Spring is in the air

Dear Bloggers,

If your weather is anything like mine, it certainly doesn't feel like spring is in the air. But that's okay! The rain is pooring down and lightning strikes in the area. We had some nice spring days already with temperatures above 20 degrees Celcius. So I am sure to warm things up for you!

Spring has always been traditionally linked with romance, and for a good reason. Flowers bloom as the ground thaws out, and as the temperatures rise, we're ready to go out and do something. Falling in love is always a popular item on the list. Even if you're already coupled up, spring is a wonderful time to discover new experiences with your partner! Nature is beautiful when the sun is out, even in the city

After mowing the garden this week, I sat down made myself a nice cup of coffee and picked a novelle from the bookshelf. Sitting there hearing the birds sing and enjoying the sunshine. If you are dreaming away sitting in your backyard with a romantic novelle, picturing the following phrases you get weak inside and find yourself in this story:

 
He collapsed on top of her, his face landing in the cushion of her silken hair. Breathing heavily, he inhaled the aroma of moss, honeysuckle, and something else that was simply, undeniably her. He slid to the side, keeping his arms wrapped tightly around her. Laura turned to face him, and her tangible movements in the aftermath of their activities brought him more joy than he ever thought possible.

Even as exhaustion descended upon him like a soothing rain, she captured his undivided attention. “I love you,” he said.
 

All of sudden you are woken up by one of the kids that just came home after school. Somehow you cannot ban this picture out of your head and you are still fully aroused when your spouse is coming home. Yes my friends I will tell you that spring fever is real. Sure, we think of it as a time for young people to fall in love during a spring break. But we don’t realize there’s a whole lot of biological action taking place to motivate people to get it on when the sun comes out. Part of it is about the sun and increased levels of vitamin D and how that raises testosterone levels in our bodies. The rest is about exploring the world which gets people primed and ready for sex. Let’s look at some scientific facts behind spring fever so you’ll be ready … no matter how crazy it gets … when you hit the beach!

Sunshine raises vitamin D levels. Vitamin D is actually a hormone that is generated when sunlight hits your skin. During winter, your vitamin D levels drop by 50% unless you take supplements. When you get out and hit the beach at the onset of spring, your vitamin D levels jump back up, especially if you’re in the semi-tropics like Cancun, Mexico, Hawaii, or Thailand.
Vitamin D is Associated with Testosterone. When vitamin D goes up, so does your level of testosterone. This happens because vitamin D increases the production of testosterone in men’s and women’s sex organs. 

And that is what makes Spring fever come alive.
Testosterone is Necessary for Sexual Arousal in both Women and Men. It’s an urban myth that testosterone is strictly a male hormone. Women are dependent, too, on sufficient levels of testosterone in order to become physically aroused about sex. There is, in fact, a testosterone patch for women who just can’t get physically aroused about sex. Emotional arousal, of course, is different and related to another set of hormones and neurotransmitters.

Exploring the World increases emotional desire for sex. When individuals get out and explore the world like people do when spring fever hits, the willingness to engage in sex increases. That’s because exploring new things increase the neurotransmitters tied to the mental-emotional part of being hot to get it on. That mental-emotional part of sexual desire generally involves a debate about whether the time and place is right for sex. Exploring the world works to tune that out.

What this all amounts to is that spring fever is a biological Yes!Yes! reaction to hitting the beach: Yes your body is getting aroused for sex. And Yes your head says, “Why not?” to sexual encounters.
It doesn’t matter who you are or what your relationship status is. Do yourself a favor. Take a spring break and hit the beach. Bring your lover or spouse, go with a friend, or jump on a plane and just arrive. Don’t ask me why, but just go and do it! It’s great for your health both emotionally and physically. And for your love life. 

Let the sunshine give it a tune up!

