Pillows, Blankets & Bedsheets Must Be Shared by Two

Sleeping Together: Resolving Marital Problems, Relieving Stress and Anxiety

A sleep specialist from the University of Michigan, Dr. Beth Malow, has stated that married couples spend nearly one-third of their lives sleeping together.

She encourages married couples to cuddle. Many marriage experts believe that peaceful sleeping together can keep a marriage healthy.

Why Share a Bed?

Why do people share a bed with a spouse if they would sleep better if they didn't? Usually the answer is because even if you don't get the best night's sleep, you find comfort and emotional intimacy in sleeping together.

Sleep Position: Spooning
When you can sleep together, many sleep experts recommend "spooning." This is the sleeping position where people sleep nested together like spoons. This sleeping position is believed to increase intimacy and lower stress.

Sometimes people worry because their spouse is sleeping with their back to them or seems to be far away in the bed. Don't jump to conclusions.

Although sleep positions can be a red flag in a marriage, experts say there is no "good" or "bad" sleep positions in a marriage.

Best Solution: Compromise
So what do you do if you have different sleep preferences? Find ways to compromise. If that doesn't work, be realistic and consider separate bedrooms or twin beds.

Separate bedrooms or twin beds can save your marriage. When couples first start sleeping together, they are willing to sacrifice comfort to be close to their partner. After about five years or so, many people just want to have a good night's sleep again.

Millions of Couples Sleep Together

The truth is, millions of us do share our beds and we do sleep with others and whether we snore or not or whether we prefer the right side of the bed or the left side of the bed. Those things do affect our partners and us. Contrary to popular opinion, there is more to sharing a bed than sexual intimacy - it's a challenging and complicated part of our marriages and one we rarely address. In fact how you and your spouse handle the complicated matter of sharing a bed can actually have a profound effect on the rest of your marriage.

When you go to bed in the evening, many couples spend at least a few minutes reflecting on their day and chatting. That time spent talking in bed may be the only time they spend totally focused on each other in their entire day. Those few minutes of conversation are critical to the overall health of the relationship and since most married couples, myself included, put a high premium on sharing a bed with their spouse - it's important to understand that when you have difficulty sharing the same bed or you go to bed alone and wake up alone - you may be isolating yourself in your marriage.

Sharing Your Bed & Your Life

The benefits of sharing a bed together include:

• Increased intimacy
• Pleasurable activity
• Increased sense of comfort
• Security in planning and decision making
• Solving problems together
• Catching up with each other

Without this time together, it can affect every other part of the couple's relationship. So when one partner snores and it drives the other partner out of the room, it's about more than just the physical act of snoring. Some couples will even forgo regular sleep in favor of maintaining their closeness together. The thing is, when we have trouble sleeping, we get cranky. When we have trouble sleeping together, we get lonely.

Cranky and lonely are two separate feelings, but both of those emotions affect our marriages and us. There's lots of help out there for sleeping problems for individuals, but not a lot about helping the two of you get a good night's sleep together and overcoming the complication of being an early bird versus a night owl versus liking a lot of pillows versus no pillows versus a firm mattress or a soft mattress and the list goes on and on and on.

Learn How to Sleep Together

When you are first married, learning how to sleep together is actually a part of orientating yourself to marriage. It's more than just a life change, it's a change in thinking, feeling and doing. There's no handbook on how to sleep together, we all figure it out for ourselves. It's about our physical and emotional security.

How do you and your spouse handle sleeping together?

A Love Story That Made Us Shed a Tear

AN ADAPTATION… Thanks to Mr. Ramon E. Mendoza.

I intend to share this very inspiring story that has made me as well as a bunch of my closest friends cry. And I do hope you can also pass it on… Share this story online, post in your Facebook walls and in your FB notes. And I am telling you, it’s worth every tag. =)

When I got home that night as my wife served dinner, I held her hand and said, I've got something to tell you. She sat down and ate quietly. Again I observed the hurt in her eyes.

Suddenly I didn't know how to open my mouth. But I had to let her know what I was thinking. I want a divorce. I raised the topic calmly. 

She didn't seem to be annoyed by my words, instead she asked me softly, why? I avoided her question. This made her angry. She threw away the chopsticks and shouted at me, you are not a man!

That night, we didn't talk to each other. She was weeping. I knew she wanted to find out what had happened to our marriage. But I could hardly give her a satisfactory answer; she had lost my heart to Jane. I didn't love her anymore. I just pitied her!

With a deep sense of guilt, I drafted a divorce agreement which stated that she could own our house, our car, and 30% stake of my company.

She glanced at it and then tore it into pieces. The woman who had spent ten years of her life with me had become a stranger. I felt sorry for her wasted time, resources and energy but I could not take back what I had said for I loved Jane so dearly. Finally she cried loudly in front of me, which was what I had expected to see. To me her cry was actually a kind of release. The idea of divorce which had obsessed me for several weeks seemed to be firmer and clearer now.

The next day, I came back home very late and found her writing something at the table. I didn't have supper but went straight to sleep and fell asleep very fast because I was tired after an eventful day with Jane.
When I woke up, she was still there at the table writing. I just did not care so I turned over and was asleep again.

In the morning she presented her divorce conditions: she didn't want anything from me, but needed a month's notice before the divorce. She requested that in that one month we both struggle to live as normal a life as possible. Her reasons were simple: our son had his exams in a month's time and she didn't want to disrupt him with our broken marriage.

