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Re Fran Anyhoo - got the old meat and two veg just the other night
ROTFLMAO. Good, good. I never heard that one before. Glad you are hear to put your slant on things.

but for the feeling of resentment that it had to be me yet again, and the feeling of not being desirable.
Fran, does your H know about the two types of desire women have?

The first type is referred to as receptive desire. This is the type of sexual desire you and many other women want.

The second type is assertive desire, this is what you have been saying you have been doing too often.

Do you think he would understand your sexual preference if you did some more research than I posted here and put it into a way he would understand what you need or what, is different from what he and you are now doing?

Here is one web page on the topic Low Sexual Desire. On page six? (Roseanu 2002) are the terms assertive and receptive desire. Print it out and give it to your H????? What do you think??? I didn't look at any other Googled sights so am not saying this page has all of the answers. You can look on other search sites.

I know I wish I knew half of this stuff before 1981 when our sex life took a dive.

Lou

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How have you managed to remove the "Desire" issue?

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Good question. I've been thinking about this and as usual I have come up with a muddled analogy. A typical negative reaction to the idea of scheduled or loosely scheduled sex might be scheduled = routine = boring = no passion. The way to get around this sort of negative thinking is to recognize that you are considering sex within the context of marriage. Marriage itself is a sort of social agreement that encompasses everything from finances to child rearing to romance and it encompasses these things within the bounds of legal limits and cultural or religious conventions. These boundaries of marriage can be confining or comforting or both. By scheduling sex or coming to any other sort of mutual agreement regarding sexual activity, you can take it out of the realm of the purely physical or the purely emotional. The way you can do this with a positive attitude is by considering it ritual rather than routine.

By ritualizing sex within marriage, desire becomes much less of an issue. Consider other things that might be ritualized within the context of a marriage such as "eating together as a family", "going to church on Sunday", "decorating the Christmas tree two weeks after Thanksgiving" or "giving a kiss as you walk out the door in the morning". It doesn't need to be our concern whether our spouses are possessed of a great appetite as they sit down to the family meal or filled with thoughts of Godliness as they sit in the pew next to us or abounding in cheery Christmas spirit as they go fetch the tree or even consumed with loving thoughts as they kiss us goodbye in the morning. They do these things and we do these things because we understand the importance of all the little rituals in maintaining the larger ritual of marriage or family.

So, I guess the point I'm trying to make is that when you are considering emotional connection and sex within the context of marriage, the emotional connection formed during any particular encounter is not of as great importance as the emotional connection formed by the repeated ritual of encounters throughout the marriage. The problem of a SSM can be considered as a problem in forming or maintaining this sort of ritual. Therefore, an appropriate way to approach the problem would be the same way you would approach problems such as having a spouse who won't accompany you to church on Sunday or agree to eat together as a family or participate in holiday celebrations. The problem isn't that your spouse is too LD or that you are too HD, the problem is that you don't agree on the importance or perhaps the details of performance of the ritual of sex within the ritual of marriage.

Let me try to express myself more straight-forwardly. I was thinking about something that MsHD said to HD (I paraphrase) "Wouldn't you feel stupid if you had to tell your children that you were divorcing me in order to get sex?". The correct answer would be "No, because I feel like sexuality is a very important part of marriage and I am not ashamed to share that value with my children.". I realize now that I had utterly confounded myself with the Scharchian bar anecdote. If I really wanted sex why wouldn't I just tell my H that I was going to go to the local semi-yuppie biker bar in search of it when he turned me down? I mean I have no moral compunctions regarding such behavior if openly communicated so what was stopping me? The answer that should have been obvious was that though I found casual sex to be fun when I was young, I have no interest in it at this point in my life. The issue at hand wasn't just sex or just love/emotional connection, but marriage. What I want is sex within the structure of a committed relationship. The Schnarchian bar anecdote would have been an idle threat because it didn't speak to my real desires. You can't make someone feel desire for you. You can't make someone express love for you in the way that you prefer. However, you can choose to not be in a marriage in which an important value to you, in this case sexuality, is not shared or at least respected. You don't have to feel bad because you feel like you're saying "I'm leaving you and breaking up the family in order to get laid." and you don't have to justify your actions in a fused manner by saying "I'm leaving you because you obviously don't love or desire me and you are behaving quite horribly and I can't take this misery.". You can simply say something like "I am considering leaving you because I believe that sex is a very important part of marriage and your actions convey that you clearly do not share or respect that value.".

