Quote: I guess my point is, try to take your focus off the sex, focus on intimate communication, especially the listening. Grow your closeness that way, and the sex will likely follow.
I have a problem with this. What I am seeing is that LD people expect intimate communication first, and the sex is the RESULT of intimacy. What they don't understand is that sex IS AN EMOTION, IT IS INTIMACY. I know that my wife does not see sex as an emotion, she sees it just as physical pleasure, she sees it as sex, she totally does not understand the concept of making love. She thinks the goal is to orgasam.
In order for the relationship to work, here is what I think must happen:
The MAN must focus solely on intimate communication, weather this is words, quality time, acts of service, something NON-PHYSCIAL that meets the love language of the LD woman.
THe WOMAN must focus SOLELY on physical intimacy, 24/7. She must be able to express love NON-VERBALLY, using ONLY body language. This means lots of sex, and lots on non-sexual touching. This means that they will have to LOVE sex, they will have to have DESIRE, because body language can NOT be faked. And it is ALL about the body langauge. And believe me, most LD people do nothing but create NEGATIVE body language.
I think you completely missed my point about intimate communication. So much so, I think that perhaps your definition of intimate communication is something other than what I tried to describe. I am talking about communicating on a level where you SHARE your feelings and listen empathetically so that you actually feel what your SO is feeling. This works by having her describe the feelings she has in a particular situation, then you mirroring that description back to her using your experiences as a frame of reference, ie in your own words. She then should return with something like, well, that's not exactly what I meant, it is more like.... After going back and forth on it a few iterations you can generally get down to a shared experience that very closely approximates the feeling she is feeling. It requires you put aside the resentment and anger, it requires you open up completely and not hide behind walls you've built around your inner self, and it requires you to build a trust that your mate is not going to hurt you when you open up like that. Then when she shares her feelings, it requires you to evaluate her feelings but not judge them. No feeling is right or wrong, they just are. Knowing the feelings gives you a window into her soul, and when you both have windows open like that, it would be very hard not to be close and change yourself to be a better partner to your mate. It takes time to build to this level. I'm not there yet, but I can tell you I've seen peeks of it, and I can tell you that a) it beats sex hands down, and b) when you've gotten there it generates a closeness like nothing else, and that closeness has directly led to the best sex of my life.
No one here knows what you actually have and have not tried to do to improve your R, as you never answer us when we ask. I am quite sure you haven't given real intimate communication (per the description above) an honest try, or I am quite sure you wouldn't still be stuck in the exact same place you have been in the whole time since I first came onto the board a couple years ago. In fact, from your posts, I'd bet you haven't a clue as to what your W's issues with you might be. Have you ever really asked her how she feels about your R, and LISTENED to her response, putting yourself into her shoes? I gotta say that I doubt it. You have to stop framing her actions in your mind before you can do that, and from what you've showed us here, you haven't even tried to do that. I challenge you to pick up the How to stay married book read it, and follow the advice for at least a month. Either that, or go to a WWME weekend and put every fiber of your being into opening yourself up completely in the exercises. You can do it Cemar, but it means doing more than griping about how much your situation sucks. It is hard work.
Quote: I guess my point is, try to take your focus off the sex, focus on intimate communication, especially the listening. Grow your closeness that way, and the sex will likely follow. Mrs NOP, I think that is the message you've been saying all along too, right?
Sort of. A sexually starved marriage has more than just a lack of sex going on. I don't think that you should take all focus off the sexual issue, BUT that the focus should be on all the things/issues, current or past, that have destroyed relational intimacy. And I think couple assume they know how to communicate. Communication isn't based on the number of words being uttered.
Piss-poor behaviors have to be eliminated. Harley calls them lovebusters. So, the overtly irritating actions have to be acknowledged and dealt with.
I don't think that the sexual issues should be dropped totally while closeness is worked on. The HD spouse isn't going to be moving toward intimacy if their needs have to be ignored and I think it gives the LD spouse a false perception.
Intimacy is laying it all out of the table. You can't totally hold back how the lack of sexual intimacy is impacting you.
In order to find a solution to relational problems, BOTH spouses have to at least acknowledge that there is a problem.
