Do separate holidays ruin or revive your relationship?

Ten years ago, one in 10 people would go on holiday without their partner.

That figure rose to three in ten in 2014 and continues to rise with record numbers of couples flying solo for at least part of their vacation time.

So do separate holidays rejuvenate relationships, offering you both the opportunity to miss each other and appreciate what you’ve got?

Or are the notorious drunken ‘slip-ups’ a quick route to ruining your relationship along with the possible realisation you enjoy yourself more apart than together?

The answer to that depends on four main factors.

If either of you are considering flying solo this summer, first consider…

Where are you (or they) going?

A weekend away with your 85-year-old Aunt Beatrice to a rambling, shambolic old hotel by the sea in Devon is unlikely to cause problems.

It’s a slightly different story heading off to Magaluf with three recently divorced close friends who are very, very keen to blow away the sexual cobwebs.

Yes, you can find mischief (aka sex) anywhere in the world if you try hard enough (for all you know, the Devon hotel’s just employed an out of work model as their waiter/waitress).

But going somewhere where attractive, available people are not just going to be laid on a plate but consistently pushed towards you, can be mighty tempting for some.

There’s a reason why the ‘What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas’ pact originated in the playground that is Vegas.

Know your weaknesses and limits – and your partner’s – and choose the destination accordingly.

Who are you (or they) going with?

‘Friends and colleagues’ is always on the list of factors to consider if you’re worried your partner might be unfaithful - and it’s not just the risk of them falling in love or lust with one of them.

Their attitude to cheating and their moral code generally can have a major influence on how you think and behave.

This is why it’s somewhat naïve to wave off your banker/footballer boyfriend off on a lad’s holiday to Ibiza (the party side) and expect they’ll return intact.

People feel reassured when they find out their partner’s travel companions are all married but it’s false security: what really matters is how they feel about cheating on their partners.

Another huge influence: whether the people your partner is holidaying with, know and like you.

If they’re off with someone who makes no secret of the fact that they think they could do much better and/or dislike you intensely, they’re not exactly going to be keeping them on the straight and narrow when your partner’s on their third bottle and a very attractive stranger is trying to chat them up.

Another factor to take into account: how much do they drink and how much can your partner handle?

Alcohol makes people vulnerable and it also makes good judgement disappear.

If they’re planning on doing shots – for breakfast - and your partner gets giggly and bleary-eyed on one spritzer, who is going to be beating off any potential suitors (or on a darker note, looking after them)?

The ideal, low-risk solo getaway for you or your partner would be with people who know and like your partner or you, who are in a good, happy relationships and don’t believe in cheating (or have strong, decent morals in they’re single) to a holiday destination that doesn’t just revolve around drinking and lying near-naked on a crowded beach.

What’s the state of your relationship?

This is the most crucial question of all.

Heading off for a girly break when you’re a genuinely smug, loved-up couple with ten good years behind you, is not going to cause problems.

It might even make the relationship stronger: if you do love your partner, you’ll miss them and there’s something freeing about being able to do what you like without having to consider their needs and wants.

Holidaying solo when you’re going through a rough patch or bored and in a rut is a completely different scenario.

Not only do you have a captive audience to rant to about their failings, fuelled by alcohol, they’re more than likely to encourage you to either leave or at least ‘enjoy yourself’ while you’re away.

Plenty of research shows people – women particularly – will consider a fling or affair their ‘right’ or ‘reward’ if their partner hasn’t been treating them well.

How jealous are you?

Being able to say ‘I trust you’ (and mean it) is a wonderful gift.

Not so many people have the backgrounds to be able to totally trust their partner: parents having affairs or bad experiences with past partners take their toll.

If every second they’re away, you spend incapacitated by awful paranoia, it’s not only unfair on you, it could well contaminate the relationship going forward.

Separate vacations are for couples with strong trust and security – on both sides.

One final question for couples considering winging their way in different directions – are you sure you want to spend the little time you do have off apart?

Few things are as effective as a long-term relationship reviver than a holiday just the two of you.

