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The 10 things you absolutely need to know about to attract a life partner of quality.

At any given time in your community approximately 28% of the people out there are single and looking for love. You may be one of them. Or you may know one of them. Or you may be wanting to leave a relationship and become one of them. And if you haven’t been on the dating market for while you may be struggling with knowing how you should act or where you should start in the quest for love. Finding love takes work and clarity. You need to know what you are looking for in order to do the steps necessary to bring in the kind of person you will be compatible with. But the truth is that there are plenty of singles out there with whom you can create magic. Someone asked me this week about the road map for what they need to do in order to land a lover of the highest quality. The tricks of the trade so to speak.
There is no one size fits all in relationships (and the minute I start thinking that people fit into eharmony boxes of sameness then I am dead in the water). However there are some evolutionary biology rules that see to apply to us as a species. And the anthropologists have tried them out in a variety of different cultures with similar success. So here is the list of what potential partners find attractive.
1. People are attracted to, and remember strong emotion. Present something or develop something truly interesting about yourself. Raise chameleons, learn to play the ukelele, or take them to a haunted house. Your date will remember you. Anything that gets your adrenaline up is a great first date. Strong movie, ziplining, lasertag.
2. Ramp up your masculine or feminine features. If you want to create heat cultivate that day old stubble (if you are a man), or find those pantyhose with the seams down the back if you are a woman. The more you can exaggerate gender roles the hotter you will appear to be.
3. Show your neck. Both men and women find it sexy and it is also a sign of trust and trustworthiness. Also make excuses to touch their arm or shoulder. Study after study emphasizes touch as necessary pack ritual in picking a partner.
4. Make eye contact. The opposite sex (especially men) needs 11 contacts with eyes and smiles to make a solid connection.
5. Be vulnerable and self deprecating. I tell people to not to brag. Mention what a bad golfer you are, not that have a house in an exclusive neighborhood or drive a cool car.
6. Figure out a way to let a potential partner either wear your jacket or carry your jacket. The pheromones you put off will be concentrated and they will feel closer to you for the action.
7. Be happy, positive and interesting. This goes without saying but being positive and clean (think great oral hygiene) are two of the most significant qualities people want from a mate in the survey done at the University of Arizona.
8. Everybody is a Big Deal. What this means is that everyone wants attention. They want you to notice them and not be on their phone when you are spending time with them. Make whoever you are with feel important and special.
9. Play love songs in the car or house when you are entertaining a new person. bribe the staff at the coffee shop if you have to. Love songs makes us feel more romantic and connected to the person we are with.
10. People don’t fall in love with a person, they fall in love with how that person makes them feel. Meaning, work on being gracious and not too needy. Let a potential partner do things for you, and don’t think about all the things you can do for them.

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Spring courses, Why love is not enough, and new ideas to keep-it-hot

