not feeling smothered when living together, married, etc

[it'smehello]

How do you keep a happy healthy relationship and separate selves when living together, etc? How do you keep sex from being boring, etc?

[Moose]

For us, Whenever I get home from work, I spend time in our bedroom to undress, put some outside clothes on and watch the tube for an hour. I have a couple of favorite shows I like to watch every evening. Once that's done, I'll go out in the garage, ( AKA, T.F.A.C. "The Family Avoidance Center"), and work on the kit cars or do some yard work. That usually lasts for a couple hours before I come in and have dinner. After dinner, I normally will shower and then sit in the family room with everyone else and enjoy a movie or program.

 

On Teusdays, and Wednesdays the wife goes to school and helps the kids learn to read. On Thursday nights she goes out with the women for Church to an accountability group meetings. I don't normally go out at night anymore unless I have a car running well enough for the local drag strip......then I'm gone all weekend.

 

I travel for business sometimes so I get to get out a lot. So I'll send the wife to a day spa or to a retreat a few times a year for her to escape.

 

To keep sex interesting, it goes in stages. We sometimes sit in the jacuzzi together, go out for a romantic dinner, then come home for desert, sometimes we'll rent some sleezy movies. It just depends on what we're in the mood for.

[missopinionated]

Well, you keep a separate life. You do stuff you like to do and you don't ask permission -- because he's not your dad and you're not 12.

 

You keep your own mind active; you read and you watch the news. You don't vote for Bush and you don't apologise for that.

 

You don't watch TV all the time -- and never watch Springer, Survivor or Swan -- and you don't weigh more than 10 lbs over your proper weight -- this really helps in the sex department: being able to tell the difference between your partner and the Michelin Man is a real turn on.

 

You realise that Family Size means the whole family also gets to share.

 

You watch movies NOT made in Hollywood and you take a class in film appreciation so that you know why those movies are better than any made in Hollywood.

 

You have friends over.

 

You read good books. Harlequin is fine if you're stuck in the hospital for three weeks. Good books include fiction and non-fiction and you know the difference between those two things.

 

You have the ability to converse using proper English and can write a properly punctuated sentence.

 

In short, you're not fat, uneducated lump. You have self-esteem and you know the reason there's still a me and you in us.