Lie-ins, 11am cocktails, exploring new cities, eating fabulous food, finding yourselves tipsy in the afternoon and realising you’re not just eyeing off the bed for a siesta…

Nothing works better to make you appreciate each other more or puts a naughty glint in your eye than time away from routine life.

Holidays create a vacuum for the two of you: a glorious couple bubble that’s precious and shouldn’t be taken for granted.

I’d even recommend holidaying together if your relationship is in such a bad place, that ‘couple bubble’ sounds like hell rather than heaven.

A holiday forces you to find out if those dreaded awful, desperate silences you’re anticipating do occur.

You’ll find out if it’s true you have absolutely nothing to say to each other because you have absolutely nothing in common.

Nothing like time alone to realise you’re so angry, having to look at your partner 24/7 without the buffer of children and work is actually unbearable.

Even if your worst fears are realised, facing up to problems is just what you need to do something about them.

You’ll either come back and book in for couple’s counselling or decide to finally end a toxic relationship that should have folded a long, long time ago.

Either way, you’ve won.

Visit Tracey’s official website, traceycox.com, for more of her views or practical information about sex and relationships.

Have you got the perfect partner? Regardless of what they're REALLY like, 'idealising' makes for a happier marriage

Do you think your partner’s perfect for you?

I do.

I’ve just got engaged after four years with my fiance and he’s everything I’ve ever wanted (handsome, kind, funny, sexy, affectionate, patient and I could go on).

So am I a. sweetly idealistic but happier for it b. naïve and headed for a horrible disappointment or c. deluded?

It would have been a unanimous ‘b’ if you'd asked relationship experts a few years ago.

Idealising your partner has always been frowned upon with most believing having unrealistically high expectations is one way to guarantee you’ll end up disappointed – and divorced.

But there’s a new school of thought that says idealising your partner not only makes you happier, having high expectations means each of you are more likely to become ideal partners because you’re encouraged to behave well.

Of course there is a trick to this.

Simply blinding yourself to your partner’s faults doesn’t work.

The clue is in the wording.

Had I said ‘My partner is perfect’ the answer would have been a definite ‘c’ – I would be deluded because no-one is perfect!

The words that make the critical difference are ‘for you’ – as in “My partner is perfect for me”.

It’s the way you idealise that makes the difference.

This kind of 'healthy idealising' springs from several studies, including one started in 2011 in New York.

Researchers followed 222 couples applying for their marriage license and asked them to complete a survey about themselves and their partner every six months for the next three years.

They found the people who thought their partners were perfect had much happier relationships than couples who were more realistic about their partner’s imperfections.

To work out how realistic or idealistic each person’s perception of their partner was the couples answered the questions about personal qualities three ways.

First they rated the qualities their ideal partner would have, then what they think their partner has and finally what they have themselves.

From this, researchers could work out which partners were idealising more than others and found the more convinced a person was that their partner was ideal for them, the happier they were.

It mattered little whether the person measured up in real life – so long as the partner thought they did, that was all that mattered.

Even more impressive, the couples that idealised were also protected against the inevitable decline in happiness that happens the longer a couple are together.

There was a significant decline in happiness over the three years for the more realistic couples but the idealising couples seemed immune.

There are some pretty obvious reasons why thinking positively about your partner makes the relationship better.

It makes you kinder, more forgiving of any faults they do have and being less critical makes it easier to be supportive.

Feeling you’ve pulled someone worth pulling makes you feel good about yourself as well – we all want to believe we’ve chosen well.

Speaking personally, I’d say I’m all in favour of this approach.

My relationship now is starkly different to those I had in my youth where I did the complete opposite to idealising.

My approach then was to focus on the flaw, any flaw, and magnify it until that’s all I could see.

I remember a counsellor friend of mine I knew in my 30s telling me he made a conscious decision when he met his partner not to see any faults.

“I refuse to see any imperfections in her and I won’t have anyone else point them out,” he said.

At the time I thought this ‘fairytale’ reasoning about as likely to work as a chocolate teapot.

