The Art of Sexual Ecstasy - Anand

[TSinAtlanta]

I find your machismo refreshing in today's PC world. I feel that men in general have been quite heavily pressured into gender roles that don't really suit them (and that women don't find attractive) and when someone as clear spoken as you comes along it does stir up the pot Post by USSwede

Actually, I have been heavily pressured since the Day One into the macho role (don't show feelings, don't cry, don't show weakness, excel in athletics so women will be attracted to you).

Funny, those are the words I used, "stir up the pot". Anyway, You obviously just don't get it, so I'm going to stop wasting my time trying to help you see the difference.

You know, Ninja, you are right. I didn't get it. I didn't understand why you women would have such affection for men who put forward the standard macho line "Men have to have the dominant role in the R and women the submissive (gosh I can feel the frying pans whistling around) for things to work right. Its a biological directive. I dont give a flying F what our society or feminazis have to say about what SHOULD be. I can prove this from biology and science, or from the Old testament." (Don't try and say BF only means this in a very limited way, maybe just for sex or whatever. He says R, which to me means the total package) OK, when I first read that, I thought BF was a religious fundamentalist. Now, no. But, I think the rationale behind this macho posturing and strutting is he, or any man who does it, wants to be taken seriously. So how are men taken seriously in our culture. By macho posturing and strutting. It's an act, but an important one, because these are signals that many women react positively to. Now, I have not done any of this macho BS'ing, so automatically women on the board can dismiss me as "childish, hateful, verbally abusive" (read a 5-year-old boy who doesn't know how to act in polite society). Yeah, that's the ticket. That's what I didn't get. Why should women who say, or think of themselves as wanting a caring relationship in which their man shows them respect and doesn't try to run their lives for them, why should such women react so favorably to such macho posturing? And why should I be attacked as "hateful, abusive, childish", if I don't want to play that game?

Now, I will admit I am not looking at this process as a tea party. When I first found out about the affair, I was crushed, devastated, walked around in a daze for a week. I gather from my readings about affairs (Glass, Spring) that this is a common reaction. Your world has been destroyed and you have to build it up again from ground zero.

I ran a ten-mile exercise run on Sat. morning getting ready for a half-marathon on T'giving and afterwards (as always happens) could barely get up and down stairs. My first reaction was "This is good for my body??". But then I remembered the physiology behind exercise, especially vigorous exercise such as long runs. Now, those with medical backgrounds can correct me if the following is not completely accurate. What happens during this exercise is the muscles receive micro-tears; some are actually destroyed and have to be rebuilt. This process is good for strenthening the body, however, because the rebuilt muscles are much stronger, and old muscle cells are destroyed and replaced with new, stronger, healthier ones. So, when I got the shock to my life of learning that my WS had betrayed me, I have to rebuild my life and look at everything is a much different light. If this means tearing things down, not sorry.

I asked my WS about the reactions I have been getting to my postings on this board. Now, I didn't say everything (I get tired talking about myself after five minutes). But I did tell her what I was trying to say on my posts (probably not saying it very clearly, judging from the responses I get) was that women don't have to put up with macho posturing and should give men the benefit of the doubt and let them be individuals, with all their weaknesses and fears. I expected my WS to react as you all have, but she actually said, "Honey, what a courageous thing to say. I am proud of you for that." Go figure, I can hear the frying pans start to fly in my direction right now. Another thing she said was that she was guessing that many of the women on the board were younger, meaning, I suppose, that they still had these romantic, bodice-ripping ideals for their men, but I am only supposing, since I didn't go into that with her. I guess the women will respond, "Well, you didn't tell her how abusive and hateful and childish you were." Well, whatever.

When I was doing my ten-mile run on Saturday morning, I had this image of the women on this board sitting at a tea party, talking about their relationships, nodding in approval as Uncle NY, BF, USSwede and the others go through their macho exercises. Then I come in and drop a giant turd on the carpet and say I don't agree with all this. And everyone scurries around in anger and outrage.

You know, I think the members of this board might be self-selective, given the syndrome that Michele describes in her materials. The Walk-away Wife Syndrome she describes is the following:

In the early years of marriage, women are the relationship caretakers. They carefully monitor their relationships to make sure there is enough closeness and connection. If not, women will do what they can to try to fix things. If their husbands aren't responsive, women become extremely unhappy and start complaining about everything under the sun... things that need to get done around the house, responsibilities pertaining to the children, how free time is spent and so on. Unfortunately, when women complain, men generally retreat and the marriage deteriorates even more.

This is not and never has been a description of the relationship I have had with my WS. On the contrary, some of the requests I have made as a result of the affair are:

Going to MC
Telling me "I love you" - I used to say it, and she used to respond, but not say it first.
Tell me what you are feeling - I felt I was being open and revealing but did not feel that she was doing the same.

That's all I can think of right now, but there have been others.