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Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Dirty Relationship Reflection #2


In //Pursuing the Good Life: 100 Reflections on Positive Psychology//, the late Christopher Peterson talks about how work, love, and play are fundamental to human happiness. He adds service also, in an addendum, because service offers a connection beyond the more intimate conception of love, which usually refers to spouse, kids, loved ones, and neighbors, to a larger, less integrated community.

I’m not here to recap Peterson’s book, though I am reading as I write these posts.

When considering play, I think of writing. It’s still a hobby for me—at best part-time work (which I seem to specialize at—part-time job, part-time farmer, part-time writer, part-time stay-at-home-mom). But a hobby is, by nature, play. Play, Peterson points out, is essential in the animal world, and people who pursue leisure time activities are happier than those who do not.

So, Ax, you might be asking, WTF does this have to do with romance and relationships?

Well, ever play make-believe with your partner?

No, no, you dirty-minded fellow perverts, not that kind of make-believe. I have never been a serving wench and he has never been pirate. (Though that does give me a story idea…) I’m not talking bondage or pony-play or even a sexy plumber scene.

As a writer, my job is to basically sit down and play make-believe with myself. And when I love writing the most is when it feels like play, like I’m sitting down at my desk and playing in my imagination for two hours during the kiddo’s naptime. But sometimes, like all writers, I get stuck.

I’m a talker; it’s how I work through sticky plots, character motivations, grocery lists, you name it. Luckily my partner doesn’t mind this. I often wander into our living room, tell him about whatever writing thing I’m having a problem with, he talks to me until we figure it out, I go back and write it down. Recently, we’ve started collaborating on a non-erotic project (sorry, kids), and it’s been a blast. Basically, I get to sit and play make-believe with my partner as we construct a novel together. 


The take-away from this?

For that, I’d like to quote Christopher Peterson.

“In play we find and pursue our passions.”

Writing is one of my passions. My partner is another. Put them together, and the end result gains far, far more worth than the sum of its parts. What do you two (or three or four...) enjoy for leisure, and how can you use that to strengthen your own relationship?

Monday, February 17, 2014

Happiness Can Be Taught



I’m no relationship expert. The only relationship that I can really be considered an expert at is my own. It’s sort of a dirty little secret that my partner and I are so happy in one another—like goofy-happy, adoringly stare into each other’s eyes type happy. We don’t fight; we rarely so much as disagree, and we genuinely enjoy spending time together. So while I might not be able to comment on someone else’s relationship issues, I am able to discuss what works for us.

I wandered into knowledge of positive psychology by accident. Well, accident and a date. My partner teaches the stuff and, since he’s my partner, I care about what he cares about, and vice versa.

Or at least will listen to the other ramble on and on when all we want to do is take a shower and go to sleep. (That is, by the way, how you know its love, when he matters more to you than your pillow does.)

Positive psychology reverses a lot of the teachings from other branches of psychology, namely looking at what is right as opposed to what’s broken or pathological. It also emphasizes that happiness can be taught.

In the spirit of this, I’d like to reflect about happiness in relationships, mostly romantic relationships, since—surprise!—I write erotica, and erotica by nature tends to deal with romantic relationships to some degree. And also because, as far as relationships and positive psychology go, that’s where my expertise lies. So over the coming weeks, this is what I can teach about what works for us, and hopefully it can be adapted into something to work for you.

Keep smiling; it makes them wonder what you’re up to.

Don’t forget to “like” me on Facebook, /menagegeek, and check in when you can for the daily postings, musings, and erotic randomness from the mind of erotic writer, Axa Lee.