Nearly two decades later they’re still almost nauseatingly happy – he was right.

Thinking your partner’s fabulous works because it makes them want to be the best they can be: if you believe in them, they will too.

Idealising obviously doesn’t work if the relationship clearly isn’t right and isn’t working.

Another study of 135 newlyweds in Tennessee (done by Florida State University) found having high standards improved satisfaction in strong marriages but worked the opposite for less rosy or problem marriages.

Expecting too much when there’s nothing to base it on simply eroded the relationship even more.

But for people in a decent relationship they’d like to see last, a little bit of selfie-style, flatter-filtering is a great idea.

HOW ‘HEALTHY IDEALISING’ WORKS

The trick isn’t to simply see your partner more positively and/or ignore their faults, it’s to see them as ideal for you, warts and all.

The more you see them as your perfect partner, the happier you are and the happier your partner is. Emotions are contagious and your mood is highly influenced by the person you spend most time with.

Focus on negatives and you’ll become even more annoyed by them. Thoughts become stronger the more you dwell on them. The more positive your thoughts, the more positive you feel.

Idealising encourages you to think ‘we’ not ‘I’. This means you’ll see problems as something shared (rather than caused by one of you) and stop blaming.

Being positive isn’t helping? Look hard at your relationship. Is your partner relentlessly negative, hostile, abusive and/or unlikely to change? If the answer is yes, get help and get out.

For more advice from Tracey and to see her products and books visit traceycox.com.

 

 

 

 

Seven myths about sex that won’t go away

As someone who’s written about sex for more than three decades (yes, that old!), I find it rather depressing that some of the sex myths that were kicking around when I was studying psychology at university are still widely believed today.

Here’s seven, stubborn commonly believed ‘facts’ about sex that have absolutely no basis in reality at all.

Good sex is spontaneous and happens naturally

Nothing makes me more annoyed than when people say to me, “Sex should be spontaneous and happen naturally. If you have to plan things and make an effort, you’re with the wrong person”.

This type of thinking isn’t just naïve and immature, it makes people question perfectly good, happy relationships.

When you’ve been living with someone for ten years, it’s highly unlikely you’ll suddenly pass them on the stairs, be overcome with spontaneous lust, rip their clothes off and have your wicked way right there and then.

Good sex in long-term relationships is very often planned sex with both partners making a huge effort.

These couples make time for sex, put it top of the priority list not bottom, are curious about sex and open to finding new things to do together.

They compliment each other sexually, know exactly how their partner likes being touched but also that preferences change in a heartbeat, so it’s essential to be able to talk and read body language.

‘Making an effort’ is a decidedly unsexy, dreaded phrase.

But if you do make an effort, the result is seriously good sex.

Sex should be great every single time

Some people are sexual perfectionists, waiting for the perfection conditions to have good sex (both free, both horny, both having great hair and body days, no kids around, one glass of wine in, both relaxed etc) and expecting perfect performances every time (both adoring every single thing you do to each other, both having an orgasm, preferably together).

A healthier, more realistic model for sex looks like this.

For every ten sex sessions, it’s likely four will be OK, four will be good, one will be fantastic and one boring or even disastrous.

If you’re not having the odd disaster in bed, say sex therapists, you’re not challenging yourselves by trying new things.

Stop putting the pressure on and stop counting orgasms.

Instead, simply aim to connect physically and give pleasure to each other.

Sex is much better when you’re young

Ask Dame Helen Mirren for her opinion on this one.

Last year (at 69) she described her sex life as ‘great, just wonderful’ compared to the ‘paranoid and empty’ sex she had when young.

One Relate survey found during our supposed ‘peak’ sexual years – our 30s for women (based on peaking estrogen levels) – most couples are so busy dealing with kids, mortgages and careers, sex is largely ignored or a source of stress rather than pleasure.

Sexual confidence, according to this and other surveys, truly appears to peak between the age of 60 and 69.

