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Jed
Diamond is the internationally best-selling author
of eight books including Male
Menopause, now translated into 17 foreign
languages and his latest book, The The
Irritable Male Syndrome:
Managing. The 4 Key Causes of Depression and
Aggression.
For over 38 years he has been a leader in the
field of men's health. He is a member of the
International Scientific Board of the World
Congress on Men’s Health and has been on the
Board of Advisors of the Men’s Health Network
since its founding in 1992. His work has been
featured in major newspapers throughout the United
States including the New York Times, Boston Globe,
Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, and USA
Today.
He has been featured on more than 1,000 radio
and T.V. programs including The View with Barbara
Walters, Good Morning America, Inside Edition, CBS,
NBC, and Fox News, To Tell the Truth, Extra, Leeza,
Geraldo, and Joan Rivers. He also did a nationally
televised special on Male Menopause for PBS. He
looks forward to your feedback. E-Mail
You can visit his website at www.menalive.com
Take The Irritable Male Syndrome quiz.
What Is IMS?
As a therapist who has been helping men and women
for more than 42 years, I have been surprised at
the number of people who are confronting a problem
that has only recently been identified and
understood. I call it, Irritable Male Syndrome or
IMS. I am contacted daily by individuals and
couples who are worried that IMS is harming their
health and wrecking their relationship.
Is IMS A Problem In Your
Relationship?
If the man has 5 or more of the following
symptoms, IMS is likely a problem:
1. Grumpy
2. Angry
3. Gloomy
4. Impatient
5. Tense
6. Blaming
7. Lonely
8. Stressed
9. Jealous
10. Withdrawn.
If you’re still not sure, you can take the
IMS assessment quiz at http://theirritablemale.com/quiz.htm
It has been taken by more than 30,000 men (and
thousands of women who take the quiz based on how
they see the man in their life). Here’s what
your score means.
- 0–25: None or few signs of IMS. You
probably don’t need the program.
- 26-49: Some indication of IMS. You may
want to join to prevent future problems.
- 50-75: IMS is likely and you would
definitely benefit from joining the
program.
- 76 and above: IMS is serious and joining
the program could help rescue your relationship
and could even save your life.
What Kind of Help is Available?
Since my book, Irritable Male Syndrome:
Understanding and Managing the 4 Key Causes of
Depression and Aggression was published in 2004, I
have been deluged by women and men all over the
world seeking help. If you want one-on-one,
professional counseling, contact me at
Jed@MenAlive.com for details. I can work with 10
people at a time and there is normally a one month
waiting list for sessions with me.
To help the many thousands of men and women
suffering the effects of IMS, I’ve also
created an interactive, practical, guide for
treating IMS and a supporting community where you
can interact with me and others concerned about the
impact of IMS on their lives. It is designed for
men and the women who love them.
What’s a Good Relationship
Worth?
Studies show that a good marriage brings the
same amount of happiness as an additional $132,000
of annual income and it would take an additional
$250,000 in annual income to balance what
you’d lose in a divorce. Only you can decide
how important it is to heal IMS.
A Note to Men: As someone who has dealt
with IMS in his own life and worked with thousands
of men over the last 42 years, I know that guys
want help but are resistant to traditional
counseling. We want to work at our own pace, solve
our own problems, have our privacy protected, stop
whenever we want, and know we are getting real
results for our efforts. This program is designed
with your needs in mind.
A Note to Women: Although it is the men
who have IMS, it is often the women who suffer the
effects of his irritability, anger, and withdrawal.
Most women recognize that there is something wrong
in their relationship before the man does. I know
you need to understand IMS so you can help the man
you love. You also need support getting through
what, for many, is the most difficult time in their
lives. Often women start the program and the men
then follow.
Help Us Save The Males
As those of you who have followed my work are
aware, depression runs in my family. My father
tried to commit suicide when I was five. Though he
didn't die, he was hospitalized for many years and
our lives were never the same. I'm sure my
experiences have something to do with my
professional journey. For the last 42 years I have
focused my efforts on helping men and the women who
love them. I am conducting a study which I hope
can give us the information to help men who may be
depressed. Here's how you can help.
I have developed a questionnaire to help us
better understand how men and women deal with
stress and experience depression. The
questionnaire takes 10 to 15 minutes to complete.
Please go to this link
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?ud5393528624 fill
in your answers. We're hoping to get a large
sample of men and women, depressed and
non-depressed.
