WordPress, aMember, and htaccess

I used to have a very simple htaccess which protected one directory and the subsquent child directories.

When I got aMember, it seeemed to get different - and WordPress has only made it more confusing.

Currently, people ultimately have to enter their correct username and password combo 3-4 times before they take..so it's spending time going through too many steps - many of which I believe are unnecessary and repetitive.

any thoughts:

# BEGIN WordPress
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /full/path/to/members/
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
# add a trailing slash to /wp-admin
RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?wp-admin$ $1wp-admin/ [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule ^ - [L]
RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?(wp-(content|admin|includes).*) $2 [L]
RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?(.*\.php)$ $2 [L]
RewriteRule . index.php [L]
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://mysite/full/path/to/members/$1 [R,L]
# END WordPress
AuthName "Members Area"
AuthType Basic
AuthUserFile /fill/path/public_html/amember/to/.htpasswd
require valid-user