I interviewed Gretchen Rubin, the author of the Happiness Project and happiness expert a few years ago for my radio show. She offered advice like “make sure you make your bed” and “think about trying meditation” as small things you can do to increase happiness. Happiness needs health, career, and community in order to thrive. But before all of that most people define happiness “as directly related to the quality of their intimate relationships”. How many times have you heard the adage “happy wife, happy life” this summer alone? When you have a great relationship the sun shines brighter, food tastes better and we have a bounce to our step. The challenge is that intimate relationships take a ton of work. Hopefully much of that is fun to do. Gottman’s much quoted research about how to predict a couples eventual divorce with 96% accuracy suggests there are a few things not to do. Those include criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and disengaging. But he also suggests that what works is defusing the stress of the day.What’s the most powerful little exercise to improve a marriage? “Reunite at the end of the day and talk about how it went.” The goal is to bleed off stress from the day so it can’t negatively affect your relationship.
So call out your partner. My challenge doesn’t include a bucket of ice. It’s short, medium and long term work this fall. Make a 21 day commitment to check in with your partner at the end of the day NO MATTER WHAT. Do it by skype if you have to. Consider taking a relationship course. I’ve got the gentle “keeping it hot” PG-13 version as well as the x-rated version listed below. If not mine, then find a tantra, or salsa class you can take together this fall. Finally, commit to getting away for a weekend. Relationships absolutely require uninterrupted, intimate time. Your happiness depends on it.
Couples Workshop on intimacy, keeping it hot, and romance
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The new workshop starting this spring
One of the most common questions I get asked from clients is how do you keep up the passion? Especially for people who have been together for a long time. Finding out what’s new in sex, and exploring things you may not have tried is the theme of this new workshop. So if you are asking questions like; What if we want to try something a little more risqué? or How do we try it with grace and integrity? then you may want to consider this workshop for singles and couples. Sex Therapist Sue McGarvie and her husband Blaik Spratt are presenting a 4 week workshop on outlining all of the mild and wild things you can do to create a smoking hot relationship- all without stepping on relationship landmines. This is for couples (and singles) that know they want to ignite the passion within and to learn about new sexual experiences in a safe, professional atmosphere. Sue McGarvie (sex with Sue) has been talking about sex in Ottawa for close to 25 years. Along with her husband Blaik, they can be your tour guides into what might be the best way to safely spark up your love life.
Find out how amazing your sex life could be this September with topics that include:
What turns you on?
Where are you on the sexual continuum? Where is your partner and what does it all mean?
What is your Love Language and how does your sweetie feel loved?
Sensual touch and Tantric sex.
Burlesque, body image and how to move in a sexy way.
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Why simply being in love isn’t enough to make relationships stick
I tell my clients that simply “being in love” isn’t enough to fix all of their problems. Unfortunately, love doesn’t conquer all. With a 52% divorce rate in this country, couples need more tools besides love in order to make relationships sustainable. Things like attraction, similar interests and values, support systems, courtesy and acceptance. You can go to your grave loving someone but if you can’t live with them the relationship is doomed. So what can you do? There is a great article by Mark Manson talking about why this adage is oh-so-true.
Manson calls them three harsh truths about love:
1. Love does not equal compatibility. Just because you fall in love with someone doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a good partner for you to be with over the long term. Love is an emotional process; compatibility is a logical process. And the two don’t bleed into one another very well.
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The Ethical Hedonist 2. From Jealousy to BDSM The advanced workshop.
This workshop is for couples who wish to learn and understand the dynamics in enhanced sexual relationships. This course is also recommended for couples who want more information beyond an introduction to what is out there to experience. So if you are asking questions like; How do I bring up and possibly negotiate expanding our sex life to include new forms of play? and If we do walk that path, how do we maximize the experience while minimizing the risk?, then this may well be for you. (There is no requirement to take EH1 before EH2)
Find out how amazing your sex life could be this spring with topics that include:
Week 1 Jealousy, insecurities, anxiety about alternative sexual adventures. Negotiating sexual experimentation, and understanding interpersonal dynamics.
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Sue McGarvie,

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Why sex makes up happier. A new study.

