Recipe For A Healthy Marriage

In this age of multiple marriages and quick divorce, psychologist Kevin Leman offers some tips on staying married on CBS News This Morning.
Leman's latest book is Sex Begins in the Kitchen.

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Sex Begins in the Kitchen

"The kitchen was a mess. She walks into her house, finds a clean, sparkling kitchen, flips [out], checks the number on the house. She's at the right address," he continues.

"[She] comes back in to find her husband putting away the dish towels. Sex begins in the kitchen," Leman says, explaining that she is so overjoyed by her husband's diligence that it enhances their relationship.

Leman found out after 10 years of marriage that sex was not the most important thing to his wife, as it was to him. The couple has now been married 32 years. The average marriage lasts seven years, he notes.

He says research shows women put sex 14th in importance, after No. 13, gardening. Clearly, men and women view their sex life completely differently.

The biggest mistake in his opinion is that spouses don't know how to communicate.

"Men tend to be a lot more direct in their communication. Women dance around a bit," he says.

Leman ranks in order the three basic needs of women and men in marriage:

From men, women want affection along with openness and honesty, Leman says. But he adds that most men are not good at it. "Men love arm's length relationships," he says.

Leman gives marriage seminars across the country. He says most men want to please their wives; they just need to be told how to do that and their wives are the ones who need to tell them.

"If you get good at getting behind your wife's eyes and seeing how she sees life, you can learn to understand women," he says.

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