What I did was list things that I consider desire. I never said that she had to meet them 24/7. I never said that she had to meet all of them. It is just a list. What is NOT reasonable on my list. Tell me and I may reconsider that list.
Something else that I am getting confused at is why there is an expectation that marriage can actually be successful without desire. I have read a ton a MC books, and I don't remember ANY book suggesting that it is possible to have a successful marriage without desire. Heck, if someone knows such a book, please tell me, I will try to read it, it might help me.
What is NOT reasonable on my list. Tell me and I may reconsider that list.
From me:
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16) See yourself as his LOVER, not his wife, and not a mother. 17) Put HIM at the center of your life, not the kids, not the job, not ANYTHING else.
From GEL:
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I'll even go so far as to say this as an HD woman myself, if I thought someone EXPECTED this behavior of me that would turn me off, it would be a sexual repellant for me. The expectation is not attractive, it's needy. YUCK!
What you are looking for is "romantic love", the love they literally play out in romance novels (which BTW I read and get a kick out of, I find them funny!). Most of the things from your list would fit into a romance novel type of "love". Ever notice, they never show you the couple in a romance novel 5-10-20 years down the road? Nope, they never do...it's always just the honeymoon phase. Romantic love isn't sustainable 24/7.
From LFL:
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I am very HD and I don't want to do a lot of those things on your list with my H. Desire is a two-way street. But maybe when it comes to M, as others have stated, that expectation of total desire is just not realistic.
A male perspective from Cobra:
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I do believe there is merit in the criticism of his list of desire, because he may be setting the bar so unrealistically high that his W, nor any other woman, will reach for it.
Honestly Cemar, this is just our perspectives. What matters is your wife's. I hope you can see that even by other's HD standards though, you may be asking for too much. If your W feels she is never enough, she will stop trying. It sounds like maybe that's what happened. I'm sure she can also sense the resentment towards her that we here can sense. That is also a good way to kill desire. Do you even realize the mountain of crap you have piled on her that she would have to overcome in order to feel desire again? I'd bet she's as full of resentment as you are.
Many of those books, Cemar, are about trying to get desire back because that is the natural cycle of a relationship. It comes and goes and it moves out of the romantic love/honeymoon phase pretty quickly. You can be pissed off about it for 20 years and have a bad attitude and ensure that there will not be any room for desire in your relationship (just like a LD woman who is resentful that she is not being "romanced" anymore) or you could listen to the people here who are trying to help you open the door to regain some of what you are looking for. Obviously what you have been doing up until now is not working. Why not try something else??
Bear
The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.
--Marcel Proust
I did have a specific talk with her once on kissing. I told her I would like MORE kissing. So she starts giving me pecks, nothing passionate. Everytime she would lean up to kiss me, she would make some sound to indicate that she was doing it FOR me. It was CLEAR that she was NOT doing it for herself. THis lasted about a week. In order for kissing to be enjoyable, BOTH people must enjoy it. Anything physical in a relationship is only enjoyable when BOTH people enjoy it.
So, lets make this simple and skip the desire part. I just want passionate kissing. How do I ask for that in such a way that she could actually succeed at it.
Cemar, What kind of sound does one make to indicate that she is doing it "for" you? What did you do to encourage her to keep doing what she was doing or to show that you appreciated that she was starting to make an effort? Is it possible that she felt awkward? Felt as if you were asking her to perform? If this went on for only a week, how was she supposed to get comfortable to the point that she was enjoying it herself, not just doing it for you? My guess is that she felt, AGAIN, as if she was doing what you asked and it wasn't good enough so why bother to feel so uncomfortable and put herself out there anymore.
Just curious, have you made your wife the most important thing in your life to the exclusion of everything else?
Bear
The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.
--Marcel Proust
cemar wrote:"So, lets make this simple and skip the desire part. I just want passionate kissing. How do I ask for that in such a way that she could actually succeed at it."
Why don't you buy a copy of "Passionate Kisses" by Mary Chapin Carpenter and play it over and over.
-NOPkins-
I will ferret out an affair at any opportunity.
-An affair is the embodiment of entitlement, fueled by resentment and lack of respect. -An infidel will remain unreachable so long as their sense of entitlement exceeds their ability to reason.
I would walk up close to her and she would realize that I would like a kiss, so she would go, "Oh", and lean up to give me a peck. ON a scale of 1-10, that would be a 1. So she has a double whammy, she must find a way to like kissing me, and then be able to PROVE to men that she likes it. THere is no reason to kiss someone if they DON'T like it.
Yes, my wife IS more important than anything else in my life except God. Children, even though we love them, they are temporary. You don't live with them 24/7 for 50 years, at least not in most cases.
