I would think that after time, the "emotional or physical reasons that they are becoming less attractive to you" would cause issues in bed, for sure. At least, I would think that Schnarch would definitely say that.
Glad you had a nice weekend!
Please, oh please, show us pictures of your home. I LOVE houses and decorating. My favorite magazine right now is Veranda.
Thanks Lucky....I will find a way to post some pics for sure....
Just to be clear, this is a modest, 3BR 1BA, 2000 SF house...not a big mansion like on the home remodeling shows, LOL! Just giving that info out now so that no one will be expecting pics of anything that amazing....to ME it is amazing, but I doubt anyone else will think so.
We have the same situation - the little 3 bedroom house. Is yours like mine: old, lots of woodwork, creaky floors? I love the charm of my house, even though most people wouldn't go for it. Seems that most people choose the convenience and bigger rooms of newer townhouses where I live.
Mine was build in 1941. When I bought it in 1992, the home inspector told me that if my furnace ever quit on me, the only people who knew how to fix it were dead.
The furnace quit on me 2 months after I bought it. LOL!
But other than big updates that were needed like that one, my house is beautiful and solidly built. Yes, beautiful wood work (not built ins or anything, but lovely trim on the floors and doorways and beautiful window trim with sills everywhere)....beautiful oak floors, a great old long chime door bell in its own little cut out cupboard in the wall, really cute details in the kitchen and eating nook. In my area of the city, there are many homes like mine, and fewer of the townhomes and condos...but they are around, too. They are just more concentrated in another part of town than mine. So my part of town is known for homes like mine. Mine is now going to be one of the nicer ones (for its size and age) after the remodel is done.
I am lucky to have a one car garage as most homes like mine (age and size and neighborhood) don't have one at all!
Also have a corner lot on a dead end street. Yay!
When we began this phase of remodeling, we were planning for sure to put my house on the market and get a bigger one with more bathrooms and bigger garage....but still an older one with charm. Now we don't think we can leave our beautiful dream house just yet! We want to enjoy it for a while first!
Creaky floors....the attic has been remodeled into a large bedroom but it had the creakiest floors EVER....part of our remodel has been to take care of that problem with new subfloor and new carpet up there. Hurrah! I'm telling you, being downstairs when someone is upstairs is like being under a herd of cattle, LOL! But not anymore...
So Lucky, because you "know" what I'm sayin' with regard to old houses, maybe you can see why I'm so freaking excited!!!
Ohhh, yes. It sounds so charming. I would stay and enjoy it for a while, too, especially in this market. At least enjoy the summer and then sell in the Fall.
My house was built in 1939 by a couple with no kids. They put all their savings into building a sturdy house with all copper pipes, the best materials, blah blah blah. None of the oak floors have subfloors. When you mop the first floor, water drips onto the heads of whomever happens to be in the basement. This is the first house I've seen with just floorboards laying across rows of 2x4s with no subfloor. Weird.
We also have old windows and sills all over the place. We have one built in in the dining room (china cabinet), and all original doors and hardware. A favorite feature is a big glassed-in front porch (old, swing-in panes all the way around).
Our attic could be turned into another room, but I'd rather install air conditioning in the house, and we might have to put a unit in the attic depending on the type of air conditioning we get (old plaster walls, no duct work anywhere, radiators throughout). That project will happen when we discover a magical $15K that we didn't know we had. (Right.)
The worst feature, especially because I cook all day, is the TINY kitchen. It is maddening... barely any work surfaces at all, and certainly no room for a table. So, my dining room is my home office, craft table, and where we sit to eat (after a whirlwind cleanup of whatever projects are spread out at the time). My dream (more like a fantasy) is to bust out the back and build a gourmet kitchen with a master suite and small deck above it.
A previous owner took a corner of the foyer and built a small powder room (tiny corner toilet and tiny pedestal sink). That extra toilet in the house add so much quality of life for us and for guests. Not sure if your house has space for an addition like that, but it wouldn't be too expensive if you don't bother with tiling, etc.
Oh, I could go on and on. I love houses, especially ones that have charm. They're so much fun to decorate, too, because you're already starting off with tons of great detail.
One drawback: Drafty old windows make it pretty hard to wear sexy stuff. It's freezing in here! (hmmmm... fleece body stocking with access hole... cashmere babydoll with leg warmers and knit choker.... thermal bustier and thong with fur robe...)
A thought occured to me this weekend about basic attraction, and how between Mr.DQ and myself there is a very strong amount of physical attraction that never wanes...and that made me think about how, if I was not so physically attracted to him, I don't know if my body would respond sexually so well...not sure how to put this right but, if you love your spouse, and you are attracted to them *but* they are becoming less attractive to you for emotional or physical reasons, then will you have a hard time responding to them in bed? I guess I was just wondering this because I had the thought that if I wasn't so attracted to him, I might not want sex so much....I have no way to test this theory....hm.....
My observation is this: when the REST of the relationship is on track and you are truly in love and happy with your mate, their physical appearance is not as important to you -- you can get turned on by the sight if them even if they aren't in 'optimal' shape, dress, or grooming state. On the other hand, if there are problems in the rest of the relationship, then faults in their appearance will bother you more -- it's just one more thing wrong with them that they need to fix before you can turn on to them.
In my own case, I've observed that as the years go by and my wife has gained some weight in middle-age, my own desired body type (what I desire in a woman) tends to shift towards where she currently is. We already discussed my love of exagerated curves in the past, and as she grows older she just gets curvier...it becomes win-win for both of us. She doesn't like the weight gain as far as how she looks to herself or others (she continues to have body-image issues), BUT she knows how she looks in my eyes, and truly appreciates it.