Another 2015 study found around 54 percent of men and 31 percent of women in their 70s and 80s have sex at least twice a month.

Not just for the young then.

People stop watching porn once they’re in a relationship

I get a lot of emails from people saying they’re deeply upset that their partner is still watching porn and masturbating when they could have “the real thing”.

But watching porn in private – often indulging a ‘secret’ turn on that perhaps we don’t want to share with a partner – is something lots of people enjoy as well as sex with their partner.

They are two different experiences, both enjoyable.

So masturbating solo doesn’t mean your partner’s not completely satisfied with the ‘real’ sex you’re having together.

Lots of people also satisfy a higher sex drive through masturbating rather than hassle their partners for more sex than they want to have.

Men feel like sex all the time

Society gives a nod to female desire fluctuating throughout the month, partly to do with hormone changes and menstruation.

But both men and women have certain times of the day, week or month when they feel like sex more – or not at all.

What he’s eaten, how much sleep he’s had, his general health, stress levels, how well you’re both getting on, low self-confidence, medication, how much he’s had to drink: the same factors that affect our libido, affect his as well.

Sex is about power

True, sex is about power.

But it’s about giving up power, relinquishing control and allowing yourself to be vulnerable.

We’re all sensitive about sex.

No-one wants to be told they’re a bad lover and no-one wants to be called ‘weird’ or told they have ‘something wrong with them’ if they ‘fess up to wanting to try something new or unusual.

It takes guts to be completely honest and open about what you really want to do sexually with your partner.

Couples who compete in bed – each wanting to have power over the other – have wary, cautious sex, not wanting the other person to have ‘something on them’.

Letting go and letting your partner see the true you are key ingredients for a sex life that thrives.

There's something wrong with you if you can’t orgasm during intercourse

US Sex therapist Vanessa Marin says she ‘absolutely despises’ the way we talk about female orgasm as a society.

“Women are made to think our bodies are weird and hard to figure out. But the main reason why female orgasm can seem harder to attain than male orgasm is because we expect women’s sexuality to work the same way men’s sexuality does.”

In short, we expect women to orgasm from penetration when the best (and often only way for a great majority of women) is through clitoral stimulation.

This is how we’re built but women are made to feel there’s something wrong with us for not being able to orgasm during intercourse.

It’s the equivalent of giving men a hard time for not being able to climax using a vibrator.

What works for men doesn’t work for women and it’s frustrating why something we’ve known for more than 2000 years (it’s made clear in The Kama Sutra) still isn’t widely accepted.

For more of Tracey’s views on sex, visit traceycox.com

 

 

 

The seven secrets to having great sex long-term

Do all the clichés, take a toy to bed, try anal play and don’t be selfish or sexist – these are the top takeaways from one of the biggest studies of sex in a long-term relationship ever done.

The US study, recently published in The Journal of Sex Research, surveyed 38,747 heterosexual men and women who’d been with their partner for at least three years to find out more about long-term sexual satisfaction.

The couples were asked to rate how sex was at the start of the relationship (up to six months in) compared to how they felt now (when questioned for the research).

Sure, three years isn’t a terribly long time.

But it is long enough for the ‘sex’ hormones - which increase our desire for sex at the start of new relationships – to give way to the cuddly, snuggly ‘love’ ones that promote love over sex.

Predictably, a whopping 83 per cent of the respondents said they were sexually satisfied in the first six months of the relationship.

When asked how happy they were with their current sex life, this dropped to 55 per cent of women and 43 per cent of men.

Again, a somewhat predictable result - but the study does offer up interesting and insightful advice from the couples who were happy in the sack long-term.

Here’s how to make sure you’re one of the lucky ones.

Don’t kid yourselves it won’t happen to you

One third of the couples surveyed who’d managed to keep sex fizzy rather than fizzling out, said they’d made a conscious decision to stop sex becoming routine.

They didn’t fall into the ‘It won’t happen to us then because we’re having such great sex now’ trap: all couples find sex gets boring the longer you’re together.

