Posted on 05/15/2003 12:50:59 PM PDT by WaveThatFlag
Edited on 04/22/2004 11:48:54 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
A few times in my 12 years writing this column, I've stumbled on a topic so unsettling to readers that it demanded a follow-up. Last month was one of those times, when my story on the problems of dual-income, no-sex marriages drew a torrent of e-mail that read as if I'd jabbed an open wound.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
LOL, I remember this being mentioned several years ago.
That's pretty clever...mind if I borrow it?
Now let my tell you why you're dreaming. He's asking for one quantifiable, verifiable activity. You are stacking that against any number of nebulous "needs" that only she gets to judge as having been satisfied or not.
No thanks...my daddy always taught me you can't argue with performance.
In other words, you made sex fit into your surroundings/routine...but he's suppose to go "out of his way" to make you "feel" a certain way?
:-/
And how do you suppose I change my surroundings/routine? Should I throw my kids away? Or should I only have sex on the nights I get babysitting (once a month)?
I think you're the one being a bit unrealistic here. Either that or you don't have kids.
Then there are a lot of women, and authors of books on marital sexuality, that don't know zip either.
In other words...you wish.
You don't see anything wrong with that sentence? You mean to tell me there are things he does every day that you help him with?
And how do you suppose I change my surroundings/routine?
By exercising the same level of creativity you expect him to use to make you "feel" a certain way.
You don't get the rules. In any conflict between a man and a woman, it's the man's fault. Women are under no obligation to figure out how to maintain their men's attention and affection -- it must be given unconditionally. However, men must always be attentive to the moods and needs of their women, and continually be active in satisfying those needs. Males who fail to do so are "jerks" and "immature".
I don't ask him to come to my office everyday and do my work nor does he ask me to do his occupation, but the home is where both partners need to pull their weight so things get done quicker and one person isn't carrying an excessive amount of the burden.
Now let me tell you why you are completely wrong. To a woman sex is not just an activity. It is soul-sharing, total immersion of herself into her mate. Of course no woman expects it to be perfect every time, but a part of her always needs that. Any man who says 'honey I love you but.... has now put conditions on his love. A woman has trouble committing to a man who doesn't love her unconditionally.
You are also completely wrong about the Mars/Venus books. One the key ideas in the book is for women to learn not to expect to get from their mate what they should get from their girlfriends. It does, however have some great translations to help you find ways to communicate that will be understood.
Men need to learn how important intimacy is to women, and women need to learn how important sex is to men. Neither should with-hold from the other, I just think that sometimes men think that if they are giving their wife sex, then they are fulfilling her needs for intimacy, and that is often not the case. Most women in these cases are not purposfully withholding sex, they are searching for ways to regain their desire, and that can only be done with the help of their mate, if he will only stop focusing on what she SHOULD want and try to understand what she DOES want.
O2
Intellectually dishonest as ever. No one assumed that beside you...and that to butress your prejudice. If she can't have sex, it gets easier to not have sex. If he can't have sex, it gets more difficult.
And that says nothing about a desire for romance and intimacy.
If that were the only reason, we'd be like most animals, only interested in sex, male and females alike, near the time when the female is ovulating. We aren't like that, in fact we are probably less like that than any other creature that walks, swims, or flies the earth, and so there must be another purpose. Some have speculated that it's to help maintain the male/female bond during the really long time it takes for humans to be raised to something approximating maturity. Makes sense to me.
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