I have stuck up for CeMar, too, as I have always found in his posts -- and those of barney, Wildebube and Hairdog, and some others -- so much of my own pain, and my own situation.
And I, too, have been told to just "grow some" and go have "the Talk" with the wife and press on (even though I've had "The Talk" probably 12 times in the past 17 years, to no avail).
I think CeMar is just painfully straightforward and blunt, and he comes across perhaps as Neanderthal and selfish sometimes, when all he is being is honest and perhaps not as articulate as some of the others on this Board.
But I am still of the belief that there is more truth in ONE CHAPTER of Dr. Laura's book than there is in all of TSSM or PM, but it's somehow SO simple that people (mostly, women) dismiss it as, well, simplistic. I base this opinion on the testimonials of WOMEN to Dr. Laura's book, not on some male "gosh, I-wish-it-were-so-simple" belief of my own, by the way.
I've inhaled every post on here for nearly a year now, and I still really only see one of two types of so-called "successes":
1) where the TSSM and PM approaches do nothing other than help the LD person "hold onto themselves" in the face of tremendous pain and endless battles and conversations. In other words, the quantity AND quality of the sex rarely improves, but there are good skills shared (and a support group here) for learning how to DEAL with it; and
2) Some REAL successes only when BOTH SPOUSES admit there is a problem, and agree to deal with it (the NOPs, for instance).
Perhaps there are those personality types who are willing to fight, and battle, and argue, and plead, and beg, and cajole, and push on, over and over and over again, to see SOME little progress, but the simple truth is that there are others who have personality types who LOATHE that sort of conflict, and who just don't think it ought to be that danmed difficult for two people who once were madly, passionately in love with each other, to get back to that place.
There are some of us who don't consider it "cowardly" to refuse to continue to fight about our spouse's lack of effort at the relationship, lack of intimacy and affection, and duty sex out of some combination of obligation or fear that they'll lose us and the security we provide.
Call me a crazy dreamer, but I'm with CeMar -- as awful as it comes across sometimes.
btw, it's also been very enlightening for me to spend some time recently on some of the OTHER DB message boards, and not just on this one. It's funny how there are actually examples of LD "epiphanies" on some of the other boards, but this community seems to have self-selected into those couples who are continuing to have to battle at it.
Don't get me wrong, I ADMIRE THE SPIRIT OF A WARRIOR, but I just don't think that marriage ought to be a war.