I suspect, perhaps, that you dancing / fitness 'freaks' who work so hard to stay in shape at all times, will put more stock in physical apperance and staying in-shape, such that each of you will be carefully monitoring yourselves and each other keep that physical attraction optimal. If one of you had to severely back off from working out so much for medical reasons or some such, however, I would hope that my above observation will still apply: that if the relationship itself is healty, physical appearance might not be as important as you think -- your mind's eye will make the necessary adjustments for the flame to keep on burnin'.
Love is blind, as the saying goes.
-- B.
Me 50, W 45, M for 26 yrs S25, D23, S13, S10 20+ year SSM; recovery began Oct 2007
(hmmmm... fleece body stocking with access hole... cashmere babydoll with leg warmers and knit choker.... thermal bustier and thong with fur robe...)
"You might be in a SSM if... ...you are turned on by the word access."
Spellfire aka Mike
"Women do not like controlling men. They respect and are attracted to men who control themselves. They ultimately are repelled by men who allow themselves to be controlled." -S&A
Baggy dear....yes thank you for your perspective. I am sure that you are right in that, as long as we are feeling so in love, then a physical change in appearance will not equate to loss of attraction....well, to a point, of course.
You are also right that in our case, we are both very fit...and because of that, I think we would both lose some amount of attraction for each other if the other were to gain, say, 20 or more pounds in a short period of time (less than that would not be a big deal). But also I think you are right that our love would blind us to it as well....up to a point.
Just to make sure I'm not misleading anyone, however, I want to say that although we are both fit, we are not work out freaks, we are not totally hard muscley people, we both have our soft areas and are pretty "normal" looking on the outside...we don't look like body builders or anything like that. (I am more fit than he is visually because although he is very fit and strong, he does have a tummy....which I don't even see, but others would...). We do not regularly work out at the gym, but we do both work our bodies out regularly by working hard on the house and by having vigorous and long lasting sexual episodes. Anyway....just sayin', we ain't no perfect peoples.
My last post said "he does have a tummy, which I don't even see, but others would"....I wanted to expand on this....
When I first met Mr. DQ, I was attracted to him, but not on the animal level I am now. After we had dated for a while and had been making out a lot, I began to become more attracted to him. THEN...the first time we really got into bed together and I truly saw him fully naked walking around the house after wards....well that was the first time I had to stand back and go "hm....yes I am attracted to him, but not so much that it is that big of a deal...I like him a lot though....so I will continue to give this a chance".
What happened after that was all very surreal to me....
As I said above, he has a tummy. But...he does not see this in himself. He basically is so confident that he sees himself "as if" he is in the best shape of his life. He sees himself the same as he saw himself in his early 20's....he looks right past his own flaws and only sees the "good stuff".
As I got to know him better, I had to really understand this about him. I actually expected him to be like other people and be insecure about his tummy! I didn't realize that there would be any other way to see it!
But I learned a lot during that time. I learned that you are allowed to see yourself anyway you choose. You can be insecure and look like a super model, or you can look like John Candy and feel like a super model! Its up to you to decide how you see yourself.
So then what happened was....
As we fell deeper in love, and as he made ME more secure about myself (because he sees me the same way he sees himself....he looks right past my flaws and only sees the "good stuff"...he sees me "as if" I am still perfect, young, no stretch marks, etc. which is far from the truth, but he has made his vision of me into reality for both of us)...and as he helped me experience more and more emotional and physical intimacy in a fun and safe setting....well something amazing happened. One day I saw him strutting along totally naked, and *I* didn't see his tummy either. I only saw his good stuff, and his flaws disappeared....
I know now that this was because he projected his confidence so completely and with so much authenticity that it literally changed the way I saw him.
In the beginning, I almost kind of felt that he was being c*ocky by feeling so sure of his attractiveness that he expected others (ie: me) to be that attracted to him, too. But over time I realized that my own head was pretty messed up in this area, and I have grown a lot since then.
Now I get that he wasn't being c*ocky but just simply confident, and if I had not been attracted to him, he would have been fine with that....but he would have of course, ditched me in pursuit of a partner who did find him attractive.
I can't even really bring back any of the old thoughts I had because they have changed so much since then!
Anyway Baggy...I was thinking these thoughts in response to you saying how your wife felt one way about herself, but that she accepts and appreciates that YOU find her immensely attractive. It is so amazing how we see each other, ourselves, our spouses...and none of it is really "true"...it is all about perspective and emotions clouding how we "see"....
This has changed from a counseling update thread, to my home remodeling project update thread!
So Mr. DQ and I continue to do very well. Better and better all the time. We are back to where we were when we were first seriously dating...ie: constant lovey dovey and kissy kissy, with no fighting.
The house is coming along great. The living room is finished except for one tiny step, and the coffee table comes in on Thursday. Now I just have to pick and hang art, and voila! It will be like my own little lounge.
The new upstairs bedroom is also done. We put our bed up there last night for the first time ever. We were not 100% sure it would even fit up the stairs! But it did and we slept like babies up there. We really wanted to make love in there, to sort of consecrate the new space for ourselves, but we were too tired....tonight I suspect we will not be too tired.
There is still so much work to do, because the rest of the house is still in construction zone time....but hopefully a few more weeks and that will be fixed, too.
I will go try to update my flickr account and post a link, but it will take a little while so hang tight...
