Many of the couples lacked effective verbal communication skills regarding sex. “I want to tell her to suck me down there, but it sounds dirty,” said the husband. “I hate the sound of that,” answered his wife. “It just sounds crude.” To help with this problem, couples are asked to play the sexual-synonym game. They write down all the words for the genitals, breasts, and intercourse that they can think of and talk about them. This exercise helps in the building of a marital sexual vocabulary, not to mention the fun of the marriage. “She said her synonym for penis was ‘Richard’ because the word ‘dick’ was too dirty,” said the husband, laughing. “Right,” said his wife. “But I really broke up when you called cunnilingus ‘eating at the Y.’ ”

“Okay,” responded the husband. “You want to reveal your creative name for the penis and the testicles? It is really quite artistic. She called them the light tower on the rocks.”

This banter came from the same couple who weeks earlier could not discuss sex in other than the most cryptic of terms.

Sometimes spouses became trapped in projected roles, seeing themselves in ways they feel they must behave rather than allowing themselves to change and develop sexually. “She would never in a million years say the F word,” said the husband. “I would, too,” answered his wife. “The trouble is, you use it too much and always in anger.” By talking about such differences and perhaps false expectations and assigned roles, years of barriers to sexual expression can begin to fall.

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I’m not sure what it means. I really love her. But I wonder how it would have been with someone else.

HUSBAND

It is true that we are probably not by nature monogamous. Monogamy makes little sense genetically or in strictly evolutionary terms. It makes sense in a personal, spiritual, feeling, and loving sense. It is our nature to reflect, to wonder, to imagine how others would be with us and we would be with them. Such wonder is not a symptom of marital weakness; it is a natural phase of loving. Only fear, insecurity, and denial will prevent it.

Why did we marry this person and why at this time in our life? It is much better to ask this question before reflection becomes recollection, trying to remember after the divorce. Take the time to reflect openly with your partner. Steal from other fantasy relationships ideas for the constant changing of your own relationship. Do not fear your natural curiosity and attraction to the different and unique.

“I noticed as we sat at the traffic light in our car that I was looking at him and my husband was looking at her. They were doing the same,” reported the wife. It is not so much that the grass is always greener in someone else’s lawn, it is just that it is a different lawn. Talk about those feelings, and your own lawn can grow greener by the mental cross-pollination. This is a way to re-court, to rediscover some of the energy behind your pairing, if only in your imagery.

A word of warning. During courtship or the re-courtship I am proposing, there will be several negatives. “I can’t stand that little bit of spit that comes out when he gets excited when he talks,” shared one wife. “She picks at her cuticles. It drives me nuts. I have seen her bite them and eat them,” said one husband. These negatives are all a part of reflection. Share them gently and with as much tolerance as you can muster. You may want to work on correcting some of them. But remember, as the wife who bit her cuticles said, “Jeez, Sam. Everybody does something.”

*52\97\8*