"Women seek help--men die." This conclusion was
drawn from a recent study of suicide prevention by
Professor J. Angst (yes that really is his name)
and C. Ernst. They found that 75% of those who
sought professional help in an institution for
suicide prevention were female. Conversely 75% of
those who committed suicide in the same year were
male.
Since depression is a significant risk factor
for suicide and men receive less treatment for
depression than do women, it is vitally important
that we have a better understanding of the way
depression manifests itself in males. This is
particularly critical for those over the age of 50.
The suicide rate for men in their 50s is 400%
higher than for women of the same age. For men in
their 60s it is 500% higher. For men in their 70s
it is 800% higher. And for men over 80 it is 1300%
higher.
Though suicide is the most tragic outcome of
untreated depression, it isn't the only problem.
Men and women know only too well how irritability,
withdrawal, alcohol consumption, and fatigue--all
symptoms of male depression--can sap the energy of
any relationship. According to the World Health
Organization, depression is the leading cause of
disability world-wide among persons age five and
older.
This was certainly true for James Early and his
wife Rita. "I would become irritable and angry at
the drop of a hat," he told me in one of our first
counseling sessions. "I'd yell at the kids and it
seemed that Rita was always doing things to bug me.
It never occurred to me that I might be depressed
until my wife insisted that I get an evaluation
from someone who specializes in men's health
issues."
Although most major studies have found that
women experience depression at twice the rate of
males, many clinicians and researchers believe that
depression in men is seriously under-diagnosed.
Harvard psychologist William Pollack, PhD, is
leading the charge against the well-entrenched
depression gender gap. Director of the Center for
Men at McLean Hospital, Pollack argues that men's
rate of depression may be nearly equal to
women's.
Pollack and others contend that male depression
goes unrecognized because, unlike the female
version, it often doesn't fit the textbook signs--
at least in the early stages, when it's easiest to
intervene. A full-bore clinical depression looks
much the same in both sexes. But in the prelude to
a breakdown, that deepening despair is often
expressed in very different ways. Unlike women,
"men don't come in talking about feeling sad or
depressed per se," says Sam Cochran, PhD, a
psychologist at the University of Iowa and
co-author of Deepening Psychotherapy With Men.
"They come in complaining about problems at work or
their performance on the job." Instead of being
weepy, men are more apt to be irritable and angry
-- moods that aren't included in the classic
diagnostic tests."
In a major study with nearly 30,000 men and
reported in my book, The Irritable Male Syndrome:
Understanding and Managing the 4 Key Causes of
Depression and Aggression, I found the following
responses were most common in depressed men:
- I believe that things are stacked against me
and others disappoint me.
- I have felt gloomy, negative, or
hopeless.
- I am more irritable, restless, and
frustrated.
- I feel hostile even though I don't always
let it show.
- My feelings are blunted and I often feel
numb.
- I am becoming more withdrawn from family and
friends.
In order to better understand the different ways
men and women experience depression, I have
developed a research questionnaire that will give
us the answers we need to help men and women and
save lives. We are looking for males and females
who may be suffering from depression as well as men
and women who are not.
If you would be willing to help with this study
simply click on the following link: www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?ud5393528624
(If the link isn't "hot" simply cut and paste it
into your browser.) Please take the test yourself
and pass on the information to others. If everyone
who is interested passes this information on we
will have a large sample which will give us the
information we need to help millions. Thank you
for helping.
Ten Things You Must Do
To Save Your Mid-Life Marriage and Live Happily
Ever After, Part I
Developing a successful mid-life marriage is one of
the most difficult tasks human beings ever engage.
It’s also the most rewarding. Whether we are
straight or gay, legally married or living
together, these are difficult times for long-term
relationships. In 1996 the census bureau recorded a
significant spike in divorce rates among
leading-edge Baby Boomers born between 1945 and
1954. Although we think of mid-life men leaving
their middle-aged wives for a younger woman, it is
actually the women who are leaving in increasing
numbers.
According to Gail Sheehy’s new book, Sex
and the Seasoned Woman, among women who left their
first marriages sometime between the ages of 40 and
74, almost three-quarters left in their 40s. A 2004
AARP study found the following surprising facts
about mid-life divorce:
- Two-thirds of divorces among couples over
age 40 are initiated by the wives.
- One-third of divorced or single women over
40 are dating younger men—a reversal of
past behavior.
