The Complete Idiot's Guide to Marriage

I now take a break from my normally scheduled program- that would be lying on the sofa drinking tea while Adelay tears apart the house- to bring you this shocking update: married people should be having sex! For this and more profound advise, keep reading.
I am passing on this info from today's featured guest on Live!With Regis and Kelly, Dr. Robi Ludwig, who offers these ten genius tips for rekindling romance in one's marriage:
1. Spend time together. (No marriage will work if you don't live in the same house, apparently.)
2. Spend time apart. (This seems contradictory, but the point seems to be that while you must reside in the same zip code, you must also take care not to see so much of one another that you start to resent the very way your spouse breathes.)
3. Pick and choose your battles. (Boil this one down and it's basically an admonition to quit fighting about everything. Just fight about some things.)
4. Compliment your spouse on their strengths. (Dr. Ludwig wished to point out that we sometimes stop noticing the good things and tend to focus on the negative. So, children, what we should do is try to say more nice things and fewer mean things.)
5. Foreplay. (Apparently the one word says it all- make the effort. Lose the sweatpants.)
6. Sex. (Again, it appears to be so simple. Have some, people! Kelly's brilliant side note on this subject? "More sex leads to more sex." Aha.)
7. Have empathy for your partner. (This one was, I thought, particularly insightful. As Dr. Ludwig noted- and this is all verbatim-,"We should try to think about how other people feel. Sometimes we only think of our own feelings. We have to try to think of others." Is this a forum on marriage or an episode of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood?)
8. Share your dreams. (At Regis's naughty smirk, Dr. Ludwig cautioned the men, "Maybe don't share all your dreams.)
9. Set goals for your relationship. ("Have more sex!" would presumably be one of the suggested goals.)
10. Keep the spark alive. (How to do this? "Glam up" your marriage, was the good doctor's suggestion. Return to the sight of your first date. Provided you even remember it. On the other hand, if the sight of your first date was less than glamorous- more along the lines of a high school keg party, perhaps, than an elegant restaurant- then my thought would be maybe try to erase that memory and make a new one. All of this assumes there is enough money in your expendable income to afford both a babysitter and a hot date. And that there is anyone left in your town willing to babysit your brood.)
So, get to work, folks! Go throw on a lacy nightie and light a candle! Or you could just accept that things change, and that this doesn't always equal the death of a relationship. I read an article on married sex by Dave Barry once in which he noted that women often overate the importance of lingerie. "Just show up naked, and you've done your part," was his thought. From my sofa, in my oversized sweatshirt, I say a nauseous amen.