10 Books to Divorce-Proof Your Marriage

GetLusty for Couples is all about -- couples. Marriage is full of happiness and beauty until it's not. Heated arguments, mismatched libidos, and difficult transitions into parenthood can take it's toll on any couple. We've all been there; working through issues and traumas to have the best marriage. To continue with our favorite books on marriage, here are 10 more to help you have the best marriage possible and enhance your relationship. Think your marriage/ couplehood life together is amazing? Now is the perfect time to continue to work on having the best relationship. GetLusty staff writer Jason Estrada reports.

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#1 The Five Languages of Apology: How to Experience Healing in all Your Relationships
Author: Gary D Chapman and Jennifer M. Thomas

According to ChristianBook.com, this book will help you identify your own language of apology and will clear the way toward healing and sustaining all your vital relationships. Through field-tested research the authors detail proven techniques for giving and receiving effective apologies.

"The authors stress that you need to learn the "language" of the person you are apologizing to: for one person, it may be expressing regret, while for another it's accepting responsibility or making restitution. Especially useful is the chapter that helps readers learn which language of apology feels most sincere to them." (Publishers Weekly)

#2 How We Love: Discover Your Love Style, Enhance Your Marriage
Author: Milan Yerkovich and Kay Yerkovich

According to Amazon: In How We Love, relationship experts Milan and Kay Yerkovich draw on the powerful tool of attachment theory to show how your early life experiences created an “intimacy imprint”–an underlying blueprint that shapes your behavior, beliefs, and expectations of all relationships, especially your marriage.

#3 Wired for Love: How Understanding Your Partner's Brain and Attachment Style Can Help You Defuse Conflict and Build a Secure Relationship
Author: Stan Tatkin PsyD MFT and Harville Hendrix PhD

According to Amazon: Every person is wired for love differently, with different habits, needs, and reactions to conflict. The good news is that most people's minds work in predictable ways and respond well to security, attachment, and rituals, making it possible to actually neurologically prime the brain for greater love and fewer conflicts. "Wired for Love" is a complete insider's guide to understanding a partner's brain and promoting love and trust within a romantic relationship. Readers learn ten scientific principles they can use to avoid triggering fear and panic in their partners, manage their partners' emotional reactions when they do become upset, and recognize when the brain's threat response is hindering their ability to act in a loving way. By learning to use simple gestures and words, readers can learn to put out emotional fires and help their partners feel more safe and secure.

#4 The Sex-Starved Marriage: Boosting Your Marriage Libido: A Couple's Guide
Author: Michele Weiner-Davis

According to Amazon: 'The Sex-Starved Marriage' offers candid and sensible counsel for couples with mismatched libidos. Seasoned sex therapist Michele Weiner-Davis skewers two stereotypes about sex in marriage. First, she jettisons the idea that husbands are hot and wives are not, giving examples of "low-desire" men in her practice. 

Next, she upends the longstanding model of sexual response and advises readers: "Just do it. Desire is a decision. Once the low-interest partner allows him/herself to be touched and aroused, this will trigger a strong desire to continue being sexual." The strength of her approach to the causes of sexual stalemate lies in her insights about the struggles of both partners. Her suggestions (how to break the ice, how to court your partner, nag busting, and the Hallmark solution) are not gimmicky and are presented as techniques for couples, not individuals." 

#5 Marriage Rules: A Manual for the Married and the Coupled Up
Author: Harriet Lerner

According to Amazon: Marriage Rules offers new solutions to age-old problems ("He won't talk"/"She doesn't want sex") as well as modern ones (your partner's relationship to technology.)

"This book is an astonishing blend of down-home wisdom and clinical experience. I can't think of a better comprehensive guide to making marriage work for today's couples. Read it for your own relationship and give it to every newlywed you know." William J. Doherty, Ph.D., professor at the University of Minnesota and author of "Take Back Your Marriage"

#6 Conscious Loving: The Journey to Co-Commitment
Author: Gay Hendricks and Kathlyn Hendricks

According to Amazon: Here is a powerful new program that can clear away the unconscious agreements patterns that undermine even your best intentions. Through their own marriage and through twenty years' experience  counseling more than one thousand couples, therapists Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks have developed precise strategies to help you create a vital partnership and enhance the energy, creativity, and happiness of each individual.