The Old Sailor,

You might lose thousands when refinancing your mortgage

Dear Bloggers,

When you and your spouce get into the adventure of buying property you need to borrow some money if you are a regular Joe like me and no I did not marry a rich chick like Paris Hilton. So you end up at a bank (too expensive and complicated as I didn’t have a regular job.) I am not a financial wizard and yes I must admit my wife understands these things better than I do.

We had just borrowed about two hundred thousand Euros and my question was pretty simple: "How do we pay you back?"

The woman on the other end of the phone, however, couldn't tell me. Ten days had passed since we signed the papers to refinance our home and, with the summer holidays approaching, I was worried our first payment would be late. She tried to soothe me with perhaps the most misunderstood phrase of the refinancing process: "Don't worry. You get to skip a payment."

Had I listened to her, it would have cost us thousands of euros. And if you are one of the millions of homeowners who will refinance in 2013, it could cost you, too. 

If your resolution is to save money or get control of the family budget, refinancing remains a really good option. But the idea that “skipping” the first payment can be pain free, financially speaking, is a myth, repeated over and over by loan officers like mine. Sometimes they are lying, sometimes they are misinformed and sometimes they are just trying to get an annoying borrower like me off the phone. But with rare exception, they are giving bad advice. (News flash: Whenever a bank seems to be doing you a favor, it probably has a hand in your wallet.)

Real estate transactions are already confusing enough. There are questions surrounding when you make your last payment on the old loan, when you make your first payment on the new loan, how many extra days of interest you pay toward both your old and your new loan, and when you are paying for both loans. We'll get to those tricky issues in a moment, but the priciest mistake you might make in a refinance is also the simplest one to correct. 

You've heard this before, but this time, it's probably true: mortgage interest rates are at historic lows, and there may never be a better time to refinance.  It's hard to imagine rates going any lower than the 3 percent range they are at now, but it's easy to imagine that, at the first signs of a real economic recovery or real inflation, they will climb sharply during 2013.  The low interest rates that the Nedrlandse Bank has imposed to boost the economy have been punishing for many, notably savers, who can barely earn 1 percent interest on their bank accounts and certificates of deposit. The one perk for consumers from the bank’s interest rate policy is the ability to get cheap home and auto loans. If you haven't refinanced your mortgage in the past 24 months or so, you are missing out.

Fortunately, many Dutch homeowners have gotten the message. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, mortgage holders engaged in €603 billion worth of refinancing in 2012. In fact, more than four out of five new mortgages in 2012 were refinanced loans, not home purchases.
I wish there was a way to know how many of those borrowers chose to skip that first payment.

'Can I get that in writing?' 'No'

My loan officer was lazy, I believe, and -- knowing that my loan had closed and all the commissions were guaranteed -- just wanted her off the phone as soon as possible. My wife’s  call was unusual.  She is always overly cautious when she sets up any kind of new loan payment, as the chances for error are great: a wrong loan number on a payment, a bad address, etc. So she always makes the first payment early to make sure nothing goes wrong.  That good habit proved profitable this time.

When we signed the loan papers, there were no payment instructions in the closing documents (not terribly unusual). My loan officer said I would receive payment coupons later.  But when 10 days passed, and we heard nothing, She called them and She was sent to the bank's customer service line, where she was informed that there was no record of our loan. (Did that mean we didn’t have to pay it back? Sadly, No.) 

Customer service transferred me back to my loan officer. She assured me that their computers would catch up to my urge to pay the loan, and we’d get payment information soon. Incredulous that they seemed not to want my money, My wife persisted. She tapped a few keys on her keyboard, made us wait a minute, then told us that our loan had funded on May, so I didn't have to make a payment until June. 1.
"But my documents say repayment begins May. 1," I said. "So you're saying there will be no late fees if I don't pay May. 1?"
"
Yes," she said.

"Can I get that in writing.?”

"No. I can't do that."

