The Nine Rooms of Happiness: Loving Yourself, Finding Your Purpose, and Getting Over Life's Little Imperfections (19 page)

The key process here is for Julia to recognize she is giving too much of herself and her time to others. Too much of a good thing is a bad thing, and in this case she isn’t able to take care of herself emotionally. So she needs to learn to say no, or to ask for help from carpooling moms, her spouse, even her kids, who can help manage some of their own chores
(and do their homework without prompting). Knowing your limits is the answer here, and asking for what you need to be healthy. We’d remind her to “put her own oxygen mask on first,” and then help others. She needs to “value” her own time and herself. We all do.

How to think in the bathroom? Take care of yourself, inside and out, but don’t let the mirror or the scale become an obsession. Vanity is fine, to a point, since being healthy is connected to looking and feeling your best. But beyond that it can be a major time suck, using all your energy (Have to lose weight! Want to look younger!), and you can waste years, decades, being too preoccupied with these repetitive self-criticisms. Your beauty truly resonates from within, when you’re comfortable in your own skin. To have that happen, spend less time scrutinizing yourself and more time liking yourself and connecting to your passions. The mirror can be a useful reflection, but don’t let it become your reality. Remember, it’s just a cheap piece of glass.

Love, Sex, and Unmade Beds

W
elcome to the bedroom, where the bed is the largest and—
for the purposes of this discussion—the only piece of furniture. Other than sleep, which we put in the category of “taking care of yourself” (a bathroom issue), there are only two things that happen in that bed that interest us here: one is the kind of sex you’re having, and the other is the kind you’re not having but are fantasizing about.

Different Kinds of Sex, Partners, and Self-Images

We all know there are different kinds of love and intimacy, but has it ever occurred to you that there are also different kinds of sex? No, we don’t mean positions and orifices. We are talking about the emotional commitment you make to “the deed”: some nights you want “rock star sex”—when there’s electricity coming from every part of your body; other nights there’s just “good sex”—the kind that satisfies but won’t go down in the history books; and then there’s plain old “I love you” sex—you may not be in the mood, but he is, so you take one for the team because you want him to be happy.

There’s also “vacation sex”—it’s fun to anticipate, fun to plan, and fun to have. It’s “vacation sex” because it’s easier to slow down and take the time to really enjoy it on a leisurely day off, or away from home, whether in a mountain cabin or a tropical beach hotel.

There are also different types of sex you have with different types of partners, and what you crave may depend on what you’re getting, or what
you’re
not
getting. You want a “caveman” when you need to be swept off your feet and be “taken,” because he is aroused by you beyond any ability to hold himself back. Caveman sex, or “Take me!” sex, is visceral and often characterized by a secondary turn-on: You’re aroused because he’s aroused, by you! (It’s a form of sexual pinging.)

Then there’s the Prince Charming fantasy of a man who woos you and respects you and carries you off into the sunset, proclaiming, “You are my princess, and I will cherish and respect you and take care of you in my castle.” That fantasy is most appealing when you want to be “taken care of” rather than being “taken.” Women who have a Caveman may find themselves fantasizing about a Prince Charming; those who have a Prince may wish he were more of a Caveman sometimes. In either case, when it comes to being swept off your feet, you just want him to take charge.

If you’re lucky you have a guy who’s a bit of both, but then the challenge is figuring out how to tell him which man you want to take you into the bedroom: the one who’s going to grab you by the hair (figuratively speaking) and throw you down, or the one who is going to caress you gently and touch you lightly and lovingly? Guess what? This is your job. Sorry to tell you, but first you need to know what you want and then you need to let him know also. How to do that can be tricky, since many women will say, “Why do I have to tell him? Why doesn’t he just know by now?” But neither the Prince nor the Caveman is a mind reader. One of the keys to a successful relationship is communication, and that brings us to door number three.

There is a third scenario, in which you come to the relationship as a strong, independent being, neither needing nor seeking validation or security. You
choose
to share your full life with an equal partner. You are not looking for someone to “complete you,” in the famous words of Jerry Maguire, because you don’t need completing.

As if.

