Women with HD...is it true or just situational?

[Cyrena]

SSMGuy, I wanted to point out that what you are describing is exactly my molester's MO--start with some innocent touching, then slyly creep around to those private areas (while in my head I desperately hoped this time would be different). At the same time, he would convey that there was something degrading or disgusting about touching, say, breasts.

[ssmguy]

Cyrena, I tried that only a few times out of the hundreds of times I gave her a massage.

What you're saying is that my wife is logically defended from all sexual touching. If I touch her in a sexual way, then it's what her molester did. If I touch directly and immediately, I'm a crude molester. If I try foreplay and gradually move to more intimate touching, then I'm a sly molester. If I do anything sexual, it's an MO. If I merely talk about sex, it's an unpleasant subject and why would I do that when my wife tells me I should know that's not a comfortable topic for her.

If I tell my wife I love her, and don't ask for sex, she's happy. And that's what I've done for years. And she never wants sex, and she's happy with that.

So, indeed, what you are saying sounds very accurate, because I have come to feel that trying to touch a woman intimately is "dirty", just from my wife's reactions. Early on in our marriage, I "naively" tried touching her in ways that seemed fun to me, only to be met with "no, that's not appropriate", at which time I felt, "Wow, I didn't know that was wrong... and I felt dirty". It took a bunch of times, but now it's part of me too. It now takes effort to visualize that I could enjoy touching a woman intimately, and that she would actually enjoy it.

This distorted experience on my part has also led to some comical misunderstandings. For example, during the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, I first assumed that Clinton sort of molested her and came on to her, and that surely she was only putting up with it to keep her job. I was totally taken aback when I read the Starr Report and zeroed in on the salacious parts, where it clearly described Lewinsky as a willing sexual participant. And also experiencing orgasms, though it was never clear to me just how she was stimulated to orgasm. But I've never seen a woman having an orgasm, so I'm a little out of the loop on that one.

[Cyrena]

I'd say your wife is likely in wounded-child mode, acting on "if touching hurt me, then not allowing touching will keep me safe." Of course, that doesn't really work, because it doesn't allow the grown woman to take control of her own body.

I'm curious: how does your wife handle physical touch with your children? Is she able to hug/cuddle/kiss them? Can they come to her if they need physical comfort? Can she snuggle up with them on the sofa? Was she able to breast feed, and did she enjoy it?

Also, are you physically affectionate with your children?

[ssmguy]

Wife is OK touching children, especially when they were young. Yes, she was very good with breast feeding and enjoyed it.

Yes, I'm affectionate with the kids, and was especially so when they were young. I had them on my shoulder for hours every day as I went about tasks at home, and loved every minute of it.

And my wife and I were very affectionate too the first couple of years. But I remember well the little event that, only in retrospect, was clearly a turning point. It was when I gave her a hug, like I had done many times before, and as usual, just the sight of her made me aroused. But that particular time, for the first time, instead of feeling complimented, she said with annoyance, "I hate the way you're always so sexual". It was kind of a shock, and I tried to dismiss it as her just being tired or something. But in retrospect, it was a very telling moment, and my gut reaction at the time was correct after all. My sexual feelings for her changed from being a compliment to being just an annoyance she had to deal with.

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

Is it common for women who are in healthy, active, normal sexual relationships to not want to have their partner touch their "private parts", such as their breasts and vulva? I'm of course, speaking of activities during petting, foreplay, or sex. I'm not talking about the "unwanted" and inconsiderate groping by the horny husband when the wife is in the middle of making dinner and the pot is boiling over and smoke is coming out of the oven.

It would be nice if women in healthy, active, normal sexual relationships would answer your question directly. Unless the HD women of this forum actually answer that, what we have is some evidence that the answer might be a "yes."

From my observational experience of short-term relationships, the answer is a very definite yes. In fact, very self-assured women will lead you there if you aren't quick enough to find your way yourself. But those relationships often end from other causes though sexual intimacy could be a contributing factor.

In my two long-term sexual relationships, both that eventually went non-sexual, there was a relatively extended period of more than a few years where intimate touching was the norm...the shock for me was to have THAT, along with most other things sexual, go away.

In my first marriage, that desire for intimate touch stretched from a period of June 1973 (from the time I first met and started dating the women who would become my first wife) until September 11, 1980, when much of that "went away" or just was not reliably desired by her. The significance of that 1980 date was that it was three days before our son was born and the last time (in my view) where our sex life was "normal" (and by "normal" I mean it was frequent even during pregnancy, intimate, and hours-long sessions where she would orgasm almost at first touch, or at the first gentle sucking on one of her nipples). Rarely did we hurry through the intimmate foreplay. So, my observation over more than seven years is that the answer to your question is "yes!"

When things got "abnormal" it did not seem true any longer.

The shock was that after our son was born, most of that desire for intimate touch went away over the next four years. Although we had a couple of truly erotic, intimate and deeply satisfying experiences of sexual intimacy over the next four years, they were few and far between.

Two years after the revealing of her 1 year affair, our separation and divorce, I considered myself "available" and looking for "a healthy, active, normal sexual relationship."

For the first few years after my second wife and I met, our sex life was also similarly active to that of my first wife when we met (in some ways she was more adventursome, some ways less), but wanting to be touched was something that characterized our early sex life. And the thing that I find particularly disturbing about my current situation is that I was and have been explicit about the way I wanted the intimate relationship to operate.

Even as our sex life fell off, wanting to be touched still characterized our intimate moments until she started rejecting them. Wanting to be touched became more and more sporadic until it finally came to an end.

She just didn't want to be touched any longer. Holding hands or walking arm-in arm was (and still is occasionally) acceptable. But wanting to be caressed in any way or anything beyond a quick kiss is out of the question. Oh, she'll allow me to rub her shoulders to rub out the strain of a day in front of a computer monitor. But being naked in a bed with me is entirely out of the question.