I should add here that a good part of current theory/analysis of the issue is due to my H's current behavior. I can't come up with exactly the right word for the emotional state that he is conveying but perhaps "chagrined" would be close. It's like he has finally realized how easy it is to make me happy and he regrets that he didn't realize it earlier. Sort of like the harassed mother who ignores and pushes away and yells at a child and then realizes that the child just wanted a few minutes of attention for a valid reason. That is why I am pretty confident that we will continue successfully.

Mojo, you continue to be an inspiration to me. I hope your success continues.

Hairdog

This concept-- sex as a bonding ritual in marriage-- is brilliant. Every word of that original post is brilliant.

I also like the serious tone of the post, and your second post explains why... the idea of leaving a marriage over sex sounds so flippant, and I have maintained all along that when people want to leave a marriage over sex, there's a lot more than lack of sex going on. There's a lack of honoring each other's values about the need for ritual bonding. The serious tone of your first post acknowledges this-- that the SSM is not just about sex. It's about having a major value of yours disregarded by your spouse.

It's as if the Christmas tree was THE most important thing about the Christmas season to you, and your spouse refused to go with you to buy one, decorate one, or even sit in the same room with one. It's not about the tree; it's about his/her refusal to honor something YOU value.

This is soooo good... such a fruitful concept. Very very deep. It partially explains why I want to stay with my bf in spite of the dearth (okay, lack) or sex-- we have many shared bonding rituals and we relate to each other a lot throughout the day. We are totally congruent on day to day shared lifestyle values-- and that's not an easy thing to find. In fact, I've never found it before precisely like this. I means that the lack of sex looms smaller (huh?) than in a relationship where there are fewer connections and connecting sexually looms larger by relative comparison.

Brilliant, Mojo. This is why you get the big bucks.

I think everyone here will find some value in your idea.


I wonder if CeMar and his W have no shared rituals/values that really connect them outdise of the bedroom, so that makes him desperate for connection in the bedroom...

I'm running your idea past all the sitch's here...

Jenny,
Have you thought about writing? Your posts indicate that you may have talent in that direction.

Re Lil This concept-- sex as a bonding ritual in marriage-- is brilliant.
MoJo great concept.

Lou

I also love the sex-as-a-marriage-ritual concept. WTG to your H for not balking at the ritual...that shows a tremendous amount of working through the issues. I was thinking that NOP's ingredients for an affair, namely entitlement, resentment, and disrespect, are also the problem areas that create distance and stubbornness and inability to compromise. The affair can just be a fantasy of escape. When you repair those areas, the solution becomes simple. It's amazing to me just how much resentment my H has held against me ( and me to him as well) and how far back it goes...he recently told me that he felt the reason I wanted to marry him is that I wanted to be a Bridezilla. And the thing is, there is a kernel of truth to it...I did get caught up in the whole bride thing, but that was not the whole picture. He somehow felt neglected in the process and true to form did not say anything. So little instances of miscommunication and hurt feelings all build up to create a marriage that feels more like punishment than partnership. What a step in the right direction you and H are making...truly wanting to make the marriage work... I am so happy for you!

Someone said somewhere that they didn't think a 4 like Mr. Mojo would go for "scheduled sex" because it isn't romantic. But when you reframe it as ritual (speaking as a 4), it becomes incredibly romantic... and the idea of ritual appeals to 4's also. I think 4's may have invented ritual...