We recognize it’s almost impossible to achieve, but it is doable, with a big caveat: It takes a lot of work to get to the point where you can honestly walk into a marriage or relationship fully and wholly your own per
son. But if you’re looking or waiting for someone else to complete you—even in marriage—you could spend your entire life feeling unfulfilled and lonely or dissatisfied, even when the rest of the world thinks,
She has it all
.

First you have to learn to know, like, and respect yourself (maybe not every second but most of the time) before you can do it with another person. Going back to the Venn diagram, each of you is a full circle, and you overlap as you love and enhance each other—but even when you are “happily” married, you’re still an individual.

In Catherine’s wedding ceremony, she insisted on a quote from Rainer Maria Rilke, which essentially says that we are individuals who love each other even as we retain our separate sense of ourselves:

In the last episode of
Sex and the City
there is a line regularly referenced by women in Catherine’s practice, which says: “The most exciting, challenging, and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you can find someone to love the you
you
love, well, that’s just fabulous.”

That show might as well have been called
Love and the City
, or
Loving Yourself and Trying to Find a Man You Can Really Talk To and the City
. The best case scenario is to like your spouse as well as love him.

The bedroom is about sex, but the first question for most women is, are you and your partner even communicating at all? Before you can think about connecting physically and emotionally, you have to connect in other areas, share other stuff, even the little things. You may share kids, a house, a bank account, a family, a dog, and even a bed, but if you aren’t also sharing the details of your daily life, then sex is going to be less satisfying and less interesting, and ultimately it will fall to the bottom of your to-do list.

Want Some Intimacy Tonight? Go Walk the Dog!

Part of the problem is the expectation gap: What’s realistic when you’re married may not be vacation sex every time, or even rock star sex on a regular basis. In fact, you may not be having sex at all. The point isn’t to wake the neighbors, but to connect with each other. This is a marriage we’re talking about, not a booty call.

That is where “I love you” sex comes in: Sometimes he wants to do it and you don’t, or you want it and he doesn’t, and there are nights when you’ll say, “No thanks,” but then there are other nights when you rally and get yourself into the mood because you’re doing it for the other person and for the relationship. And though you may want to do it at the end of a lovely dinner, after hours of talking and catching up, there are times when the schedule (work, kids, trips, etc.) doesn’t allow that to happen, and you have to decide whether it’s okay to “connect tomorrow” and do the deed tonight.

Or not.

We are
not
saying you should do it against your will—certainly this is an important point. But do it if and when you choose because you love the other person, and because you realize that he does things for you because he loves you; think about all those times he’s been nice, gone somewhere and done something for you, when he may not have felt like it. He hates musicals, for instance, but he went to one with you, or he hates shopping but went to the mall to keep you company. He can’t stand your aunt, but gamely sat through her long, dull birthday dinner. You do things for each other because you love each other.

The healthiest thing for a relationship isn’t rip-your-clothes-off sex but bonding and connecting on a regular basis. You have to make time for this kind of intimacy. One recent study showed that couples who walk the dog together or devote a small amount of time at the end of the day to connecting (fifteen minutes can be enough) stay together longer and are happier than those who don’t.

That mundane “catch-up” period sounds insignificant or trivial, but it’s the glue that keeps couples together. If something big happens at
work, your spouse won’t understand the significance of it unless he’s heard the backstory leading up to it. You have to connect on the small details of your day in order to keep the relationship close. Even if you’re exhausted, connecting is essential. Sometimes you may choose to have sex when you don’t feel like it and simply because it’s “I love you” sex, it can be helpful in your relationship. Of course sometimes you just say
I love you
and roll over and go to sleep. Promise him a little vacation sex some other time.

Venn You Really Love Someone…

The bedroom is about intimacy, where two individuals come together but don’t completely merge. Picture the Venn diagram of your emotional life. You are a whole circle (touch your forefinger and thumb tips together in a circle), your significant other is another circle (do the same thing with your other hand), and now bring them together so they overlap in the middle, showing the space that represents your relationship. Link them if you like, but keep the circles intact.

