Put Sex Back in Your Marriage

(CBS)  It's estimated that one-in-five married couples has what experts call a "sexless" marriage, generally defined as having sex fewer than ten times a year.

But it doesn't have to be that way, psychotherapist Dr. Jenn Berman said on "The Early Show Saturday Edition," and she shared a number of suggestions to help spouses turn things around in the sex department.

According to Berman:

Masters & Johnson talk about how everything happens on a spectrum, and people's sex lives are on a spectrum. To qualify a relationship as being sexless if it involves sex only ten times a year or less is to characterize as abnormal what would appear to be a national norm. Couples have to look at their sex lives on a continuum. There are times in their life together when they will have more sex (after marriage) and less sex (after a birth, for instance) . It is important that couples realize their sex life will ebb and flow.

Also, it is not a matter of normal and abnormal. It is between you and your partner and what works for both of you. As long as you both feel connected and are on the same page, then it is all good. If you like to have sex twice a year and you feel connected and there is emotional intimacy, then it is all good and more power to you. If you both like having sex five times-a-day and everyone is on the same page, you're connected and no one is resentful, and there is emotional intimacy, then more power to you.

Sex breeds sex. The more sex you have, the more sex you are likely to have. An orgasm is really good for you physically and emotionally.

How you use your bed is important. It is a lot easier to watch TV or answer your e-mail in bed then it is to connecting with your partner. Those things really inhibit sex. It is hard for people to go from work mode to sex mode, and when we think of seduction, we think of connection, roses and soft candlelight, and we don't think of our conversation with our boss and text messaging.

The bedroom is the room in our house most conducive to having sex. It is where we are supposed to relax and, when you're having a conversation with your boss, it is hard to relax. The same thing goes for a TV: It takes your focus from your partner.

The less technology you have in your bedroom, the better. With no TV in the bedroom, you will rest more, and that's good for having better sex.

Bedroom RX

Perform an experiment for one week: turn off the TV, make a commitment to not answer the cell phone or text message and see what happens. I'm willing to bet some money it will improve.

Stress has to be managed. Men turn toward sex as a stress outlet more than women. Women tend to need to unwind more and need to feel connected. It is not that you can't have stress and great sex. You have to learn to put the stress aside so you can connect. You can't be worrying about whether you will have a job or getting the assignment in on-time and feel like connecting.

Stress RX

Talk about the stressful things outside the bedroom, in the living room and after eating. Take a mental vacation from your stress to connect with your partner.

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[sy2502]

When two young people fall in love, they are beautiful and attracted to each other, and it's natural they want to have as much sex as possible. Fast forward 20 years, he has a beer gut, she has cottage cheese thighs. Let's face it people it's not as easy to look at that and get turned on.

[soniqguy]

The real reason for sexless marriages is that monogamy is biologically unnatural. We did not evolve to be monogamous with one partner for 30-40 + years.

[esybron]

Good intentions, but it misses the point of why so many marriages are sexless. The so called cures offered by the author will do nothing to change the underlying problem of the male sex paradigm and sex as scripted. The Inversion of woman's sexuality by patriarchy created a continuing dichotomy that forces her into a vaginal destiny that is antithetical to her innate sexuality. Until that changes and she awakens her feminine ordination, not much will alter her perception. More more, see www.esybron.org