The couples who were happy sexually long-term accepted this rather than kidding themselves it wouldn’t happen and started actively preventing sex becoming routine quite early on.

Rather telling, while around half of the satisfied and dissatisfied couples read how-to articles or books on sex, only the happy couples actually tried some of the ideas.

It’s the sexual equivalent of having a library full of books, not opening one, but considering yourself well read.

You didn’t bother trying anything because you think all sex advice is clichéd?

All the more reason to follow it apparently….

Do all the clichés

Advice like ‘wear sexy stuff to bed’ is what works to keep things hot.

Your grandmother was given the same advice but between 61 and 71 per cent of the happy couples said either they or their partners wore sexy underwear or lingerie regularly.

Another staple piece of sex advice - try a new sex position - also got a big tick. Between 59 and 63 per cent of the happy couples had done just that in the last month.

Even simple things like lighting a candle or dimming the lights made a difference – double the amount of happy couples set the mood (around 20 per cent) compared to the sexually disgruntled.

Saying ‘I love you’ during sex also scored well with 75 per cent of happy men and 74 per cent of women putting their hands up for this one.

Be daring

Something your granny definitely wasn’t advised to do but worked a treat to keep couples satisfied was anal stimulation.

Forty two per cent of the happy men and 37 per cent of the women had given anal play a whirl.

Take a toy to bed

Nearly half the happily sexed up couples had used a vibrator or sex toy together - which perhaps explains the following result.

Don’t be selfish or sexist

Nearly all the satisfied men (98 per cent) and – crucially – 78 per cent of women not only had an orgasm in the last month but also reported that their partners had too.

Sex wasn’t selfish or sexist: both the men and the women had orgasms (I suspect helped along by liberating her vibrator from the bedside cabinet and inviting it into bed with them).

Talk, talk, talk

Unsurprisingly, being able to talk about sex rated in the couples’ top three strongest predictors of good, satisfying sex.

But certain types of communication worked the best.

Praise (praising your partner for something they did during sex), direction (asking them to do something during sex or them asking you), teasing (sending sexts or making sexy phone calls) and feedback (after the sex session) were the most effective.

This meant neither of the couple pretended to like things that didn’t do a thing for them – unlike the unhappy participants.

‘They should just know what I want’ is about as helpful in bed as your mother sitting on the edge of it.

Educate yourself

Knowledge is power.

This is a standard finding of most reputable sex research and the sexual centrepiece for any couple really serious about making sex great.

Only 57 per cent of women regularly experience orgasm and only 26 per cent do it regularly with their partner.

The reason why is simple: the female sexual system is complex, highly individual and harder to play than a finely tuned violin.

The more both of you know about her bits, the better sex will be for both of you.

Thanks to Emma Watson - who is fast becoming one of our most admirably unafraid, outspoken actresses on many hot female issues – most people have now heard of the website OMGYes.com.

If you want to access the most helpful, practical information that’s out there on how to have more and better orgasms, you can’t go past this website.

There’s a one off fee of £40 to access the information (based on research involving 2,000 women aged 18 to 95) and the instructional tutorial videos are necessarily explicit.

But for any woman who has troubles having an orgasm or finds them pitifully few and far between, spending a few hours browsing OMGYes.com could be the best thing you ever did.

(And no, I’m not getting paid to endorse it, just very happy to promote such a forward-thinking, much-needed, highly visual platform that teaches women how to orgasm.)

So there you have it: the seven secrets that will help your sex life stay fresh for years to come.

All you have to do now is actually take the advice!

Visit Tracey's official website traceycox.com for more advice and products.

Visit amazon.co.uk for her books.

What to do if you just don’t feel like sex anymore

It happens more often than we like to think.

One minute, sex is top of your ‘Favourite Things’ list: next minute, it’s moved to the bottom of ‘Chores to Do’.

Loss of desire happens for both men and women for a myriad of reasons but - probably because our sexual response systems are so complex – it’s more often a female complaint.

There are many, many reasons why women stop wanting and having sex: some we can control and some we can’t.

Here’s a list of the most common culprits.

