Secrets to Helping Your Marriage Survive--and Thrive!

Business has always come easily to me—it's marriage that's been hard. The thing they both require in spades is tremendous perseverance, but that's where the similarity ends. Over the 24 years I've been married to Bill—or, as our friends always call him, "Poor Bill"—I've gone from a hot-to-trot-I-can't-wait-to-see-what's-next! type person in a relationship, to an oh-my-god-please-give-me-strength!' type spouse. I'm no expert in marriage counseling or sex therapy, but I can tell you I've clocked more hours in both efforts than any other girl I know.

Bill and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary with our first marriage counselor in her mid-town office. I didn't know exactly what was wrong, but sensed something was, and so carted poor Bill over to her little office so he, too, could realize our marriage was already on the rocks. I was still dreaming about the Cinderella marriage I had wanted at 21, but at 42, I had learned that it was I who was the prince and any change that would come in our relationship was going to have to be initiated by me. Seventy-four billable hours later, we felt closer than we had when we first married and Bill and I decided to take the big plunge into parenthood.

Four years and seven in-vitro attempts later, we celebrated the birth of our first child. Believing that life was at last complete and that we'd found our happily-ever-after, we wrapped our marriage around our perfect child, congratulating ourselves on a job well done. Not for long. Kids change things, big time and romance time became, "Hi honey, how'd your day go?" followed up with, "Oh good and can you warm the baby's bottle, not in the microwave but in a pot with some water, not that pot, and make sure it's not too hot, thanks dear." Date nights at best were twice a year and a good anniversary gift was a mixed bouquet bought at the corner deli.

SEEKING HELP

Soon we found a great new marriage counselor in inconvenient Westchester County (north of Manhattan) and listened eagerly to the promise of a quick fix that never came. Then there was the oh-so-well-recommended sex therapist on the Upper West Side. I couldn't help noticing she was a dead ringer for Dolores Umbridge, the sadist/teacher from Hogworts who tortured young Harry Potter after school. Like Dolores, she looked remarkably like a frog and hopped from one marital suggestion to another with no follow-up, and I should have listened to my instinct screaming, "No-way!, No-how could she ever have had good sex!" But instead we plugged along for ten expensive months, all the while arriving with our incomplete homework assignments and our half-hearted effort resulted in a poor grade. No sex.

After all the hours of effort over so many years, Bill concluded that if only we could have some nice fun sex every night, everything would be just fine! I thought that if only we could have meaningful conversations and if I could feel appreciated every day, everything would be just fine! But of course, we were both wrong! With the help of our most recent sex therapist, things have actually changed; we are both getting more of what we want – though whether it's for the short run or long run I'm not sure.

IT'S EASY TO GIVE UP — DON'T!

What Bill and I havelearned through sheer stick-to-it-iveness and a renewed dedication to the shared values that brought us together in the first place is that marriage and sex over the long haul is hard, particularly when two grown adults with very different personalities, backgrounds, insecurities, and aspirations try to make a go of it under the same roof. Pile on growing children, job pressure, financial differences, and two big egos, and your chances of an old-fashioned happy marriage are next to slim.

Satisfying sex at best is a queer experience and needs to be redefined, twisted, given up, and hopefully found again over a lifetime of staying together. Life comes at us so much faster today than it used to and couples have to stretch and bend to get their lopsided parts to somehow fit together when they're not a natural fit. Most normal marriages are good on some days and terrifying on others and sex isn't always part of the picture.

There's enormous day-to-day work that goes into making a marriage workable. I've found that good relationship counseling and/or sex therapy can help smooth over the bumps of a long term commitment because it's useful to have one dedicated hour put aside and a smart outsider whose sole job is to open up clogged communications and address tough issues head on. Bill and I have been helped and hindered by therapy during our years together, along the way we've learned something about what works and a lot more about what doesn't. I can tell you the two most important cards to assess when evaluating a therapist:

1. Their credibility. If the therapist doesn't look the part, they ain't!
2. Their methodology. If the program they outline for you on the first visit doesn't ring true, move right on to the next therapist to help your relationship move on to where you hope it can be.

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