Why a Failed Relationship Isn't a Personal Failure

There's no way to love without exposing yourself to pain. That's a good thing.
When it comes to failures of love, it's easy to assume that it's "the weak" who get scorched,
because "the strong" know how to protect themselves. But I suspect that frequently the reverse
is the case, that it's often the strong who get positively pummeled by lovebecause they are
the ones willing to take the risk of getting hurt in the first place.
Love is not made for the faint-hearted, or those who hesitate on the sidelines. You must be
tremendously brave, tremendously audacious, to throw yourself into the eye of the hurricane.
You must have incredible faith in your ability to mend a broken heart to risk falling into the arms
of a lover whose motivations you might never fully understand.
In a deep sense, passion is meant for the resilientfor those who know that they'll find their
way back onto solid ground no matter how badly they fall. It's meant for those who are confident
that love's disillusionments won't ravage them beyond repair. And it's meant for those who
recognize that sometimes a massive love followed by a massive failure is more glorious than a
timidly lived success.
It's easy to think that when love fails, it's because we did something wrongit's easy to blame
ourselves for not having followed Rule X, or for having done A when we should have done B.
Many of us spend the aftermath of romance berating ourselves over the mistakes we think we
made. But it may well be that love often fails for the simple reason that it's inherently fickle and
capricious.
Most love affairs are not built to last. When you look at happily-coupled people, it's obvious that
many of them had to go through a slew of romantic disappointments before they found a
rewarding connection. And we know that many relationships that now seem happy will
eventually come to a (sometimes bitter) end.
So it may be an error of judgment to assume that the mission of love is to make us happy. It
may well be that love has other designs, other objectives, that are much more mysterious.
Love failures are not life failures. When it comes to love gone wrong, we need to give ourselves
a break. We need to give ourselves the permission to fail, even to do so spectacularly. We are
trained to think that only love that lasts is worthy. I strongly disagree. I think that some of our
most far-reaching love affairs are those that fail. With the possible exception of abusive
relationships, every love gives us something, and sometimes it's the broken affairs that give us
the most. Sometimes our biggest breakdowns lead to our biggest breakthroughs. In this sense,
there are few mistakes in loveno missteps, but merely fresh opportunities for growth and selfdevelopment.

There is no way to love without exposing ourselves to the possibility of pain, because there is no
way to turn passion into something safe and controlled. But this is not a calamity. It's not a tragic
flaw in the grand design. Quite the contrary: I think it would be an enormous tragedy if
we were able to safety-proof our love lives. Doing so might spare us some grief, but it would
also deprive us of important occasions for actualizing our deepest human potential. It would
cheat us of the chance to become more multidimensional and interesting people.
There are times when the pain of past loves makes deeper love possible in the present. This is
why I have little patience with the idea that we should look for lovers without
"issues." Everyone has issues. And people with some complicated ones are often much more
fascinating than those whose main issue is choosing the right pair of shoes in the morning. A lot
depends on the state of their pain, of course: If the pain of the past is encased within them
unprocessed, without an easy outlet, things may get thorny. Bottled-up pain can give rise to
emotional earthquakes that destabilize the foundations of new love. But if this pain has been
distilled into thoughtfulness and compassion, it can only augment a new relationship, and add
fibers of wisdom to its overall character.

Love Is Not a Game

What if there were no rules except being yourself?
Whoever came up with the idea that love is a game destroyed its soul. I can't think of anything
less likely to produce a good love-life than the belief that your partner is an "opponent" to be
defeated. It might have been fun to watch Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie try to outwit each other
in Mr. and Mrs. Smith. But unless you're willing to keep a set of military-grade knives in a hidden
compartment behind your stove, I don't recommend this strategy.
The idea that romance is a game - one where the player who best keeps his or her cool "wins" is perpetuated by a self-help industry that makes billions from telling women that to be loved,
they need to change the way they look, act, and feel. This industry preys on women's
insecurities about being desirable by implying that they're not good enough as they are. And it
tells women that when romance doesn't work out, it's because they did something wrong. Did
they come on too strong? Did they reveal too much of themselves? Did they seem too needy or
desperate? Did they step on the fragile male ego? Did they return his call too quickly? Did they
ask him if they could leave their toothbrush in his bathroom? Or - gasp! - did they let him find out
that they know how to parallel park, do their taxes, and use the power drill in their basement?
When it comes to modern romance, there is no end to the rules that women are supposed to
follow. They are asked to approach their love lives with the strategic acumen of a five-star
general. Worst of all, they are trained to think of men as an alien life-form that needs to be
duped into loving them. Not only does this feed men's fears about being manipulated (who can
blame them?), but it misunderstands something absolutely fundamental about love, namely that
it's not meant to be controlled. Indeed, the more we try to stage-manage love, the less of its

wonder we're able to experience. The more we strategize, the less we are able to appreciate the
uniqueness of our partner, for strategies by necessity rely on typecasting rather than on what is
singular (and thus unpredictable) about each individual.