- The single woman in their 50s is much more
likely to be divorced or never married than
widowed.
But most of us would still prefer to find a good
partner, get married, have a relationship that
continues to grow closer and more intimate as we
age, and remain together until at death we do part.
So how do we accomplish this seemingly impossible
task? Here are my suggestions:
1. Recognize the hidden stressors that keep
us hypersensitive and irritable.
There is a reality we learned in biology class.
If you put a frog in boiling water, he immediately
jumps out. However, if you put him in cool water
and slowly heat it up, he swims around until he
cooks to death. The truth is we live in a world
that is slowly (well, not so slowly any more)
heating up. Global warming and all the attendant
stresses of modern life are building up in us. We
often aren’t consciously aware of the
“heat,” but deep inside, we know. We
become more sensitive and irritable, frustrated and
worried. Not realizing it is our deteriorating
environment that is stressing us, we often get down
on our partner. When we recognize the real source
of the problem, we can focus our energies in the
right direction and quit blaming each other for our
unhappiness.
2. Run for your life and give thanks.
For most of human history stresses came from
such things as wild animals coming into the camp to
eat us. We dealt with those crises by running away
and climbing a tree or chasing after the animal and
killing him if we could. Either way, we got our
body moving, burned up the stress chemicals in our
systems and our body/mind/spirit returned to
normal. We sat around the fire at night and told
stories about how lucky we were to still be alive.
The stressors are different today, but the need to
run off the tension and give thanks every day for
being alive hasn’t changed.
3. Tend and befriend for a long life and
joyous relationship.
A landmark UCLA study conducted by Drs. Shelly
Taylor and Laura Klein found that the classic
fight/flight response, thought to be a universal
reaction to stress, was how men responded to
stress. They found that women usually responded
quite differently. Under conditions of stress they
reached out to other women and children. The
researchers called this the “tend and
befriend” response. As we get older and the
world becomes ever more complex, the fight/flight
response doesn’t work so well. Men need to
learn how to make and maintain deep friendships if
we are to have successful marriages. Carlin and I
are both convinced that one of the main reasons we
have a wonderful relationship after being together
for over 25 years is that we are each in a
gender-specific support group. She is in a
women’s group and I have been in a men’s
group for over 26 years.
4. Give up being right and begin being
happy.
If you’ve lived more than 40 years you know
that we develop a sense of what’s right and
wrong. Life teaches us many lessons and we believe
we have a pretty good idea of what’s right,
right? Wrong! I can’t tell you how many fights
Carlin and I have had when one of us was sure we
were right and felt it our marital duty (for the
other’s own good, of course) to point out the
error of their ways. The longer I live, the less
sure I am of what is right or wrong. I can tell you
what feels right for me in this moment, what I
believe will make me happy. When I tell you
“my truth” not “the truth” and
listen to your truth, I find I am much happier and
enjoy our relationship much more fully.
5. Know that no one else can make you
happy.
This is one that has taken me a long time to
learn. For most of my marital life I was convinced
that the only way I could be happily married was if
my wife did things that made be happy. I
wasn’t asking for the moon. Just basic things
that any good wife would want to do for the man she
loved. Like have sex whenever I wanted. O.K., I
didn’t need it whenever I wanted, but most of
the time.
It would make me happy if she would get ready so
that we could leave on time for the party. She
knows how I hate to be late. It would make me happy
if she would rub my back without having to be
asked. She knows how much I like my back rubbed and
after all, I rub her back a lot more than she rubs
mine. I “knew” if she didn’t do
these kind of simple things to make me happy, she
probably didn’t really love me, or at least
not in the way I needed to be loved. It was a great
revelation to me when I discovered that there were
times that she would do all the right things and I
still wasn’t happy and times when she
didn’t do the things I wanted her to do and I
was happy anyway.
What have you found that is most helpful in
enhancing mid-life marriages? Stay tuned next week
for my other 5 suggestions including why I think
you should stop having sex.
What Are Mid-Men Looking
For When They Leave Their Partners?
In my previous posts I began to explore what
mid-life men really want and why men (and many
women) leave a partnership just when it seems that
they could begin to enjoy the fruits of their
labors. In order to understand what men are really
searching for, you have to understand the impact of
the thinking that began in the 1970s that was
reflected in the phrase, “A woman needs a man,
like a fish needs a bicycle.”
