Quote: I would say the #1 problem with our relationship, beyond the sexual is the fact that my H doesn't like or appreciate the way my brain works( he doesn't even think I'm funny much of the time). He is jealous of my intelligence in much the same way he is jealous of my sex drive. This is what he has told me.
I sometimes think the simplest explanation for the LDH phenomenon is that their HDWs intimidate them to the point of impotence
This is very insightful. He flunked out of college 25 years ago because of too much drinking and drugging. He was on a voice scholarship-- his singing voice is stunning, plus he has that "star" quality to go along with it. He blew it big time.
His ex is younger and also did not graduate. I think his other post-D gfs were younger. I'm a year and a half older and have an M.A. I personally don't think finishing college is a measure of ANYTHING except your ability to keep putting one foot in front of the other until you finish (and paying for it-- I also had a scholarship, but back then the cost was 1/100th what it is now).
One does wonder, karmically, why he attracted me... and vice versa.
The impotence situation isn't helped by the fact that he is out of work (with the financial and ego implications of that), he knows I'm sexually more experienced (not in detail, but he knows I was married twice and had a live-in... there's more, but in that zone I believe in "don't ask, don't tell"). He DOESN'T know about the guy with whom I had the wonderful chemistry and sex all those years. He knows ABOUT him and knows that he's deceased, but that's all.
He has encyclopedic knowledge of many topics and is very smart. He has a very orderly and scientific way or approaching things that contrasts and complements my more "take no prisoners!" approach. If he had learned to love school, he could have been a brilliant scientist or something. He wanted to be a marine biologist.
My intelligence and book-learnin' do put him off. PLUS we're both very competitive. The other day we were coming out of choir, and he was telling me how to pronounce a Latin word in singing. I pointed out that I grew up with Latin when I was a Catholic kid (they switched to English when I was in high school) AND that I took four years of Latin in high school (kids studied Latin even in public school back then, in between dodging dinosaurs-- and priests (okay, very bad, tasteless joke)). He tried to trump me by saying, "Yes, but I've been SINGING in Latin since I was seven." I gotta say that his diction when singing is absolutely impeccable.
Yeah, I guess I might just scare the pants ON him.
Fortunately, he does appreciate my wit (if not my analogies) and we laugh a lot. He's also witty and we really crack each other up. Our relationship has a very playful quality that I wish we could transfer to the bedroom.
Mojo said:
Quote: he feels like I'm turning him or whatever I'm talking about into an abstraction
IMHO an analogy does the opposite-- turns an abstraction into something you can relate to in the concrete world. Maybe he feels that as the world becomes more concrete, he becomes more of an abstraction.
