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

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

Crikey. Remind me never to play chess with you Captain. Your thinking is always 4 moves ahead!!!

Chess, good choice of metaphors.

In the game of chess (like the game of "love"), I can teach you all the moves of the various pieces, when those pieces can be moved (or can't), and the ultimate goal of the game.

As humans, we think because we know the "rules," we understand, whether it be chess or love. However, if you have more than a passing interest in the game and the rules of chess, you know that it is not enough and that there is some basic strategy and tactics required to get from a starting point to some endpoint (e.g., to win the game).

I would never say that I was really "good" at chess. I got better the more I played. But the thing I noticed was that the more I played, the deeper the game unfolded before me. It went from a series of moves following some basic strategy to seeing the board and the pieces at a completely different way. Metaphorically speaking, I became the board and the pieces.

You are correct in one sense...I do see moves ahead in chess and in life. Although that "thinking a certain number of moves ahead" looks like "do the following four moves in this order and this sequence to obtain the desired outcome," it really does not occur that way for me. Rather there is a certain Merlin effect for me...seeing the world (or the outcome) looking from the future to the present (and the past) to see what steps would have to occur to reach that desired future as if the future has already occurred.

So, in essence, thinking four moves ahead is really (for me at least) the vision of a future and looking "back in time" asking and noting what would have had to happen (moving backward from the future to the present) to produce that future outcome.

It is not an easy thing to explain because it does not seem to be the way we are wired or trained to think. For me, it is and has always been a natural way of looking at things. And in that is the nature of my prescience. The same is true (perhaps to an even greater extent) for my son. It is immediately recognizable (to me) that he processes that way (perhaps because, as his dad, I protected that and did not crush nor allow the world to crush down that way of seeing the world).

In that way, it's not the future that we are trying to create that is uncertain, it is the present. Looking from the future, like standing on a summit peak, the endpoint looks fixed (there is only one peak, one summit, everything else in the immediate proximity is downhill and there are multiple points downhill from the summit). It is the "present" that wriggles around and has all the uncertainty and may require lots of course correction to "reach the summit."

Does that make any sense whatsoever?

Back to the chess metaphor, one way of looking at the problem is that my wife has taken all the pieces away from me except the king, a pawn, a knight and maybe a rook and then challenged me to keep playing the game as if everything is okay or, to put it another way, to live up to loving unconditionally.

At what point do I resign? Or take my pieces and board and go elsewhere. Sometimes you have to surrender to win.

Ironically, there are two quotes that grace my journals from 1984 to 1986 when I was going through the separation and divorce from my first wife after I discovered, and she ultimately revealed, her affair (I literally titled them the Journey and Journals of a Discarded Husband). Although I had come across them much earlier they seemed very relevant then and now. I have never forgotten them because I knew them at the level of my soul the moment I read them.

“To love someone unconditionally is to not care who they are or what they do. Unconditional love, on the surface, looks the same as indifference.”

“Unconditional love is no more a force in spacetime than it is in chess, or soccer or ice hockey. Rules define life in games and unconditional love doesn’t recognize rules.”

Time to initiate a short sleep cycle.

The Captain

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

Dogs are a great example of what unconditional love can look like (to humans). Here is another important point...they don't sit around for months or years thinking about the way(s) they can make your life miserable or get even.

That is a human trait.

The Captain

[ssmguy]

Originally Posted By: Walking
Are you falling in love with your friend-with-benefits Lover SSMGuy?

Not really.

Puleez...... Not really??? That's like being kind-of pregnant!!!!

It's a matter of degree and what you mean. It's not black and white or a single scale. I know what "I can't get you out of my mind" love is like, but few people could say that about their spouses after 10 years, though they'd still say they love them. Just like you can overinterpret what Tiger meant when he told one mistress she was the only person he ever loved. Yeah, right, just how do you really define that feeling, and does he really think he never had any feelings for the woman he decided to marry? It's not that simple, but people love to have discussions about it like it's a black and white thing.

And why does this come up in the context of sex? I would say I have fallen in love with several other women in the past, and without having sex with them at all. Like I said, perhaps more so than other people, sex and love have become pretty separate for me, out of necessity.

It also demonstrates the tricky balance your circumstance sets you up to juggle. You need to care for your partner in order to have a relationship close enough to be intimate (because you're a good, kind man and you respect her and want to treat her well)- but you can't or shouldn't love her because that's reserved for the mother of your children.

Actually, I'm more concerned about how the partner might feel about it, which is why I've turned down some other sexual invitations. I sensed that more was involved than just recreation, so to speak, even if the partner didn't think so. It's all about knowing the other person's situation and their needs. But it's still tricky, of course. Which is why I would much prefer a simpler solution, like having a spouse who serves as a partner in all these respects.

Can you see what a bind this puts you in ? (despite protestations that the European style mistress can and does work in a lot of situations - noting it didn't work too well for the likes of Princess Diana or her children) ...

And marriage can and does work in a lot of situations, but noting it hasn't worked too well in about 50 million marriages in the last few decades in the USA. So much for that comparison. Most marriages fail, most pre-marital relationships fail, most mistress relationships fail. The only thing that doesn't risk a messy breakup is celibacy.

[DanceQueen]

ssmguy said: I know what "I can't get you out of my mind" love is like, but few people could say that about their spouses after 10 years, though they'd still say they love them.