Many, including Time Magazine, credit Gloria
Steinem with coining the phrase about what a woman
needs. It certainly was consistent with the
thinking of many Feminist women in the U.S. who
were awakening from lives of dependency and
recognizing the fact that they were powerful women.
In the euphoric emergence of this wonderful
feminine spirit some women concluded that men were
superfluous and unnecessary. I’ll come back to
this point in a minute, because it is crucial in
helping us understand the dilemma faced by many men
of this era.
First though, we need to give credit where
credit is due. On my recent trip to Australia I
learned that this famous phrase was coined by Irina
Dunn, a distinguished Australian educator,
journalist and politician, back in 1970 when she
was a student at the University of Sydney. “My
inspiration arose from being involved in the
renascent women’s movement at the time,”
says Dunn, “and from being a bit if a
smart-arse. I scribbled the phrase on the backs of
two toilet doors, would you believe, one at Sydney
University where I was a student, and the other at
Soren’s Wine Bar at Woolloomooloo, a seedy
suburb in south Sydney.”
The 1970s was a difficult time for us. Like many
men I grew up without the presence of a strong,
loving, involved Dad. My father became depressed
and tried to commit suicide shortly before my 6th
birthday. He was hospitalized and I didn’t see
him again until I graduated college. My mother
raised me. She was a very independent, dominant
woman who seemed to get along fine without a man in
her life.
Although she was never overtly hostile towards
men, she saw most men as vulnerable, weak and
untrustworthy (a holdover from her broken marriage
and a father who had died when she was young).
I’m sure the belief that men are unnecessary,
fit the experience of many women of my generation
as well as many men.
Poet and writer, Robert Bly recognized the
damage that these beliefs were having on young men
of the times. In his now famous New Age Magazine
interview with Keith Thompson in May, 1982 he
talked with sadness and concern about was going on
with young men in the world. “I see the
phenomenon of what I would call the ‘soft
male’ all over the country today. Sometimes
when I look out at my audiences, perhaps half the
young males are what I’d call soft. . . . Many
of these men are unhappy. There’s not much
energy in them. They are life-preserving but not
exactly life-giving. And why is it you often see
these men with strong women who positively radiate
energy?”
I think that phrase captures the way I was back
then, as were many of my contemporaries. We were,
indeed, lacking in dynamic energy. We were
life-preserving but not exactly life-giving. I
believe we had lost confidence in our ability to be
generative, to give something to our families and
communities that was valuable and unique. The Viet
Nam War had disabled many of us, whether we fought
or protested. The death of the Kennedy’s and
Martin Luther King caused us to wonder whether
taking risks for the betterment of the world was
worthwhile.
But most of all, I think we wondered whether men
were really necessary at all. More and more women
entered the workforce and men wondered whether we
were needed as bread-winners. Women learned
self-defense and we wondered whether we were needed
as protectors. Women bought vibrators and learned
to pleasure themselves and we wondered whether we
were needed for sex. Women used birth-control and
decided if they wanted to have children. When they
did have them, they often decided to raise the
children without the involvement of a man. We
wondered whether we were needed as fathers.
Now it’s 2006 and these “soft”
men, the superfluous-feeling men of the 1970s and
80s have reached mid-life. We often feel trapped in
a family where we increasingly feel that we are not
needed. The kids, if we had them, are moving out on
their own. The grandchildren ask to speak to
grandma when they call. “Grandpa” is a
word that seems foreign to them. Our partner seems
content to get whatever sexual pleasure she needs
from somewhere other than our starving loins.
Perhaps she can take in what she needs from the
air, like a fern. She’s got her own job which
may be more secure than ours and often her own bank
account and assets.
Some men don’t leave. They stay and die
slowly of boredom or keep themselves drugged on
marijuana, booze, and T.V. sports, with a little
internet sex thrown in occasionally to prove they
can still get it up. Other men confront their
feelings of uselessness, hopelessness, and
helplessness and begin to make constructive changes
in their personal lives and in their relationships.
They want more and are willing to work for it.
Then there are the guys who leave. What are they
looking for? Well, for starters I think
they’re looking for a reason to go on living.
They want to find out if there is a place for them
in the world of the 21st century. Are we dinosaurs
just waiting to fall over and become extinct, or do
we have some important purpose here that we have
yet to discover. Are we as useless and ludicrous as
a fish on a bicycle? Or is there a greatness in men
that we have yet to uncover. It’s an exciting
time to be alive today. But it is also terrifying.