Sex makes us happy. Duh. know a this isn’t a big news flash but there are a couple of interesting new studies that finally explain why doing the horizontal bop puts a smile on our faces. As a sex therapist I tell my clients that they need to keep their sex lives active or run the risk of losing their sexuality. The usual use it or lose it mantra. There is current research that explains that sex makes us feel closer, is physically one of the things we can do to stay healthy and generally just feels good.But how it makes us happier is the subject of much debate and countless research grants. For women who are sexually satisfied, it makes us happier. This fact my be obvious (and doesn’t need a sex expert to explain it), but the reasons why may surprise you.
The first, a study out of The University of Colorado Boulder suggests that we are happy when we know that we are having a better sex life than our neighbors. That na nannana kind of glee that knows you are hotter than your acquaintances. “There is an overall sense of well-being that comes with engaging in sex more frequently”. Having sex makes us happy, but thinking that we are having more sex than other people makes us even happier.” And you thought it was just your lawn mower your neighbor coveted.
A second study from the State University in New York says that it is the chemistry of semen (absorbed or ingested) that makes us happier. The fact that that women who are exposed to their partner’s semen during sex may find themselves feeling happier than those who use a condom,” say scientists.
So despite the need to practice safe sex (a infection-free partner is the key here), the mood-altering hormones in semen absorbed through the vagina can help to boost women’s mood.Semen contains a range of hormones, including testosterone and estrogen, both of which have been shown to make us happier. It goes with the study that shows that the chemicals in semen are actually good for our teeth (but I digress).
The new article from Men’s Health suggests that HUSBANDS ARE HAPPIER WHEN THEIR WIVES ARE SEXUALLY SATISFIED. The cliché says a happy wife is a happy life, and new research confirms it’s pretty much true. Researchers have found that a wife’s sexual satisfaction can predict her husband’s happiness. To find this, researchers from Ohio State University interviewed married couples to find out how much of an impact intimacy had on their relationship. They discovered that men reported higher levels of relationship satisfaction when their wives were sexually satisfied. Experts say this is because many men feel their main job in a relationship is to satisfy their wives sexually. Researchers say her sexual satisfaction is not just based on whether or not she orgasms, but also on the quality of foreplay, duration and frequency of sex and her partner’s adventurousness in the bedroom.
Finally there is an article from a new paper published by the Institute for the Study of Labor who reports that researchers have come to the groundbreaking conclusion that yes, sexual activity does indeed have a strong correlation with happiness. Not only that, but having more sex means better health and higher wages, so that whole evolutionary perpetuating-the-human-race thing is now sitting in solid fourth place on the list of top 10 reasons you should get it on regularly.
According to the study, “individuals who had sex more than four times a week had 5% higher wages than those who didn’t, which means your coworkers that are always skipping out early from work to have some good old fashioned intercourse with their partners are not only getting laid more often than you are, they’re making more money too. The higher wage effect remained true even when other factors came into play, like education or sexual orientation.”
So what doesn’t make us happy about sex?
The University of Texas study finds that women are more likely than men to regret having casual sex, moving too fast in a relationship, or sleeping with the wrong person. I think dialing drunk should be up there too.
Men, meanwhile, just regret not having sex with more people. Think about it. As a woman you regret the mercy hump, or jumping into bed too soon. Men tend to regret what they didn’t do – the red head, the threesome, or not having crazy monkey sex whenever possible.
But overall happiness can be elusive. Is it as simple as having more sex (and better) sex? I think sex is an important part of happiness. But it’s only one part. I loved Gretchen Rubin’s books The Happiness Project, and Happier at Home. She researched happiness, and while she didn’t spend her year on her back, she has some insights into how sex can add to your happiness. Gretchen had lots really great things to say. Listen to my interview with her that explores this issue of happiness in greater detail. gretchen rubin- the happiness project author talking about a year of happiness
So no matter what makes you happy (semen, comparing your sex life to the Jones’s, or that it makes you more money) you may want to explore your current reasons for grabbing a quickie.

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Top 8 new ways to connect with your partner.

Happy October! The time of year when I obsess about this year’s Halloween costumes, eat too much turkey and sadly close the cottage for the season. It’s also the time when schedules settle in for the school year and Monday night Football starts up again. Given the time we spend simply living,  we may not be spending the necessary time on date nights  or intimacy that we may have during those long days of  summer holidays.
So as such, I’m offering up some new date night ideas, and ways to connect with your sweetie this fall. Check them out and make a commitment to do something on this list. The Research out of the University of New Mexico says that “working on having a connected relationships is one of the top 5 things you can do to have a happy life”.  Pick one, and make doing something nice for your partner top your priority list. I promise it will pay dividends.
1. Paintball and laser tag. I’m not kidding. Anything that bumps up your adrenaline as a couple bonds you, creates heat and pits the two of you against the world. Check out the Groupon for local paint ball (a la Big Bang.)  Fall is the time to try it.
2. Exaggerate your gender roles. Being hyper masculine, square jawed, broad shouldered, with a 5 O’clock shadow makes men look more virile. It also makes women want them more.It says to us that ” their boys can swim and they make good genetic choices for our ovaries”. Those qualities have women thinking about baby-making (or at least practicing) in our primitive or limbic “we-want-to-have-monkey-sex” brains. The opposite is also true. Feminized women who smell nice, are pink, cute, and sway their hips are also trigger heat from their partners. There is something about playing those exaggerated roles of masculine and feminine that has our primitive brains hard wired for sex.  So go buy some lingerie or put the razor away for the weekend and see what happens.
3. Mail him/her a card to work. Many people (especially men) are visual. They feel loved by what they see as well as by feel. For those verbal love signs (that’s Me!) a loving voicemail will have them listening to it over and over. And try making a commitment to say I love you every day.
4. Set the alarm 20 minutes early to have some uninterrupted “snuggle time”. It’s the men in my office who talk to me about the little things. Most of the time they mean time for sexual activity but it also means safe ways to feel close. Flirt, kiss them on their necks and tell them that you would pick them all over again.
5. Take a shower together. Any time you groom your partner, paint their toes, shave the back of his neck, or pour them into a bubble bath strengthens your bond.  And makes you cleaner. Smile.
6.  Happy endings. Massage with a bang. Grab the baby oil and give your sweetie an orgasm without expecting one in return. It’s very sexy and should cause them to think about how they can reciprocate.
7. Take inventory. I call it a mission statement. We update ours a couple of times a year. It’s the macro “big picture, what are our goals and what do we want to accomplish with our lives kind of discussion”. I think you can’t hit a target you can’t see. And if you don’t have a game plan, or something to look forward to life can drag. Pulling together in the same direction is critical.  Send me an email at suem@rogers.com if you want an example of a couples mission statement.
8. Develop a “togetherness ritual”. Spif rubs my feet every morning while we are drinking our smoothie on the couch.  It allows us to check in on our day and allows us to check in with each other. I teach couples to try daily non-genital touch, or make a point to always cook together. Whatever your ritual is, make it consistent and personal to you.