PINPOINT EXACTLY WHAT’S HAPPENING.

Temporary lack of desire means you normally love sex but are just going through an off period.

Long-term lack of desire means passion hasn’t lived at your house for quite some time (lust moved out years ago).

Low sensation means you want sex but your body doesn’t, refusing to respond physically to erotic arousal of the brain.

If you’re suffering from low sensation, head for your doctor and ask for a referral to a good gynaecologist for a full check-up.

The problem’s usually physically based with common culprits being pelvic surgery like hysterectomy, high blood pressure, smoking, high cholesterol, hormonal changes like having a baby and medications.

Temporary lack of desire can usually be pinpointed to a specific event if you think hard enough.

Apart from the obvious things like having just had a baby, there’s stress (Just got a promotion? Moved house?), exhaustion (all or any of the above), the death of a parent, tension in your relationship and any one of a number of things which make you feel less than wonderful.

If you can pinpoint losing interest in sex to a specific event, the solution usually presents itself along with the realisation.

Super stressed? Rethink your priorities. If you’re grieving, give yourself time to heal.

If you’ve not felt like sex for a year or more and have no idea why, that’s when you need to sit up and pay attention.

And be honest.

The first and most likely reason you’re not (ever) turned on is you’re in the wrong relationship or your partner’s a lousy lover.

By far the biggest obstacle between women and the Big O is a partner who hasn’t the first clue about how to get us there.

Happily, with some open, honest communication and education about what you need to orgasm, this can be solved.

A tad more disturbing is realising the problem isn’t your partner’s technique but the fact you simply don’t fancy him.

While there’s plenty you can try to spice up your sex life and hopefully nudge any sleepy, long-forgotten erotic feelings, there are now decisions only you can make.

Some people stay together as friends and satisfy themselves with solo sex, others take a lover or walk away and find someone they are sexually attracted to.

Ironically equally as common and just as destructive to your sex life: you’ve become too close to your partner.

How was sex in the beginning?

If it was good and you’re still attracted to them, if not lusting after them, intimacy is rudely pushing passion aside.

It’s stupendously unfair that the couples who have the closest, soul-mate connection and the best relationships often have the worst sex lives.

A crucial ingredient to having good long-term sex is novelty: if you’ve become matching bookends with the same tastes and views, that’s hard to achieve.

Couples who push each other out of their comfort zones, challenging their partner to try new things and see things from a different point of view, tend to fare better in the bedroom.

ARE YOU SUBCONSCIOUSLY WITHHOLDING SEX?

Sex is a powerful bargaining tool in relationships.

If your partner’s always been sex mad, withdrawing his main source of pleasure if he’s not behaving out of bed can be tremendously satisfying.

Sometimes, particularly if you’re angry, you’re aware you are doing it (That’ll teach the b******!).

Other times, if you’re deeply hurt, it happens on an unconscious level.

Sex problems are rarely just about sex, they’re usually a sign the relationship’s a bit wobbly as well.

YOU HAVE TO WANT TO WANT

Desire is a decision.

It doesn’t just happen, you have to make it happen.

Accept responsibility for your own arousal: work out what turns you on and do it.

Spontaneous lust happens easily in the beginning, but not so easily later on.

Make a weekly date for sex and three other ‘us times’ (an hour each time) to simply spend time together outside the bedroom.

These dates are top of your priority list, not last on the list.

When the time comes, enthusiastically participate and you might find you enjoy it as much as they do!

Don’t blame.

Your partner’s not bordering on sex addiction or ‘really should see someone’ because they want to get horizontal with you.

It’s a compliment for a start.

Fight the ‘Why should I do something I don’t want to do?’ indignance.

Instead, try everything in your power to make sex a pleasure, not a chore.

If you're struggling with sex problems or lack of desire a visit to a good sex therapist can make all the difference. Find one at itsgoodtotalk.org.uk, cosrt.org.uk or relate.org.uk.

For more practical advice on sex visit traceycox.com or find Tracey’s books on amazon.