Follow up on “An obervation” – Keep working at it!
Update on this post – “An observation”
I did not get a chance to do my experiment because the same day I wrote that post, Hubby decided we needed to talk! Coincidentally, Hubby was feeling a little neglected also. (or perhaps he read the post lol) When we talked – and I expressed that he had not been as touchy feely as he usually is, he was surprised. In fact, he denied it! Instead – he felt I was the one pulling away and being distant.
As I said before, I usually am not the touchy feely one in this relationship. While I return the touches, hugs, and kisses, he is the one that most often starts them – mostly because its his love language and is natural for him. Plus he does it often enough that I don’t have to that much. However, as I said in my last post, I have had the higher sex drive and have been doing most of the sex initiation this past year and because I stopped initiating these last couple of months (I did not turn him away when he initiated), he felt I was the one who was pulling away. Even though he had curtailed the non-sexual touching during the same time period, and even though I did not change anything else about my behavior – I was the one creating the distance in his mind. Regardless of who created it first, the fact was we were both feeling a rift.
The experiment I was thinking about was to be the one to start initiating non-sexual touching. I was curious to see how he would respond since that was not our norm. I wondered if he would then start-up his non-sexual affection again, and/or if it would increase his desire for sex a little more in some way. I wondered if it would increase my desire levels a bit. I didn’t get the chance though because after our talk, Hubby immediately started the kissing, hugging, and hand holding again and actually even ramped up the frequency a bit – which was already a lot. And interestingly, he has also been initiating sex a lot more these past week. I wonder if he is feeling a bit insecure in our relationship, a little unsure of me and my feelings – and is trying to draw me back in. (Which if that is what he is doing, I can understand, given our past history of my being a denier for so many years.) I am still not initiating sex because my desire for sex is still low (although I go with the flow and the desire kicks in after some foreplay – usually) and perhaps this upfront lack of desire has him worried, although he has not brought it up. Or perhaps, like my reason for not initiating non-physical touching often because he does it often enough, my initiating sex before was often enough that he did not have to. And now he does.
Or perhaps I am over thinking this too much – and really all of this is a phase, or just related to age, or hormones, or life stresses or a combination of these life occurrences. I guess I could just ask him – but he would probably say “What are you talking about? and then say I am too analytical about things. (Which I am and why I have this blog 😉 )
Whatever the reasons – this experience has once again reinforced in my mind just how complicated navigating the husband/wife relationship, especially where sex is concerned. And this experience has also reinforced to me that we can’t get complacent – we have to work at staying in love, keep communicating, keep trying to reach out to each other, and keep finding ways to stay connected and bonded. It’s too easy for the relationship to slide and it does not take long for it to begin to erode, especially if we are not careful and mindful about nourishing and protecting it.
LDS Gals learning to embrace sexuality 
Maybe we all need to have a blog so our spouse can read our minds!
Might not be a bad ideal, Happy Husband!
I can see it now- the husband’s blogs would be short and sweet. TICKED OFF TODAY! Frustrated today! Woohoo baby, let’s have more of those nights!
And the women’s blogs – pages after pages lol
Ok – that was a bit sexist. I take it back! Lol. (Except for the woohoo baby remark)
I remember in the dark ages when I was thinking about doing my blog about sex in relationships and marriage. The more I studied and the more I read, the more I wondered if there was ANY effective way to bring women and men together on even a small patch of common ground. The more I learn, the less likely it looks at times. I am beginning to think what may be the single-most effective thing is to tell each other not what we think, but how we feel about things that give rise to emotion in us. This is not the old “more communication” concept to appease the relationship oriented wife I am proposing. This is about overcoming the tendency to rely on mind reading by our partner to know how we feel. It requires we actively and honestly evaluate or feelings, assume ownership of them and then attempt to communicate them to our partner. We may not know what to do with that information to fix/solve/change things, but we will at least know how the other feels. In time, with open honest discussion, we may figure out an effective path to follow.
I do realize that for men in particular this can be very risky. We men really hate to open up the Pandora’s box of issues and have our wives begin fishing around in them and start pulling issues out like the old Monkey’s in a Barrel game, all daisy chained together. We like to solve them in our usual task-oriented way, one at a time. We often shut down attempts to prospect for issues when we don’t want to discuss them.
“Are you upset?”
“Nope.”
“Is there some kind of problem?”
“Nope.”
“You just seem upset.”
“I’m fine.”
“Are you sure something isn’t bothering you?”
“I said….I’m fine.”
“You’re sure there’s nothing wrong?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. (“But I won’t be if you keep hounding me. I don’t want to discuss anything right now,” he thinks.)”
“Well, okay, but you w0uld let me know?”
SIGH “YES!”
More communication is not necessarily the answer. Effective communication is what is needed, but it only works when coupled with effective, empathetic listening. Men usually don’t want to talk on until they have things sorted out and are ready. Women usually are ready to talk now so they can begin to sort things out as they go. Therein lies the empathy conundrum. We are both ready to talk and listen, but at differing times.
Yes, Dan, it’s quite complicated isn’t it. We just have to keep trying and get out of the no talking ruts we get into off and on. Or… start a blog and send them the link. Lol
I NEVER send her links to anything having to do with relationships, marriage or sex. I figure if she is interested, she’ll ask. That isn’t to say I’m not disappointed that she never asks, but I don’t push her. I wish she would take a look at yours, and a few other Christian-driven sex-positive blogs. It isn’t that our sex life or marriage is in shambles or dire straits, I just think it might help her to view sex in a less structured way.
She does have access to my blog, meaning she knows I have one and is welcome to read the posts and comments. Whether she approves or not is her problem. The blog is my mission, my therapy and my learning and teaching tool. I try not to involve her in any way that makes her feel her privacy is violated but I don’t hide the fact that I’m married either. No names, no photos, no dirty laundry, no whining or complaining and no looking for someone to understand me because my wife doesn’t. Looking for love on the internet is a fool’s game.
I held off almost two years of before I started my own blog but was regularly urged by other bloggers to do it. Maybe they got tired of me dumping rambling comments on their posts, but they did keep pushing and here I am. I really do enjoy the writing. I always have. The best part is you get published without waiting for someone to decide you’re worthy of paper and ink. And then you get read; some days more than others but there are people who care what you have to say. How great is that? I have a blogging buddy in San Diego who is going for 25,000 comments on a single post. He currently has 24,000+ because of the strong loyal community he has built around his crazy-quilt of a blog. WP won’t tell him what the record is so he just decided to go for 25K. They say they don’t keep those kinds of records. Sure.
Anyway, I’m just thrashing it out at my spot and not trying very hard to grow it right now. Being an introvert, I want a quality community and quantity is not a big deal. I figure if they like what I post, I’ll probably like them and that’s how I am growing it. I’m still not doing with it what I planned, but maybe I am doing what I need to do first.
You touched on the subject of your husband’s love language…. why don’t more people learn what their spouse’s love language is and learn to speak that language? For instance, since your husband’s primary love language is physical touch, why not initiate more physical touching? I believe that by doing so, good things will come back to you. When a person feels loved, through the actions of their spouse, they are much more likely to give back, which in turn will create more back and forth expressions of love. And when this happens, generally more sex follows!
Good point Chet. I should initiate touch more often. I guess I just thought since I was initiating the sex quite frequently, that was fulfilling the need enough. But you made me think a bit. I’ ‘ll work on that more. Thanks!