At that point, I did what any mature consumer would do: I laughed. And then I muttered something about the 100 pieces of paper they just made me sign, with innocuous documents putting the finest point on everything you can imagine, like the form I initialed in multiple places agreeing that, yes, I am known by Jake, Jacob, Mr.J. and various other nicknames. Yet I couldn’t get the bank to put something in writing saying when we should make our loan payment?

Our loan officer didn't laugh, but eventually she put my wife on the phone with a supervisor who sounded very grave. She'd done additional research, she said, and found out that the reason customer service couldn't find my loan was because it had already been sold to another bank. 

Steep penalty anyway
But I'm not writing to warn you about late fees. There's a much bigger culprit here you have to worry about.  Had I followed my loan officer's advice and skipped a payment, even if the bank waived the late fee (which the manager said was likely), I would have paid a steep penalty anyway.  You've probably guessed the punch line: there's no such thing as skipping a payment. In reality, homeowners are borrowing that money and extending the loan term for an extra month.  The payment will be tacked onto the end of the loan, with interest.  How much? If it's a conventional loan, that’s 30 years’ worth of interest.  Effectively, you are borrowing one month's payment for 30 years. Ouch!

"Skipping is a misnomer. A better description would be ‘deferring with additional interest added,'" 
Just how much extra interest can skipping that first payment cost you? There are too many variables to create a decent rule of thumb. But let me give you an example of how I think it would be. A payment that is miniscule to one is a fortune to another. I’ll give you the numbers, then you can answer your own question. They are for a €100,000 on a 30-year loan at 6 %.

The initial interest payment on a €100,000 loan at 6% is €500. It is .06 times 100,000 divided by 12. If you skip the first payment, the €500 is added to the balance, making it €100,500. In the following month, your interest payment will be €502.50. The additional €2.50 is on the €500 you skipped. Further, the interest payment will remain higher throughout the remainder of the life of the loan, relative to what it would have been had you not skipped the first payment.

 
If your loan runs for the full 30 years, you will end up paying an additional €2993 of interest. If you pay the balance off after 15 years, it will cost €864 in additional interest. If you pay off in 5 or 10 years, it drops to €205 and €486.

Forget the €75 late fee. That's real money. Hmmm...a payment that is miniscule to one is a fortune to another.

Some loan officers say they only won't offer the "skip-a-payment" option unless the refinance closes toward the end of the month, when the homeowner might have trouble coming up with the extra cash for closing costs and a fresh mortgage payment close together.  Others say they offer it all the time.

To be clear: Most borrowers don’t actually complete their 30-year loans before moving or refinancing, so few would end up paying that high a penalty. Also, it's important to note that my bank didn't even hold the loan, so they weren't profiting from the “skip-a-payment” advice.  I believe this is usually a lazy mistake, not a greedy one. Still, the basic truth holds.  Don't be tempted to skip a payment when you refinance unless you really, really need the cash for some unusual expense ( Christmas credit card bills are probably not the best reason.)

Skipped payments are not to be confused with other loan closing related interest payments, including:

Your last payment on the old loan. You can't skip that, either. If your loan closes near the end of the month, you should still make the scheduled payment to your old bank. Why?  Interest is actually paid in arrears, meaning you pay at the end of the month the cost of borrowing the money for that month.  It's confusing, because mortgage payments are really two payments at once -- last month's interest and next month's principal.  

To keep it simple, if your loan closes on the Nov. 30, you will be paying November's interest with your Dec. 1 payment, along with December’s principal. You won't need to make the December principal payment if you refinance on Nov. 30, but most folks pay far more in interest than principal because they are early in their loan's term, so the overpayment won't be large. Just pay it to avoid late fees, and enjoy any refund that comes your way. 

Pre-paid interest. When your loan closes in the middle of the month, your new bank will make you pay up-front (as opposed to in arrears) daily interest for the remaining days of the month. If you close on the 20th, you'll pay 10 more days of interest payments.  That's OK, it means you won't owe the money on the back end of the loan.