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The prescription against divorce. 3 hours of connecting time a week and put down the cell phones.

Like most people I communicate all day long by email, text and social media. I have over 4,000 facebook friends (I’m feeling the love.!..) and I try hard to stay on top of my correspondence. It’s hard not to use the same technologies in my intimate communications despite the fact that I preach snuggling, date nights, and regular face to face snogging. There was an article this week in a UK magazine (Sourced London University) that reminded me of the challenges of social media. Apparently, text flirting, facebook, and online adultery sites were cited as being responsible for 60% (Agh!) of divorces in 2011.
Time and the challenge faced with work/life balances is the theme for most of the lunches with my girlfriends. Finding time for personal contact with friends amidst work kids (can’t WAIT for school to start!), and personal time. I gave a controversial quote in my interview with Glow magazine last week. I said that “if couples can’t find 3 hours of uninterrupted intimate time each week for conversation, sensuous touch and a general positive check in of the relationship they won’t make it.” With a divorce rate over 52% for first time marriages, traditional marriages can be viewed by some as a failing experiment. I tell couples that of they can’t regularly carve out that 3 hours a week for conversation beyond “what’s for dinner”, then partners feel taken for granted. And with marriages, the truth is that they take real work and transparency with your communication. I often ask couples if they would be able to exchange phones for the day. If you have flirty emails that you might not want your mate to see, maybe its time to look at an exercise in what I call “open-minded communication”. It’s about  really testing the limits of your comfort zone and honestly asking your partner to meet some of your intimacy needs. It’s scary stuff.
So what can you do without going through a therapist led facilitation?  I suggest two things.  The first is to do a “couples mission statement”. Think of it as a life plan, paragraph of values and New Year’s Resolutions all rolled into one. Write out what’s important to you as a couple, your one and three year life plan, and the things you want to aspire to be in your relationship. Guys get it because its linear, and offers up a target they can hit. Women like it because its intimate and building a future.  The second it to schedule a weekly date night, block of time, parking appointment whatever you like that allows you 3 hours of time together. Find a time when the kids aren’t around, put a lock on your bedroom door, and make your mate the priority for that time. You will be amazed at how effective that it. If you can’t implement those two, drop me a line. I’m can give you a boot camp before you need to look for lawyers.

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What is sexually normal?

You can be in a crowded restaurant outlining your average day as a sex therapist when you casually mention the word orgasm, or erection in the context of a clinical discussion, all of a sudden, conversation around you stops and everybody strains to hear more of your sexual talk.  It’s human nature, everyone wants to know if their neighbor, co-worker, or friends are doing it better, hotter, or getting more than they are.
 
As a therapist I am constantly asked to gauge whether someone’s sexual behaviour falls in the realm of what society dictates is normal.  Most people fall into statistical averages with what’s going on between the sheets, in the car, or on the Mexican tile covering the kitchen floor.  The average Canadian has sex twice a week, except for Newfoundlanders who copulate more frequently and engage in a lot of what’s known as “whitebread” or straight missionary position sex.
Even if people appear to be engaging in some of the weirder aspects of sex that everybody wants to know about who  am I to judge anyway?  Besides you can’t judge a book by its cover, often it’s not the people wearing the chains and black leather that are participating in the more extreme and alternative lifestyles, it’s the girl next door and the distinguished gentleman in the three piece suit.
 
