If we don’t take time for what is truly important to us, life loses its focus and direction.  That’s especially true for relationships.  Two busy partners can end up making everything a priority except the relationship.  This is especially true when instead of holding one another accountable, the mutual busy-ness causes each to let quality time together slide.  The next thing you know, one partner is working every night on his laptop while the other watches TV.  The relationship reaches a standstill.  And each partner feels a bit rejected by the other.

Being in the same room at the same time is not the same thing as spending time together.  Quality time means paying attention to one another, doing something meaningful with each other, enjoying your partner’s company and remembering why you chose this person above all the rest.  It means having fun together, whatever that means for you:  taking a walk, cooking dinner, making love or taking a vacation.

You wouldn’t think it would take constant vigilance to maintain space for some of life’s greatest pleasures, but that’s the nature of existence.  Here are some suggestions:

• Schedule time for fun.  Plan ahead to invite others over for dinner, see a play, whatever.  Waiting until the last minute to do something may seem more spontaneous, but often it leads to plans falling through, disappointment and boredom.
• Plan a vacation.  Too many Americans let time off from work lapse because they were “too busy” to use the days they had earned.  This is an awful thing.  Plan ahead.  Having something to look forward to builds anticipation and adds to the pleasure of the experience.
• Limit the ways work encroaches on your personal time.  Everyone has to work long hours on occasion, but if that’s happening regularly – or if you’re in the habit of taking work home with you – consider it a problem that needs your attention.
• And spend some time apart.  Experienced couples know that having a little time apart adds to the pleasure of a relationship.  Time with a friend, hobby, project or activity helps keep life interesting and helps routines keep from becoming ruts.

Don’t let your relationship spend too much time on automatic pilot.  If you find yourself getting a little bored, wake up and try something new.

Relationship tip: The importance of time together. is a post from: John R. Ballew, M.S. Licensed Professional Counselor

Sometimes being alone conjures up negative feelings – shame for not having someone to do something with, or fear that our aloneness either reflects something negative about us or is the way will always be.  But for most of us, being alone isn’t the way we are all the time.  It only seems like a problem when our fears get away from us and we make being alone something awful.  Think of the reverse:  imagine a life where you were never alone, where you were always accompanied or surrounded by others.  Most of us would quickly get exhausted.  Truth is, we need a respite from the busy-ness of modern life.

Remember what it was like when you were on your own for the first time?  You probably felt anticipation and excitement.  That’s something else that comes with being by ourselves:  freedom.  That’s one reason why I really like this video:

For those who live alone or spend a good bit of time being solitary, the real question is:  how do you cultivate the pleasure of your own company?  Here are some suggestions:

• Boredom is your enemy.  OK, a little of it might be good if your life is hectic.  But for most of us, loneliness and boredom are closely connected.  What’s interesting to you?  Check out local things to do in the paper or online.  When was the last time you read a book simply for pleasure?
• What are you waiting for?  Many single people feel self-conscious about going to a movie or restaurant by themselves or about traveling solo.  Imagining that things would be more fun with a friend or a partner means that they postpone happiness until some future date.  Better to seize the moment and make plans now.
• Try something different.  We all get into routines, but if you’re feeling lonely it may be a signal you need to change yours.  Add a new activity or commitment to your weekly routine.  Consider volunteering or joining an organization committed to something you believe in.
• Monitor how much time you spend online.  Staying in touch with friends via Facebook or whatever is fine, but spending lots of time communicating via keyboard or smartphone means that you’re in danger of not actually living your life.  Set some time limits and do something else so you don’t become dependent on technology for human contact.
• Be patient.  Realize that life has its seasons of solitude as well as those of hustle and bustle.  Don’t let yourself get caught up in doom-and-gloom if you are going through a quiet time in your social life.  Things will likely change soon, particularly if you are trying new things.
• Don’t be too patient.  Single people can waste a lot of time waiting for the phone to ring.  Don’t be shy about being the one to reach out and initiate contact or to make plans.  Being patient doesn’t mean being passive.

Spending time alone can be a great time to recharge the batteries or to think about what’s really meaningful to you.  Be mindful of the things you say to yourself and the choices you make and you may find yourself enjoying the freedom that comes with being your own person.

How to be alone is a post from: John R. Ballew, M.S. Licensed Professional Counselor

Think about it:  your partner dies unexpectedly.  You are in utter shock.  It is by far the worst day of your life.  Then things get much worse, unthinkably and cruelly worse.

Until our relationships are legally recognized, same-sex couples are in great peril if they don’t take legal steps to protect one another.  Not only is the relationship dishonored – it is as if it never existed at all.  So in addition to the pain of grief, there is the threat of financial catastrophe.

