Quote: However, I wonder how much of CeMar's CeMarishness would persist if he were to, for instance, spend a year on a desert island with me
Nice thought even for me. I suspect he would be happy. I am also seeing you might think many men are picky like your sometimes PIA H, which some are not as picky.
I can just guess in 30 days he would be swimming in joy. A year desert island might get lonely even when you have yout favorite toy and are with your favorite person.
Not to get personal and this is not about spending a month with anyone, but if Cemar were female and I had to spend a month with her, I don't know.
If I had to spend a month with you it would be a good thing because you post your troubles, your adjustments, your attempts to make you and your H happier. You do way more, or at least write about what you are working on to improve your situation. CeMar post that he is doing his share to help make his W happy, trying some things but mostly post what is missing and seems to be asking for more than most women have to give.
I know I post my troubles too, but I do post what I do to try to improve my M with BB. Anyway the effort is what I look for.
Quote: It is interesting how different our sitches are. I was LD and want to be better, your H seems to use LD as a shield. I hope he doesn't try to blame you if his tests come back normal.
I think your perception is very accurate. My H feels like he needs a shield to protect himself. The more I think about the events of the weekend, the more I realize that my H is dealing with a lot of anxiety about sex. I think I've been in denial or distracted from dealing with this obvious root of the problem for two reasons. The first reason being my H's really quite brilliant and successful attempt to shift the "blame" on to me over the years. I've spent far too much time trying to figure out if I'm really too fat, nerdy, b*tchy, slobby, aggressive, clingy or (this weekend's addition to the list) boring to be sexually attractive. The second reason I've been in denial about the fact that my H is experiencing some fear about sex is that it's not very erotic to think of your H as being afraid of having sex with you. I mean if confidence is one of the things that makes people most sexy than the opposite is true also. It's actually easier for me to blame myself on some level because then my H retains more sexual appeal for me.
I think that generally there are four components to LD; hormones, relationship power struggles and fear and/or dislike of some aspect of sexuality. Since I know my H was LD in relationships previous to ours, I know that blaming myself is rather ridiculous and I also know that whatever relationship tensions we have can only be contributing factors not the primary reason for his LD. My H, like many LDFolk on this BB, has on many occasions indicated that he just doesn't care that much about sex. Now, I think that if someone truly has a low level of active testosterone this culd be the case. However, I think a lot of the time when someone who is LD says they just don't like sex, this is the equivalent of me saying that I just don't like roller coasters when the truth is I have fun actually riding roller coasters but I really hate that feeling of fear that builds up as I wait in line and think about all the different ways the safety devices could fail.
Of course, it still might all come down to something biochemical. If my chemical soup was such that I was an adrenalin junkie, I would actually crave the fear/excitement that roller coasters offer. If my H's bloodstream was chockful of testosterone, it would probably swamp out the anxiety chemicals rather than visa-versa. I mean if someone invented a roller coaster called the Orgasmatron, I'm sure I would be able to overcome my fear and give it a whirl. It's too bad that it's kind of difficult to think of ways to offer positive incentive beyond the obvious to our LD partners. Maybe sometime I should approach my H and say, for instance "I'll give you $100 if you can bring me to orgasm through breast stimulation only and $50 if you just give it your best shot for a half-hour".
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
Quote: If you don't live in OH, whay did you ask about the Toledo metro?????
I thought you lived in Ohio. I live in Michigan, near the border. Though I shouldn't have revealed this because now my paranoid fear that some scary lurker on this BB is going to end up stalking me will return.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
JJ...I just wanted to make a comment on the fact that your husband called you a c****. I think that is terrible that he would use that kind of language. That word is so uncalled for. If my husband said that I think he would be expecting a slap.
Quote: It's interesting how everyone has their limits. This is one thing I have insisted on from day one, and something I have not budged on and will not: there has to be a certain "level of civility" in our conversations. This is absolutely a deal-breaker with me.
Interestingly, I would have been in complete agreement with you not too long ago. I grew up with a out-of-control, manic-depressive mother who became very verbally abusive when in one of her rages. Early in our marriage my H threw a temper tantrum and threw a chair across the room (not aimed at me) and afterwards I told him that I couldn't handle that kind of behavior due to my home environment, pretty much indicating that it was a "deal breaker" for me. For around 15 years we never had a fight that reached that emotional level. For the last year we've been having them on a regular basis. I think if my H had called me a "c*nt" and broken things early in our marriage it would have been a absolute "deal breaker" because I would have been afraid that he might hurt me physically and also my self-esteem was still too fragile from my adolescent experiences with my verbally abusive mother to deal with that kind of behavior from my H. This weekend his behavior did frighten and upset me a bit, but really not that much. I had a certain level of trust that the reason he was breaking inanimate objects was because he wasn't going to hurt me and though I certainly don't like being called a c*nt, it really didn't hurt my feelings that much. I mean a c*nt is just the name you call any woman who is making you angry. Another thing that struck me was that this totally "agro" behavior of my H's stopped as soon as I wandered into a part of the house where one of the kids might hear us. In fact, he reminded me to keep my voice down simply because I was talking in a calm manner about something sexual.
