Retiree Relationships: Author Allie Ochs, relationship expert, offers great advice on Valentine's Day for retirees and other couples:

"...Valentine’s Day seems to be as much about sex as it is about love. "... read article to discover a great idea for a valentines day gift.

Sex or Love on Valentine’s Day?

Valentine’s day is just around the corner. Diamonds, chocolates, romantic getaways and sexy lingerie make it difficult to decide how to show your love this year. Valentine’s seems be as much about sex as it is about love. Distracted by sex-induced advertising, we often forget how love and sex fit together. Yes, there can be love without sex and sex without love. How does you big, red and pounding heart experience the connection with the one you love?

In a recent Today Show, Donny Deutsch surveyed women on affairs of the heart. There was something important to learn about women and sex:

• Sex doesn’t happen just like that
• Foreplay starts way before you hit the bedroom
• Emotional cheating is no different than physical cheating

For the majority of women having sex is not equal to making love. The prevailing attitude in our society is: let there be sex at the end of the tunnel, I don’t care about the light! Yet, for most women, there is a profound difference between just having sex and making love. Sex is about you, making love is about both of you. When you just have sex, your partner becomes the means to an end – this is enough to make any woman feel lousy! Women are bombarded with sex advice on how to do it right and looking good while they do it. Much of this advice is missing an important point: emotional intimacy. The good news: most women are natural experts at sex. The bad news: too often women’s sex lives leave much to be desired on an emotional level. 

Sex doesn’t happen just like that

Anne loves her husband George, but she has become rather disinterested in sex with him. “If she loves me, why doesn’t she want to have sex?” George wonders. Most evenings when George comes home, he is stressed, irritated and critical of the kids and Anne. As one woman put it on the Today Show: ”It’s like after you kicked your dog. Do you think the dog wants to come back to be petted?” Anne, who has taken George’s brunt all evening, is not emotionally ready to make love. She is not willing to just have sex for the sake of peace. The message: like so many of us, George and Anne need to connect emotionally again. Without emotional intimacy it will be very quiet in the bedroom. No Valentine’s chocolates, diamonds or flowers will bridge this emotional gap. Sessions with a relationship coach would be a more appropriate gift. On second thought: may be diamonds will do the trick? 

Foreplay starts way before you hit the bedroom

The women on the Today’s show weren’t precise as to how much before hitting the bedroom, foreplay had to begin.  The point was still taken: most couples who don’t experience emotional intimacy, have unsatisfying sex lives. Emotional intimacy is like a 7/24 foreplay. When we feel really close to each other, the mental foreplay never stops. Your mind is intimately connected all the time. Many couples have lost that connection and often end up living like roommates. The message: make your partner and your relationship a priority. Make an effort to be close. This is one secret of many happy couples. No Valentine’s gift will do this important work for you. Have the courage to be really close. Let each other in all the way, not just to the front door. 

Emotional cheating is no different than physical cheating

Is fantasizing about another person normal or harmful to your partner? Whatever your viewpoint may be, 70% of women believe that emotional infidelity is the same as physical cheating. The same women also believe that emotional cheating leads to physical cheating. This is a big issue! One woman on the Today Show said: “I am not getting from my husband what he is giving to someone else.” What exactly is emotional cheating? It is having sexual or romantic fantasies about someone other than your partner or relating intimately to someone the way you should relate to your partner. It could also be telling someone what you should be telling your partner.

Pierre, a regular at the local strip joint, enjoys flirting with other women and never misses a Playboy issue. He couldn’t understand why his girlfriend Kate was so offended. After all he didn’t have sex with anyone else. Kate eventually left. She could no longer be with someone who is half-heartedly involved. When your mind or heart strays you are committing emotional infidelity. You are taking your emotional and sexual energy away from your partner to someone else. The message: you must focus on your relationship not elsewhere.

As Mary O’Hara said: “Love cannot survive if you give it scraps of yourself, scraps of your time and scraps of your thoughts.”

As you shop for the perfect Valentine’s gift, keep these messages in mind. Here is a great gift idea: wrap up an old key like a million dollar gift. Give it to your one and only as the key to your heart! No Valentine chocolates, flowers or sexy lingerie could ever say the same.

© 2006 Allie Ochs is a speaker, relationship coach and author of: Are You Fit To Love?  Her book has received the honorable mention at the USA 2004 Best Book Awards.  She has appeared on TV, Radio and is published in numerous magazines and newsletters.  To order her book or take the Fit 2 Love! Test visit her website www.fit2love.com. For Free Relationship/Dating Advice e-mail: askallie@fit2love.com