Expectant Fathers

Lesson 5: Playing In Your Relationship - Getting Stronger By The Day!!

Affection

Just the word “affection” projects a feeling of romance. Couples often forget how pregnancy began, with passion and unrequited love. To give and receive love is your primary need. It makes us feel lovable. An affectionate touch or hug from each other can penetrate your bodies and restore your souls. All of your fears, no matter how deep, no matter that they are unique to you as an expectant mom or dad, can be erased by a single loving stroke.

You may have first felt love from your spouse by being held when you were hurting, or by being given credit, or by being paid attention to, or by being given things, your body will remember that all of your life. Any when it happens again, you will feel it deeply as love. Physical affection from your spouse, touching, stroking, holding hands stimulates the body to release hormones that relax your nervous system, reduce your anxiety, and allow for your attention to be focused solely on your partner. Fathers have told me that the most wonderful feeling they have during any day is that of being hugged by their wife and told “it will be alright” if the day has been particularly difficult. This is easy to understand; caressing feels good.

The word affection comes from affect, feeling. Affection refers to closeness both on a physical and on the feeling level. Physically, it includes the range of touch, from holding to sex. Affection is also a quality of feeling. In this regard it includes kindliness, considerateness, thoughtfulness, playfulness, and romantic overtures like giving flowers or remembering a special day. Affection comes from a genuine liking of someone. Affection includes nearness, or providing a loving presence. You receive real affection when your spouse is committed to being beside you often. Its true meaning comes from the unconditional acceptance of who you are all the time and genuinely liked most of the time.

Affection Suggestions for the Expectant Mother

• Reach over while watching television and take his hand in yours

• Kiss often

• Give him a hug in the kitchen because you love him

• Say “I love you” often

• Wear his favorite perfume

• Put a sexy note in his suit or coat pocket

• Sit close together while watching one of his favorite programs

• Unplug the telephone while having dinner

• Have dinner together as often as possible…with the television turned off

• If people call when it is your time together, let them know you or your husband will have to call them back at a later time

• Affection is not just a strategy for sex. When it is, it destroys intimacy and becomes manipulative. In adult relationships, there is intimacy without sex at times and sex with intimacy always.
• Reach over while watching television and take his hand in yours

• Kiss often

• Give her a hug in the kitchen because you love her

• Whisper “I love you” in her ear

• Sit close together while watching one of her favorite programs

• Have dinner together as often as possible…with the television turned off

• If people call when it is your time together, let them know you or your wife will have to call them back at a later time

• When doing things for her out of the ordinary, let her know the reason: because you love her

• Dance with her in your living room

• Stay in bed an extra hour on the weekend with your wife

• Talk, read the paper together, or simply stroke her back. Soft music can help set the atmosphere

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