Hello, I'm back! It was all wonderful and perfect and we are so happy and in love!
We actually stayed an extra week, had only planned on staying 2 weeks but made it 3. There was a hurricane passing by the 2nd week and we lost a couple of days of good weather because of it...so that's why we decided to stay the extra week! It was a decision we will never ever regret.
And just to make sure we are always laughing, the universe threw this one at us: remember how I said we have an extra suitcase just for sex stuff? Well THAT was the suitcase that got randomly searched by the baggage handlers. They leave a note in your suitcase when they've done this. All I could do was laugh. I was positive that whoever opened that suitcase is mentally scarred now, but my husband (oh I love saying that!) has assured me that they've seen much, much worse and that ours is tame by comparison. Really? Wow. If that is the case, then I don't want to see the ones that would freak out the baggage handlers!
Everything about the wedding and honeymoon was simply divine and I couldn't have asked for more. And one of the best things of all was how lovely and attentive my groom was - the whole 3 weeks we were sooo close. We developed quite an attachment problem during our trip, as it has been hard to be away from each other during work hours for yesterday and today! Now we feel like totally enmeshed co-dependant weirdos...but we don't care. I hope that is how newlyweds are supposed to feel!
Thanks for all your sweet wishes for me...wish I could say its good to be back, but actually I am yearning for our tropical paradise and home sick for it right now!
Thanks so much, B! Do you have an update for me? I didn't see your thread near the top so I really have no clue where things are at for you right now, but I would be happy to find out (hoping for good news, of course!)
Congratulations on your marriage. What a wonderful place to get married - I love Hawaii!
There is a poster who has posted on the "We're separated - now what" forum and I have directed him to search out you over here, I think you might be able to help him. He goes by the name GSFA99 I think.
I thought I would resurrect my thread and give a personal update...
Marriage has been a great thing for my husband and I. We are feeling closer and happier than ever. And now we are finally beginning to really achieve all the things we had wanted to achieve before, but not being married kind of held us back. Mostly this has to do with my house now being OUR house, and our separate finances being OUR TOGETHER finances. But it does extend beyond that, too. Now my husband is my kids' step-father, not just their mom's boyfriend. The kids are delighted in this, not that it has changed anything outwardly, but just because they now all feel an ownership over each other. Same with my mom and my brother, who are now MIL and BIL to my husband. The new family ties feel great to all of us.
I am still on unemployment, which I had not expected to last this long. When I first got back from the wedding, I started getting really bored and feeling edgy. But I'm getting into the groove of this now by finding ways I can spend my time to help other people. My kids and my brother all need a lot of help (brother is paralyzed, and one of my kids has a kid and needs "gramma" help from me, the other kid just needs companionship but it is still helpful). I have a female SAHM cousin who needed some back up help from me recently, so I flew to DC to be with her for a week. And I have an elderly ex-boss who needs some project work done, and I have been helping with that. I've found that helping other people really gives me a lot of happiness, so while I am waiting for the right job to come along, I have the best job of all for now - that of being helpful to those I love.
My husband sees me doing this and is proud of me and happy for himself that his wife is doing these things. It has actually expanded our love for each other.
And the best update is that I have finally gotten my husband going to some dance lessons...and he is a natural. I can barely even allow myself to fantasize about the dancing we will be doing together in the future as it gets me so excited I can't even think straight! THIS is truly my dream man...wow.
DQ - It's great that you have the time right now to help the people important to you in your life. Time is so precious and to give it to the ones we love is worth more than anything. It's a gift and a blessing for you right now.
Early in my unemployment last year I was able to help my mom transition from the hospital to assisted living, the timing couldn't have been better. I would have had to take a leave of absence to accomplish what I did for mom. Most of all it felt good to be there for her when she needed me most.
Mom said I would find a job again when she no longer needed so much help. That's exactly what happened too!
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I'm a little jealous of the dancing lessons. That's somthing I've always wanted to do and Mrs. Cinco just won't try it. Maybe some day.
First of all, I got a job I really like and have been happy to have money again. We were making it fine on husband's salary and unemployment, but it made me edgy to spend any money. Now that I've got a salary again too, I have extra money and can spend a little on myself again. Yay! I really don't spend a lot on myself, never have (in my first marriage we were really poor all the time, so I was just used to not spending anything on myself). But now, I have so much fun going shopping for clothes or dance shoes or stuff for my kids, or even just being able to put money in savings for something special feels great.
But my happy update is actually more about my relationship than my job.
Some of you know that my H and I have a stellar sex life, but I've always wanted it a bit more frequently than he does. I would like 3-5 times per week, while he is good with 1-2 times per week, and he will sometimes let a whole week go by. We have talked about this several times. It seems to come up about once every 3 months or so. The thing is, he is so busy at work and at home, and he gives me 100% of himself all the time, so when his argument was basically that he is too tired for more sex, I couldn't really argue with that. But I would try to point out where he could give me less in some areas and I'd be happier to get more sex than some of the ways he was giving to me.
Then he'd try for a few weeks, but we'd slip back into the same pattern...which I realize is just his natural level of desire. (The spouse with the lower desire controls the frequency of sex).
I realized too, that by giving him access to me "anytime, anywhere", which has always been the case, that he was getting a lot of his needs met by sexual affection. So in other words, he is extremely sexual and demands access to my body to grope me or make out or bump and grind on each other daily, sometimes more than once per day...but because I would give him this, it wouldn't allow him to build up any urge for "more". Because he is getting his daily doses of sexual affection, he has no built up or pent up frustration that would make him come to me for full on sex.
I love the daily sexual affection too and didn't want to give that up. I just wanted more full-on sex on top of it! (Greedy, aren't I?)
