OK, now for some answers to the serious stuff. First to Webermiester
Quote: Wishing to make a contribution to ZB's thread, I'm thinking, somewhat like Schnarch, if only we could be this revealing to our partners in our own relationships? It seems to me that it is easy and soothing to reach out to our global support community, when really what would make us truly happy is to have that break through conversation with our spouses after reaching "criticle mass".
Very astute. I do wish I felt comfortable enough to talk to W like I talk to my friends here. I’ve been thinking about that ever since I read your post this morning. It’s pretty easy to delude one’s self, but I don’t think I would have any problem revealing anything to W. It’s kind of hard to put into words, but what I mean is that I have no problem revealing anything about myself to her. The problem is that I don’t want to hurt W or further contribute to her known problems. It would be easy for me to talk about my feelings about our SL if I wasn’t so keenly aware that she already feels sexually inadequate.
It’s another take on the old “does this make me look fat” problem. If your W is fat, knows she’s fat, has weight-related self-esteem issues, and still puts on a dress and asks you if it makes her look fat, what do you say? The real answer is something like, “Honey, it’s obvious that you’re fat regardless of what you wear”, but you would NEVER say something like that. Similarly, W knows that she has problems with sex. She knows that in nearly thirty years of M, only the past year has even come within telescope range of being normal and satisfying. She doesn’t need me to point it out to her; she tells me that she’s no good at sex, that she’s not a good wife, and that had she known she would have such problems with sex she would never have married.
Now it’s starting to sound like I’m arguing with you when I mean to do the exact opposite. I agree with you wholeheartedly. I wish I could talk as freely about sex with W as I can here.
