.

We've received a lot of responses.
Most were enthusiastic, supportive, congratulatory, offering constructive criticism and mainly fun and energizing to read.

When you visit our web site now, you'll notice differences, which are a direct result of our readers' and visitors' feedback.

We'd love to hear what you think of it. What you like, what you dislike and what you want to see more of.
When you take the time to share your thoughts with us, we become friends and partners. You help us grow as well as improve our service to you. So please, keep the feedback coming...

We now realize that this newsletter and website has made us take a close, honest look at our own relationship, and as a result has brought us so much closer together.

For almost a year now we've used our relationship as a guinea pig.
We've tried out a hundred or more new ideas, techniques and approaches. Sometimes it has been tiring, now and again it was frustrating - but overall it was, and is, one of the most rewarding experiences of our life together.
Our relationship has never been better than during this last year.

One of the reasons for this is having a joint project, in which we're both interested and committed to accomplishing.
This is one of the points we'll emphasize in today's Feature Article, as we share some of the pointers that can help you to create a powerful relationship.

In today's Sex Advice column our experts answer a reader's question that relates to a fear, shared by many women, of how to initiate sex.
Feel free to email us with any question or problem you have regarding sex, and we'll do our best to respond in a future issue.

And, since we've received so many questions from our readers, we had to ask our panel of experts to work much harder than we had all expected.
This month, instead of giving one Relationship Tip - we're answering 3 questions.
In order to keep this newsletter to a reasonable length, we publish here only the questions. To read the answers on the website, just click the links following the questions.
And again, if anything bothers you in your relationship, let us know.
Maybe we can help...

One more thing you should know.
Our Art of Lovemaking e-mail course - is complete.
Check out today's "What's New" section for more information...

And now, let's move directly on to the creation of a happy, passionate, satisfying and powerful relationship.

Feature Article

Creating a Powerful Relationship

When you enter a committed, intimate relationship you lose something and you gain something.
When you enter a relationship you give away some power and freedom.
There have been times, between my relationships, when I could do anything I wanted, without having to account to a woman.
However, every time, I traded in my freedom for a greater act of creation and another form of freedom found in a committed relationship.

My most recent relationship has been the most successful.
My partner Vered and I have been together for ten years. Our conscious commitment to personal growth is one of the bases of our relationship.
The second basis is our mutual commitment to tell each other the truth. We are not willing to compromise ourselves by lying to each other.

This relationship with Vered has been, in a way, a voluntary imprisonment. However, the best things we have done together, like raising our daughter, running a successful business and maintaining a house, are things that I couldn't have done without her. She couldn't have done these things without me either.

We have participated in a lot of courses together, and conducted many groups and training programs ourselves.
I sometimes wonder how other folks who don't do any kind of personal growth can stay together. Actually, I do know how they do it, and sometimes it's not a pretty sight.

In powerful relationships, we discover who we really are and in my view this was always the main reason to enter into a relationship.

Here are a few pointers to help you create a powerful relationship with your partner:

Complete any unfinished business in relationships with your family of origin.
Go and have an honest, direct conversation with your father, mother, brother, sister, or any important earlier relationship. Tell them what you appreciate them for and what you resent them for.
It doesn't really matter if they are no longer living. Your intention and energy will accomplish the healing and closure.
These conversations will complete unfinished business from the past so you can begin living in the moment, being present to each other, and focusing on the future.

Create a project together that you are both interested in and committed to accomplishing.
This gives you the opportunity to work together, to communicate with each other, to agree about your mutual goals and aspirations. You will have an opportunity to help and be helped; you will learn to be grateful to each other and to acknowledge each other. And you will bring results into the world, together.
Actually creating something together is a lot of fun, if it's painting the house, planning your vacation or having a baby (babies are fun to create, although they certainly require a life time commitment and a lot of time and energy!).

Stay involved with other people who are committed to personal growth.
Honest relationships with other couples support your relationship. You need another couple or two for friends. If you have even one couple of good friends, to whom you both can talk and who are supportive and give feedback to both of you, you have a valuable resource.

Ask your partner for what you want but be willing to take care of yourself.
Find something you usually complain about your partner's not doing for you and try something different. Say something like, "I would really appreciate it if you would do ______ for me. But if you don't do that - it's OK, I'm a big girl (boy), and I will take care of it myself. You are not obligated to make me happy or to do what I want. I am responsible for my own happiness."
Wouldn't it be great to be married to someone who really did that?

Get outside support.
If you don't keep growing you die.
Stay involved with some ongoing context for learning and growing, like workshops, trainings, etc... Check out our curriculum of activities to get an idea of what is available.
The world is full of people who wish to contribute to other people - use that support.

Talk about your relationship and how it has evolved over time.
Have a long conversation about when you first got together, about times of anger, pain, fear and jealousy, times of boredom, times of not much sex, times of sex that wasn't much. Talk about times you have worked well together, times you experienced support, joy and playfulness.

Living together as a couple is not an easy choice.
My observation is that not more than 10% of married couples live in powerful, happy, satisfying relationships. Use these principles, and you can make sure that your marriage is in the top 10%.

Sex Advice

I'm Afraid to Initiate Sex

Expert's Tips

Jealousy - Am I Going Crazy?

Lies - It's Ruining My Marriage!

Marriage Gone Sour!

What's New?

If you enjoyed our website, would you mind writing a short review about the site? Thanks...

Today's Main Attractions:
If you wish to jump-start your romance - check out our collection of marriage poems and marriage quotes as well as our personal recommendations of romantic movies and romantic music CDs.
And if you're looking for something HOTTER - check out our favorite erotic music...
Need some straightforward, simple and free marriage advice? Maybe we've already answered your issue - check it out...

Today's Special Offer:
GIVE YOUR RELATIONSHIP the SPARK and DESIRE you haven't felt in years!
NOW as a "Love & Marriage" subscriber, get our incredible new e-Course in Sensuality for less than $1 per lesson. That's a special limited-time 51% discount off the regular price.

Step-by-step exercises expertly designed to improve your love life.
Knowledge is vital, and sexual knowledge will give you the vitality to keep your relationship strong.
Find out more about our new year-long course, The Art of Lovemaking, by clicking here.

Today's Recommended Link
Today we want to recommend the best online shop for romantic games. Actually, they have hundreds of quality games for the whole family - but our all-time favorites are: "A Lover's Touch", "Foreplay: A Game for Lovers" and "Sexplay, The Game".
Don't miss these couple games - check them out here.