Family Forum / Marriage / Marriage / June 2007

Try soc.sexuality.general.

No one on any newsgroup is going to be able to accurately read
your husband's mind.  These are the sort of questions best asked
directly of him rather than a net-full of strangers who know neither
of you.

Yet, from your stated dialog, it seems that you and your husband are
having some difficulty in keeping the same level of sexual interest as
you had in the past.  There are a number of possible causes for this,
and are usually best dealt with in conjunction with a professional
marriage / sex counselor.

One note of caution is due - guilt over adultery or extra-marital
romances can lead to similar estrangement between husband and
wife.  Even fantasies of such can be detrimental to a sound marriage.
Again, counseling is in order.

Best of luck,
Larry G.
LAMPS
www.loveandmarriageseminars.com

I can't figure a few things out here.  How are you being pitied?  Why
would you think he is scared of you?  When he gets you to the point of
climax, does he take you over it?
Then there is the issues of how you feel about yourself.  About
feeling sexy still.

If you do not re-post to explain, I totally understand.  In any case,
it sounds like you need to have a sit down with your husband to get
this all off your chest and find out where he is coming from.

Vickie

It appears on the surface that it is no longer a challenge for him if
you are too aggressive.
To be fair though, he appears to be satisfied that he has the prize
and thus feels he does not have to be impressive.  Drink his milk and
close the frig.  Just my initial thoughts.  Good luck.

This is a tough one because there could be so many things going on. Normally
my advice is to speak honestly, openly and kindly about issues. But "dear
the sex isnt working for me" can go all sorts of places you don't want to
go, from performance anxiety to lord only knows what else.

Could you speak to him about some details along the journey rather go
directly to generalities about your sex life? Like honey I used to love it
when you told me I was sexy and approached me all ravenously. Or honey I
would like to spend a more leasurely time with lovemaking rather than just
having a rush to the orgasm (if I read that part right). What do you think,
dear?

I suppose you could approach it as I don't feel you find me as sexy as you
used to. Is there something less appealing going on? But then *you* are
pretty *out there.* What if he tells you something completely not on your
radar. You had better have your emotional armour ready!

I have actually been where you are, years ago. What I did was to distract
myself with other interests and let that driving issue become less important
in my mind. IIRC it allowed me to gain some perspective about life being
busy and stressful. We sort of wove back into a fun sex life later on.

I don't know if any of this helps. I wish you the best!

"mad <inakid.knittedsforkids@gmail.com>" wrote looking for some advice
about, it appears, fine-tuning her approach so as to improve
interactions between herself and her husband.  She writes:

and

I obviously haven't been present at any such events, nor can I read
minds, but the following thuoght sparked into my head at reading the
reply written by "S.D. <sd@2muchspam.com>":

"Aggressive" behaviour usually suggests at least "pushy", and can go as
far as "threatening".  I don't think anybody really likes "pushy".

I was going to ask the poster to think about the difference between
"aggressive" and "assertive".  That got me as far as my thesaurus, which
also offered up "bold" and "brazen".  Then I Googled "assertive woman
aggressive" to see if a more thoughtful consideration of the balance has
been discussed, and turned up an actual book:

   _How to Be an Assertive (Not Aggressive) Woman in Life, in Love,
    and on the Job_

So I'm not the only one who sees a difference between the words.  I
haven't read the book, so can't recommend it, but it might bear looking
over.

*

It's not clear what the OP does to be "visually pleasurable", but
guessing about exactly what someone likes can be tricky.  I laughed when
I saw "Total Recall", and Arnold Schwarzenegger's character describes
his ideal woman as "athletic, demure, sleazy" -- but taken seriously, I
think everybody (male and female) wants their partners to be *both*
respectable *and* shameless, depending on context.

As regards not getting what you want, maybe you should try saying so
explicitly: "I want this".  See what answer you get.

Darren Provine ! kilroy@elvis.rowan.edu ! http://www.rowan.edu/~kilroy
"Unhappiness is not knowing what we want out of life and killing
ourselves to get it." -- Don Herold