Years ago, skin on skin was exciting and desired.

Not any more (by her).

Given the outcomes, I do question whether there was ever a time when things were "normal."

Depressing.

[ssmguy]

TeaEarlGreyHot, sounds like your answer is also yes. But at the same time, you paint a picture of women as being interested in sex for some years, and then losing all interest as a result of hormonal changes, which we all know often result from childbirth or menopause.

[Walking]

Is it common for women who are in healthy, active, normal sexual relationships to not want to have their partner touch their "private parts", such as their breasts and vulva? I'm of course, speaking of activities during petting, foreplay, or sex. I'm not talking about the "unwanted" and inconsiderate groping by the horny husband when the wife is in the middle of making dinner and the pot is boiling over and smoke is coming out of the oven.

From my perspective, as a reasonably healthy, active woman, it's an anathema to me to consider being in an intimate relationship that doesn’t involve consensual touching of my body. All of my body.

I find it difficult to understand why and how a woman could sleep in the same bed as a man every night and NOT want to be touched like that. For me it would be like sleeping with my brother or a cousin. Gross.

I was abused as a child and for me that experience has ensured that I have some pretty serious commitment issues that I’m still working on – but fortunately not the sexual issues you guys detail here about your wives.

I’m a 30 something year old woman. I have 2 sisters and dozens of women friends who all talk about sex and relationships a lot, and (assuming they are being honest and I can’t think of any reason they wouldn’t be) none of them have ever suggested they don’t like their partner touching them intimately. Quite the contrary in fact. We talk often about how some men don’t know how to touch intimately – some are too rough, some are too quick, some think that going straight for the grope is a turn on (and for some women, sometimes, it is). Communication and intimacy are the keys for women to help their partners get the touching right.

I would argue that the answer to your question … with the caveat that all people are different (some men like oral sex, some men prefer their nipples teased, some men like role playing etc etc etc) … – it’s not common. In my experience, women - just like men - love being touched intimately.

[ssmguy]

From my perspective, as a reasonably healthy, active woman, it's an anathema to me to consider being in an intimate relationship that doesn’t involve consensual touching of my body. All of my body.

Thanks for the answer! I love hearing that. I hope the man in your life feels lucky; I know I would.

I find it difficult to understand why and how a woman could sleep in the same bed as a man every night and NOT want to be touched like that. For me it would be like sleeping with my brother or a cousin. Gross.

I totally agree. My feelings exactly.

I was abused as a child and for me that experience has ensured that I have some pretty serious commitment issues that I’m still working on – but fortunately not the sexual issues you guys detail here about your wives.

How did you resolve the effect the abuse might have had on your sexuality? And what do you mean by commitment issues?

We talk often about how some men don’t know how to touch intimately – some are too rough, some are too quick, some think that going straight for the grope is a turn on (and for some women, sometimes, it is). Communication and intimacy are the keys for women to help their partners get the touching right.

Absolutely! And imagining your partner's experience as you touch them, and trying to read their reactions. Unless you're aiming for an occasional quickie, I would think many women want the same as me -- very light and slow touches at first, as if to make your body ache for more touching. It seemed my wife appreciated that the first few times we made out. But instead of progressing and learning more about how we like to be touched, it seemed my wife lost interest in that. Big disappointment. She just wanted deep pressure back rubs, and nothing more. No bridge to anything else. The slow sensous light touching which I love just seems "creepy" to her.

And when I hear other people, like you, describe what's normal in your life, I sometimes feel like I'm the "woman" in my relationship, at least with regard to intimacy and communication.

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

TeaEarlGreyHot, sounds like your answer is also yes. But at the same time, you paint a picture of women as being interested in sex for some years, and then losing all interest as a result of hormonal changes, which we all know often result from childbirth or menopause.

Didn't you get the memo?

That's our fault.

It's something that "we" did, that "we" have control over, something that we can (and should) fix if only we would just do what we know needs to be done...all would be right with our world.

Superimpose all those earlier experiences of our wives/lovers on the mix (including hormonal changes) and it gets weird.

True in both of my marriages. Is it just so common that nobody really talks about it? Is what "we" experience the normal condition and what we seek, what the books sell us as being desirable what is abnormal?

As I've written before, my first wife realized sometime after she left and divorced me, married her younger lover from her affair and got pregnant again, that those same feelings that she had about me, that justified her actions, were there once again for her newer husband. She was headed down the same path (again) with him as she had with me (light bulb moment for her).

What I did not know prior to that time or at any time during our marriage was a complete picture of what happened before she and I met. It all mixes together and sometimes in a weird and toxic way. It turned out that "I" was one affair that completed the breakdown of her engagement to someone else in 1973 even though I insisted, at the time, that if there was unfinished business between her former boyfriend and her, I would not be involved with her. I was not the trigger in that situation, someone else was.

But it took 24 years for her to reveal that to me, to allow me to know that.

Do any of us really have a complete picture? Do any of us really give a complete picture?

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

And when I hear other people, like you, describe what's normal in your life, I sometimes feel like I'm the "woman" in my relationship, at least with regard to intimacy and communication.

Yes, and look at how we are labeled.

Can you see yourself saying that same sort of thing (as Jack Nicholson did at the end of Something's Got To Give standing on a bridge over the Seine in Paris) and having your life turn out, given what your experience has been so far?

I can't for mine. Ultimately, it seems like you can't for yours, either. But we made a commitment and that counts for something even if it isn't very satisfying.

I'm 56 years old so it's not like I'm some immature teenager with raging hormones.

No intimacy and/or sleeping alone. She loves it. Yours does, too.