Ok. My First Thread in Many Moons

[Crazy Eddie]

What I mean is that I wait and see if he is going to call me on any of my behaviors. Such as wearing a sexy outfit for girls night out. Any comment? Nope. Or how about sending emails to men I shouldn't be sending them to? Does he care to check? Nope. And this is even after I was caught. I said, don't you want my password for the email? Nope. We shouldn't have to act like that he says. Ok.
Your get the idea.

So when you do these little tests, he doesn't do anything? Not even a little bit? He may not respond by trying explicitly to stop you; when my own wife does little tests of this nature, I tend to respond by ramping up the attention, affection, flirting, and generally trying to entice her back to the reservation.

Also, do you know for a fact that he considers your email conversations (with Chrome or anyone else) after the separation to be over the line?

Oh yeah, and your idea of a sexy outfit and his idea of a sexy outfit might be different.

I may be putting my words into his mouth, but I don't really like "controlling" my wife. I've read my history, I've seen how generations of women felt miserable and stagnant through being controlled (or perhaps simply through being controlled badly or heavy-handedly), and I've long considered that something not to do to a grown woman I care about. The reactions you seem to be looking for remind me a lot of the way men were in the bad old days. I'm learning that there's a wide gulf in between that mindset and the mindset of letting them do whatever without objection, but it's hard to find that balance and some guys might not even see that there is one.

Well, subconsciously maybe he does feel that way. Maybe that is why he encourages me to go out with my girlfriends to bars and clubs. But, when he has to verbalize it, he says he is not willing to put up with that nonsense. Mixed messages?

Allowing you to do what you've already set out to do is one thing... explicitly giving you the go-ahead to go further than that is quite another, especially if he's started to get the sense that you're not comfortable being allowed to do that. He may take a while to see that you're looking for him to actively prevent you from doing it, and that you're doing some things not because they make you happy but because you want to see him actively preventing you from doing it, while more quickly catching on that encouraging you to do it is a no-no.

Of course I have talked to H about it, and showed him, and cajoled him, blah blah.
He has FLAT OUT refused to do it. A fairly close quote from him on it was "I like sex with you but I am NOT (emphasis on that word specifically) going to do THAT."
I'm not into anything kinky. But I like a man to take charge. Hold me down, tug on my hair from behind, not to the point of pain, just clear restraint. H calls it "rape." I looked at him like he was nuts of course and said if it is something I WANT, it is hardly rape. He still disagrees and refuses to even go there. I'm sure that is all weighing in the back of his mind and that is why the SL is still where it is. I'm sure it could be part of the Whore/Madonna concepts too but H doesn't seem to ever want the Whore part, with anyone. So, that's that.

Hmmm... if he went through with it as a "role-playing" exercise, do you think you would respond or would it fall flat? And does he think it would fall flat? It's clear to me that he doesn't want to assert control over you in earnest in or out of the bedroom, and going through the motions may not even work or (in his mind) be worth trying. Again, he has trouble getting into any sort of sexual mindset, especially one where he has to either (a) convincingly roleplay or (b) actually feel and display an attitude that he has never been able to pull off in any context.