We truly are living in a new world, with new rules,
and new dangers.
I believe the number one reason that mid-life
men are leaving is to find out whether they have a
reason to live. What do you think? How do you feel?
Is there something mid-life men have to offer the
world?
Hard is Good and Not So Hard
is Good Too: Discovering the Wisdom of the
Penis
When we talk about what mid-life men really want,
sex is certainly a topic we cannot ignore. Now I
know it’s politically correct these days to
acknowledge that men’s most important sex
organ is the brain, but I’d like to put in a
vote for the penis. I always thought the penis had
a lot to say if we ever took the time to listen
properly. But we’ve lately fallen into the
habit of denigrating the penis, something
we’ve also been doing to their owners. For
instance,
Let’s talk about this phrase
“premature ejaculation,” a terrible term
that we often inflict on young male penises. If we
listened to the wisdom of the penis, what might he
be trying to tell us? I think we’d hear
something like this: “I want to get this over
with as quickly as possible.” Now why would
Mr. P want to get it over with as quickly as
possible? Well, I can think of a few reasons.
“I’m scared. I’m anxious. I’m
over-stimulated. I’m embarrassed. I come from
a long line of successful men who ejaculated
quickly before a wild animal could catch him with
his pants down and end his reproductive life
forever.” Listen to the wisdom of the penis.
“Premature ejaculation” is a derogatory
label that tells us nothing useful. “I want to
get this over with as quickly as possible” is
a neutral description and tells us a good deal
about what Mr. P might be wanting us to
understand.
Here’s another word that I
hate–“Impotence.” Oh, wait.
Let’s be medically correct. The current term
is “erectile dysfunction,” or
“ED” for short. Of course now that we
have Mr. P’s communication labeled as a
medical problem, we can offer a medical solution.
Viagra to the rescue! And let’s face it, Mr. P
and a lot of his compatriots have accepted the
medical definition of his communication. Viagra
sales declined 2 percent to only $1.6 billion in
2005. Of course Viagra had some stiff (OK, pun
intended) competition from other ED drugs like
Cialis and Levitra.
But what might we discover if we listened more
closely to what Mr. P is saying. Is he really
saying, “I’ve got a medical problem and
need a drug to give me (as one ad on Google
proclaimed) hard erections, quick?” Or could
he be saying, “I don’t want to have
intercourse with you just now.” Now, why in
the world wouldn’t Mr. P want to have
intercourse with you just now? Isn’t Mr. P
always ready to rock and roll? Doesn’t he want
to have intercourse whenever he can? Well, no.
No? Hell, no. “Let me tell you why I might
not want to have intercourse with you,” I
heard Mr. P shout to anyone who would listen.
“I’m tired. I’ve had a bit to drink
and I’d just like to sleep. I know I’m
supposed to see your inner beauty and all that, and
I’m not supposed to be so shallow as to be
fixated on your physical appearance, but (and I
know you don’t want to hear this) I’m not
turned on to you since you’ve gotten fat. And
another thing, while we’re on the subject,
I’m sick and tired of being the one who is
always asking for sex and being turned down. It
would be nice, if you initiated sex once in a
while. And, one more thing…”
Damn, I can see why some of us don’t want
to listen to Mr. P. He’s pissed off and
he’s not going to take it anymore. But, then
maybe that’s the problem. When we refuse to
listen, the pressure builds up, and when he gets
the chance, he explodes. Perhaps if we listened
more closely, more honestly, with more compassion
and respect, Mr. P would talk to us in a more
gentle tone of voice.
Now, I know there are a few of you out there,
who have some familiarity with Mr. P. What do you
think he’s trying to say to you? What does Mr.
P really want?
Ten Things You Must Do
To Save Your Mid-Life Marriage and Live Happily
Ever After, Part II
1. When you hunger for your partner to do
something for you, do something for them.
I made an interesting discovery. When I am
hungry for love and affection or want my partner to
treat me better, I lock myself into a quandary. The
more I want and don’t get, the more resentful
I become and the less likely it is that my partner
is going to want to give me anything good. The more
resentful I become, the more needy and hungry I
get, and the more miserable I am. I’ve found
when I am the most in need, it is the best time to
put my needs aside and give her something that will
bring joy to her life. I used to think that when I
was nice to her when she wasn’t being nice to
me, it would encourage her to withhold her
affection. I’ve found when I give, even when I
don’t get, I feel better inside. The better I
feel, the more joy I exude, and the more likely I
am to get an unexpected gift of warmth and
love.