It's important to keep all these quirky, refinance-related interest payments straight when talking to your loan officer, so you'll know what to do when he or she suggests you can skip a payment. 

None of this should scare you away from refinancing, which is really the only way you can make the recession work for you.

But remember, you are refinancing to save money, and you probably shopped around trying to save €50 here or €100 there on closing costs; don't lose thousands of Euros because of one false move after closing.

The Old Sailor,

When is it time to give up the keys?

Dear Bloggers,

This blogs subject is about driving and Parkinson's Disease

As baby boomers age and life expectancy rises, increasing attention is turning on how to determine when and if older people and people with severe health problems should stop driving. This topic is especially important in light of a agtng group in our country as a lot of them are on the search for injury prevention and we should get in control that our elderly people are involved by vehicle injuries. As the number one cause of injury related deaths for people aged 65 to 74, and the number two cause (after falls) of injury

related deaths for those aged 75 to 84. The issue that hits home for people with Parkinson's since both the symptoms of the disease and the medications designed to ease them can affect driving ability. If you are struggling with the decision of whether or not to stop driving, or if you are a caregiver for someone who is wrestling with this problem, this blog may help you explore your options.
 

 
How does Parkinson's disease affect driving?

People with Parkinson's disease may eventually experience a decline in both motor skills and cognition. These problems can make driving unsafe. For example, a decrease in visuospatial skill. Let me explain:This is the kind of skills that are necessary to determine distance and distinguish shapes which is not uncommon in Parkinson’s Disease. A driver with decreased visuospatial skills may be unable to gauge the distance to a stop sign or a traffic light or keep a car in the correct lane. Some people with Parkinson's also may have cognitive difficulties and at times become confused. 

Unfortunately, patients with dementia may not realize that their driving has become a problem and must rely on a physician, family members and friends to bring it to their attention. Another common symptomatic problem for people with Parkinson's is muscle tightness, which can make reacting quickly difficult. Delayed reaction time is dangerous because drivers need to be able to react swiftly, both mentally and physically, to avoid accidents and adapt to changing traffic patterns.

Additional complications come from the medications that are used to treat Parkinson’s Disease. Common medications including carbidopa/levodopa (Sinemet), amantadine, dopamine agonists and anticholinergics may produce side-effects such as sleepiness, dizziness, blurred vision and confusion. Anticholinergics are especially dangerous as they can cause confusion and sedation along with memory impairment. However, not every patient experiences these side-effects and they may be decreased with simple adjustments in dosage. You should note any changes and report these to your physician. It is your life and you decide.

 Assessment options for people with Parkinson's

It is important to remember that while not every person with Parkinson's experiences problems with driving, disease symptoms and treatments can make driving dangerous for you and others. Driving is seen as a priveliged right of independence and freedom and you may be reluctant to stop, but being responsible is also important. To help you determine your driving risk, the medical association advice is to report your Parkinson’s at CBR (the Dutch bureau for driving licences) Especially for older drivers with difficulties in traffic and they can give extensive information about diseases that may affect driving ability, such as Parkinson's. Although these guidelines were developed primarily for doctors, it will help laypersons to make their own assessment of their driving ability and determine a course of action.

The question is: “Am I a Safe Driver?” If you just take a driving lesson just to help you evaluate your driving. If you score poorly on this and you are still reluctant to stop driving, refer to the driving school to get some tips for safe drving and really consider speaking with a doctor about the issue. The doctor can run some tests on cognition, mobility, reaction time and visual ability for physicians to perform on patients to determine if a person is driving safely. Yes you might not only kill yourself but also someone else!

A less costly, although less thorough, option is to enroll in a driver safety class, such as the driving  schools are offering to elderly people. While these classes are not specifically tailored for people with Parkinson's, they can provide helpful tips for safe driving. An instructor will lead the class through various ways of enhancing driving skills and safety but often will not make individual assessments.
Finally, you can always visit the CBR and ask to take a driving test. Of course, if you were to fail the test, your license would be revoked.

