EO's journal

[eyesopened]

Tim,
Believe it or not, I'm often intensely jealous of you and your wife because you were each other's first and only lovers. Having other lovers who I liked very much, but never loved the way I do my husband, may have helped hone skills and confidence, but there never was the emotional intimacy that there is with my husband. I don't know how to articulate it, but it's almost as though I have a harder time connecting emotionally through sex with my husband because of past experiences with men who I liked and admired very much and had very good, "hot" sex with but didn't love them enough to want to establish deep emotional intimacy and make a lifetime commitment. It became very natural for me to hold back and maintain a comfortable distance emotionally.

When I became a Christian several years ago, I first read verse 7:10 from Song of Solomon: "I belong to my lover, and his desire is for me." (NIV) It seemed to cut through to my heart as an expression of what I wanted with my husband (I also understand the parallel meaning regarding our relationship with God), to belong to him and to know that his desire is for me. Kind of a hard thing to admit and a very vulnerable and fear-inducing position for somebody like me who's always been self-sufficient, independent, reserved, and kind of aloof. I don't want to allow fear of intimacy with all its vulnerability and nakedness to control my life anymore. Or, maybe I'm just weird somehow.

Honeypot,
I think I understand what you're saying and your post made me stop and think about what's going on. As bad as my marriage has been at times, there is one area where I trust my husband completely, and that's in bed (figuratively and literally). If I'm not feeling well, he won't expect or even approach me to ML. Instead, he'll send me off to bed to rest and take care of me. Except for being ill, I can't think of any other reason why I can't give him my undivided attention for at least 15 minutes. As for never turning him down, that's also a matter of integrity for me now.

With our past pattern where he stopped initiating because it felt like begging to him and I often didn't "feel" like ML I think it's necessary right now for me to make and keep my promise to give him COMPLETE control over the frequency of ML now, which means never turning him down and not putting pressure on him (I'm doing at least half of the initiating right now because he really likes it when I do that, but I want him to know that I'm not pressuring him and that if he prefers not to ML at that time, there will always be another time whenever he wants).

Michele says to do more of what works and less of what doesn't work, and this is what's working for us right now. As time goes on, things will probably change as we reconnect and become more emotionally intimate, and he can finally relax and know that this isn't just a passing phase, that it's a lifetime commitment and decision.

Update:
We ML last night. I'd given him another foot rub earlier after dinner (and after he'd worked a 10-hour day and mowed the lawn for another couple of hours). He hasn't felt as well as usual since his last trip and thinks it's something he ate. When we went to bed, I initiated and he was a little hesitant because he hadn't showered after mowing the grass. I reassured him, truthfully, that I love how he smells (even after hard physical work where he sweats, he has a clean smell). What happened is that I started "doing" him with my hands and mouth and then we ML (I think he's still getting used to the fact that I can get really turned on just by touching, smelling, and tasting him because he wanted to see and feel for himself after I did him for a few minutes). I've also become more verbal in bed, which he's always liked and asked for. Although I'm pretty uninhibited in bed, I was a little uncomfortable with talking "dirty" in bed, perhaps because I don't use words like that in public. But, as I told him, there really aren't other words to express exactly what's going on when we ML (although I still love the "pretty" love words sometimes) unless you want to use clinical terms (ugh).

We're still doing a lot of talking about sex, our marriage, the past, etc; and I'm feeling more vulnerable than ever before, but I see this as a necessary cost for for trust and intimacy in our marriage (I also realized that I'm the one in our marriage who has more difficulty saying "I love you", especially saying it first).