How To Have Your Best Sex After 50

Even if your sex life has been lackluster previously, there are at least four reasons it can be the best now. If you never knew what the fuss was about, if you have fallen into a sexless marriage, or if you are still a virgin, things can change for you now. With no more young children in the home, there is much more time to be truly intimate with your partner. 3 Totally Different Relationship Rules People Must Follow After Age 40

The definition of "emotionally intimate relationship" is a lively, engaging experience between just the two of you ... eyeball to eyeball contact. It's an excitement and involvement that is about what you two are doing right now, or what you two will enjoy doing soon. Before, "planning" meant figuring out how you were going to carpool three different children to three different sporting events on one Saturday afternoon. That was not a relationship-enhancing conversation.

But now, real intimacy is possible again. You know how much fun this was. You did it when you first began to date. Make a commitment to do it again! Single Over 50? Why You Should Try Online Dating

You can learn to focus on yourself for a change and it will reap good results. Women are caretakers ... we're socialized to be caretakers. We get a lot of approval for being caretakers. But caring for others before oneself non-stop is the recipe for psychological and sexual burnout and children in the home are major culprits.

Another culprit is career ambition, which tends to be high in your 20's, 30's and 40's. However, this may let up a bit as you get older. I try to teach my women clients to be "selfist." Being "selfist" is not the same as being selfish, it's just learning to put your own needs into consideration when you' re noticing what others need .. and now that you're in your fifties, you can take more "me" time to explore yourself and your sexuality. The information is out there, just explore.

You can learn to overcome sexual inhibitions. You finally have the space in your life to tackle this. You can consciously decide to learn to enjoy sex. Whether you read some of the wonderful self-help books that are available or whether you go to a specialist, you can work on changing attitudes like "sex is messy," or "good girls don't have sex."

I have my clients imagine someone who can act as their imaginary "disinhibition coach." Think of a woman who you believe is sexy and likes sex. She can be fictional or real, like Helen Mirren or Susan Sarandon. Then, when you catch yourself being pessimistic about the possibility that you can enjoy sex, check in with your disinhibition coach and let her talk some optimistic sense into you.

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You can make a commitment to get professional help for longstanding sexual issues you have had. You've got the time, and you hopefully have the money. I have had several cases of women in their 60's learning to enjoy their sexuality in a new way. One woman was still a virgin, because she had always had vaginismus, a condition where the muscles surrounding the vagina tense up and intercourse is impossible. But it's very curable.

She ended up finding a fella and we cured the vaginismus. She was finally able to have sex, including intercourse, and she loved it. Another woman in her 50's, who believed "my body is just a way of carrying my head around," learned the joys of touch and sex with her beloved husband through sex therapy. She said, " I can't believe this is the same body I walked into this office with." Over 50? Don't Age Gracefully, Live Agelessly

Aline Zoldbrod, Ph.D. is a Boston-area couples and sex therapist and the author of the award winning book Sex Smart: How Your Childhood Shaped Your Sexual Life and What to Do About It. Find her at http://www.SexSmart.com.