Ask Zelda: Quesitons on sexless marriage and unrequited love answered

By Zelda West-Meads

PUBLISHED: 18:01 EST, 28 September 2013 | UPDATED: 18:01 EST, 28 September 2013

Is it possible to have a sex-free marriage?

I love my husband dearly, and wouldn't dream of hurting him, but if he turned around and said he never wanted sex again I would be ecstatic. I am in my late 40s, he is 55 and we have been married for 15 years. I would rather have a cup of tea than sex. I would just like a cuddle but he might see this as an invitation for sex.

I know it sounds horrible - but I can't be bothered. We had sex two weeks ago and before that it was last summer. I don't fancy him but I don't fancy anyone else either. If I told him that it would break his heart. If we stop making love altogether, I think we would end up divorcing. I would be sad but almost relieved. Is there anything I can do to get my libido back? Surely there must be successful marriages out there that don't rely on sex.

It is possible to be happily married and not have a sexual relationship, but - and it's a big but - only if you both feel the same way.

I get lots of letters about the loss of sexual desire from women - and some from men, though fewer. The first question for someone who no longer wants to make love should be: is it that you no longer fancy your partner, or that you have lost your libido completely?

Loss of sexual desire is often due to problems in the relationship but it sounds as if you have a good marriage, so I think we can rule that out. Complete loss of sexual desire can be caused by stress, depression, diabetes, an underactive thyroid, drug or alcohol misuse - all of which can suppress your libido.

With your menopause just around the corner, it could be a diminishing level of hormones such as oestrogen or testosterone. So discuss all of this with your GP. There is help available such as HRT or testosterone patches. Tell your husband that you still love him but you are suffering with a low libido or hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD, as it is known) and that you are going to get help.

As you have made love only once in the past year, he must have some idea that there is a problem and he could be feeling quite rejected. It is better to admit to a general loss of sexual desire, rather than just making excuses not to make love, or not daring to show him any affection in case it leads to sex.

Our dog is taking over our life

Six years ago my husband and I bought a puppy who we both love to bits, but I have developed a fear of leaving her when we go on holiday. It's getting so bad that I don't want to go away and this is annoying my husband.

We have been married for 18 years and are happy together. We chose not to have children. Although we have found a very reliable dogsitter, in the weeks leading up to our departure I have been unable to sleep and I don't want to go away. On one occasion we cancelled the holiday at the last minute and suffered a heavy financial loss. If we do go, I wish the time away so I can get back to the dog. I would like to be able to relax and enjoy going on holiday again but I can't.

Think of it this way - you are not exactly being fair to your husband or yourself. If you keep refusing to go or are counting the days until you return, your husband could accuse you in a cross moment of putting the dog before him. Dogs are thought not to have the same concept of time as we do but to live more in the moment, so she won't be counting the days until you return, though of course she will be delighted to see you.

If you look a little deeper I suspect the dog has become a substitute child. Or it could be that it's taking you back to a deeply buried feeling that you had when you were a child. Perhaps you were separated from your mother because she went away and this is igniting all those past fears of loss and separation. Contact Anxiety Alliance (anxietyalliance.org.uk, 0845 296 7877) to help you deal with your worries about leaving her.

How can I tell her how I feel?

I am in love with my best friend but I don't know how she feels about me. We are on the same course at university. I see her every day and we go out to supper a lot and she says she loves my company. However, she also spends a lot of time with strapping rowers, leaving me with a bit of an inferiority complex when it comes to my body. I'm quite fat and she is very beautiful. I don't want to ruin our friendship by blurting out how I feel. This isn't just a lust thing - she is a fragile, intelligent and truly gorgeous person.

It does seem that she sees you as a lovely and close friend rather than a prospective romantic partner. So it's probably best to tread carefully and don't blurt anything out. If the opportunity arises, you could say something such as: 'Do you ever see us going out on a proper date together?' If she replies along the lines of: 'I wouldn't want to spoil our friendship', then you will know where you stand and you could still be friends, but loosen the ties a little and date other girls zelda costume. Could you try exercising to lose weight or take up a sport? It would be good for your health and your self-esteem.

If you have a problem, write to Zelda West-Meads at: YOU, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TS, or em ail Zelda reads all your letters but regrets that she cannot answer them all personally z.west-meads@you.co.uk

Source: Dailymail

The Detroit Lions will have to beat the Washington Redskins without the help of their dual-threat running back reggie Bush. ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter reports that Reggie Bush has been listed as "officially out" of the game today.

Reggie Bush officially out. RBs Eddie Lacy, Mark Ingram also out.

- Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) September 22, 2013

This shouldn't come as too big of a surprise. Despite Bush's optimism all week, there were doubts all along that he'd be available to play. There were reports that the Lions might hold him out of the game to give him extra rest to recover instead of risking a further set back.

Due to knee injury, Lions RB Reggie Bush is not expected to play today vs. Washington. He is expected to play next week.

- Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) September 22, 2013

There were reports that he was pushing to play, but ultimately he wasn't able to convince coaches to let him on the field. In his place Joique Bell will get the start for the Lions.

Source: Fansided

Family members of Eain Clayton Brooks, the 5-year-old West Side boy who police say was fatally beaten last weekend, vow to hold Erie County Child Protective Services accountable for his death.

They said the agency's workers, despite numerous warnings, failed the child.

"If I have to take it to the steps of Washington, I'm going to do that," Paul Henry, Eain's great-uncle, said outside Sanborn Funeral Home, which is handling arrangements for the boy's funeral.

Police on Thursday arrested Matthew Kuzdzal, the boyfriend of the boy's mother, on a charge of second-degree murder.

People who report allegations of child abuse deserve some follow-up, family members said Friday.

"There needs to be confirmation," Henry said.

He said when individuals report suspected child abuse, they should be issued a confirmation number so they can follow the case through the system.

Several family members have said they took their fears for Eain to Child Protective Services several times, to no avail.

Henry said he received no confirmation number when he called last winter to report his suspicions that Eain was being abused.

He said he was told: "We got the report, and we'll look into it."

Family members said Eain's mother, Nora Brooks, did not take her son away from Kuzdzal because she was being manipulated by him and was unable to take action.

Meanwhile, State Sen. Tim Kennedy, D-Buffalo, called on the state Office of Children and Family Services to investigate the boy's death and the handling of his case by Erie County Child Protective Services, as well as conduct a broader examination of the state's child protection agencies.

"Eain's death is an intolerable and heartbreaking tragedy, and we must do all we can to prevent anything like this from ever happening again," Kennedy said in a statement.

email: lmichel@buffnews.com

Source: Buffalonews

Hydrogen bombs dropped as doomed B-52 plunged to earth. One almost detonated.

A doomed Air Force B-52 accidentally dropped two hydrogen bombs on North Carolina in January 1961, and one came perilously close to exploding and scattering deadly radioactive fallout over the Eastern Seaboard, according to a recently declassified report.

The 4-megaton Mark 39 bombs -- each packing 260 times the explosive power of the weapon that decimated Hiroshima -- broke loose over Goldsboro, N.C., as the bomber went into a tailspin and crashed.

The Mark 39 hydrogen bomb had an explosive yield of 4 megatons, equal to 4 million tons of TNT. Two fell accidentally on Goldsboro, N.C., in 1961, and one nearly detonated.(Photo: U.S. Air Force)

All four safety mechanisms designed to prevent accidental detonation worked properly on one bomb, which landed in a meadow, but three failed on the other, and only a low-voltage switch kept it from exploding upon impact in a field in Faro, N.C., said the 1969 report.

The accident happened just three days after President John F Kennedy was inaugurated. Only one crew member survived the crash.

The report was obtained by Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser for his newest book, Command and Control, about the nuclear arms race. Schlosser found that between 1950 and 1968 alone, at least 700 "significant" accidents and incidents involving 1,250 nuclear weapons were recorded.

Mother Jonesfirst reported Schlosser's findings Sunday, and the Goldsboro incident attracted new attention Friday based on an article in the Guardian. The British paper also published the report, written by Parker F Jones, the supervisor of the nuclear weapons safety department at Sandia National Laboratories.

Source: Usatoday

The lawsuits are still flying around between residents near the CTS Superfund Site in South Asheville, and the CTS Corp., but today there was a glimmer of hope that things are moving forward, if ever so slightly.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said today, Friday, Sept. 20, it will start sampling activities for the Soil Vapor Extraction Confirmation Sampling and Analysis Plan and the Non-Aqueous Phase Liquids Investigation at the CTS Superfund site off Mills Gap Road in South Asheville.

The work will include collecting soil and water samples to better understand how deep and wide the highest concentrated contamination exists on and adjacent to the former plant property, said Samantha Urquhart-Foster, EPA remedial project manager.

"The intent of the sampling is to find the most contaminated parts to the soil and groundwater to begin clean up," Urquhart-Foster said. "The work plans were approved in December 2012, but we hadn't begun work because we didn't have approval for some of the properties. But we decided to go ahead and start sampling."

"We were hoping it would start back at the beginning of the year, but we are glad that they are continuing with the sampling without stalling," said Lee Ann Smith, chair of a community group called POWER (Protecting Our Water and Environmental Resources).

