New All Time Low

[MJontheMend]

It's the loss of the loyalty/trust of a marriage, that to me, hurt so much. And TO ME that meant more than the marriage OR the sex itself. And that is completely independent of how I feel about myself. I would feel, again, the same way if something were to happen to my best friend... and I am neither married to her, nor do I have sex with her.

That's interesting because I was actually thinking that maybe what you meant was I would miss the having a "best friend" aspect of marriage more than the sex. That isn't true for me simply because I've never been the type of person who has a "best friend". My "friendshipness" is dispersed into a lot of different size and shape buckets. I think this is probably due to the fact that I have three sisters to whom I am close so I have never been lacking for "playmates".


However, of course you were right to imply that if I was seeking validation I would get more validation from a man saying "I want to marry you." then from a man saying "I want to f*ck you.". The set of "Men I Would Want to Marry" is a subset of the set of "Men I Would Want to F*ck" so from my POV it would be more validating to be in anyone's "Women I Would Like to Marry" set because it is a more exclusive club. The only difference between me and you might be that "Men I Would Like to Marry" is a true subset of "Men I Would Like to F*ck". For me "Men To Whom I Would Like To Be Married but Not Like to F*ck" is the empty set and the sum total of my desire to belong to the corresponding set for any man is zero.

But the real point I should have been making is that me seeking validation through sex hasn't been the problem in my marriage for a while. I would say that the "problem" with my marriage is that my H will not validate me no matter where I seek validation. I mean there are many things about marriage that I value beyond sex but it has been my experience that if I simply try to reduce my need for validation through sex by putting my need for validation into another category, I end up not getting validation OR value in that category either. It doesn't matter if the category is sex, physical affection, quality time, words of appreciation, financial security etc.etc. . Anywhere I try to seek validation I don't get it and the more I try to seek it the less validation AND value I get in that category. Therefore, why would I be more jealous of another woman because she was married to my H not "just" having sex? She'll just end up not getting validated in the way that she wants it the most-LOL.

The reason why recent sex with my H has been so great is not because I finally stopped trying to get validation through sex but because I finally gave up on trying to get validation at all. Therefore, I am in a situation where I might as well be "damned for a sinner" because I'll be "damned for a saint" no matter what. I might as well go for all the value I want from sex because I have nothing to lose in terms of validation otherwise. Sex with my husband is like sex with the stranger in the elevator (except better because the stranger knows how my body/mind works) because I fear no consequences of my behavior because I seek no validation from the relationship.

Of course, this is a very hard state of mind to maintain. For instance, this evening I'm feeling fused because I'm afraid my H is going to quit his job. The "financial security" category is hard for me to get my fusion out of because it effects my kids and it's pretty much impossible not to be fused with your kids. So, I'm basically feeling angry at my H on the behalf of my kids.