What can family members and friends do to help?

Understandably, most people are reluctant to give up the opportunity to drive. Because of this, it is often up to family members and caregivers to spot a problem first. If you are a family member or caregiver for a person with Parkinson's and you think it may be time for them to stop driving, remember that this is a very sensitive issue and you must help the person see that his or her driving has become dangerous. Before bringing up the subject, look at the possibilities how to help this older driver, being prepared as they have a million excuses to keep their freedom which is extremely relevant for Parkinson's patients. This can help you determine if your concerns are valid and how you might address them.

Another way to help your loved one with this decision is by stressing that giving up driving does not mean giving up mobility. Your support is crucial in helping a person with Parkinson's admit that his or her skills have decreased without feeling stripped of power. To help people with Parkinson's with their decision to stop driving, provide them with transportation alternatives. The Getting by Without Driving tip is to highlight all other possible modes of transportation, including a partner that is still able to drive, taxis, buses, subways and getting a ride from family members. Some cities also provide travel assistance for people unable to use public transportation. (We got something that is called the Plusbus.) If you know someone with Parkinson's who has had to give up driving, provide him or her with bus routes, taxicab phone numbers, and offer to give rides. For more transportation alternatives, check on the internet for options in your region.This may help a person with Parkinson's to adjust and realize that stopping driving does not mean losing independence.

What's the bottom line?

Having Parkinson's does not necessarily result in giving up driving. However, whether you are a person with Parkinson's or a loved one, it is important to be responsible and remember the potential dangers that Parkinson's presents to driving. Ignoring the effects of the disease and its medications on driving will only create a more dangerous environment for you and other drivers. The best way to be a responsible driver is by paying attention to your driving skills and reporting any changes to your physician. If you have concerns, don't avoid voicing them out of fear of losing your license. Doctors and family members are often happy to help you exhaust rehabilitation options before asking you to give up driving. If it does come to the point where family, doctors and driving coaches ask you to give up your keys, realize that it is in your best interest to stop driving and explore other transportation options. They love you and don’t want to loose you.

The Old Sailor,
 

What if you start hating your job?

Dear Bloggers,

Someone I know is having a hard time at the moment as the atmosphere on the workfloor has become less human and more stressful as the chefs only think in digits. This is creating a lot of stress among the co workers as well and slowly she starts hating her job.

I was taught as a young boy to never to use the word “hate”. As there are many other words to choose from. You probably don’t use this word in your house very much either (I hope).

I agree it’s far too strong a word to use when it comes to describing the opposing football team or even a workplace bully.But the reality was for the longest time…

She hates her job, and is afraid to admit it.

If she admits it, would that mean that she’d been wasting her time with all of the energy and hours she has invested in this company?
This question had me concerned, and I discovered that if you hate your job you’re going to burnout.

It’s not a matter of “if”, but “when”.

Also if you hate your job, you’re not fooling anyone. It’s obvious. Hating your job shows up in how you walk into the office, how you answer the phone, and how you participate in meetings.

The easiest way to tell if you hate your job is that it shows up in your language. I had to find some facts about how people think about this issue.

In fact 183 people actually said that on Twitter on Monday before 7 am (I did a Twitter search on “I hate my job”).

Scary, huh?

Most of us don’t actually say it because it feels really uncomfortable.If we’re not actually saying those words it can still show up in more subtle ways like:

• You avoid telling people what you do for a living.
• You never share how your work day went with your family.
• You’ve got worries of impending work doom spinning through your head on Sunday night (dreading Monday mornings).

You can also see it coming if you frequently catch yourself saying, “another day, another dollar” or “I’ve got to go the work today” (instead of “I get to go to work today”).

When you hate your job, you’ll find lots of varied emotions…Each one of the emotions has their own story.
In this case, emotions are predispositions for action.Your emotion comes first and that inspires the action. Imagine if you’re showing up at the office in emotions of resentment, anger, and resignation when you enter the office doors?

