Ms. H-dog: a peek inside her mind

[eyesopened]

Hi Hairdog,

Re your wife, I'd like to offer a different take. She's right AND you're right.

She's right that sex is often separate from love, especially for men. Also, she's right about it leading to dangerous beliefs and behavior. After all, child molestation, rape, and sexual slavery are about sex but have nothing to do with love. When I was molested at age 5 by an adult male relative who was babysitting, that had nothing to do with love.

Also, even while our minds may be repulsed by some types of pornography, our bodies, including women's bodies, might still respond and become aroused; so there's some dissonance there.

On the other hand, you're right when you talk about making love giving you a happiness and closeness you can't get otherwise; and part of that is due to male physiology, specifically neurobiology. Women have an abundance of oxytocin, the "bonding hormone". Men don't have very much oxytocin EXCEPT that levels rise dramatically during sex, specifically during ejaculation. Changes in oxytocin and vasopressin secretion during sexual activity in men.
I first read about this in What Could He Be Thinking by Michael Gurian. While Gurian says that many of our societal changes toward equality are positive, we need to accept that men's and women's brains are different, and he uses neurobiology to explain this. He also explains the difference in men between "I want to have sex" and "I want to have sex WITH YOU"; and there is a difference. You don't just want sex, you want to make love to your wife, you want to be close to her; and ML with her makes you feel close and bonded to her in a way that goes far beyond two bodies having sex. I'd quote from the book except my H is out of town, and he who hates relationship books of any kind is reading this book. I highly recommend it as it goes beyond Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus and uses actual science and research. (BTW, Gurian's concepts are being used with great success in some school systems including one in Kansas City

The Gurian Institute - Success ). You can read more info about Gurian's work, including his books on gender differences, here: Michael Gurian . As an intelligent person, would your wife be willing to read something like What Could He be Thinking not only to help her understand you but also her stepsons.

As for advice, I've received so much bad advice in the past that I hesitate to give much advice myself because everybody's different. But, as somebody who'd been in an adversarial type marriage for years until recently and who's seeing remarkable progress and success using Michele's concepts, I can identify a couple of things that have worked for me.

First, I stopped seeing H as an adversary and worked as hard as I could to try to understand him and see things from his point of view no matter how different it was from mine. I really listened to what he was saying and I validated, validated, and validated. The more I truly understood him and accepted him, the closer we became and the more willing he became to try to understand me. Like Michele says, he wasn't wrong, he was merely different and different's okay.

There's one other possibility that I'll throw out simply because it really threw me for a loop when it happened. Although I was molested as a young child and it had some immediate and residual effects on my life, for the most part it didn't affect my life too negatively. I had parents who loved me although for some reason I don't remember I never told them what happened, and I was pretty and smart and well-liked by teachers and friends. It didn't affect me sexually later in life, and I was fortunate to have good boyfriends and good dating and sexual experiences for the most part.

But, as my oldest son approached the age I was when I was molested, I started having nightmares (the same 3 types of nightmares I'd had after being molested-- the color red (blood?) , a man that I thought was the devil standing over me , and being hurt or threatened but not being able to call out for help) and panic attacks. I don't have a lot of faith in therapists anymore, but I think the therapist I saw around this time was right in her diagnosis. She said what I was experiencing wasn't uncommon and she thought my nightmares and panic attacks were caused by fear that I couldn't protect my kids just as my parents couldn't or didn't protect me. You and your W have a young daughter, and I was wondering if perhaps some of your W's concerns and statements might reflect a fear for your daughter if your W has a past history of molestation as many do.

BTW, even if your W doesn't want to read What Could He Be Thinking?, you might want to read it yourself. Gurian said he wrote it mostly for women to understand men, but my H is reading it now and finds it very interesting, and I intend to give it to my sons to read to help them understand why they get so irritated with their GFs at times.