The Advice Goddess Amy Alkon

My wife of three years complains that I’m not romantic anymore. In the beginning, I did romantic stuff all the time. I still love her very much, but I guess I’m subconsciously reacting to the fact that I’ve nabbed her forever. (There’s definitely something to be said about “the thrill of the chase.”) How can I let her know I still care?
— Comfortably Wed

Your wife could be a mix of Angelina Jolie, Madame Curie and Sue Johanson (the cute little old lady sexpert from TV), and the thrill of the chase would probably still give way to the thrill of pretending to listen to what she’s saying while you’re watching the game.

You can try to keep the romance alive with some therapist looking disapprovingly down her bifocals at the two of you — or with the gift of a 50-cent purple plastic chimp. The chimp, happily, will not ask you to “own your feelings” or repeat awkward “I” statements. Of course, the chimp could also be a toy pig, a chocolate dog or some celebrity’s toenail clippings. I happen to have a thing for chimps, so my boyfriend gives me chimp thingiedoos. The point is to extend yourself in ways that give your partner a little lift even though you no longer need to chase her (you just reach over in bed and give her a gentle shake so she’ll stop snoring like an old wino).

Doing nice little things for each other regularly is the romantic version of car maintenance to keep you from ending up broke-down in Scarytown. A 2010 study tracking 65 couples by psych prof Sara B. Algoe found that a partner’s little thoughtful actions led to feelings of gratitude in the recipient partner, which led to both partners feeling more connected and happier with their relationship the following day. Algoe and her colleagues speculated that “moments of gratitude can act like ‘booster shots’ for the ongoing relationship.”

Previous research by Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky (detailed in “The How of Happiness”) suggests that two of the most effective ways to increase a person’s overall happiness are feeling grateful and doing thoughtful things for others, so yes … the key to both a happier marriage and a happier life could be the occasional checkout line impulse item.

The husband you don’t want to be is the neglectful one with the miserable, angry wife he tries to placate with occasional seismic gifting — waiting until their anniversary and going bankrupt buying a diamond tennis bracelet or hiring the Three Wise Men to drop by her office with gifts of frankincense and myrrh. His wife knows very well what his gifts are: remedial romancing — a peace offering instead of a love offering. The wiser approach is replacing the thrill of the chase with the thrill of making your wife happy by being regularly attentive: Hug her and tell her she’s beautiful. Change her windshield wipers without being asked (you care about her safety!). Slip out of work to get her a cupcake (at 3 p.m. on a Thursday, her happiness was important to you). Every now and then, mix the little things up with all that stuff guys do early on — stuff like sending flowers after sex, not sneaking out after your wife falls asleep and then avoiding your favorite bar for two weeks so you won’t run into her.

Soldier trying to cope with a girl with ‘wait’ problem?

I met a really great girl before deploying to Iraq. We’ve gotten as close as two people can while physically separate, but she is sexually frustrated to the max and wants to have an unemotional hookup. She suggests we each have a “last fling” before we start our relationship (when my deployment ends in 60 days). Well, I’m in an-all-male unit, and when I’m home, I want to be with her. She’s attending a wedding this weekend (single guys, hotel rooms, open bar, etc.). She says not to worry, but I know how much she wants this. I just fear that any hookup she had might stick in my mind and keep me from giving her my very best. How can I encourage her to hang on a little longer? Barring that, how do I get okay with this?
— Fraught

Oh, yay. You, too, are allowed a last fling. And lucky you, you’ve got your pick of a bunch of big, dusty, sweaty men in camouflage pants. There’s no open bar, but there is an open desert, stocked with a variety of IEDs. Luckily, this doesn’t stop groups of young single females from wandering past the base, but the old bearded goatherd urging them on with a stick surely frowns on interspecies hookups.

Probably many readers’ first thought is, “Jeez, the guy’s off in a war zone. Can’t Miss Ants In Her Panties keep her legs crossed for another 60 days?” The truth is, maybe not, no matter what you say. The question is, can you deal? It may help to understand why you feel so threatened. Your feelings go way back, and I mean way. Like 1.8 million years, to genetic adaptations that helped our male forebears guard against paternity uncertainty. Today, figuring out who a kid’s daddy is just takes a DNA test, and birth control can eliminate the question entirely. These vintage genes of ours are the problem. We’re wandering around the latter part of 2011 biologically and psychologically calibrated for life in the Stone Age, and complex cognitive adaptations like “Yo, DNA! In 1951, Carl Djerassi invented The Pill!” take hundreds or thousands of generations to get wired in.

It might help to recognize that sex isn’t special — or isn’t necessarily special. Insects have sex, and not because one particular bug means more to them than any other, but because the urge to get it on is just one of many physical urges of living critters, like the urge to eat lunch. Yeah, okay, on a realistic note, you’d probably feel a lot less hurt and threatened if she were talking about some guy at the wedding slipping her a roast beef sandwich.

Still, assuming there’s no pregnancy, disease, or continued attachment, yesterday’s sex act is no more relevant than yesterday’s lunch. What gives it relevance is the importance you decide to place on it. Can you see this hookup as something she just needs to check off her single-girl bucket list? Or, will you preserve whatever happens like a fossil in amber, poisoning your potential future together with a never-ending symposium on a tiny bit of her past? To start fresh together, it’s probably wise to have a “what happens at the wedding stays at the wedding” policy. This way, you’ll lack the details (if any) to make a dirty little movie you can run on a loop in your head -- which may keep you from making the mistake so many jealous men do: turning their woman’s forgettable drunken hookup before they were even a couple into the most unforgettable sex she’s ever had.

‘Joe BlackBerry’ wants to break up via texting

This girl I’ve been dating for a couple months really likes me, but I’m not feeling it. Because we’ve done a lot of texting, I’m thinking of breaking up with her by text. It would be a lot less uncomfortable.
— Departing

Getting dumped is bad enough; it’s worse when your soon-to-be-ex not only won’t spare you face-time to do it but stiffs you on vowels. (If your girlfriend doesn’t have unlimited text messaging, it could even cost her 20 cents to find out “its ovr.”) Smartphones make life easier, but not everything in life should be. Once you’ve spent more than a few naked hours with somebody, you can text them to tell them you’re late, but not that you’re never coming back. As for this girl, even though you’re “not feeling it,” breaking up in person will be hard for you, and she’ll see that, making the experience less dignity-eating than if you used your phone as a buffer. In other words, compassion, not cellphone technology, should be driving your breakup behavior. But, if compassion’s not really your thing, at least consider your text messaging limits, and maybe keep your phone in your pocket and program your Roomba to go tell her it’s over.
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(c) 2011, Amy Alkon, all rights reserved. Got a problem? Write Amy Alkon, 171 Pier Ave, #280, Santa Monica, CA  90405, or e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it (www.advicegoddess.com)

Amy Alkon’s just-published book: “I SEE RUDE PEOPLE: One woman’s battle to beat some manners into impolite society” (McGraw-Hill, $16.95).