After five years of marriage and two kids, Angela and Mario's sex life has been reduced to an occasional rendezvous on their weekly date night known as "boom boom" Friday. "The passion I felt for him before we had children was so strong," Angela recalls. "Now it's a candle that doesn't really flicker." Between their kids barging into their bedroom and their hectic schedules, this couple admits the sparks are gone and they are desperate to get back the romance.
Rachael brings in Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, author of The Kosher Sutra, to help them revive their sex lives as they experience one of the most common pitfalls of marriage. "One out of three American couples is entirely sexless," Rabbi Shmuley says. "Ironically, the more intimate you become the more connected you become, the less interested in sex you become because sex has certain principles ... Sex involves a certain kind of mystery. You become too open with each other and that's just not going to work."
But you can get it back! Rabbi Shmuley offers four basic strategies to revive your sex life:
Create romance in your home. Rabbi Shmuley says the problem often literally starts in the bedroom, which should be a private space where you unwind with your spouse that is off-limits for the kids. "Your bedroom should be Fort Knox. Your kids have to scale barbed wire to get in," he jokes. "Your children need to know their boundaries." Rabbi Shmuley encourages women to also learn some boundaries in the bathroom, where he says it's a no-no for them to shower or dress in front of their husband. "Lust is about mystery and distance. Your husband has to become almost a peeping Tom to see your body, and I really mean it!" he says. "You should stop thinking that marriage is about such openness; you need to turn your marriage into an affair." And, he suggests cooking up some of that romance in the kitchen with food as an aphrodisiac. Rachael shares that strategy and says she and John often cook together. "There's something really lovely and kind of sexy about just making dinner together," she says. "'Honey? We're eating in tonight!'"
Learn more about your spouse with an "erotic interrogation." Take a long drive with your partner and have a Q+A where you reveal your deepest secrets and sexual fantasies to each other. Ask without pushing because the point of the exercise is to help each other feel more comfortable when discussing your desires so you know how to satisfy each other.
Try flirtatious glances. Remember what it's like to have someone give you "the eye" from across the room? Try it with your spouse! "The most powerful sexual conversations are those done with utter subtleties with the eyes alone," he says. "You can say more with one glance than you can in volumes of speech."
Take a break from sex. After you've tried the first three steps and are on your way to a spicier life, Rabbi Shmuley advices the guys to slow things down. "Don't have sex for two weeks. You have to bring out that fire in your wife," he says. "We husbands have it in our power, it all exists right here in our hands." When it's time for the break to end, he reminds the guys to make time for their wives. "Let go of the darn remote and push her buttons instead!"
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