The couple in this video is young.  It is easy to imagine that the idea of wills and estate planning never entered their minds.  I’ve seen couples far older than them put off the writing of wills because no one likes to think of illness and death.  Unfortunately, that means that however close you and your partner may feel, in the eyes of the law you are strangers.  Strangers!

Loving your partner means getting over your denial and resistance and all the excuses you have for inactivity.

• Recognize that the fight for marriage equality is your fight.  The passage of Amendment One in North Carolina emphasizes that we can’t afford complacency.  Speak out!  Take action!
• If you’re in a committed relationship that is not legally recognized in your state and own a home or share financial commitments you’re your partner, you must have a will if you want your partner protected after you’re gone.
• If you want your partner to be your representative in making decisions about your health in the event that you are incapacitated, you must grant him or her power of attorney for health care.
• In a relationship or single, if you want a say in how your assets are distributed after your death, you need a will.  Chances are good that you’ll have accumulated more assets than you might think, resources that could make a difference for a non-profit or charity that you care about.  Doing so is a way to make a difference even after you’re gone.

This is so important.  The situation in this video is what I’ve always considered the ultimate gay nightmare, the ultimate outrage.  It is avoidable!  But you must take action.  If you’re in the Atlanta area and need the recommendation for an attorney, let me know.

Love is not enough: thinking the unthinkable is a post from: John R. Ballew, M.S. Licensed Professional Counselor

Gabriel Arana recently wrote an excellent and very readable report of his own experience with reparative therapy in an article called “My so-called ex-gay life” in The American Prospect.  His article is worth your attention because he has first hand experience with the biggest names in the “ex-gay” field, Joseph Nicolosi and the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH).  Directly or indirectly, Nicolosi and NARTH have caused untold suffering for thousands of LGBT people.

Another reason to read the article is Arana’s interview with Robert Spitzer, a respected psychologist who in 2001 released a study that seemed to validate ex-gay therapy.  That study has been a foundation of the ex-gay movement.  In his interview, Spitzer asked Arana to print a retraction of his 2001 study because he felt it had been misinterpreted.

For more on the continuing revelations that discredit these attempts to change sexual orientation, I recommend this clip from Rachel Madow’s show.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Reparative therapy and “ex-gays” is a post from: John R. Ballew, M.S. Licensed Professional Counselor

Maybe there’s a decision to end the commitment to one another, but the daily phone calls at work continue, or the text messages throughout the day.  Or a couple continues to share space, friends, even families together just as before the breakup.  Sometimes the time spent together is almost as much as it was before, and life’s little intimacies continue unabated.  Friends may even wonder….didn’t the two of you call it quits?  We can’t tell!

This is what I call the “breakupless breakup,” the desire to end a relationship without actually disrupting the connection between the two people involved.  It’s the fantasy that you can end the relationship without truly separating.  It often fails to recognize that sometimes pain in life is unavoidable.

Couples ending a relationship often say they want to stay friends.  That’s understandable.  Unless there was a great sense of hurt or infidelity, the desire to hang on to the connection between former partners makes a certain sense.  But often that desire to be friends is actually a form of denial or codependence.  Concern for the other’s feelings has taken precedence over doing the important work of separation that is necessary if both people are to move on.  The result is typically feeling stuck.  In fact, if one former partner actually does move on and start to date, the other person may feel a sense of betrayal.

When a relationship begins, it takes time for two people to truly grow connected.  Lives and emotions become entangled and interconnected.  The two grow closer together.  The work of separation is just the opposite:  withdrawing involvement and investment in the other.  This separation work is important if the former partners are to move on.  Put another way:  he or she must move out of that special place in your heart if there is to be space for someone else to move in.

Friendships – even close ones – are different from romantic relationships.  It is almost always necessary for significant amount of a time to pass before a friendship can be established post-relationship.  If that time is not permitted to occur, the situation is likely to be confusing and painful.  One chapter must close before another can begin.

If you find yourself stuck in the post-relationship limbo of a breakupless breakup, there are steps you can take to move on:

• Talk with your ex about setting boundaries.  This is a courtesy conversation; if your ex doesn’t recognize the importance of establishing some distance, your task is to establish boundaries on your own.  In fact…
• Recognizing that your responsibility is now to yourself and not to your ex’s happiness is an important piece of separation work.
• Spend less time together.  If your goal is to maintain a friendship, then remember that your ex is one friend among many now.  Granting that person special access to your schedule is a problem.
• Communicate less.  Talking or texting almost as much as you did when you were a couple keeps your emotions more intense than is helpful.  Dial it back.
• Depend on yourself.  Maybe you always relied on the other person to help you with certain tasks or responsibilities.  That help now comes at a significant cost.  Take charge of your own life.
• Let your emotions cool.  If you find yourself preoccupied with news about your ex, you are staying hooked together.  Learn to let it go.  Instead of worrying about how he/she is doing, give yourself a little mantra, something like “I wish Steve peace and happiness” or “I wish Jessica well.”  And let it go.  If  you are really worried that your ex needs support, suggest they get professional help rather than rely on you.

