Continued from Page 1
Bethanne Patrick: Is it a good idea to perhaps, like you said, take separate vacations or getaways? Maybe have a little distance -- don't pluck your eyebrows in front of him, that sort of thing. Is it a good idea to have separate bedrooms?
Keith Ablow: There are many more couples than we might imagine right at first blush who have separate bedrooms. I think that is a strategy -- if people wanted to try it for a month -- you could make it tremendously romantic. And if you think about it, you could almost date within your own home.
Bethanne Patrick: Is it a good idea to perhaps, like you said, take separate vacations or getaways? Maybe have a little distance -- don't pluck your eyebrows in front of him, that sort of thing. Is it a good idea to have separate bedrooms?
Keith Ablow: There are many more couples than we might imagine right at first blush who have separate bedrooms. I think that is a strategy -- if people wanted to try it for a month -- you could make it tremendously romantic. And if you think about it, you could almost date within your own home.
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Bethanne Patrick: That's something that I haven't heard before. It's in other words, 'this is my boudoir, you may come in by invitation.'
Keith Ablow: You come in here to make love with me. You don't come in to read the newspaper. You don't take a bath after you went to the gym in here. This is the place where you come for romance, sometimes in the middle of the night, and then leave.
Bethanne Patrick: Very interesting -- and very old fashioned I think some people would say.
Keith Ablow: In a certain way it is old fashioned or quaint, but you know what it is -- it really works, and it brings in a sense of adventure. How long has it been for most couples after years of marriage that they've left notes for each other? Why not? Why not design to?
Bethanne Patrick: That leads me to another question that I had for you. What can a married couple do to get over being bored with each other's personalities? Is doing something like leaving a note a good strategy? Or is there something much bigger that they should begin with?
Keith Ablow: Certainly leaving a note is something that people should consider. Also, people should remind themselves that cohabitating and being familiar with one another does not necessarily mean that you're going to be each other's intimate partner. Most couples I work with will not go to each other with their most intimate and heartfelt, for instance, sexual desires. They can keep them from each other for decades. You have to give each other license. You have to say 'tell me the craziest thing -- and it'd better be crazy -- that you've ever thought of doing with a woman,' for a man.
Bethanne Patrick: What if it ends up shocking your partner and repelling them?
Keith Ablow: Right -- there should be a disclaimer with this. I think that's why you may want to do it as notes. Maybe each person does it. Or maybe you take the edge off it by saying, 'Alright, well, look, let me tell you a quarter of the truth and see how you do with it.' But the bottom line is that once you have kids together or you're sharing a space together, I think many, many adult couples can almost hear almost anything within the normal range of human behavior, and say, 'I'm glad I know, I had no idea, and that's something we should look at together.'
Bethanne Patrick: I read your recent New York Times article -- and one of the things you said to a man who said 'I have to leave my wife, she's cheated, so I have to get out.' If someone finds out that a spouse is cheating, what should he or she decide in terms of what it means to the marriage? It doesn't necessarily, in your view, mean an immediate out or that the marriage is over.
Keith Ablow: Well certainly not. There are too many marriages that sort of hobble along for 10 or 20 or 30 years, with no wake-up call that you could turn to your advantage where you could look back at age 50 or 60 or 70 and say, 'You know what, what was this? There was no energy to it.' Although it's incredibly enraging to some extent -- it certainly inspires jealousy and fear in people -- a fear when it becomes known is what can be a chapter in a very long and continuing story of a relationship.
So I think that if people can kind of get past the envy and fear and anger, and say, 'Well of course I feel those things -- that's the human response -- but I want to know what really happened.' Is it that you're afraid of death and you think that by being sexual that you'll somehow live forever? Is it that our own relationship doesn't have some of these elements sexually, that you haven't been willing to tell me, and you know what, maybe I've been thinking the very same thing?
Keith Ablow: You come in here to make love with me. You don't come in to read the newspaper. You don't take a bath after you went to the gym in here. This is the place where you come for romance, sometimes in the middle of the night, and then leave.
Bethanne Patrick: Very interesting -- and very old fashioned I think some people would say.
Keith Ablow: In a certain way it is old fashioned or quaint, but you know what it is -- it really works, and it brings in a sense of adventure. How long has it been for most couples after years of marriage that they've left notes for each other? Why not? Why not design to?
Bethanne Patrick: That leads me to another question that I had for you. What can a married couple do to get over being bored with each other's personalities? Is doing something like leaving a note a good strategy? Or is there something much bigger that they should begin with?
Keith Ablow: Certainly leaving a note is something that people should consider. Also, people should remind themselves that cohabitating and being familiar with one another does not necessarily mean that you're going to be each other's intimate partner. Most couples I work with will not go to each other with their most intimate and heartfelt, for instance, sexual desires. They can keep them from each other for decades. You have to give each other license. You have to say 'tell me the craziest thing -- and it'd better be crazy -- that you've ever thought of doing with a woman,' for a man.
Bethanne Patrick: What if it ends up shocking your partner and repelling them?
Keith Ablow: Right -- there should be a disclaimer with this. I think that's why you may want to do it as notes. Maybe each person does it. Or maybe you take the edge off it by saying, 'Alright, well, look, let me tell you a quarter of the truth and see how you do with it.' But the bottom line is that once you have kids together or you're sharing a space together, I think many, many adult couples can almost hear almost anything within the normal range of human behavior, and say, 'I'm glad I know, I had no idea, and that's something we should look at together.'
Bethanne Patrick: I read your recent New York Times article -- and one of the things you said to a man who said 'I have to leave my wife, she's cheated, so I have to get out.' If someone finds out that a spouse is cheating, what should he or she decide in terms of what it means to the marriage? It doesn't necessarily, in your view, mean an immediate out or that the marriage is over.
Keith Ablow: Well certainly not. There are too many marriages that sort of hobble along for 10 or 20 or 30 years, with no wake-up call that you could turn to your advantage where you could look back at age 50 or 60 or 70 and say, 'You know what, what was this? There was no energy to it.' Although it's incredibly enraging to some extent -- it certainly inspires jealousy and fear in people -- a fear when it becomes known is what can be a chapter in a very long and continuing story of a relationship.
So I think that if people can kind of get past the envy and fear and anger, and say, 'Well of course I feel those things -- that's the human response -- but I want to know what really happened.' Is it that you're afraid of death and you think that by being sexual that you'll somehow live forever? Is it that our own relationship doesn't have some of these elements sexually, that you haven't been willing to tell me, and you know what, maybe I've been thinking the very same thing?