In Anne Rice’s book Exit to Eden there is a quote which graces the back of my agenda. ”…It’s that nobody has ever been able to convince me that anything sexual between consenting individuals is wrong.  I mean it’s like part of my brain is missing.  Nothing disgusts me.  It all seems innocent, to do with profound sensations, and when people tell me they are offended by things, I just don’t know what they mean.”
 
I asked her in an interview on a book signing tour at the Chateau Laurier if she had ever been “slammed” for her erotic writing or her open attitudes in expressing such sentiments.  She said “she hadn’t been spared criticism, but personally she had been married and monogamous for decades, and that it was like part of her brain was missing when judging others, and besides, look at how interesting it all is.
 
Consensual sex by its definition, needs two interested and informed parties.  Sex should never be boring, what’s normal depends on who you’re talking to. I think there are so many people who beat themselves up because they think a lot about sex.  So many people think there is something off simply because they want to try something a little out of the mainstream. I say “if it’s safe and consensual, and you can find a willing partner, knock yourself out”.  The truth is that everyone, and I mean everyone has something private about their sexuality that they think ever so slightly off. It also means that there is no “one size fits all”.  Be gentle with yourself. As the singer Jewel says, “if you could tell the world one thing is that we are all okay.”

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The Rules for fighting fair

fightingIt can sometimes be very hard not lose it. You are over heated frustrated and your mate (or your kids, the customer service rep etc) gets on your last nerve and pushes the button that has you going postal. In a new study out of Harvard University that says (and I paraphrase), “the person that can manage their moods and firmly articulate their position in negotiation is one of the secrets of successful people”. I am more succinct. I tell my kids “that the calmest person in the room always wins”.
So besides doing all the things I mentioned above to lower your stress levels, what are rules to argue with your make?
Here is my list of the things I think couples need to be aware of when you catch yourself having the same fight over and over again. It may not be that you can’t resolve the issue, the process may be part of what’s tripping you up.
1. Do it in private and keep it private.
2. Make it relevant. Don’t bring up stuff left over for 10 years ago. And on this note, don’t stockpile so your partner is hit with a laundry list of issues.
3. No name calling or character assassination. In my case this also includes no sticking out of tongues.
4. Allow your partner (or whomever you are fighting with) to retreat with dignity. This doesn’t mean that you get to make a parting “shot” on your way to cool off.
5. Give the fight a time limit. No re-hashing the issues over and over until you both get entrenched. Agree to a time out.
6. Finally, no bad language or blaming. If you can keep your cool you’ll help the other person find a solution.

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How being masculine and watching sports increases your testosterone levels. Hockey and sex hmmmm.

andersonIt’s hockey playoff time. I have for many years wrote about the sexiness of playoff beards. Everyone has something that makes then catch their breath and bite their tongue. For me it’s burly, sweaty men and facial hair. I like men that look like men. It turns out that there is some physiological reasons for this.
Being hyper masculine, square jawed, broad shouldered, with a 5 O’clock shadow makes men look more virile. Meaning their boys can swim and they make good genetic choices for our ovaries. Those qualities have women thinking about baby-making (or at least practicing) in our primitive or limbic “we want to have monkey sex” brains. The opposite is also true. Feminized women who smell nice, are pink, cute, and sway their hips are also trigger heat from their partners. There is something about playing those exaggerated roles of masculine and feminine that has our primitive brains hard wired for sex.
These behaviours bump up our sex hormones, testosterone and progesterone. This in turn makes us friskier.
It also turns out that watching sports also increases our testosterone. But only if our team wins. This was the abstract of a great study that tested the hormones in saliva during basketball and soccer games. And those guys don’t have playoff beards. Smile. So test my hormones on Friday night when the Ottawa Senators win game 2 of the second round. Maybe that’s why I’m inclined to have halftime or intermission sex.
Basking in reflected glory, in which individuals increase their self-esteem by identifying with successful others, is usually regarded as a cognitive process that can affect behavior. It may also involve physiological processes, including changes in the production of endocrine hormones. The present research involved two studies of changes in testosterone levels among fans watching their favorite sports teams win or lose. In the first study, participants were eight male fans attending a basketball game between traditional college rivals. In the second study, participants were 21 male fans watching a televised World Cup soccer match between traditional international rivals. Participants provided saliva samples for testosterone assay before and after the contest. In both studies, mean testosterone level increased in the fans of winning teams and decreased in the fans of losing teams. These findings suggest that watching one’s heroes win or lose has physiological consequences that extend beyond changes in mood and self-esteem.
I’ve just finished a book called Men Chase, Women choose. If you want to read more about this I highly recommend the book.

