YOUR MARITAL HEALTH/SEX AND PROBLEMS OF DAILY LIVING: PERSONAL PLAY AND MARITAL PLEASURE: SPOUSEHOOD AND “SPERSONHOOD” – SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVING RECREATIONAL TIME TOGETHER

Here are some suggestions for improving recreational time together.

1. Select an entirely new activity that neither one of you has ever done before, even in childhood. There are hundreds of possibilities.

2. Decide what type of recreation suits your “unit.” If one of you is very athletic and the other more artistic, the activity will have to stress other skills, leaving these for individual enjoyment.

3. Start the activity together and develop it together. If one or the other partner tends to “get ahead” in most things, make sure you leam together. This one activity is only for the two of you. You can still have your golf, tennis, running, or whatever other activity you may enjoy as an individual.

One wife reported, “We came up with something. It’s sailing. We both can’t swim, have never been on a boat, and don’t like the water. We couldn’t come up with anything, so we picked the one thing most unlike both of us. It’s working out slowly. He tried to be the captain and make me crew, but I think we worked that out after he fell off the boat while trying to tell me to be careful. There he was, mouth full of water, his captain’s hat floating beside him, and trying to tell me how to save him.”

4 Remember that individual activities are still important. One husband stated, “We have spouse activities that include tennis and walking. Then we have what we call ‘sperson’ activities, individual things we do with other people. She golfs, I golf, but we’re at drastically different levels of ability there. I will never be the golfer she is, so we each enjoy it to our own level with other people more at our level.”

The marriage that plays together and plays separately is most likely to find super marital sex, for the joy and energizing aspects of fulfilling play can enter into the sexual relationship. As you consider this possibility, remember that a mutual involvement in a “mini-career” could also be a form of play. Noel Coward said, “Work is much more fun than fun.”

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CHECKING EXTENT OF CANCER BEFORE ATTEMPTING POTENTIALLY CURATIVE SURGERY – REMOVING CANCER

Say you do have a cancer which is in a part of the body that can be safely removed. How can you be as sure as possible, before the operation, that complete removal of the cancer is feasible? Firstly, you should understand that if only the visible cancer growth is removed, without a margin of apparently normal tissue, it is most unlikely that you will be cured. This is because of the ability of cancer cells to grow into the surrounding tissues. They do this in small columns or clumps which are much too tiny to be seen other than through a microscope. Before the operation, then, it is important to know just where the borders of your primary cancer growth appear to be. Your surgeon will then know whether or not it will be possible to remove an adequate margin of the apparently normal tissues surrounding it. Your doctor should check the apparent extent of your primary cancer growth by taking a careful history of your symptoms, examining you clinically and arranging, with your agreement, whatever tests—X-rays, scans, blood tests and so on—are necessary to provide a complete picture.

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