The Physical Impact of Hating your Job

When you hate your job it takes a physical toll.The body tension generated from hating your job can lead to all kinds of health related issues. The one that I experienced was an overall tightness at work that started showing up at home and even at being on the push bike.

When you show up this way every day it starts to have a cumulative effect. You can even feel your body cringe when you walk in the door. After awhile you may be slumped at your desk and start finding your muscles tightening especially in your shoulders, hamstrings and lower back. And this is also draining your energy, it makes you extremely tired.
If you’re stuck in this body shape all the time it can tough consequences. This can lead to your body being into a permanent uncomfortable shape of leaning with shoulders forward, a slight bend at the waste, and head down. First of all you need to try to find a way to stop hating your job and if this is not working go find the energy to get an other job.

How do you stop hating your job

The good news is that you can try to stop the job hating and transform your job into one you love. I like to recommend stopping a few things first because that seems to take less energy (versus starting something new).

Here are a few things you can stop doing now to stop hating your job.

Looking Busy

Speak up if you not using your capacity.  The trap can be to get into a job where you using 10% of your capabilities. Often times the corporate environments silently encourages employees to get into a position where they are an expert and know how to do their job.  That’s nice, but sometimes it’s too comfortable and you lose your hunger for creativity and innovation.  You get bored.  You lose your edge.  If you’re using what you can really bring to the table then let someone know and start considering adding something your interested in to your plate.

Hanging around with Co-workers (at least the gripers)
If everyone was complaining about their job at the last happy hour you attended, then stop going with them.  Begin seeking out those people who love their job and go get coffee with them. This has an amazing impact because just as griping is infectious, so is passion!

Bonus Tip *Answer yourself the question “Why?” – Why are you working?  This is the supercharger for all careers. When you connect with the “why” you’re career will take off. You’ll find energy in places you never knew, you’ll wake-up early, and maybe even be disappointed that the work day ends!

The Old Sailor,

I recovered from a burn out

Dear Bloggers,

It may be too late for you to talk about avoiding burnout. Maybe you've already reached the stage where you are thoroughly disillusioned with your job and where you no longer get anything of emotional value from it. You may feel let down or betrayed by your organization, and may be "going through the motions" just for the money your job brings in.

While you can deal with exhaustion by taking a good break, rest may not cure this sense of disillusionment. The passion and commitment that you previously brought to your job may now have completely burned out. Without this, your career may not progress much further.
People deal with this situation in a number of different ways. Some are effective, while others are not so good:

 

First of all most of us start with doing nothing: Often, one of the worst ways of dealing with burnout is to accept it and do nothing about it. By remaining in place, you risk becoming bitter and angry as opportunities pass you by. Your organization may come to regard you as “dead wood” and if things do not change, you may be doomed to a gradual or sudden decline. You need to change the situation in some way. 

A better option is changing your career: If you have lost all interest in the values that led you into your profession in the first place, then career change may be the best option open to you. If possible even in total different job and another company.

The first downside of this, however, is that you lose the benefit of the precious experience you have already gained within the profession. In entering a new profession, you will be competing equally with people much younger than you, and these people are willing to accept much lower salaries. I speak about my own experience.

A second downside is that you risk a strong sense of failure in the way how you handled things, whereas burnout will only have been a temporary setback if you succeed in turning the situation around. 

Changing jobs: Job change within the same profession is usually less of an issue than a full-scale career change, in that many of your skills and much of your experience will be transferrable. Job change gives you the opportunity to rededicate yourself to your original goals. It also provides a fresh start in a new environment, without the painful reminders that come with staying in the same job. 

Changing jobs is an appropriate response where you are disillusioned with your organization more than you are with your career. What you risk, however, is ending up in the same situation again: In changing your job, you must make sure that you understand what lead you to burn out, and ensure that history does not repeat itself. Looking at this positively, you should know what to look for, and have a good idea of how to avoid it!

