When I had a consulting room, I often saw a couple or one of a couple saying that sex had gone out the window after, say, fifteen years of being together.
I always found this sad as the best sex is when you really get each other, when you are friends. Not when you are starry eyed first in love. That is when we explore and say we are pleased when maybe we are not.
So you made it as a couple for years but if you are not touching each other as you pass in the kitchen, cuddle as you watch TV, can’t wait to share your day with your partner, then sex becomes infrequent and eventually non existent. Don’t let this happen.
The secret to whether your sex will last is if you cuddle after sex says Emily Nagoski, Sex Educator at Smith College. If you cuddle intimacy is sustained and you will look forward to your next sexual communication.
A healthy sex life long down the road is about the pleasure of each other’s skin touching. It is emotional presence for each other. Being fully present, attentive, communicating.
Hurt feelings and resentments prevent good sex. Deal with minor conflicts quickly. Keep short accounts with each other. Don’t go to bed angry at one another. We can’t last with make up sex.
If you are a serial monogamist or divorcee, examine how you approach sex and intimacy. No one dreams of being a third or fourth wife/husband. It happens, but something is missing.
Beware of casual misogyny; ‘life’s a bitch’, life is like a BWA — a beautiful woman with attitude.
Such sayings have no place in the mouth of a good man.
Women, you need a Good Man.
So much depends on men. How they are raised, who they hang out with, whether they watch porn. No teenager learned anything good from pornography.
Don’t watch it together. It has no place in your sex life.
So the secret to lasting sex lives is skin touching skin. No resentments and no misogyny. Here’s to your good sex life.
Published in Shelter Me part of The Good Men Project
As men age, a lot tend to slow down, kick back, and relax.
This is a big mistake. Please don’t make it. You will lose everything that makes you happy, content, and good company.
If you are not taking any exercise already, now is the time to start. Get a fairly decent bike, or start running. If you choose running, run on grass, otherwise, go to a sports shop and get good running shoes. You don’t want to wear your ankles and knees out.
If you a beginner, stop when you start to perspire. Your heartbeat will be faster. Your face will glow.
Every day go just a bit further. Stop if you get out of breath. Please.
If exercise is your habit, keep it going all your life. It will keep you fit and alert. You will find life less stressful than your inactive peers. You will be happier, content, and probably in a great relationship.
Exercise keeps your testosterone levels up. Aging causes them to drop. Activity fools the brain into thinking you are younger. You will keep enjoying a good sex life, as you have enabled yourself to keep getting erections.
A man who exercises learns what foods he needs. Low carbohydrates and high proteins. Drink plenty of water, limit the coffee, and drink alcohol occasionally.
If you have given up alcohol for whatever reason, stick with it. You aren’t missing much. If you were drinking as an addiction, make sure you have support, AA, or whatever works.
There is no such thing as a male ‘’menopause’’’, which isn’t always ghastly for women. There is simply becoming idle and lazy. That leads to impotence.
So live your life well. In all aspects. Be kind, generous, learn to understand people. Grasp the nuances, be actively making black lives matter, respect women.
If you can do this and experience the beautifulness of aging, you will be wise as well.
This reminds me of you when your head gets yanked out of the sand.
Dear M,
You were boring. The night you started messaging me I got bored. Went to sleep. You crashed into my bedroom door with a flashlight and woke me and refused to leave.
You seemed so sincere. So I stopped yelling at you to get out and told you to go downstairs. You were so meek in obeying. I got dressed and came down to see what you wanted to talk about. I noticed then it was 3am.
You made me a cup of tea. You were so sweet.
You remembered that I get cold feet. You tried to warm them. I thought that wow, the boring man is a sweet drunk.
I kept trying to send you home. So many times. You made so many excuses to not go. And finally, that thing you shared a house with yanked you back. Abusively. Just how it always referred to you. Idiot. …doesn’t matter, it’s Mike’s… he’s a complete idiot…
Always putting you down behind your back.
The first time I knew you lied was when I asked you if you ever had had a beard. Your eyes travelled to your housemate for guidance…you replied no. But I knew I had seen you with one.
I didn’t like that you groped my legs that early morning/night when I should have been sleeping. I was furious. Of course, I should have told the thing. My mistake. I should have called the police instead of indulging you. The heartache it would have saved.
I asked you to make amends. You didn’t even finish that. But before not finishing, you again molested me and then seduced me. I wanted a spare bed or a blanket, but somehow I ended up in your bed. Although there was another one you could have used. You had entirely separate rooms. You could have used your housemate’s bed.
I did not want sex or to be naked, I wanted sleep. I had already been asleep. No one rapes me since I was raped, so we had consensual sex. It was pretty good considering. And again in the morning and the afternoon.
I felt nothing for you. Especially hearing the fake laugh into your phone to your housemate.
Things happened. Extreme rudeness from the housemate. (I should have told her you had groped my legs and taken me to your bed.)
My friend chucked stuff you promised to dispose of for me over the fence. I was not happy about that. I was cross. Your housemate threw them the next day nearly giving me a head injury.
I made a statement to the police about you. I wish I had never withdrawn it. Never let you take me to your bed twice before I told you about that statement to the police.
I still felt nothing for you. Then you started visiting me. I wanted not to be used. I wanted to be touched but not love.
I liked you. You were kind, thoughtful. Then it got more than talking. I liked it. I liked you.
I was fine when you lied to me. I realised I was better off without a coward, a bullied man.
Then your ex phoned and she was stunned at how much you had opened up to me. She thought I would see you again.
I was fine until you did come back to see me. When I realised your desire for me, I finally fell in love.
And then you became a nightmare. Using me, being lustful. Being lurid in your boredom. I realised the depth of your alcoholism. You looked terrible.
When we coincided at the Custom House, my companion and I moved to be in the sun. Not to avoid you. After all, I had done nothing wrong. You looked like two strangers who decided to share a table because it was crowded. Not even friends or housemates.You gazed me for far too long and often. Those sunglasses don’t suit you. You looked at me in a way that told me everything.
Your friends, Simon Bagnall, Matt Hammond, all of them, enable your alcoholism. They don’t care that you broke my laptop, they just enable you to avoid taking responsibility for your life. All I want is a laptop that works. And someone to help you get sober, which comes through connection.
You will die an early death. Everyone who loved you, hates you now. Your Dad, your ex, me, your housemate hates you too. Her alcoholism is more advanced than yours.
You know she is foul when it is drunk. She was vile after my sister died. Abusive and vile. A drunk. You admitted it that morning at 3am.
Your path is set. Unless you get sober. Get connection in your life. Instead of having your housemate at your tail abusing you, mocking you, making you small.
I wonder if you ever will. Get sober. I’m not actually capable of hate. I just want my laptop replaced or fixed. I’d like the truth to be told.
You said you would tell me what your housemate has over you when you are ready. I’m waiting. You owe me so many amends.
Now I know that your housemate wrote to the next tenants, telling her lies. But they were truly ghastly. They were clearing the shed when I knocked to ask if they needed anything. She looked at me so strangely that I wondered if you had left all my books in the shed. They had my name in them. The ones you said you would take to charity shops. Now I know they got a letter from your housemate. I had a year of acute pain, but the second letter got rid of such cruel people.
The current tenants showed me the letter, and are disgusted that anyone would behave like that.
Writer and psychologist. My health, a journey with two life shortening diseases 
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