I have been helping men and women improve their love lives for more than fifty years. It’s never been easy to find the right partner or to keep our love lives growing and deepening through the years. It is even more difficult when we reach midlife and beyond. By the time we reach forty, 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 before and don’t want to repeat our mistakes. Even those who are in a long-term relationship struggle to keep our sex and love lives vital and alive.
In the past, midlife was seen as a short-lived “crisis” where we would do crazy shit like buy a flashy sports car or trade in our spouse for a newer model. As we are living longer, midlife takes on new dimensions of meaning. Chip Conley is founder of The Modern Elder Academy and author of the book Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better With Age.
“In my opinion,” says Conley, “and that of a number of sociologists, in a world with more and more centenarians, midlife may last from 35 to 75. Just as adolescence is a transitional stage between childhood and adulthood, maybe part of midlife’s role is to be a transitional stage between adulthood and elderhood.”
For most of human history we died before we got very far into midlife. The average life expectancy in 1900 in an advanced country like the U.S. was 47.3 years. With all these added years of life, we need new information to help us successfully navigate our sex and love lives.
I have written seventeen books including international best-sellers Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places and The Enlightened Marriage: The 5 Transformative Stages of Relationships and Why the Best is Still 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, blended with the Dalai Lama and Dr. Ruth. Honest Sex is warm, wise and funny. It will help you create not only the sex life you want, but the rich relationships you need for true happiness.”
Who wouldn’t want to have a best friend who is a blend of the Dalai Lama and Dr. Ruth? I reached out to Shana and got a copy of her book. She introduces the book with a personal sharing that reminds us of the kind of discussions many of us have experienced, the kinds of discussions that can lead to misunderstandings and trouble.
She vulnerably admits to the struggles she faced that led to divorce, and walks readers through ways to transform challenges into connection and intimacy. Here’s one that had me think: This woman has been eavesdropping on me and my wife. This is a book I must read:
“Really!” I said, looking toward the water bottle at the Target cash register that my husband was about to purchase en route to Burning Man. “Like we need more water bottles? Don’t we have a dozen of them in our cupboards?”
“Mine leaks,” he said. “You know how it goes in the desert. We can’t mess around. I’m not going to go with a faulty water bottle. I remember when you got dehydrated in the desert and it wasn’t pretty.”
“But it’s plastic” I yelled, aware of the cashier warily eyeing us. “Think about the toxic island of plastic that is now the size of Texas and killing marine life,” I said.
Here’s what I wrote after finishing the book:
“As a marriage and family therapist for more than fifty years, this is the book I’ve been waiting my whole career to give to my clients. I’ll be telling everyone I know to buy three copies—one for yourself, one for your partner, and one for the friend who has been waiting for honest sex all their lives.”
And here’s some good news that will make my recommendation simple and easy. For the first time Shana is offering her widely acclaimed and best-selling book, Honest Sex: A Passionate Path to Deepen Connection and Keep Relationships Alive, for FREE. To take advantage of this wonderful offer all you must do is click on this link and you will get 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 Learned 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 Actually?
- What is Orgasm Honestly?
- The Myth of Happy Sex.
- How to Improve Rather Than Kill Your Sex Life with Honest Conversations.
- Six Fundaments of Deeper Intimacy and Better Sex
- Conscious Relating Tools.
- Relational Alchemy.
- Maturity and Our Inner Demons.
Of course, having honest sex, deepening connection, and keeping relationships alive is helpful at any age and stage of relationship, I have found Shana’s wisdom to be particularly helpful for men and women in midlife. In an article I wrote recently, “Why More Couples Are Divorcing and How to Save Your Midlife Marriage,” I shared some disturbing trends that have been going on in recent years.
One of the greatest tragedies I am seeing today is the rise of midlife divorce with women initiating nearly 80% of the divorces. Divorce can be devastating for both men and women, but contrary to popular perception, men suffer greater emotional wounding. I believe strongly that divorce is not the answer and most midlife marriages can be saved.
The National Center for Family & Marriage Research (NCFMR), Co-directed by researchers Susan L. Brown and Wendy D. Manning, was established in 2007 to help improve our understanding of how family structure is linked to the health and well-being of children, adults, families, and communities. Dr. Brown’s recent article, “The Graying of Divorce: A Half Century of Change,” offers the following findings:
- One in four persons who divorce in the U.S. is over 50, contrasted to less than one in ten in 1990.
- More than half of gray divorces are couples in their first marriages, including more than 55 percent for couples married more than 20 years.
- As the divorce rate for adults over 50 soars, so does the number of adult children experiencing parental divorce.
Regardless of your age or marital status, getting 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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