2. Learn about the science of
happiness.
Are you living a productive and meaningful life?
Do you work on a cause that is important to you?
Are you really passionate about something and are
you bringing your personal strengths to bear on it?
Do you know why you are here? Do you feel you are
going somewhere wholeheartedly?
According to the psychologist Martin Seligman,
author of Authentic Happiness, if you answer these
questions in the affirmative, chances are that you
are already a happy person.
Recent studies have shown that subjective
well-being depends little on such "good things" of
life as health, wealth, good looks or social
status. Happiness seems to relate more directly to
how you live your life with what you have. So if
you want to have a happy marriage, forget about
trying to improve your marriage (i.e. get the other
person to change) and learn to improve your
happiness.
3. Slow down, you move to fast. You’ve
got to let the moment last.
I know it sounds like an old Simon and Garfunkle
song, and the advice is good. We all know we are
living life too fast. But like the frog in the
water, the speed of life has increased slow enough
that most of us aren’t aware of how fast we
are going.
A number of years ago I found out I had an
adrenal tumor. After having it removed, I asked the
doctors why I got it. I received the traditional
medical answer, “who knows, you just got
it.” That wasn’t good enough for me, so I
consulted my 2 million year old, inner doctor. When
I asked Guntar (that’s what he calls himself),
he told me that I needed to slow down. Adenal
tumor, adrenaline, speed—I was beginning to
get the picture.
I protested to Guntar that I had slowed down. I
had moved from New York City to Los Angeles, a
clear move to the slower lane, and had then moved
to mellow Marin, a large detour around the fast
lane. Guntar answered, “Yes, Jed, that’s
great. You changed your speed-o-meter from 100 down
to 94 and then to 86. Not bad. But what you need to
do is get it down to about 9.”
“Nine,” I sputtered and screamed back.
“I’d have to…change my whole
life.” Guntar’s only reply was
“yep!” A month later, Carlin and I moved
to Willits.
4. Talk less, listen more, sit close, and
watch the stars.
After spending 2 months in Australia and 5 weeks
in New Zealand, I realized that Carlin and I had
stopped talking to each other. Well, not totally
stopped, but we spent long times together in
silence. For most of my life, silence scared me. My
parents got silent when their marriage was in
trouble. My mother got silent when I did something
wrong. My father got silent just before he left.
Silence was never my friend.
My friends will tell you that I can talk up a
storm, anywhere at any time. I embarrass them often
talking about the most personal things in public,
usually too loudly. I like to talk and writing is
just talking with my fingers. But “down
under” I learned the joys of quietude.
Listening to the sounds of the wind and the bell
birds and breeze gave me great joy I had never
known. With my mouth shut my mind was allowed to
quiet down as well. I could enjoy my thoughts
without the pressure of having to say something.
Carlin and I found ourselves glancing at each other
and smiling with such warmth, it melted our hearts.
We enjoyed the stars in the southern sky and the
look of light we were seeing in each other’s
eyes.
5. Stop having sex and begin enjoying sensual
pleasure.
One of my major complaints through the years,
and the complaint I hear from many men, is that
we’re not getting enough sex. As I’ve
gotten older and erections are a bit harder to come
by, I found Viagra was a helpful aid. Carlin and I
made an interesting discovery when we had time to
go slow. Although Viagra was helping with
erections, it didn’t seem to be enhancing our
enjoyment of each other. As soon as I’d take
the little blue pill, it felt like I was on a time
clock. All our attention seemed to be directed to
Mr. P. Is he hard yet? Shall we start having
intercourse now or play around longer? If we wait
too long, will I lose my erection?
We finally decided to get off the pill. When we
did, we discovered something quite amazing. When
erections weren’t the primary focus,
“sex” wasn’t the outcome we were
after. For me, sex and intercourse were always
synonymous. Everything else was either foreplay or
after-play, sandwiched around the main event.
Lately we’ve been having a lot more fun
doing whatever we think would give us sensual
pleasure. This has ranged from rubbing
Carlin’s feet each night, to sensual massage,
touch, tongue, and yes, intercourse is still part
of the mix. It’s just not the main event. If
we don’t have intercourse I don’t feel
like a failure or frustrated because
“we’re not having sex.” We’re
just enjoying each other’s bodies a whole lot
more. We are more like playful adolescents than
serious adults. Maybe we’ll grow out of it.
