Regardless of what you may think, it's easier to realize this than it is to act on it. My marriage failed because her needs, feelings and expressions about all of these things fell on deaf ears and created an insecurity in her and an insecurity in me. I felt that I somehow was incapable of being the man, the romantic, the lover, the friend that she needed. Everytime she tried to tell me what she needed, as kindly and softly as she would try to express her feelings, it still made me think I couldn't achieve it because she had to tell me. The distance grew deeper and deeper until one day after 14 years of marriage, I discovered she was having an affair. By this time I was also having an affair of my own. I learned the reality about women and relationships from the lessons learned in my own affair, I've discovered that it's not all that difficult to be married or have a successful relationship. You simply must learn how women feel and how to react to them. Unfortunately, I didn't realize it until I had my first affair.

You must realize that women want intimacy. Intimacy isn't about sex, it's about trust, sharing, bonding, romance for the sake of desire and passion, not for the sake of your perception about love or roles in the relationship. In my affair, before anything sexually ever happened, we were friends for several months in which we shared every intimate detail about our lives, our feelings, our childhood, other relationships and whatever else that came pouring out. It occurred to me quickly that I could feel so free to express these things to her so how come it was so hard to express them to my wife? Simply put, we develop roles and patterns with our relationships and once those are established, it's almost impossible to break out of them, so the trick is to avoid roles and patterns and routines and be free flowing. Free with information, free and flexible in support and time, honest with your feelings.

Stop thinking about what your role is supposed to be and start doing what you FEEL like doing in relation to the way you FEEL about your woman. Tell the truth about everything, explain deep down what makes you laugh, what makes you smile, what she does that turns you on and what she does that scares, annoys or bothers you, be honest with your own insecurities and discover how they affect your behavior. In my marriage, my sex life really sucked. I got married very young and even though I had experienced other women, I hadn't really experienced intimate sex. In my marriage I was insecure about my performance. Let's just say I lacked the endurance (or was convinced I did) to turn my wife on. Sex became what it becomes for many married women, an obligation, a chore, another task and role in the marriage. That eventually turned into total awkwardness when initiating any physical contact. In my affair, I quickly learned that lovemaking was the most intimate time two people have to share, bond and explore each other. Sex wasn't about orgasms, this sex was about sharing everything. My endurance problem quickly subsided as I discovered, the second period of arousal for me could last much longer, let alone the third or fourth. The reason this could be discovered in an affair and not in a marriage is because, in the affair, we rented a hotel room and stayed in bed all day. When was the last time you spent an entire day in bed with your wife or lover? Because we could only be together about once a month, the entire day was spent making love, cuddling, talking, bonding, sharing, making love again and again, showering together, and saying our good-byes until the next time. We discovered our own sexual preferences by exploring them with each other in honest and candid discussion coupled with trial and error. This is the sort of communication that commonly gets lost in role-playing, task oriented marriages.

Therefore, you must develop the most honest form of communication that can exist between two best friends. This is the root to intimacy. Total trust. Think back about those best friends of childhood that you could tell your most painful emotional secrets to. That's how you should treat the woman you love and how she will feel safe in sharing with you her deepest darkest secrets, fears and desires.

Even if you think I'm full of shit, evaluate your relationship, think she's happy? Ask her and LISTEN, but be careful, because she may be afraid to tell you the truth, because if she loves you, the truth will hurt, and she doesn't want to hurt you, so she'd rather tell you everything is fine, you are a great lover, you make me happy, etc. If that's the truth, you are doing the right things, if she's just telling you out of love, it will only last so long before she can't face it anymore and discovers that her happiness has been a fraud all along.

Various ways to improve your relationship and learn are up to you. But the bottom line is communication and security. If you both feel insecure or fearful of expressing your true feelings, you will never quit playing the roles and the patterns of behavior, i.e., sex, parenting, chores, will never change until one day she wakes up and realizes her life is far from what she expected it to be.

In the event, you've tried these things and she hasn't been able to open up and share or is unable to cope with your newfound honesty and loving approaches, then there may be no hope left for you.

NEVER, settle for a lie or the routine. Quit fooling yourself, quit fooling the woman you love. Flowers are not enough to say I love you, in all the complaints (I did hear some of them although I never changed) I did learn something... it wasn't the flowers, it's the little things. It's the soft warm hug in the morning, it's looking at her when you are sitting across the table over a cup of coffee instead of reading the newspaper. It's asking her if she'd like help with the dishes instead of waiting for her to ask you. It's seeing you initiate the day out with the family and the kids, instead of her having to pull your ass off the couch to go to the zoo. Those are the things that give her the security that YOU are happy with her, that you WANT to participate in the relationship, that YOU are a part of the family and not just the guy who pays the bills. Learn these things about women and whether you are ending a relationship are beginning a new one, you will find that the women in your life will love you faithfully and unconditionally out of respect and not out of obligation or insecurity. MEN if you want to love a woman, wake UP and show her. Unfortunately for my marriage, I learned too late.