#7 Babyproofing Your Marriage: How to Laugh More and Argue Less As Your Family Grows
Author: Stacie Cockrell, Cathy O'Neill, Julia Stone and Rosario Camacho-Koppel

According to Amazon: Babyproofing Your Marriage is the warts-and-all truth about how having children can affect your relationship. The transition to parenthood can be a tough adjustment for any couple, but the good news is: you are not alone. Better yet, there are hundreds of simple but effective ways you can stay connected as husband and wife and still be good parents. The authors' evenhanded approach to both sides of the marital equation allows spouses to understand each other in a whole new way. With loads of humor, compassion, and practical advice, the Babyproofers will guide first-time parents and veterans alike around the rocky shores of the early parenting years.

#8 Fighting for Your Marriage: A Deluxe Revised Edition of the Classic Best-seller for Enhancing Marriage and Preventing Divorce
Author: Howard J. Markman, Scott M. Stanley and Susan L. Blumberg

According to Amazon: New and revised, Fighting for Your Marriage is based on the widely acclaimed PREP (Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program) approach. Groundbreaking studies have found that couples can use the strategies of this approach to handle conflict more constructively, protect their happiness, and reduce the odds of breaking up.

#9 Love Busters: Protecting Your Marriage from Habits That Destroy Romantic Love
Author: Willard F. Harley

According to Amazon: How spouses treat each other has a tremendous bearing on the success and failure of marriage. In this completely updated and revised edition of Love Busters, Willard F. Harley, Jr., helps couples identify and overcome the most common habits that destroy the feeling of love, including selfish demands, disrespectful judgments, angry outbursts, dishonesty, annoying habits, and thoughtless behavior. Harley also explains how to resolve common marital conflicts such as career choices and financial planning. You can't eliminate conflict altogether, but once these Love Busters are eliminated, conflicts can be resolved with love and grace. With Harley's expert guidance, couples will be able to avoid those behaviors that tear a marriage apart and focus instead on building their love for each other.

#10 Fight Less, Love More: 5-Minute Conversations to Change Your Relationship without Blowing Up or Giving In
Author: Laurie Puhn

According to Good Reads, In Fight Less, Love More, readers will learn how to identify the bad verbal habits, instinctive responses, and emotional reasoning that can cloud judgment and ultimately lead to the deterioration of otherwise healthy relationships.

"With advice that is nonjudgmental, extremely efficient, and clearly understandable, Puhn covers all aspects of romantic relationships, from problems like infidelity to boundaries giving couples of every strip something of benefit. Eschewing frustrating vagaries, sweeping generalizations, and gender-based assumptions, Puhn's extremely specific guide focuses on simple, rational solutions that primarily revolve around maintaining respect for one's partner. Readers will gain a great deal from her contribution to the genre." (Publishers Weekly)

Jason Estrada is currently working on his master's for creative writing, in the hopes of becoming a very rich screenwriter some day. His other interests include photography, cinematography, and video editing. His favorite book is The Great Gatsby. Favorite movie is either The Crow or When Harry Met Sally - can't decide. And his all time favorite show is Doctor Who.

When he's not enjoying any of those things, you can find him at home, drinking and smoking way too much while listening to VNV Nation. You can email him at jason@getlusty.com, or try his Facebook page.

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8 Herbs and Vitamins to Make Sex Explosive

As we age, it is natural for our libido to drop and our testosterone and estrogen hormones to decrease. With a healthy regime full of exercise, communication, sleep, and limited alcohol and tobacco, we can reverse this effect. Its time to start filling up your grocery cart with these vitamin rich foods and herbs to rev up your sex life. Don't forget it's Naked November and having a healthy diet can help you feel sexier naked!

