A lot has happened since my last post (I can only post intermittantly because our new computer set-up gives me less privacy).
After telling me that he wanted a 1 to 2 week hiatus from my sexual demands due to job stress on Wednesday, my H started behaving like he might be interested in ending the hiatus on Thursday night. When I started to prepare to go to bed early, he said "Aren't you going to stay up and be sociable?" and fixed me a drink. Since I was feeling kind of fed up with sexual suspense, I asked him straight-out if he was thinking about ending the "hiatus". He said "I didn't really mean for you to take me literally when I said 1 to two weeks.". I said "So do you want to have sex tonight?". He replied "Why don't we plan on having sex later in about an hour."
I made the mistake of assuming that he just meant something arbitrary when he said an hour. I thought he just meant once the kids were up in bed. So, I found myself watching TV on the sofa with my H a half-hour later wondering why we weren't having sex since there weren't any kids around. I decided to be bold and started fondling myself visibly. My H looked over at me and said "What are you doing?" in a very unsexy way. He proceeded to give me a small lecture on how it was unfair/disrespectful of me to interrupt his activity (watching Ted Koppel) and expect him to quickly switch into sex mode just because I was fondling myself. I found his reaction quite depressing and had the thought "Why am I so unlucky? Why can't I have a "normal" husband?".
Somehow we recovered our maturity and apologized to each other and proceeded to the bedroom a while later. We goofed around for a while, but my H was obviously not aroused. We then calmly talked for a while about our unfortunate LD/HD sich. I once again suggested that since we've been getting along wonderfully otherwise that perhaps we would both be happier if I took a lover. My H indicated that he didn't like this idea but it didn't upset him. The tone of the convo was actually pretty light and I got some new insight into his LDH POV.
In a recent post, HD wrote about an ad that bugged him. The ad suggested that a husband should buy his wife jewelery for Christmas because then he would get laid. From what my H said, I got the impression that part of the reason that he is LD is that he metaphorically doesn't want to have to go to the trouble of buying the jewelery. If he allows himself to desire sex then he has to accept that it is something valuable and therefore something he should work to get and maintain. In other words, sex and ambition are linked in his mind and since he is drawn to, in his own words, "the romantic image of himself as a bum", his desire to forswear worldly ambition means that he also must forswear sexual ambition. It doesn't matter that he doesn't really have to "buy the jewelery" in order to have sex with me. Either you have a philosophy in which sex is important or valuable or you don't. The fact that I'm giving it out for free with valuable coupons attached makes no difference.
Faced with the visible sign of his lack of ambition and my own horniness, I took matters "in hand" and we ended up having a quite hot encounter and he was even ready to go again 5 minutes later. Thus, once he actually is physically aroused, his "romantic" sexual slacker image is replaced by a very real sexual ambition. After this encounter, he agreed that a schedule might help in our sich and agreed to come up with one.
Saturday afternoon, we were alone in the house with no kids and I still hadn't seen sign of a sex schedule. I asked him what was up. He indicated interest in sex but suggested that I might want to take a shower first since I had been to the gym that morning. This comment did not make me very horny, the opposite in fact. Once again, I had the thought "Why can't I have a "normal" husband?". My anger only grew as I proceeded to shower and when he acted semi-mystified about my bad mood, I'm afraid the phrase "Felix Unger dickhead" was used.
We once again apologized and made-up. We proceeded to hash out a sex schedule together which if it is actually followed will meet my needs quite nicely. He actually acted somewhat enthusiastic about it so I became guardedly optimistic once more. We had sex yesterday evening since it was on the schedule, therefore, I can happily report, so far, so good.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
