I'm doing all I can do... let me rephrase that, I'm doing all that I know how to do to get this exact thing that YOU have realized about yourself across to my wife. I can't do it, SHE has to. I'm just curious as to what made it all come into focus for you?
Well... stop feeling responsible for her sexuality, one, and two, stop making her responsible for YOURS.
The minute the xH and I got married, he threw responsibility for his sexuality onto me... and... I took it. He did it by saying to me, and believing this: "oh, goody, we're married. Now you can give me all the sex I want."
I wanted to be a good wife, and I thought that doing that very thing would be a 'good wife' thing to do. Wrong. Because it made sex a 'chore.' And that is exactly the way it felt to both of us.
So... my advice to you, from your end is own the fact that you are a SEXUAL BEING, and you are not ashamed of it. You aren't going to hide it any longer because it makes HER uncomfortable. That doesn't mean that you have sex with an unwilling woman. It doesn't mean you don't take her feelings into consideration.
It sure as heck means not accepting crap or duty sex. And when she finally roles around to initiating sex with you... it is then that you be HONEST with her.
"I appreciate your willingness to have sex. But... our sex life, to me, is pretty bland. If you don't want to own and explore your own sexuality, there isn't anything I can do about that. But I won't have sex with a female, even you my wife, who has no idea what that is, or even what I am talking about. I feel like I am having sex with a blow up doll, or a child. I want to share my sexuality with a woman who owns and takes responsibility for her sexuality, a woman who wants to share her sexuality with me. I'm not interested in having sex with a girl, for your sake as well as my own."
You say that to her out of compassion, and when you do, it will not come out angry. She may not like hearing it... but... all you can do is be honest.
I think what most people are looking for from their partners... isn't necessarily 'swing from the rafters' sex... although it COULD BE... they want from their partner the courage to be honest with what they feel, with what they decide to share... regardless of positions, duration, etc. That's the emotional connection part of sex. To me. Everything else is just a matter of technique and practice.
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Is this something that YOU realized yourself that you weren't doing before? I guess my question is, what made it click in your mind that this is what you wanted / needed to do?
Yeah... and it first started with me reading SSM. I came here, and the guys really helped me. I put my knowledge to the test and stepped up to the plate with my xH. In so doing... to get where he and I both wanted to go... he had to be willing to open up emotionally. He was not. He was interested in superficial sex with lots and lots of frequency. And that's fine... but I'm not willing nor capable of giving/accepting that. That's crap sex, to me. And the foundation of my LDness.
So... onto my bf... things are hunky dory when you are in the chemical phase... jesus, you walk around in a near constant state of arousal. Desire during that is flippin' EASY.
What I had been waiting for was to get OUT of that phase, to see if my LD would come back... to see if I actually learned something, or if I was just really good at parroting all that I had read in books, and from my shrink.
And sure enough... it hit. And it STILL hits. When it does... SEX isn't the problem... it's just telling me that I'm not being honest about something, honest with myself, honest with him... or I feel he isn't being that way with me... whether it's in bed or out of bed.
I don't attack him for it... I tell him about it... so we can BOTH attack the PROBLEM and solve it. I may not even know what IT is when I say something... but I do say something, immediately, to give him a heads up.
And I do ALL OF THIS... for me. For MY sexuality.
It carries over into other aspects of the R, too... sexuality being just one aspect of an R. kwis?
It all clicked for me the day I realized, with my xH, that I wasn't the one with the issue. I certainly had a very underdeveloped sexuality... but that can be fixed. For whatever reason, he could not or would not address his own issues. He was fine EXACTLY as he was, and he made it crystal clear to me, that is how he was going to remain. I cannot be his side of the R, and mine, too. I can't. It is IMPOSSIBLE.
That is a stalemate. It hurt. I accepted it. I moved on.
Because of all of that... I accept full and complete responsibility for me... and that includes my sexuality. I don't want to DO that... fcked up dance I did with my xH... EVER again.