This was agreeable to me. But she had something more, she asked me to recall how I had carried her into out bridal room on our wedding day.

She requested that every day for the month's duration I carry her out of our bedroom to the front door ever morning. I thought she was going crazy. Just to make our last days together bearable I accepted her odd request.
I told Jane about my wife's divorce conditions. . She laughed loudly and thought it was absurd. No matter what tricks she applies, she has to face the divorce, she said scornfully.

My wife and I hadn't had any body contact since my divorce intention was explicitly expressed. So when I carried her out on the first day, we both appeared clumsy. Our son clapped behind us, daddy is holding mommy in his arms. His words brought me a sense of pain. From the bedroom to the sitting room, then to the door, I walked over ten meters with her in my arms. She closed her eyes and said softly; don't tell our son about the divorce. I nodded, feeling somewhat upset. I put her down outside the door. She went to wait for the bus to work. I drove alone to the office.

On the second day, both of us acted much more easily. She leaned on my chest. I could smell the fragrance of her blouse. I realized that I hadn't looked at this woman carefully for a long time. I realized she was not young any more. There were fine wrinkles on her face, her hair was graying! Our marriage had taken its toll on her. For a minute I wondered what I had done to her.

On the fourth day, when I lifted her up, I felt a sense of intimacy returning. This was the woman who had given ten years of her life to me.

On the fifth and sixth day, I realized that our sense of intimacy was growing again. I didn't tell Jane about this. It became easier to carry her as the month slipped by. Perhaps the everyday workout made me stronger.
She was choosing what to wear one morning. She tried on quite a few dresses but could not find a suitable one. Then she sighed, all my dresses have grown bigger. I suddenly realized that she had grown so thin, that was the reason why I could carry her more easily.

Suddenly it hit me... she had buried so much pain and bitterness in her heart. Subconsciously I reached out and touched her head. Our son came in at the moment and said, Dad, it's time to carry mom out. To him, seeing his father carrying his mother out had become an essential part of his life. My wife gestured to our son to come closer and hugged him tightly. I turned my face away because I was afraid I might change my mind at this last minute. I then held her in my arms, walking from the bedroom, through the sitting room, to the hallway. Her hand surrounded my neck softly and naturally. I held her body tightly; it was just like our wedding day.

But her much lighter weight made me sad. On the last day, when I held her in my arms I could hardly move a step. Our son had gone to school. I held her tightly and said, I hadn't noticed that our life lacked intimacy.
I drove to office.... jumped out of the car swiftly without locking the door. I was afraid any delay would make me change my mind...I walked upstairs. Jane opened the door and I said to her, Sorry, Jane, I do not want the divorce anymore.

She looked at me, astonished, and then touched my forehead. Do you have a fever? She said. I moved her hand off my head. Sorry, Jane, I said, I won't divorce. My marriage life was boring probably because she and I didn't value the details of our lives, not because we didn't love each other anymore. Now I realize that since I carried her into my home on our wedding day I am supposed to hold her until death do us apart.
Jane seemed to suddenly wake up. She gave me a loud slap and then slammed the door and burst into tears. I walked downstairs and drove away.

At the floral shop on the way, I ordered a bouquet of flowers for my wife. The salesgirl asked me what to write on the card. I smiled and wrote, I'll carry you out every morning until death do us apart.
That evening I arrived home, flowers in my hands, a smile on my face, I run up stairs, only to find my wife in the bed - dead.

My wife had been fighting CANCER for months and I was so busy with Jane to even notice. She knew that she would die soon and she wanted to save me from the whatever negative reaction from our son, in case we push thru with the divorce.-- At least, in the eyes of our son--- I'm a loving husband....

The small details of your lives are what really matter in a relationship. It is not the mansion, the car, property, the money in the bank. These create an environment conducive for happiness but cannot give happiness in themselves. So find time to be your spouse's friend and do those little things for each other that build intimacy. Do have a real happy marriage!
If you don't share this, nothing will happen to you.
If you do, you just might save a marriage.

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

A CHRIST-CENTERED MARRIAGE IS A MARRIAGE THAT IS SURE TO LAST A LIFETIME.

So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate. Matthew 19:6

♥♥♥ Myraine ♥♥♥

I Whisper I Love You Everytime I Kiss...

What Kissing is...

I wasn't kissing him, I was whispering in his mouth.

I married the first man I ever kissed. When I tell this to my children they just about throw up.

The decision to kiss for the first time is the most crucial in any love story.

It changes the relationship of two people much more strongly than even the final surrender; because this kiss already has within it that surrender.

Ancient lovers believed a kiss would literally unite their souls, because the spirit was said to be carried in one's breath.

A kiss makes the heart young again and wipes out the years.

A kiss can beautify souls hearts and thoughts.

Kissing is like drinking salted water: you drink and your thirst increases.

A man snatches the first kiss, pleads for the second, demands the third, takes the fourth, accepts the fifth ... and endures all the rest.

A kiss that is never tasted, is forever and ever wasted.

A man's kiss is his signature.

Always kiss your children goodnight, even if they're already asleep.

Happy Kissing!

I just feel like kissing him. :)

♥♥♥ Myraine ♥♥♥