If this is you, you’d better pay attention!  You may try to stay naïve and innocent, but you need desperately to grab hold of those reins.  You must know precisely how you want to direct those raring horses.  This is especially true when a work colleague – a bright, pretty, divorced woman – suddenly begins showing up at your desk “just to chat.”  Before long, you notice how she stands closer to you then she needs to and happens to arrive at the coffee machine at the same time you do.  Then when she suggests you meet over dinner to discuss an upcoming presentation, her intentions are unmistakable.

Now is not the time for your horses to run free!  They need clear, authoritative guidance.  Staying strong and alert in the driver’s seat, carefully supervising the expression of your desires, and ending up precisely where you want to be are the primary goals of a healthy life.  The rewards can be astonishing.

How can you handle your sexual longings and your coworker’s advances in a positive way?  It wouldn’t do any good to deny your needs.  They are real and legitimate.  We were created with an innate longing for connection.  But the facts are in: You have a much better chance of getting those sexual longings satisfied to the fullest when you stay aware of them and when you contain them within a committed lifelong relationship.

Lynn Harris, a Glamour magazine writer, recently interviewed numerous women, single and married, in her report on how women felt about their sexual experiences.  To her surprise, she discovered that the woman who was the happiest said that her sexual experiences had been with one man.  This attractive blonde, a thirty-year-old lawyer who has been married twelve years, had practiced abstinence as a single and now reported happily, “I’ve had more sex than most of my single friends, and I’ve been with only one person.”  The truth is, all the sexual conquests outside of marriage – however tempting at times – can never measure up to the commitment of a marriage relationship.

There is no such thing as casual sex, no matter how casual people are about it.  After intercourse, a couple’s relationship is somehow now what it was before. – Lewis Smedes

So the last thing you want to do is to let your impulses control you.  They will press you to seek immediate gratification, and they will try to convince you to forget about any repercussions.  If you let go of the reins, you will inevitably endanger your marriage – or any potential dating relationship, if you are single – undermine  your values, and trade away long-term happiness for short-term satisfaction.

But what a boom to your marriage if you turn the power of your sexual needs into a masterful plan for fostering intimacy with your wife. She is the woman you’ve chosen to be with for the rest of your days.  So why not become a genius in solving this dilemma?