Breaking up is hard, but if you have decided to do it, do it well.  Doing so leaves you with less unfinished business and allows you to move forward toward greater happiness.

Breakup-less breakups is a post from: John R. Ballew, M.S. Licensed Professional Counselor

If you’re gay or lesbian, none of this is likely to strike you as news.  It has often been gay “folk wisdom” that the biggest opponents of equality for LGBT people often carry a secret shame.

Self-loathing is a central part of the problem.  The mix of defensiveness about attraction to others of the same sex and rejection of this part of the self is what causes some men and women to remain trapped in the closet.  When that loathing is then projected onto other LGBT people, you get the long list of anti-gay preachers and politicians who end up having their careers cut short by gay sex scandals.

What struck me as most interesting about the study was the link with authoritarian parenting.  “Authoritarian” in this sense doesn’t need to mean physically abusive (though that could be part of it).  This sort of authoritarianism refers to  parents who are strict and demanding and not respectful of their children’s choices – in fact, who may not permit choices at all.  Children of such parents often confuse love with obedience to authority.  For gay offspring of such parents, coming out may feel like a rejection of their parents.  They may experience a terrifying fear losing their parents’ love.

Two responses to this sort of rigid parenting are common.  The first response is fear.  As a consequence of this fear, individuals with same-sex attraction may develop massive anxiety around gay feelings and attraction.  This fear may be big enough that it causes them to repress their same-sex attraction.  The attraction doesn’t go away, of course.  Instead, it expresses itself in unhealthy ways.  These repressed feelings may be behind some of the pedophilia scandal in the Catholic Church.  Having a sexual relationship with an adult man would require acknowledgement and social interaction.  A clandestine molestation of a child, on the other hand, keeps everything secret.

An alternate response is that individuals may become aggressive as a way of defending themselves against that part of the self that feels bad, broken or unacceptable.  That aggression may be overt, as with the guy who goes out to physically assault LGBT people.  Or the aggression may take a more political form.  I suspect these people fill the ranks of the American Family Association, the National Organization for Marriage and a host of other groups fighting against equality for gay and lesbian people.

What causes homophobia? is a post from: John R. Ballew, M.S. Licensed Professional Counselor

I didn’t know Bergeron.  My purpose in writing about him is not to criticize him, but to look at what his life and his death may say to us as gay men.  Bits and pieces from his website may provide clues.  Bergeron seems to have been very concerned with his physical appearance – there are a lot of photos on his website that display his well-built physique, perhaps a bit unusual for a psychotherapist.  And he seems to have had trouble with aging.  His last blog post, dated about three weeks before he took his life, included the following:

In 2012 I want to:

1. Take better care of myself.
2. Spend more time out of the house interacting and having fun.
3. Find happiness with getting older and stop lying about my age.

In a video on his blogsite, Bergeron proposed defining youth as the years up to 65 – an alternative to the “50 is the new 35” trope he rejected.  But both of these perspectives are problematic.  50 is 50 and 65 is 65, and to define either in terms of “youth” is ridiculous.  (Full disclosure:  I’m 58.)  Anyone who is clinging to youth this far into midlife is in serious denial.  If youth is over, is life is over?  Hell no.  But by the time you’re 50, life expects you to know a few things, to gain some perspective and to be able to distinguish between the ephemeral beauty of youth and the enduring beauty of a life well lived.

Perspective is the key to happiness and contentment at any age.  I think that’s especially true as we get older.  One of the great secrets of life is that things really do get better in so many ways.  In the second half of life there is less to prove and more payoff from the hard work of earlier years.  But successful living requires paying attention to what is really important:  relationships and friendships, meaningful ways to invest our time and energy, physical and emotional health.

For many people, spirituality helps to provide that sense of perspective, of answering life’s big questions.  What is our place in the order of things?  What makes life meaningful?  Whether through religion, meditation, time in nature or creative pursuits, healthy spirituality helps ease our anxieties and leads us to make positive choices.

Physical attractiveness has its place, but the beauty of youth is fleeting.  If given too much importance in life, we’re in trouble.   “Live fast, die young and leave a beautiful corpse” is terrible advice.

I’m very sad that Bob Bergeron took his life.  I’m sad that he felt life was so desolate, and I’m sad for the clients he’d worked with who must be struggling to grasp how someone could be gifted in helping them with their problems while ultimately so without hope in addressing his own.  But my greatest concern is how this man’s death mirrors the struggle of so many gay men to find contentment and purpose as we grow older.

