TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Contents: this page
2. Medical: What you need to know about stroke and heart attack emergencies. To view, click here.
3. Introduction: Why I put together this book
4. Love: What it means; marriage; divorce; reflections
5. Communication is more than sounds pouring from your mouth.
6. Disagreements don’t need to rock the boat.
7. Conflict Resolution: May be tough, sometimes it makes sense to seek a third party.
8. Substance abuse: You already know.
9. Physical Bases for heart attack & stroke; blood pressure; sex.
10. Handling stress: It doesn't need to kill you: specific suggestions
11. Massage can be an integral part of your closeness; here’s the How To
12. Pleasuring: What you do for and to each other; includes specific suggestions
13. Sexual delights: If you’re not serious, pass up this chapter; it's highly specific.
14. Exercise, Warm Ups: Suggestions for a complete regimen
15. Diet: You are indeed what you eat: emphasis on heart and blood pressure concerns.
16. Autobiography: Background for why I have responded as I have.

PRACTICALITIES OF LIFE:

Studies have shown the adults who get involved in their communities live longer than their peers who don’t volunteer.
A friendship (or marriage), to be successful, must of necessity be a communion of equals, equal spiritually, emotionally, morally, of equal worth before man and God.
The best cement I know for a marriage is commitment by each individually to principles or goals larger than either, be they religious, charitable, children, community, . . .
You don’t have to rehearse to be yourself.
A healthy life style can slow the bodily decline -- not prevent it, but slow the loss of libido, muscle mass, memory, bone mass.
Practice good communication skills so your children will have good role models.

Excerpts from the

This is an adult book. It is intended to suggest ways to strengthen your committed relationship and to provide information on improving your longevity. It includes adult topics and language because that is necessary to my presentation of the results of my quest for information. At the same time it is a personal look at life and love as I have experienced them. I present this Introduction because context is important to motivating you to consider what I offer here.

I started this book many years ago, even before my marriage ended. At that time I was concerned with the pressures that cause divisions within the marital union. My then-wife and I had, I had thought, an agreeable marriage that afforded us both a reasonable measure of fulfillment and happiness. But it turned out I was naive; she professed that she had for years been unhappy, and the fact that we had taken two or three monthly mini-vacations for the past couple years, as well as undertaken ballroom and square dancing at her request, were not enough to overcome her unhappiness. For a time we lived separately, undertook marriage counseling; we later moved into a shared apartment. And it was my hope at that time to share the results of our efforts to find marital peace. [Divorce followed anyway.]

Thereafter for years I plied my path trying to live some of these principles but never making significant progress on the book. But now, after my heart attack [and, before I reached print, a stroke], and while I am not in a committed loving relationship, I sense an urgency in offering this contribution to stress-free, healthy living. Now is the time lest health rob me of the opportunity. . . .

The organization of the book is happenchance; you might prefer to think of it as random. There is no intent to present something that you will read from beginning to end; more likely one section will seem appropriate now and another at some other time (although the chapters on Pleasuring and Sexual Delights offer something of a continuum). It is my expectation nothing will prove trivial and unworthy of your time and attention. . . .

I have heard it said that Evolution, as a matter of survival of the best adapted, has produced our bodily design with the attributes and peculiarities best suited to our niche in Nature. . . . If any individual wishes to sustain his life beyond the allotted interval dictated by Evolution and maintain his faculties well enough to be active and productive into what is now ripe old age, he must take care to protect -- nurture -- the parts of his body that seem necessary to continued functioning. . . .

That heart attack was brought on by the stress produced by surging emotion in the wake of collapse in efforts to restore a lost love. Not that that was the whole cause; my genes include a weakness and no doubt the process was well under way. . . .

But I am not anxious to experience that peace [of death] permanently, to abandon life. Nor do I feel a desperation for life to continue. I had undertaken this book some 18 or 19 years ago, after separation from my wife of 30 years and failed efforts at reconciliation. It was my hope then, as it is my hope now, that it can help someone order his life to preclude these kinds of stresses and the resulting threat to happiness or life itself. . . .

According to medical literature, stress is one of the most prevalent causes of the build-up of plaque in our arteries. [And this book is intended to help others avoid stresses.]

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To view the contents of Ken Wear's Web Site, click here.

My printer requires 3 pages or 2 sheets of paper to print this document.