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New Top 5 surprising things you can do to keep your marriage magic.

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Great relationships are a gift to everyone else around them. Magic, connected relationships, are what most married couples are hoping to achieve before we go kicking and screaming into the light. Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman come to mind as one such couple (okay, before he died). Conan O’Brien at this week’s White House correspondence dinner suggested that President and Michelle Obama’s marriage is one to emulate. Even old British rockers seem to make it work. Supermodel Iman says about her long time husband David Bowie “my heart still flutters when he walks in the room”.
So what’s the secret to these kind of relationships? According to the survey out this week in Psychology Today, many marriages simply deteriorate because couples allow their relationships to run on ‘autopilot.” Things get stale, but partners somehow expect expect them to stay healthy and exciting without doing the work to keep them that way..
Here are some of the top 5 things you can do to stay the course and have one of those magic marriages.
Sell yourself and your partner on the relationship.
With very few exceptions, we human beings tend to base our sense of self-worth on the things that are most important to us. It’s common to hear people proudly say, “I’m a manager,” or, “I have a really cool car”. But how often do you hear, “I have the world’s greatest partner? Use your words and tell your partner they mean everything to you.
Communicate with three things:
Eye contact, touch and words of love. Ottawa Psychologist Dr. Martin Rovers says these are the most important things we can do with our partners. They emulate our first memories (parents) who give us eye contact, a loving touch, and tell us they love us.
Be clear about how your partner feels love.
It’s the Love Languages message meaning that some people feel love in a different way that you do. I have a friend who needs a hug to feel love, another who lives for the notes her husband puts in her lunch and I desperately need to be told those three little words in order to feel it.
You can’t fix anyone else.
“The more time you spend trying to change your spouse, the less time you have for improving yourself,”. And as I tell my patients, ” I can’t even manage the fish”. You can’t change anyone else, DO NOT think you can. You can only work on yourself. And its time to work.
Date Nights. It’s time to take your sweetie on a date.
When you’re newly in love and in full courtship mode, you do everything you can to spend every free moment with your partner. Eventually though, work, kids, responsibilities, and life in general tend to get in the way of your relationship with your spouse. The two of you stop doing fun things with only one another, and it’s easy to go weeks at a time without having any serious conversations that don’t revolve around work, money, or kids. That’s why it’s imperative to set aside time to date your spouse. Especially date nights. I have a list of 50 sensuous activities to do on a romantic night. Find them on this site and start implementing one a week.

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Romantic adventures. Why you need to keep at them.

adventuresOne of our colleagues is the Chief Psychologist for the counseling group we belong to, and is a Senior Professor of Marriage and Family Counseling at St. Paul’s University in Ottawa. He’s an expert in how to stay connected in relationships. In a conversation this week, Martin commented that “married couples fall out of love after years of being together. It’s their job to do the work with connecting activities, touch, and intimacy, to fall back into love”.
Falling back into, and staying in love takes work. We think it takes play, “out of the ordinary experiences”, and good sex to encourage the endorphins you made when you first fell in love. See the blog at www.sexwithsue.com for more about the hot sex.
One of the best ways we’ve ever discovered to do this involves romance adventure activities. That’s the reason we write this blog. Romance adventure activities can be anything from a picnic in the woods by your house, to an early morning balloon ride or Disney Resorts. It can be boating in the Everglades, or playing flirty mini golf (putt putt). We make it a point to follow a few rules. Bi-weekly local date nights where we each take turns planning the evening. We’ve done naughty pirate cruises, the local reptile zoo (with backward, longing glances), or the local burlesque show. Our quarterly activities involves clothing optional beaches, and over 30 dance clubs. And we try and go away twice a year. Once within a 6 hour drive or short flight of home, and the other a romantic adventure somewhere on our bucket list.
It’s a priority for us. And we budget for it. In turn our relationship stays connected, and close. We try and post a few affordable and intimate suggestions that get your adrenaline up and has you clutching each other and gazing into each others eyes. As Martin the Professor says, “connection is eye contact, touch and words of love”. We’ll go one step further, we think it involves sexual intimacy and trying new things together.
Try the steps and see if it works for you. Invite your partner on a date. Make sure it involves touch, eye-contact, words of love, and something out of the ordinary. Play a board game, go to the local dinosaur museum, or better yet, go parking. We are quite sure that you’ll find it surprisingly effective in re-kindling some intimacy.