Why did Bob Bergeron kill himself? is a post from: John R. Ballew, M.S. Licensed Professional Counselor

Experimenting with sexuality is normal and healthy, and variety truly is the spice of life.  “Kinky” is a very broad term that covers many, many activities.  Playing with erotic power and exploring your sexy inner bad boy (or girl) can be ways to enjoy and enhance healthy sex.  Something may not be “normal” in the sense of “statistically average,” but that doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with it.

The key words in kinky play are safe, sane and consensual.  Safe means just that – nothing unhealthy, dangerous, etc.  Sane means not doing things that are unacceptably risky one way or another.  Consensual means that both partners must agree to whatever is being done.  If someone feels coerced or intimidated, they aren’t in a place where they can give their consent.

As with anything, talking with your partner about fantasies, limits and boundaries is the key to making sex work – and making it good.

What about fantasies?

Not everyone has them, but most of us do.  Fantasies are a normal part of sexuality.  It’s often said that the brain is the body’s biggest sex organ, and there is truth to that.  Fantasies keep us from getting bored, help us understand our wants and needs, and can keep us from getting stuck in a rut.

It’s also important to understand that not all fantasies are something we would actually want to do in reality.  Some fantasies are meant to stay that way – strictly fantasies.

At what age do people stop having sex?

Sexual energy may or may not decline with age; testosterone typically declines, and a drop in libido results.  But there’s a wide variety in what is normal.  If a person is reasonably healthy, there’s no reason why sex can’t be part of life at least into the 70s and 80s.  Sex may look a little different than in younger years, but that may be just as much from knowing more about what works for you and how to be intimate as from physical changes.

Why don’t I have as much of a sex drive as my partner? Is that normal?

It is rare for two partners in a relationship to have exactly the same sex drive.   One person usually initiates more often or wants sex more frequently.  That doesn’t need to present a problem, but it does require communication and mutual care and concern.  Talking about sex can be more difficult if one partner or the other feels “wrong.”  It’s so easy for us to feel shame around sex, or to feel that something is damaged about us if we want sex less – or more – than someone else.

Pat Love has written several books about desire discrepancy, including “Hot Monogamy,” which I think of as a classic.

More questions about “normal” sexuality is a post from: John R. Ballew, M.S. Licensed Professional Counselor

How often do most couples have sex?

There’s a lot of variability from couple to couple.  It is typical for couples to have more sex early in the relationship, and for the frequency of sex to decrease as the relationship goes on.  Surveys show that most heterosexual couples who have been together for a few years and are between mid-30s and early-40s typically have sex 4-8 times a month.  Comparable statistics for same-sex couples are tougher to find, but my clinical experience is that frequency is probably similar.

So are the things that interfere with sexual frequency:  work stress, health problems, medications (especially antidepressants), etc.  Sex often becomes less frequent (but no less pleasurable) as we get older.

What about masturbation and porn?

Almost all men masturbate, regardless of whether or not they are in a relationship.  Women are less likely to pleasure themselves, which is something of a shame, since masturbation is one of the ways we become more knowledgeable about our bodies and more comfortable with our sexuality.  Maybe because of the gender differences, women sometimes are uncomfortable when they find they find a male partner masturbates without them, maybe feeling it implies a criticism of their sexual attractiveness or proficiency.  That’s usually a source of unnecessary anxiety.

There’s a similar difference in interest in porn:  men are much more frequent consumers of it.  Anyone familiar with porn can pretty quickly see that it is aimed at men.  Women as a group have less interest in it, though of course some women enjoy it quite a bit.

In the internet age, porn is easy to come by, so to speak.  In fact, the ease with which it is available can itself be a problem when the search for more and more erotic stimulation becomes compulsive.  How much is too much?  Learn more about sex addiction.

Is my penis small?

If your standards for “normal” come from watching porn, you might think so.  There’s a reason these guys are in movies.

The average length of an American erection is about 5.25 inches, give or take a quarter inch or so.  You can be an inch or two shorter than that and have no trouble physically satisfying a partner.  Most preoccupation with size is all about the psychology of it.  We connect size with power, and power with pleasure.   That’s unnecessary.  As someone once said:  it’s not the size of the pen, it’s the penmanship.

Have a question about sex?  Email me and I’ll try to address other issues in future blog posts.

What does “normal” sexuality look like? is a post from: John R. Ballew, M.S. Licensed Professional Counselor

Sarah Peck has come up with a simple way of thinking through the decision that I think is brilliant.  When you’ve already done the work of investigating some options and collecting information, this way of looking at things helps you check your gut and clarify your values.

For more information, check out Peck’s blog.

A simple cheat sheet for career choices is a post from: John R. Ballew, M.S. Licensed Professional Counselor