But I hope not.
Sex, Love, and Intimacy:
How Much is It Worth?
Carlin and I just returned from a retreat in Hawaii
with 18 other couples led by Joyce and Barry
Vissell. We had known about the Vissell's work for
many years, but had never attended any of their
offerings. Prior to attending the gathering there
were two things that recommended them to us. First,
they have excellent people skills. Joyce is a nurse
and Barry is a psychiatrist whose main interest
since 1972 has been counseling, healing, and
teaching. They are the authors of five
deeply-moving books on relationship, family, and
healing.
The second thing that encouraged us to attend
was the success of their own marriage and the
emphasis they place on family and community life.
"We have not only been married since 1968 and have
three children," they tell us, "but we have made
these relationships a sacred priority. We feel our
work reflects our love of each other and
family."
They live with their three children, four golden
retrievers, five cats and one horse, at their home
and center on a hilltop near Santa Cruz,
California. Like all of us they have had their
struggles, but they have come through them with a
loving and intimate relationship that is intact and
growing ever deeper.
Carlin and I have been together for 25 years.
We've had our ups and downs and felt we were
entering a new phase of our relationship. We wanted
support and specific tools we could use to break
free of old, unhelpful, patterns and develop new
skills for loving and living. But the workshop was
expensive, both in time and money. We talked long
and hard about whether we could afford it. How does
one put a value on such things as a "relationship
workshop" or "couple's counseling" or
"psychotherapy"? More about that shortly.
We decided to go and sent in our money before we
could change our minds. We were not disappointed.
We spent a week with other couples learning to love
ourselves and each other. We realized that so much
of our time as a couple had been spent working out
our issues in isolation from other couples. Being
with Joyce and Barry and the other couples, along
with Charley Thweatt who provided wonderful,
heart-inspiring music, brought us to new depths of
caring and love.
For couples or individuals who would like to
learn about the Vissell's work you can visit their
website at www.sharedheart.org.
You can reach them directly at barryandjoyce@sharedheart.org
or phone 1-800-766-0629.
So, back to the question of money. How do we
decide how we spend it? Do we invest in the
stock-market, a retirement account, gold coins?
Should we send it to people who say they can
improve our relationships? With an investment like
the stockmarket we are putting in money and hoping
to get back more money in return. Its easy to
measure success. Do we get back more than we
invest?
But how to we measure the value of intangibles
like love, marriage, and sex? As a social scientist
I've often wondered whether we could do a study and
get some answers. Well the study has been done and
it's quite enlightening. Conducted by Andrew J.
Oswald of the University of Warwick in England and
David G. Blanchflower of Dartmouth College, their
research paper is titled Money, Sex, and Happiness:
An Empirical Study. Using data from surveys of
16,000 Americans, they were able to determine the
economic value of such things as marriage, divorce,
and sex.
Despite popular opinion, the study found that
having more money doesn't mean you get more sex. No
differences were found between income levels and
the frequency of sex. And the Sex in the City view
of life is not supported by the research. Married
people report 30% more between-the-sheets action
than single folks.
What's the economic value of more sex? According
to the study findings, they estimate increasing
intercourse from once a month to once a week is
equivalent to the amount of happiness generated by
getting an additional $50,000 in income for the
average American. Tell that to your partner when
they're too busy making money to make love.
All of a sudden the few thousand dollars we
spent on the couples retreat sounded like an
extremely wise investment. A number of the couples
were struggling to keep their marriages together.
Was it worth the cost of attending? Well, the study
showed that divorce translates to a happiness
depletion of $66,000 annually.
Many of the couples at the Vissell's retreat
were middle-age and older. Most of us weren't
having intercourse as often as we did when we were
younger. Were we left out of the economic bonus
pool? Not a bit. The biggest economic bonus of all
was for deepening our relationships. In fact, the
economists calculate that a lasting marriage
equates to happiness generated by getting an extra
$100,000 each year.
So next time you're thinking that you can't
afford to work on your relationship, remember the
numbers:
Divorce = -$66,000
More sex = +$50,000
Enduring marriage = +$100,000
Happy Valentine's.
©2009 Jed Diamond
See Books,
Issues
* * *
Wealth can't buy health, but health can buy
wealth. - Henry David Thoreau
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