"We are celebrating this sampling event because it will bring us one step closer to the full-scale cleanup that we seek," Smith said.

Urquhart-Foster said the sampling will begin on the site of the former CTS plant and move outward. CTS manufactured industrial switches and resistors at the Mills Gap Road plant from 1959-87. Chemicals used at the site, including the industrial solvent trichloroethylene, or TCE, have been found in high concentrations in the ground and in nearby drinking water wells.

Residents have been pushing for action on a cleanup for years. They have alleged numerous health problems, including cancer, were caused by the contamination. Some homes have since been connected to city water, while others have had filter systems installed.

Smith, a teacher at Glen Arden Elementary School, has lived less than a mile from the former CTS site for nearly 20 years. Both of her children, who spent their entire lives in that home, are cancer survivors.

The EPA announced in March 2012 the site had been added to the National Priorities List of Superfund sites.

Source: Citizen-times

Five young men dead within the space of four years. They died of different causes: accidents, drugs, and suicide. They had in common being black, male, from rural Mississippi and friends or relatives of Jesmyn Ward, author of a new memoir titled "Men We Reaped."

Ward's previous book, the novel "Salvage the Bones," won the 2011 National Book Award. You can find our conversation on that book here.

Jesmyn Ward joined me in our studio to discuss her new work. In this extended conversation, we discuss the role and strength of women in her community, and the time it took to write and understand the loss of her loved ones.

Source: Pbs

Stocks on Wall Street were little changed as investors hoped that remarks by several senior Federal Reserve officials scheduled to speak on Friday would shed light on the Fed's recent surprise decision to keep its stimulus efforts intact.

In early trading the Standard & Poor's 500-share index was up 0.1 percent, the Dow Jones industrial average was flat, and the Nasdaq composite gained 0.2 percent.

Trading could be volatile as Friday marks the "quadruple witching," when stock index futures, stock index options, stock options and single stock futures all expire on the same day. Trading increases as investors replace or repurchase existing contracts.

Two days after an unexpected decision by the Federal Reserve to delay scaling back its massive monthly bond purchase program, four central bank officials are scheduled to speak at events around midday, and investors hope their remarks may contain signals on how much longer the Fed's stimulus will continue.

In global markets, which jumped on Thursday after the Fed's announcement, trading was largely subdued as investors took stock of their positions and locked in some of the gains, with half an eye on German elections on Sunday.

On Thursday, Wall Street retreated slightly as investors paused after the Federal Reserve's decision Wednesday to keep its stimulus intact sparked a rally that day which took the Dow and S&P 500 to record highs.

In company news, Apple shares rose 1 percent on the day the new iPhone models went for sale across the globe.

Microsoft could be in the spotlight. The company's chief executive, Steven A. Ballmer, has made an impassioned plea to investors at an annual meeting to support his vision of the world's largest software company as a unified devices and services powerhouse. He said in August he planned to step down within 12 months. The stock was down 1.4 percent.

In afternoon trading Europe's FTSEurofirst 300 index of blue chips was down 0.2 percent, and London's FTSE 100 was also down 0.2 percent. Euro zone bond markets were little changed, while the euro was holding near an eight-month high after its best week since July.

After being battered in May and June by the prospect of reduced stimulus, emerging market currencies and stocks have some of the biggest winners from Wednesday's Fed move. Indian financial markets were roiled again on Friday, however, after the Reserve Bank of India unexpectedly raised interest rates by 25 basis points. The Indian rupee fell 1.0 percent to 62.34 to the dollar while Indian shares fell almost 2 percent.

The Indonesian rupiah also gave up some of Thursday's gains to trade at 11,390 to the dollar, down 1.0 percent on the day. Jakarta shares, which jumped 4.7 percent on Thursday, lost 1.9 percent.

Brighter economic data out of the United States on Thursday, which included a surge in home sales and some encouraging unemployment claims figures, provided a timely reminder that a scaling back of stimulus will come eventually, despite this week's delay.

That helped push the yield on the United States 10-year Treasury note back up to 2.75 percent from a five-week low of 2.67 percent touched just after the Fed's decision, and kept the dollar index just clear of a seven-month low at 80.417 points.

In the commodities market, benchmark crude oil slipped 65 cents a barrel to $105.74 on Friday after a 1.5 percent drop the previous day on increased Libyan production and signs of a thawing of diplomatic relations between Iran and the West.

Meanwhile, gold - whose reputation as an inflation hedge means it usually benefits from central bank stimulus - hovered at $1,369 an ounce, on track for its best week in five.

Source: Nytimes