But when I made this realization, I had another talk with him about it. I pointed out how I felt that if I wasn't so accesible to him, he would initiate sex more often. We also discussed lots of other thoughts and feelings surrounding the issue and I said some of the same things I have said many times before, but somehow I was able to say it more clearly and directly.
And then in a separate conversation, I also told him that when we've gone for too long without sex (like over a week) that I start to notice other men, and I start to enjoy receiving sexual attention from other men...which is something that normally I don't even notice. It actually makes me feel bad when I start noticing other men and I don't like it. Unfortunately, when I said this part, I said it all wrong, he took it all wrong, and what I said sounded more like "if I don't get sex from you, I'm gonna get it somewhere else". This is not what I meant and I didn't use those words, but somehow that's how it sounded. I immediately backtracked, he was extremely angry and started demanding we go back to counseling, told me I have a sex addiction problem...it was an ugly fight. He was very hurt.
But I was calm and waited out the storm, because I knew I had not meant anything like that - - and over the next day or two I calmly explained what I really meant, and because I am totally sincere, he believed me and really listened this time. He realized that I am actually so faithful to him that if I notice a hot guy in a magazine, it makes me feel guilty. That if a hot guy on at the grocery store flirts with me, I feel guilty. But that when we've had sex frequently, I don't even notice other people. This is what I was trying to say, and he knew I was telling the truth. So all that blew over...but I think the effect of what he thought I said really took a toll on him and got him moving forward.
Between these fights and conversations, somehow he "got it". He realized that even though his drive is lower than mine, that if he is going to let me go without sex when I really need it, that its going to cause my eyes to start wandering. He hadn't ever thought of this before because I'm so damn faithful to him. But when I straight out said it (even though I fumbled the words) it shook him up a little bit.
Also, I began holding myself back just a little bit. Things like not hopping into bed in the morning after a shower and shoving my boobs in his face, which is usually a normal thing I do every day. Instead, I would get my bra and panties on first, and then get into bed. Still intimate, still sexy snuggles and kissing, but just withholding the one extra treat he usually gets free of charge. If I withhold that one treat, he will want sex more, was my theory.
All of this has combined into me getting what I wanted. Yay me!
He has been making sure to intiate or to offer to take care of me if he's too tired, almost every night. I think he has been surprised to see how often I take him up on it, too! He likely thought that if he iniated every day, that I would turn him down half the time, but usually I don't. I probably only turn it down once every 5 times.
One of the things that had bugged me before was that he kind of teased and joked me about my over the top sex drive being a kind of a burden on him. It was teasing and he didn't really mean it, but part of my talks with him included that I didn't like those jokes. That I wanted him to be happy about my huge sex drive and help me celebrate in it. That I loved feeling so sexy all the time and that I wanted a husband who loved that I am that way, not one who joked that his wife is sucking the life out of him by wanting sex all the time.
He thought these jokes were funny, but I was getting my feelings hurt. I told him at one point in our talks, to ask some of his friends if they would be so unhappy about having a wife who wanted him (and only him) every single day? Would they be complaining and joking about it, or would they be celebrating how lucky they are? I saw his face flash, because I know he instantly "got" my point. That he really IS VERY LUCKY, and that his friends would kill to be in his position. Also, just the thought of discussing how sexy I am and how much sex I want to his friends - well it made him jealous. He doesn't talk about me or us that way at all to friends because he doesn't want his friends knowing this about me and then the next time they see me, they are fantasizing about what a sexpot I am.
He knows he is lucky - - but because he is an alpha male, he isn't used to thinking about it in those terms. Because he has always had plenty of sex whenever he wanted it, he doesn't think of it as something that requires "luck". He knows that a good sex life comes from within yourself and that you drive yourself to it, or away from it, by your own choices. Other men don't have that within him, which is something he forgets. So when he stopped and thought about how his friends would view the fact that his wife is telling him she needs more sex, and he is rejecting her...well, a light bulb went off.
And now he is also telling me more and more often how much he loves what a sexy woman I am, not just visually sexy but that I am a totally sexual person. He is telling me often how happy he is that his wife is so sexual, that he feels lucky, that he knows I am all about him and am faithful...he's saying and doing all the right things.
Of course, I tell him all the time (which I had always done before as well) that its his fault I want sex all the time, because he is so physically and mentally sexy, and because he takes such good care of our family and our home. I tell him that he's all I want, all I've ever wanted, all those things that make him warm and fuzzy.
We were watching a movie about an ugly divorce the other day, and I said in a very sad voice "oh god honey, we can't ever get divorced, it would be hell to lose you". (Of course, this was just a comment in response to the horrible movie, nothing about us). He said to me, in a joking way, "well you'd better never screw around on me then" (there was infidelity in the movie). And I immediately took his face in my hands and made him look me squarely in the eye and said "I'd rather die than let anyone else touch me". Then I planted a sincerely sexy and intimate kiss on him. When I stopped, his face light up with pride and joy, because he knows I mean this literally...then we made love.
Anyway...that's my happy update. I know others in this forum will not have it as easy as I did...but please don't forget that I had to get divorced once already to deal with an SSM, so I've been where you are are. Don't despair, just keep doing what works, keep your mind on your personal goals. Having a great sex life IS a worthy goal to have. Don't feel like its something you shouldn't place so much imporantance on. Never let anyone make you feel like its less important than the other areas of your life.
This is one of the reasons I read forums like this! I love reading first-hand accounts from women with real sex drives. It's just an encouraging turn-the-tables change from my most of my experience. Yeah, if any of his friends are like me, and especially if they're in my situation, they'd be sick with envy about your relationship.
It's also amusing to read about men who are sexually normal and have times when they are "too tired for sex". The thought would never have occurred to me.
