For ten years, I wrote the column “Naked Relationships” to help readers experience the ultimate in authentic, loving relationships — something I had yet to get my arms around.

With the zeal of a diligent seeker, I researched love and interviewed the experts in order to deliver the goods on intimacy, passion and commitment. The fairy tale was real, but it was more than a happy ending. When we see Cinderella being swept away by the prince, we forget how many years she spent in self-therapy while cleaning her stepmother’s house and waiting on her stepsisters.

The relationship you want can only be had through hard work on yourself … and that’s the work we do our best to avoid. It’s much easier to shell out money. Americans spend 35 billion dollars a year on unproven diet products because they find it too difficult to eat less.

And eating less is easy compared to getting naked. We’re scared to death to strip away the family, the house, the degree, the job, the kids. We’ve defined ourselves by appearance, grades, athletic ability, good behavior or rebellion as far back as we can remember. You’re not alone if you’re thinking, “Who would I be without all that?”… More

Despite all our science, many men still talk about what women want as though it’s beyond their comprehension. In light of new research, perhaps some of it’s because men confuse what women want from a long-term relationship with what they want from sex!

Despite all of our political correctness and sexual liberation, maybe society as a whole still makes a more ready distinction between sex and love for men than between sex and love for women.

What women ultimately want in a relationship is simply to be known and loved to the core by a trusted companion. What women want from sex, on the other hand, varies from woman to woman, and from situation to situation.

I asked David Buss, noted psychologist and co-author of well-researched “Why Women Have Sex,” to help dispel some of the confusion.

“The takeaway from the book is that women have a complex sexual psychology that cannot be easily summarized by a few things,” says Buss. “Women have sex for dozens or hundreds of reasons, from feeling sorry for a guy to getting revenge on a guy; from consummating a love relationship to scratching a sexual itch; from beating out other females to doing a favor for a friend.… More

If there’s something missing in my relationship, I’m not giving it. I will get out what I put in. God’s magic!

Always true … in your relationships, too.… More