Love couldn't care less about your poker face. It goes after what is incomparable and
irreplaceable about you. It wants to penetrate the deepest recesses of your being. It
wants to know what makes you tick and why. It wants to find your top-secret
underground facilities. It even wants to x-ray the baggage you lug around so as to better
understand what weighs you down. And it asks you to risk your heart in ways that are
always a little dangerous. If you're not willing to do so, it moves onto someone bolder.
If you never let yourself fall freely, you won't get anywhere near authentic love. The
more you bury your singular spirit under some self-help game, the more difficult you
make it for love to find you. And, if a woman needs to play games to hold a man's
interest, chances are he's not the right man for her. The trouble with the games of
romance is that eventually the mask will have to come off. Eventually you'll have to
reveal who you actually are, and then what? The rules of love may allow you to
hoodwink your partner for a while, but ultimately they'll lead you to a dead end. And why
would you want to hoodwink your partner in the first place? Isn't the point of love to be
loved for who you are? Isn't love the one place where you're supposed to be ok "as you
come"?

How to Boost a Woman's Chance of Orgasm

During Intercourse
Only 25 percent of women are consistently orgasmic during intercourse.

Vaginal intercourse can feel wonderful: the physical closeness, the emotional intimacy,
and for many, the belief that intercourse epitomizes sex. But for women's orgasms, the
old in-out is also problematic. The best evidence suggests that only 25 percent of
women are consistently orgasmic during intercourse no matter how vigorous or

prolonged it is, no matter how loving the relationship, no matter what position the lovers
use, and no matter what the size of the man's penis.
The reason? During intercourse (missionary, doggie, woman-on-top, whatever), the
penis does not directly stimulate the clitoris, the organ responsible for women's
orgasms.Sexuality experts reassure couples that the woman's inability to
experience orgasm during intercourse is (1) very common, (2) no reflection on her
sexual responsiveness, (3) no reflection on the man's sexual technique, and (4) no
reflection the woman's feelings about the relationship. I agree.
Sexuality authorities also encourage couples to let go of the idea that women "should"
have orgasms during intercourse. They encourage men to help women to orgasm using
their fingers, hand, tongue, or a vibrator or other sex toys.
But many couple wish the woman could come during intercourse. The good news is that
there are easy, loving ways to boost women's chance of orgasm during intercourse. The
easiest ways involve the woman-on-top and rear entry (doggie) positions. Orgasm is
more challenging in the man-on-top (missionary) position, but a minor adjustment
makes it considerably more likely.
Woman-on-Top. The woman kneels over the man's hips. The man makes a fist and
places it at the junction of the lovers' pelvises. The woman leans forward, presses her
clitoris against the fist and moves in any way that erotically excites her. Or the woman or
man presses a vibrator into her clitoris.
Rear entry. The woman stands and bends at the waist or kneels on all fours and the
man stands or kneels behind her. The man or woman can reach the woman's clitoris
and gently caress it, or either the man or woman can press a vibrator against her
clitoris.
Man-on-Top. In this position, the woman's orgasm is least likely, but the "coital
alignment technique" (CAT) helps. The CAT was first suggested in 1988 by sex
researcher Edward Eichel. Instead of the man lying on top of the woman chest-to-chest
with his penis moving more or less horizontally, the man shifts so that his chest is closer

to one of the woman's shoulders. As a result, his penis moves in a more up-and-down
direction. The man rides higher on the woman's pelvis, and the bone at the base of his
penis (pelvic bone) makes more contact with the clitoris. This increases direct clitoral
stimulation and may provide enough to trigger the woman's orgasm.
Back in the late 80s, the CAT made headlines, but it proved to be just a blip on
America's sexual radar. By the 1990's, it was largely forgotten. But quietly, research has
continued, and most results affirm the CAT's benefit.
In one study, researchers worked with 36 women who could not have orgasms in the
missionary position. Half the women were encouraged to masturbate to become more
comfortable with their genitals and their sexual responsiveness, a standard approach in
sex therapy. The others were taught the CAT. Based on diaries kept during the 21-day
period after this training, the masturbation group reported a 27 percent increase in
orgasms during missionary-position intercourse, while the CAT group reported twice the
increase, 56 percent.
Now, many women say their best orgasms happen courtesy of the man's tongue or
hand or a vibrator. But for women desiring orgasms during intercourse, these simple
variations just might allow a woman to enjoy a new erotic pleasure. Happy
experimentation. Please comment on your results.