What you wrote is EXACTLY the way the HD man should address the issue. If he does this, he likely will put tons of points into her love bank. The problem is that most LD people find this really important and thus it should be to the HD as well. They are wrong. They must achieve the same level of intimacy, but they must not use ORAL communication. They must be able to express very deep emotions and connections with their spouse on a PHYSICAL level, not through a sharing of the minds. The HD women get this, LD women almost NEVER understand this. Sex is communication, sex is an emotion, and they don't understand this.
Sex is not the RESULT of deep communication, it IS deep communication. So when us HD guys must provide our deepest levels of intimacy (orally) unconditionally, the LD female must provide the same in return (physically) without condition. If they can not, then sex loses all value, it becomes a REWARD, and it must NEVER be seen as a reward.
Sex is not the RESULT of deep communication, it IS deep communication. _______________________________________________________
Yes, sex is deep communcation but it is deep communication that will NOT come when there is a huge gulf between you of other intimate communication. Cemar - quit banging your head against a brick wall, get honest, here and in your R. You can do it.
What you are saying is that meeting the mans needs must come LAST. Why? Why is it that LD women think that their needs must be met unconditionally while they get to CONDITIONALLY meet their mans needs?
Why not have BOTH spouses meet the needs of the other UNCONDITIONALLY? If the women can put conditions upon her desiring her husband, then can he not ALSO put conditions upon meeting her needs. And once people put conditions upon meeting needs, are we then not LOCKED into NEVER getting needs met?
No, Cemar, I never said that the man's needs must come last. What I said was, communicative sex will not happen when there IS no basis for it. If your R is a communication desert in general then it will be in the bedroom.
Cemar, remember, I am HD, very much so, and I have never (not once) ignored my husband's desire for sex EVEN when conditions didn't perfectly match my needs. However, that is because I have a deep and abiding respect and love for the man and when we have issues I have trust that they are temporary, even transient. The basis for this comes from good communication the majority of the time. I have told you before that I was LD in my prior M. However, it wasn't "who" I was (like you seem to assume about your W), it was the R, it was my lack of respect and trust for my H, it was how I felt about myself. There was no room for desire under those conditions. I'm in a better, happier R and desire is no problem now. I agree that in a perfect world both spouses would meet the other's needs unconditionally. Guess what...it doesn't work that way.
Your W has drawn a line in the sand around sex - "ok, we'll have sex but I won't locate my own desire." Why is that Cemar? Many LD women are simply protecting themselves from giving an intimate, personal, part of themselves away to someone whom they don't trust with that part of themselves. How about being a guy she can trust?
If your needs are sex and only sex (and I don't believe they are based on your earlier posts), then you are in trouble. Sex may be a need, but it is not a need like any other. It requires that your relationship be on a very firm footing wrt trust, affection, and general feelings of love. Why do you think in our culture like many others sex is put on a pedestal, in which only those committed to each other in some long term way is it permissable? Why do you think rape is considered to be such a horrible crime? It is because sex requires a dropping of the guard in a way like nothing else. We all have walls, built up by the hardships of life. To let your wall down low enough to have sex can require a lot from a person. So, sex in most cases WILL be the last need met. In an ideal world, with no walls and everybody doing the "right thing", sex could be just like any other need. And in a good relationship it can be. But this isn't an ideal world, so you have two choices ... figure out how to live in it, or be bitter the rest of your life.
I wish I had a magic wand that would make things good in your M CeMar. You seem like a nice guy just caught in the bear-trap of a marriage with little or no intimacy, which could have little to do with you and just be caused mostly by internal problems with your W. Sometimes life hurts, really bad, for a really long time. Try to have faith that things can get better and hope for the best.
Chrome
"Recollect me darlin, raise me to your lips, two undernourished egos, four rotating hips"
Quote: So when us HD guys must provide our deepest levels of intimacy (orally) unconditionally, the LD female must provide the same in return (physically) without condition.
What did you say to your wife the last time you were orally intimate with her?
Yo Hairy, are you still checking in at all? Looks like it has been a while since you last posted. What's up with your sitch? Do we need to send the FBI in to start digging up your back yard for the body?
