Hey Bets, Well, first I should clarify that the notebook I found wasn't some skinny spiral bound jobber, it was a 4 inch thick binder. Mostly things he printed out for re-reading some time, lots of personal comments made in the margins (yes I read em, sue me) as well as some letters he wrote to me but couldn't give to me, for fear of my reaction. It was SO hard to read all of it. To know what was going through his mind and, gulp, to know how thin the thread had stretched that held us together. (translation: it freaked me out to realize that I was romantically unloved--how dare he!!--during that time)
Sooooooo, back to me. Well, my defensive reaction to that is this: MrH does *not* make it easy for me to open up. In fact, it makes him so uncomfortable that he immediately shuts the convo down. "Uhhhh, honeypot......you know, I'm going to go run a bath for you." End of discussion. This can be about depression over my dad's death, or my insecurities about my mothering skills, you name it. Anything that hints of intimacy makes him uncomfortable.
However, this doesn't get me off the hook does it. There is one time that he positively clamors for my intimate conversation...during spiritual discussions. Where am I during those? Out to friggin lunch. I can't go there with him. WHY I don't know. I mean, I guess I do know but have been lazy/fearful about confronting it so far. I can and do have spiritual discussions with my girlfriends and do to a certain point with H but do not relish it, encourage it, or 'let him in'. It feels raw to be talking about that with him and I wonder if he senses it. Probably not, as he is not the most emotionally clued in person I know, lol.
About the other issue--his missing libido--all I can say is that it showed up about the exact time that I stopped demanding to see it. Coincidence? I don't think so. He told me that he needed me to do this but I couldn't seem to get the hang of it. Time, time, time was what I needed. Most likely, he needed time too, to reconcile his raging hormones with his raging spirituality.
One of the biggest factors in him finding his libido seems to be MY learning how to be more feminine (funny, cause I know you are experiencing many of the same things on your thread these days) which allows him to act da man. He sooooooooo wants to be passive and I have a naturally dominant personality so it seemed like a perfect fit until a few years went by and it became evident that this dynamic doesn't work in the long run. He is slowly learning how to be a more dominant romantic partner and I have definitely learned how to act more like a girl. I still don't watch desperate housewives, etc, (I laughed at that part on your thread) but I now play up those parts of me that are there and I never highlighted before. For instance, I talk softer and with less sarcasm, I have curbed my tendency to interrupt, I validate people, I don't argue for the sake of argument, I praise the crud outta him, you know the drill. I don't know why it never occurred to me to do these things before except for what I wrote earlier--I just thought that it was my birthright to have a man drooling over me and I didn't have to do nuthin. Incidentally, cemar, in my case it had little to do with Snow White and more to do with a feminist upbringing.