Well my husband and I have been together a total of only 6 years, so I can't speak for after 10 years just yet...but we do have the "I can't get you out of my mind" love for each other every day. We say this to each other every day, and it has not diminished one bit since we were first together. I literally rush into his arms every night, and wake him up to loving, tender intimacy every morning. We write love emails or texts or make sweet phone calls every day. I get butterflies when I see him enter a room, and he says he gets them as well. The people who know us personally get tired of all the lovey-dovey stuff...but at the same time, they regard us as an example of how love can be.

I will place a money bet that we'll feel the same, if not even stronger, in 4 more years.

DQ

[DanceQueen]

ssmguy...I just still want to provide you with examples that you seem convinced don't exist. Besides the constant white hot love and longing for each other, we've also got the best sex life of anyone I've ever heard of, real or in fiction.

You are basing a lot of your decisions on what you seem to think is possible in the world. I'm here to show you things you never thought were possible, really are.

DQ

[ssmguy]

DanceQueen, it's good to hear you say this and to say it so emphatically. I often find myself backsliding to thinking of women, especially women over 50, as being likely turned off by sex, or having the attitude of "I can take it or leave it" at best.

The reality wake-up call for me has been learning that possibly as many as the majority of women lose their sex drives as they approach or go through menopause, if not after the birth and caring for multiple children. I wasn't really prepared for that, and I bought into the misleading advice that women peak sexually in middle-age, whatever age that is. Sure, true for some, but not in the "great majority" numbers I had believed. I was assuming that my wife's interest in sex would pick up in the long term as she reached her sexual-peak age. Well, that is certainly not the way it turned out in my marriage, not to mention the marriages of some friends -- where the sex went to zero just like in mine.

DanceQueen, may I ask how old you are? If you're older than 50, than you're a pleasant exception to what I've come to experience. All I can say is that my personal experience may be terrible unrepresentative. All the women who have come on to me at the office and elsewhere over the years have ALL been younger. In my experience, they tend to be more daring and flirty.

[ssmguy]

DanceQueeen, here's a sample of the kind of thing that has influenced my views recently:

http://seasonedsex.com/loss-of-sex-drive/

[ssmguy]

And this article, also funny, which describes the different groups of women who are tired of sex, including, "- Women who have impatiently awaited the onset of menopause, presenting as it does, the ultimate excuse for, 'Not tonight, honey, in fact, not ever again.'"

http://seasonedsex.com/sexual-satisfaction/

Well, thank goodness women in the age group 20-40 generally seem to be interested in sex. Otherwise, the human race would die off. At least I understand that logic.

[Cinco]

ssmguy,

I thought I'd chime in here on what IS possible. My wife and I are both 49. She is perimenopausal. We went through a totally dead sex-life period. I thought she had totally lost interest in sex... UNTIL we made the conscious effort to change that.

Although we don't have the totally amazing sex-life that DQ speaks of. The sex-life that Mrs. Cinco and I now enjoy together is still pretty amazing. We ML 1 or 2 times a week. When we ML it lasts for at least an hour from initiation, through foreplay, climax (for both of us), then snuggling afterwards.

Most importantly Mrs. Cinco enjoys our intimate time together as much as I do. We worked together to get to this point, it didn't happen overnight.

If she hadn't been willing to join me to find a way to make our love work (Make Love, get it?), I would have known that she was no longer the woman for me. I would have left. In fact my readiness to walk was her motivation to find a way back to me.

Remember I spent years trying to separate Love and Sex like you have written about. Love my wife with no sex. Have sex with others without Love. I was leading a double-life. Even if I had had approval from my wife (which I did not), it still would not have been as fulfilling as the complete package that a total relationship (Love + Sex) would have been.

Actually my falling in love with a sex partner reminded me what I truly wanted - one relationship, one lover, true love... with my wife. I didn't know at the time with whom this relationship would be, I just knew how it felt and I wanted this feeling. I woke up and wanted it ALL again.

The point is that without any work, most relationships will end up winding down to that no-sex state you and your friends are in - my marriage was in that state too. Work at this with your wife and you too may get what you are dreaming of.

It is possible to realize your dreams IF you work towards making them come true. Aspire to create a relationship like DQ's as I have. She worked very hard to get there. We can get there too.

Cinco

[Jayce]

During most of 2008 & 2009 I was posting regularly, expressing my anguish regarding my H's LD. I read many of the books recommended by others here & added a few of my own. "Sex on the Brain" by Dr. Amen (He's on educational TV sometimes)was enlightening - SO enlightening! Human physiology is complex, and in our brains, its absolutely hilarious, tragic, frustrating and exhilarating in phases. When a relationship or attraction is new, our brains are flooded with chemicals that fade as that 'newness' wears off. Meanwhile it clouds our judgement, causes us to see our lovers in a rosy haze.......is a hell of a lot of fun......makes us feel so loved, alive & sexy!

So, yes, the gradual lessening of that initial high is normal. That doesn't mean it disappears forever, unless the two of you were a bad match or had negative baggage to begin with.

I am not a raving sex maniac. Not a 'nympho' (hate that word) but do have a higher libido than my H. Which meant that it was probably inevitable that I'd be doing the SSW thing eventually. You guys have hormonal problems as you age,too, don't forget. That old "T" gets lower along with your "equipment". Without an intimate connection & strong habit of communicating, that's extremely difficult to resolve. All the issues like rejection, body image, feeling as if one can't turn one's spouse on, are there for an HD wife as they are for an HD husband. The fear that you'll never have sex again heightens desire-those brain chemicals again.

Do read the book, even if it sounds frivolous. It isn't. It won't solve your problem, but will give you a ton of insight. *So THAT's what was wrong with Tiger Woods......**

Meanwhile, know that we 'higher desire than our H's' women are empathetic. Hang tough,
Jayce