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Top 8 best things to get your sweetie the day before Valentine's.

valentines1I don’t think great Valentine’s gifts require lots of money. Some of the most memorable ideas according to the women’s group I facilitated included breakfast in bed or $1 worth of rose pedals on the bed. According to the experts Feb 14th is NOT a good night to go out for dinner. Most restaurants are in cafeteria-like assembly lines that evening. Here are my top 10 best ideas for last minute gifts to keep you in the good books.
1. Martha Hopkins new culinary delight The New InterCourses: An Aphrodisiac Cookbook. I did a chat with Martha on aphrodisiacs on the Ottawa Citizen pages.  I love her ideas about a Valentines dinner with figs, goat cheese, and grass fed beef.
2.Name a Star after your love. The US Astronomy Association had a Groupon out for $14 complete with a chart to find your sparkling light in the night sky.
3. Psychic reading with Stephanie Horowood. She can do them remotely from anywhere and she’ll do a full reading for $35. I think she’s got great intuition.
4. Beta fish. You know those Thai fighting fish with flowing fins in individual bowls at the pet store. They live in puddles in Thailand, are easy to keep and aren’t the 15 year commitment a puppy is.
5. Boudoir coupon. I know locally Jerome is giving a discount to my readers and he does incredibly elegant pictures of couples. Call a photographer in your area and print up the coupon for tomorrow.
6. Burlesque Classes. The good news for you procrastinators is that all you have to do is call the local dance studio and give them your credit card for dance lessons. The one in Ottawa is called Dance with Alana. They give a whole class on the art of removing the glove. It’s incredibly hot.
7. The Thrill, the new solo toy from We Vibe. It’s elegant, has fabulous, guaranteed technology you come to expect from the made in Canada product and it doesn’t disappoint. Just saying…
8. Travel Zoo Punta Cana trip for a week-long all inclusive for $685. Again pick up the phone, spend the $1400 and tell her/him to pack a suitcase. “>

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Why Boredom is a bigger problem in marriages than conflict.

Sue McGarvie, Canada’s Sex and Relationship therapist says that having romantic adventures with your partner is one of the top five things you can do for your relationship.
“The most common question I get from women over 30 is how you keep your relationship hot and connected,” says McGarvie.
Many women want to be that fun and saucy partner, but clearing your head for sex takes time. It’s hard to do amongst the laundry, work, dishes and homework that make up most women’s day to day lives. As one patient said “I have to work hard not to think about the grocery list or other mental distractions when getting in the mood.” Everyone needs sexual adventures in their lives. It keeps your sex life fresh, your adrenaline kicking, and gives you something to daydream about during those dreary winter days sitting at your desk. It turns out that many Canadian women have a fantasy about beach sex. In a new Ipsos Reid survey done for tripcentral.ca, 43% of women admitted that they had sex outside of their hotel room while on holidays. These women fantasized about sauna sex, hammock sex, public bathroom sex, and just about every other private and romantic spot you can think of while on holiday.
I call it “having an affair with your significant other”, says McGarvie. When questioning the happiest couples they talk to me about “learning new things together.” Even those couples in serious conflict seem to get the biggest relationship kick by adding something different to their intimate lives. McGarvie encourages “out of your comfort zone” adrenaline encouraging activities. This is everything from salsa dancing to white water rafting. The military uses adrenaline producing activities to bond “a band of brothers”. The same thing can happen during heart-pumping holiday sex.
Other great relationship suggestions include communicating with humor, planning regular sensuous, date nights, putting your partner’s needs ahead of your own, and stopping the fights before they get ugly. Just like with the adage that “a change is as good as a rest,” fighting boredom can have an immediate impact. “I see conflicted couples making huge leaps in their levels of intimacy when they take the time out for small adventures”, says McGarvie who interviewed hundreds of Canadian couples as a Relationship Therapist and while being the relationship therapist with Astral Media.
Finding time for a sensuous vacation, or even learning to square dance this winter may be one of the best things you do for your marriage this year.