An End/Beginning of Year Update

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

Honestly, I don't get it. What does sex really take? You are asking her to lie on her back for less than 10 minutes and let you have her to show you that she cares for you? it is nothing.

The fact that she won't do this has nothing to do with sex. It is about control and resentment, or some past baggage that she won't let go. Seriously, we are not talking about the real issue.

What is the real issue?

Well, let me weigh in on this. I'll do it thought by thought.

Honestly, I don't get it. What does sex really take?

Really? To paraphrase a rather direct observation as it could be applied to your comment, you have such a stunningly superficial understanding of what is involved that it is almost embarrassing to read what you write.

First, in this case it takes the consent of two adults. The "consent" of only one adult, the one determined to "have sex," without the consent of the other is at least "assault with the intent to please." It also has a criminal definition...it is called "rape."

So, if you really are and have been concerned about potential custody issues, it probably is not terribly wise to admit that you really don't get it and then propose what sex really takes. Anything you say can, and will, be used against you in a court of law.

You are asking her to lie on her back for less than 10 minutes and let you have her to show you that she cares for you? it is nothing.

Well, there are so many problems with this statement. First, this is a real "cave-painter" and "knuckle-dragger" POV. It shows a great deal of disrespect for another person, but it is consistent with my comment above that you think you have the right to "assault with the intent to please." And it reveals two things about you: 1) not that she "is" obligated to lay there (as you've unsuccessfully tried to defend yourself from your own words), but that she certainly "should be" obligated to lay there; 2) that you are entitled to show her lay there as proof that she cares for you.

My wife does have a point with these words. "No means no! Not yes, not maybe. Isn't that what we teach our children!"

On a somewhat lighter side, I see your problem. Somewhere, I estimated the number of times I have engaged in sex over my lifetime and it is well over two thousand times. I can count on one hand the number of times when it took less than 10 minutes. There was the time when my first wife and I were out tromping through the woods in 12 inches of snow. Everything was snowed in and so we got dressed in our thermals and down jackets and went for a hike in the woods near where we lived. We climbed this hill and emerged into this clearing amongst the pines to overlook the snow-covered area taking pictures of the snow. And then we stripped ourselves naked and made love in the snow. It was "hot" and quick in those low temperatures and this powder quality snow. And when we got home we spent the rest of the afternoon in bed together.

On and then there was this time on a golf course one warm spring evening. And the other time I can remember with my current wife was when we were pressed for time to get ready for dinner when we were on our honeymoon. We came out of the shower and dropped down on the floor right outside the bathroom.

It has always been an investment of time, the set aside of at least an hour and usually much more. If it was just 10 minutes or less and then my orgasm, I probably wouldn't miss it as much. But I do miss those long, slow lovemaking sessions. I have no sense of whether my current wife misses them at all. My ex-wife does as she has told me so, many years after our divorce.

Oh, and one other thing. Although these women might start out or seem like they are "in the mood," or even somewhat interested, it might not be something that they can sustain no matter what I did. Sometimes she could get more involved, sometimes not. And when it was a time when it was not working (for her), here is the difference between you and me: I didn't expect her to just lay there either on her back or on her stomach and take the stroking or the pounding just so I can have an orgasm while being inside her. I was willing to stop. Just stop.

No anger, no guilt, no retribution.

Maybe later.

When that happens frequently, just as the outright "no" then its indicative of something else going on. But I have enough self-respect (and respect for my wife) to be willing to stop. You can make sex strictly about you and what you want and maybe you might get intimacy out of that. My POV has always been that in lovemaking, the sex part is about her, about what makes her feel good and curl her toes and out of that the closeness/intimacy grows.

When nothing curls her toes, for me that is a real problem.

The fact that she won't do this has nothing to do with sex. It is about control and resentment, or some past baggage that she won't let go. Seriously, we are not talking about the real issue.

In my own life, the cases I have cited where this has occurred, there is always an issue of hormones and a changing situation/body. I know this. It may not be the only thing but it is a partial synergistic effect. The dramatic dropoff of the sex-life between my first wife and I after our child was born can be an "expected" side effect. But it dragged on and on. And in the end it turned into her having an affair. It wasn't until she got pregnant again, after our divorce and after she remarried where those same feelings arose again that she realized it was a post-partum hormone issue that brought on those feelings. And she got treatment for that. And she apologized to me. As she said, she just didn't know where that came from and the second time those feelings showed up she realized that it had very little to do with me.

My current wife's going through menopause and then her ultimate hysterectomy is a factor in how all this went down. Statistically, 30% women who go through a radical hysterectomy lose all sexual desire. So, for me, one way of looking at this is that all the stuff that led up to this was driven by hormones. Now the lack of desire may entirely have been driven by a surgery carried out in 1999. Everything else before that led to a reinforcement of feelings that have no way out.

Finally, if you've never expressed these opinions before your church experience, or you've had them but as a result of your involvement in your church you've started expressing them, then for your wife, this can very much look like a cult-experience...that you've been captured or caught up in a cult.

I may complain that I miss my sex life, but I don't have so little respect for my wife that I think that she should be obligated to perform sex acts just so that she could show me that she cares for me. If you think that you are living a lie. I am not willing to live that particular lie.

The Captain