YOUR MARITAL HEALTH/OWNING AND OPERATING YOUR OWN SEX CLINIC: POSTAL SEX
Another way of following up on your marital learning is to correspond together regularly by letter. Marital therapists and marriage-encounter groups use this technique, and I find it helpful to the couples. The rules are simple:
1. Write a one-page letter only. No typing, so write slowly and clearly.
2. Proofread your letter before sending it. Make sure it reads just the way you want it to.
3. Buy and use your own special stationery for this assignment. This gives the letters a special personal touch.
4. Mail the letter. Don’t just give it to your spouse, but send it to him or her.
5. Never discuss the letters. Write to each other about them.
6. Write only from the “1,” using “you” only as the object of the verb, not the subject. “I love you, I would like to take you to … I would love it if we could . . . etc.”
7. If you send a letter about a problem, remember to avoid what I call SSAADD language. Do not use sarcasm, surrendering comments, accusations, assumptions about motives, demeaning statements, or demands Tell what you like and want, not what is not happening or what fails.
8. A basic rule is that you must answer the letter you receive within two weeks after the date on that letter (so remember to date each letter). Keen a file of your letters as they are received so that dates can be remembered If you don’t get an answer within four weeks of the date on the letter you sent, you may then send another, but do not discuss the issue or question your partner about the letter. This postal assignment is a supplementary assignment. Don’t use it as evidence against or for each other or the marriage.
9. If you get very busy and feel you cannot write to your spouse for a while, tell her or him by letter. Keep this assignment going in the mail, never the bedroom.
10. Change the rules of the letter-writing only by mail.
“I never write longhand and I never write letters,” said one husband. “When I tried, though, it really helped me think things out about us. I kept my attention on us. One page was nothing. I could have written much more.”
His wife added, “At first I was sending complaint letters or trying to be cute. Now we write only every two months or so and the letters are two pages. We worked all that out by mail. Now we send love letters except for one period when we carried on a several-week fight by mail. When I proofread my fight letters, two things happened. First, I wasn’t as angry oncej wrote it out, so I had to write again. Second, I found out that I was always angry about feelings, not facts or issues.”
*198\97\8*