Using your burnout as a trigger for personal growth: This is probably one the most positive ways that people manage burnout: By using it as a wakeup call to re-evaluate the way they want to live their lives and what they want to achieve. 

 

Understanding why you burned out
An important first step in managing burnout is to deal with the sense of failure that you may experience following it. A starting point for this is to take a long, rational, dispassionate look at the circumstances leading up to it.

A good way of doing this is by talking to someone who you trust and who is experienced in similar situations in similar organizations (you may find a personal coach helpful here). Avoid people within your own organization, as these people will be tainted with its assumptions and thinking habits: These may contribute to the problem. Take the time to talk the situation through in detail, looking at the circumstances before your involvement, your workload, your actions and the actions of other people, and the situations that evolved.

If you are the sort of person who has been committed enough to your work to burn out, it is more than likely that you will have already done everything in your power to resolve the situation.
In reflecting, you will probably find that you made some mistakes, but you will most likely see that these are excusable under the circumstances. You will almost certainly see that a great deal of blame should be attributed externally to the situation, to people around you, or to the people who set up the situation in the first place. In your mind, make sure you place this blame where it fairly belongs.

Lessons that people typically learn through this process are that they are not superhuman, that hard work does not cure all ills, and that major achievements need the commitment and support of other people: In many circumstances, the intense commitment of only one person simply is not enough. They also learn to look at situations with skepticism as they go into them, and to trust their own judgment in spotting and communicating problems early on.

Learn the lessons of your mistakes so that you do not repeat them.
Moving On… Finding a “new” direction
 

Having come to terms with the situation, the next step is to re-evaluate your goals and think about what you want to achieve with your life. I touched on this briefly in a avoiding burnout article; however in recovering from burnout, it is worth doing this in detail together with your coachl.
There are many articles on the mind to guide you through the processes of thinking. About for example what you want to achieve with your life and of reviewing and setting life goals.

Implanting these processes with the increased wisdom and self-understanding you will have gained by understanding why you burned out. Ensure that you give due weight to the relaxation, quality of life issues and social activities that will help to protect you against burnout in the future. Make sure that your goals are set in a balanced manner so that they do not conflict with one-another, and that they are not so challenging that they become a source of excessive stress in their own right.

Next, use SWOT Analysis to more fully understand your current position with respect to these goals. Use it to identify where you need to develop new skills and capabilities, and to understand where you need the help of other people.

Make an action plan for achieving these goals and start work on it. While part of this Action Plan may include changing job or (not very easy in these times), you will be doing this as part of an active plan for the future, not as an escape from one job into another one that is equally bad.
As well as taking these active steps to put your burnout behind you, make sure that you adopt the steps towards a healthy lifestyle we looked at in our defences against stress section. These will help you to avoid exhaustion and long-term stress in the future.

The Old Sailor,

When the thrill has left your marriage

Dear Bloggers,

Let me make one thing clear straight away. I am in a relationship for 20 years with the same women. Although the love is still there it is not that sparkling anymore as in the beginning. A lot of couples around me experience the same thing and in several cases this has ended into a divorce. Or what I think is even worse that some of them will start a double life by having a girl- or boyfriend next to their spouse and kids.

I have been wondering about this issue as I don’t understand why these people are doing this, is it pure lust or is it because their love turned into something like hate? Why does this happen? Does it solve your problems or do you get into even more trouble if you try to find back the old spark? If I should believe what they are writing in articles about this. You will not find any men’s magazines about this issue. 

Generally speaking, magazine articles about how to improve your sex life, especially in marriage or a long-term relationship contain the same advice: candles, hot baths and soft music are often invoked. The question is why your partner loses interest in having sex with you.
That may be because these “better sex” stories are a pile of women’s magazines. I don’t know about you, but candles always make me think of church, baths are something my mother made me take, and soft music reminds me of going to the dentist. Definite all of them are turn-offs.