Disclaimer: Please talk to your physician before deciding to add any vitamins or herbs into your diet especially if you are diabetic, breast feeding, taking medications, or recently had surgery.

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#1 Iron

Lack of sleep can greatly affect your sex life. A missing sex life can be attributed to fatigue, lack of exercise, poor diet, and low iron. Low iron, also know as anemia, can be link to feeling tired, weak and worn out. Meat, fish, cereals, dark leafy greens, and shellfish will provide you with iron as well as a daily vitamin supplement.

#2 Zinc

According to Livestrong, In an Australian study published in the "Asian Journal of Andrology" in 2009, researchers investigated the effect of zinc on 458 subfertile men. The team found that zinc deficiency leads to gonadal dysfunction and decreased testicular weight and can deplete levels of testosterone.

Zinc plays a crucial part in sexual development. Why? Men require zinc to create sperm. Find zinc in one of our favorite aphrodisiacs: oysters. Zinc is also found in eggs, beans, nuts and whole grains.

#3 Vitamin C

Vitamin C helps in strengthening blood vessel walls and helps the synthesis of hormones essential for sex. Vitamin C also helps prevents colds and improves your immune system. Eat lots of citrus fruits, kiwi and peppers for some much needed Vitamin C!

#4 Vitamin E  

Vitamin E is referred to as the "sex vitamin" because it has been said to help in the production of sex hormones, which aids in attraction, desire and mood. This vitamin can also be used locally in the woman's vagina as a lubricant to help increase their experience and rehydrate tissue.

Be careful, though, if using latex condoms and oil based lubricants as it could reduce the effectiveness of the condom. For women: Poke a vitamin capsule with a pin and apply to your vagina several times a week to help increase sensation! Find Vitamin E in capsule form, or get it from foods like wheat germ, green vegetables and surprisingly, margarine.

#5 Ginseng

Ginseng can increase blood flow through a man's lower extremity and increase a female's desire, performance, energy and orgasm.

Ginseng affects the dopamine system which researchers believe trigger the sex drive. Men and women have been reportedly to feel more in the mood after taking ginseng supplements and being more excitable. Ginseng is not recommended if you are breast feeding due to the estrogen like effects.

#6 Maca 

Maca, also known as, Peruvian Ginseng, grows in the high altitude regions of Peru. According to Discovery Health, Maca is Peru's Natural Viagra." Maca is said to improve lust and orgasm in both men and women. It is also used to improve one's strength, energy, stamina and libido. This is a non-toxic herb that anyone can take for improved sexual vibrancy. Certain health food stores sell this in supplement form.

#7 Horny Goat Weed

As the name suggest, Horny Goat Weed is a dark, leafy plant has been attributed to boost your libido! In men specifically, this herb has been found to correct erectile dysfunction. This herb can be taken in tea form with no known side effects. However, this herb is inconsistent in its commercial production, so you can get a bad batch that won't do anything for you.

#8 L-Arginine 

L-Arginine is an amino acid that has been called a Viagra substitute for men and women! It increases the amount of blood flow to your sex organs. For the man, he will get a longer and stronger erection. For the woman, this can aid in increased stimulation. There is an herbal pill form of L-Arginine which is common among males.

Before deciding to add vitamins or herbs to your diet, do more research! We found much information about these from Discovery Health. As your physician and do research to see if the ingredients found in these herbs could cause negative reactions. Have other specific problems? Do e-mail us at reply@getlusty.com!

Lora is a GetLusty Staff Writer and resident health nut. When she is not writing, you can find her on her yoga mat, exploring Chicago via bicycle, or hanging out with her wonderful boyfriend in their north side apartment. She has a habit of spending too much money on soy lattes and yoga clothes. Find her on Twitter @HoneyNutLo. Have any questions, email her at Lora@GetLusty.com.

You have read this article better sex / erectile dysfunction / food / lora swarts / low-desire / sexual health with the title low-desire. You can bookmark this page URL https://jadejurgensen.blogspot.com/2012/11/8-herbs-and-vitamins-to-make-sex.html. Thanks!