I used to manage a team of workers with another woman. We fell pretty naturally into the roles of "good cop/bad cop" because she was one tough cookie. She had been married for just a year or two at the time. One day she came into work visibly upset and told me that she was getting a divorce. In response to my caring inquiries about "what happened" all she would say was that her husband had said something that was unforgivable and so she had to divorce him and that is what she did.
The whole concept of the "deal breaker" is really pretty fascinating if you think about it. For instance, most people today would agree that physical abuse should be a "deal breaker" but 100 years ago this wouldn't have been the case at all. In fact, in the case I described earlier about John Ruskin and his virgin bride, he did exercise his legal right to beat his wife when she sued him for divorce. My HD sister, who spent many years living in the San Francisco Punk Rock scene, actually believes that it is healthy for couples to get a bit physically aggressive with each other from time to time. Verbal abuse is even trickier to deal with or know where to draw the line. For instance, my H yelling "c*nt" at me this weekend probably is less damaging to our marriage then his frequently rather kind, civilized way of implying that my weight was the issue in our sex life which would usually go something like "I'm pretty sure the reason I don't want to have sex with you is that men generally need visual stimulation and those extra 30 lbs. you put on while pregnant have lowered your appeal to the extent that you do not stimulate me. I know that it isn't your fault that you are overweight so please stop crying about the lack of sex in our marriage. I'm going to the store to get some beer and I will pick you up a candy bar.".
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
Quote: If I had to spend a month with you it would be a good thing because you post your troubles, your adjustments, your attempts to make you and your H happier.
I think you're a nice person too. Actually, I would be quite amazed if any regular reader of this BB had much sexual attraction towards me because I reveal WAAAY too much. I mean I feel like I show up on this BB in my raggedy old Grandma underwear much more frequently than I show up in my hot new purchase from Victoria's Secret.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
I'm not sure about it being tricky to draw the line.
There is no reason to say something to your spouse for the dual reasons of: salvaging your pride and hurting their feelings.
If my H was deliberately trying to hurt me with his words, I would consider that verbal abuse. Although I probably would not leave him over it as your friend did, I would insist that it go away.
Is "crabby and somewhat demeaning" the primary way that your H communicates with you? That is the impression that I get from reading your posts, but I fully understand that posting is one of those things that is done when the mood isn't so high so I might not have the complete picture of MW.
JJ.....do you think on some level you accept this behavior because your mom was verbally abusive?? So his behavior just is something you are use to?
It really is terrible he said this and he should at least appologize. If he seemed so upset about the kiddos hearing you guys talking about something sexual. Maybe you should ask him how they would feel if the kiddos heard the kind of names he was calling you?
Quote: Is "crabby and somewhat demeaning" the primary way that your H communicates with you? That is the impression that I get from reading your posts, but I fully understand that posting is one of those things that is done when the mood isn't so high so I might not have the complete picture of MW.
The weird thing is I would say that before I joined this BB my H's behavior generally floated somewhere below 5 out of 10 on the "crabby and demeaning" meter. Now most of the time he is much better averaging about an 8, perhaps, but now I have to deal with these occasional temper tantrums in which he sinks down to a 1. I guess the question is "Who is the real Mr.W?" the consistently passive-aggressive cranky pita I lived with for most of my marriage or the much more friendly, loving man who occasionally throws disturbing, though passionate temper tantrums. I think my H and I were more comfortable with out sort of stereotypically repressed middle-class WASP way of handling (or not handling) problems in our marriage but maybe we're actually happier letting the pots and pans fly in the manner of some more passionate culture? I hate to admit it but we were actually both in a pretty good mood after our big blow up. It was like we recognized that there was a big elephant in the room with us and we blew it to smithereens. If I think about it, I realize that any time in my marriage that I've been willing to throw a fit or stand strong in some way in order to get laid I've been successful. The reason I would go weeks without sex in the olden days was it would take me weeks to build up enough drive to overcome my wimpiness and deal with the drama of confrontation.
That said, I don't think I am comfortable with the feeling of constantly being in the "crucible" that is my marriage at the moment. Perhaps, it comes down to the fact that a Type 7 HDW and a Type 4 LDM are doomed to only being able to be in stable relationship orbit with each other if they are at a great distance, otherwise it's like a scene from "When Worlds Collide!".
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
Quote: I think a lot of the time when someone who is LD says they just don't like sex, this is the equivalent of me saying that I just don't like roller coasters when the truth is I have fun actually riding roller coasters but I really hate that feeling of fear that builds up as I wait in line and think about all the different ways the safety devices could fail.