But how do you regain the passion in your relationship when you feel it's slipping away? Is it possible? Or when that train has left the station, is it too late to bring it back?
“A lot of people get to that point and have to decide what to do about it,” at least that is what I think. “Novelty is sexually interesting to most people -- not always to the point that they will act on it, but the idea has a little bit of a thrill to it, for men or women.”

In dealing with  my own marriage and we have been together for a while,more than twenty years. “Sometimes with a long-term partner, a person feels like they know every freckle on that other person’s body.”  The solution may lie in exploring the unfamiliar part though not necessarily.

“For some people, predictability is very exciting,” for example having sex on a Wednesday night for others this does not work at all. “You have to figure out if you’re a ‘surprise’ or ‘predictability’ person. If you’re a surprise person, asking your partner to surprise you is a good first step. If you’re a predictability person, and there is something predictably bad or neutral about your sexual experience, getting some changes in there can be a positive thing.”

Those same darn women’s magazines often offer intimacy as the tonic to save the foundering sex life. You’ve drifted apart, and that is where the logic goes. Take interest in his life, his work, his recreation, even if it’s watching retired athletes. Yelling at each other about which programme should be seen on TV. But there is a fine line between being cared for and being under stress.

“Sometimes too much closeness stifles desire,”  would I say.  We had less trouble in the days when I was sailing: “Separateness is a precondition for connection. When intimacy collapses into fusion, it is not a lack of closeness but too much closeness that impedes desire." Don’t call each other ten times a day and don’t ask each other about every little thing. “These questions turn intimacy into surveillance.” And this is defenitly a killer for your relation.

Sometimes a man’s lack of desire is really about something else. “In those situations there is often something going on that is unexpressed or unknown. Most often, it comes down that lack of attraction stems from anger. Perhaps your anger is misplaced; perhaps you are angry at her because you are not attracted to her. You can get to the source of your anger and beyond in therapy. But getting down to getting down is the relationship equivalent of advanced physics.

“You have to be able to experience conflicting feelings, or difficult feelings,” I would call it  the rapprochement process. “If you are holding yourself back all the time, you don’t have to face what you might be feeling. But if you get close to her in bed and if you get aroused, there might be a lot of conflicting stuff that comes up in your head. You want to be with her, you want to make her happy......but on the other side you are angry with her.” To get past the anger, and on to the fun part, you have to be willing to let down your guard, and let love in.

There’s nothing wrong with candles and baths -- or, for that matter, lingerie and scented oils. Those are all stand-ins for the little signals most couples have. Most couples signals are subtler: being in bed and awake at the same time, reaching out to one another on a weekend morning, making some gesture.

You may pine for the days of spontaneity that you enjoyed when your relationship was young  making love at odd hours, in the least likely places, just because you felt like it. But if you have small children, and both having a career, and the usual laundry list of responsibilities, the chances of you spontaneously hooking up without some planning are about like the chance of your playing in the national soccer team, when you’re over 40. And white. It takes a little doing to have a passion in marriage.

There is nothing wrong with planning to have sex, is there? Thinking about it ahead of time might just get you in the mood, just as thinking about what you’re going to eat before you go to a good restaurant only whets the appetite. And don’t be so sure that you know that woman that you’re with. In her work there might be someone more atractive that is how it goes with long married couples, I have found out that I don’t always know what creates sexual arousal in my long-term partner.

I try and lay out my own idiosyncrasies -- what 'does it' for me or what did it for her when we were younger and at our first dates,” What I try to say is: “There is often a moment of revelation: ‘I always thought you liked that!’ Or, ‘I always thought you hated that!’ And it’s often based on something the other person said 20 years ago when you tried something once. So you closed off one portion of sexual experimentation or behavior because of one errant comment.”

A lot can happen in those intervening years. Isn’t it time you found out what’s going on beneath the surface? 
I did not find all the answers yet.

The Old Sailor,