by Christine Sutherland

Few people understand the array of lifestyle factors that impact on metabolic rate and weight loss, and typically there is no examination of the health of our most intimate relationship.

There is no doubt that a healthy metabolic rate requires a healthy lifestyle, and a healthy sex life is part of that for almost all adults. If you are working toward weight loss, it’s sensible to consider that this area of life might also need improvement.

The reason why diet companies fail to help nearly 100% of their clients is that they fail to understand the reasons for the weight gain in the first place. But when lifestyle factors all support health, overweight and obesity disappear – no dieting or harsh exercise routines required!

I’ll be writing about other lifestyle factors in other articles about weight loss, but this article is specifically about one factor: the state of your most intimate relationship.

The Importance of Your Most Intimate Relationship

Although intimate partners experience different kinds of sexual expression together, ranging from “fast-food” sex to “perfunctory” sex to “gourmet” sex, in every case they are communicating to each other their state of wellbeing, and the state of wellbeing of the relationship itself.

Sex is as much about communication as is any other interaction that you, as intimate partners, could possibly have. And the same considerations apply to sex as apply to purely verbal communication!

Are You Talking the Same Language?

Do you and your partner share the same sexual “language”? If you don’t you may be mis-communicating, or misunderstanding each other, leading to disappointment, hurt, or resentment.

In sex this isn’t really about technique (although of course that’s important!) but about the non-verbal communication that you both engage in. When are you silent, what sounds do you make, what eye-contact do you have, what facial expressions? Are these similar, or is there a big mismatch?

What happens when you take the time to really notice your partner’s non-verbal expressions and mirror those back? What difference does it make to the quality of the experience for both of you?

Being Compatible

It’s quite possible for partners to be sexually incompatible even though they may match well in other ways. For example she may tend to be aroused only in the early-to-late evening and tend to be irritable if woken in the wee hours of the morning. If he seems to experience arousal only in the hours before dawn, there is a serious problem!

Many women wear little or nothing to bed in their younger days, but become very sensitive to the cold as they age and need to be wrapped up snugly in flannalette in order to sleep well. If the husband perceives this as a turn-off, then there is also an incompatibility!

He prefers sex that is deathly silent, with no eye contact, and she likes “connection”, eye contact, and racy conversation!

Or perhaps he likes to wear women’s clothing but she perceives that as being unmasculine and not in any way sexually interesting to her.

Couples can and do overcome these barriers, with a lot of love, a lot of commitment, and sometimes a lot of therapy.

However if these types of incompatibilities are not worked on, or are left unspoken, they can and do eventually undermine the relationship. The best thing to do is to admit the mismatches openly and honestly, maintain respect in relation to each other’s differences, and if necessary elect to work with an experienced therapist to get help to resolve them.

If only we lived in the sort of ideal world where people were more aware of the variety of human nature, were able to acknowledge and accept their own characteristics, and feel comfortable and confident in sharing those with potential partners. I’m sure the divorce rate would plummet.

And that brings us to .

The Vital Importance of Honesty

There is so little sexual honesty in so many relationships. I’m not referring to outright lying or cheating here, but a betrayal just as insidious: the holding back of true feelings, the silence in the face of inadequacy, the “giving up” on the whole deal. Sadly, after years of “settling” for fairly lousy sex, it can be enormously difficult to now be open and honest.

But that’s what you need to do if you’re committed to building (or rebuilding) a truly fulfilling intimate relationship.

We’ve all heard the joke about women faking orgasms while men fake relationships, but you should realise that faking an orgasm IS faking the relationship. A faked orgasm is a way of saying “I’m bored now”, “I want this over with” or “I can’t connect with you”.

This faking has more consequences. Practised often enough it can become so habitual that the woman is unable to achieve the real state.

So you can see that “settling” when it comes to your sexual relationship is not good for your relationship, or for you personally!

One of the best ways to deal with this is to take courage and actually write down (because it can be more comfortable to write it than say it):

1) What is not happening during sex that you want to happen, 2) What is happening during sex that you don’t want to happen, 3) The words you might actually say to your partner, or the things you might actually do, to communicate your wants

For most people this is very unfamiliar territory and it could help your comfort to practice a little first. You might benefit from reading chapter 4 of my book “Intimate Partners”, where you learn to pre-frame a request (and also respond resourcefully to criticism) and chapter 6, where you’ll learn to ask more directly for what you want!

Your Time Out

What makes an intimate relationship intimate is it’s exclusivity and privacy, so without sufficient experience of privacy together, and without that feeling of exclusivity, intimacy can struggle to survive.

I know it can be very difficult to get that kind of privacy together when you’re leading a very busy life, particularly if you’re the parents of young children. But remember that the quality of your relationship together provides the foundation on which your children can grow and develop into healthy, happy adults themselves. You have a really serious responsibility to make that foundation as healthy and strong as you can.

Sorting Out those Sex Issues

Human adults need a deeply satisfying sexual relationship in very much the same way as they need good, nutritious food in order to be healthy both physically and mentally. However many couples “settle” for a relationship that is not at all satisfying – sometimes because they don’t know what to do, and sometimes because they’ve given up hope. This situation is damaging for the relationship, for the partners, and for others who depend on them for their own wellbeing.

This article can’t possibly hope to be a complete sex manual for every issue that might impact on your sex life, and even if I were to present you with hundreds of pages of information, it might not be quite what you were looking for. That’s why it’s important to seek out specific support if you decide that this part of your life could do with an overhaul.

With your sexual relationship in great condition, you can be confident that it’s supporting your health and wellbeing, and thus helping you to maintain a naturally healthy weight, permanently.

About the Author:
Christine Sutherland is an expert on weight loss, especially when it comes to lifestyle factors that are vital if we are to achieve easy and permanent weight loss. Her free book “17 Solutions” is must reading for anyone who is looking for a permanent answer to weight problems.

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Filed under: Marriage

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