Ideally, the middle and the outside slices are about equal. The overlap is large enough for a rich relationship, but the outer area is large enough so that you can each have a life as an individual. That independence strengthens the emotional bond you share. (Not currently in a relationship? The diagram is still instructive and can help you find the right person, since you need a partner who overlaps but doesn’t eclipse you.)

Catherine says, “To marry is not to completely merge.” Taking his name is one thing, but giving him the essence of what makes you
you
is completely different and not advisable. We are all for a complete commitment to marriage, but we also are committed to helping women keep a full sense of themselves.

As we evolve, our relationships have to as well. Your Venn diagram is not static. The circles move toward each other some years (you’re newly married or raising babies together) and away again after a big shift (a new job, or the kids leave home), and suddenly you’re thinking about your future and free time and what you want to do with your next chapter. Your
focus may shift toward work or volunteering or being more creative or even spending more hours in the yoga studio or on the tennis court. Whatever it is that brings pleasure and passion shifts the circle, either toward or away from your partner’s circle. The same is true for him, if he finds himself playing golf all the time, or wanting to spend hours fishing or choosing any activity that takes him away from the relationship.

You can survive these shifts through communication and caring and mutual love and respect. One half of the couple may become obsessed with gardening, the other wants to travel. You have a choice: to share your passion or not; but your real choice is whether to stay sufficiently overlapped. The overlap needs to be mutually satisfying in order for the relationship to survive.

Everyone should be changing and evolving on her or his own, and there are times when the tectonic plates shift and the earthquake can shake you to the core. If you are committed to the partnership, to the interlocking circles, you need to get back to the point where you are willing to help make the middle area larger and stronger again.

The overlap is where the intimacy happens, and sex is the physical expression of that connection.

So let’s get to the bedroom, where so much of the drama of the shifting circles plays out in the form of intimacy, sex, loving expression, or, conversely, infidelity, alienation, and boredom. If you pay attention to the Venn, you can head off the unhappiness and get back to relating the way you want to. Let’s hear how it’s going between the sheets.

Elise swears she’s happy in her marriage, but her way of “staying happy” is to keep her husband satisfied and distracted, which means having sex when she doesn’t want it…or even know she’s having it, since she’s usually still asleep when he rises before dawn for his early shift at the hospital and rolls over onto her. She doesn’t have to “participate” in this predawn sex, just has to be there and be willing. That’s enough for him, so it’s enough for her too. Elise says she got the idea from a friend—when they shared worries about their husbands—who gives
her
husband a blow job every morning to keep him from straying. Elise thinks “that would be too much work,” and so she has arrived at her own compromise.

She is convinced her husband will have an affair if she doesn’t submit to this morning ritual. He’s told her his dad fooled around on his mom (even though they stayed married for fifty years) because it’s impossible for the men in his family to stay interested in one woman for a lifetime. “The men in his family have this kind of Superman ego that allows them to play god, or at least not feel judged by God, because they save lives for a living. So my way of coping is to let him do it with me every morning. I am fine with it, because it’s my way of claiming him as mine, every day. Don’t get me wrong, I like sex, but once or twice a week would be enough for me. He could do it every minute, every day, and my libido isn’t like that, but I think,
Just go with the flow
. I don’t want to hurt his feelings or let him think he has to get it somewhere else. It’s a little bit of a burden, but I can handle it.”

Catherine says Elise and her husband, Peter, aren’t actually in the bedroom, since the “family lore” is that the men inevitably will cheat (unless they get a lot of sex). He brought this baggage to the marriage, but Elise brought some baggage of her own. Her father cheated on her mother and it devastated the family, since a nasty divorce followed and her family never recovered, financially or emotionally.

This morning routine they have may be sex, according to Catherine, but it’s still coercive; Peter is an emotional bully, since he has implied that if she doesn’t give him what he wants, he will seek it elsewhere. Elise is complicit in this imbalance of power because she goes along with it. Instead of acknowledging that she is a victim, she tells herself she is in charge of the situation by
choosing
to participate. She’s not complaining, since she has fooled herself into believing that she is using her own “power” to control his actions. However, in her most private thoughts, she fantasizes about the “Prince Charming” in her past, the college boyfriend she almost married, and how differently he would have treated her.