This is Joe.
I’m being a bit raw and open here. Meaning that I’m admitting things that I don’t think are flattering of me. As I age, I’m trying/wanting to be more genuine. As the facade of the old LDS me drops away, I’m trying to discover who I really am and who I want to be as a person. I rarely like the real me that it’s in the mirror. My wife tells me that she wants the truth, but I don’t know if I want the truth.
The truth is that she fulfills the majority of my desires from any one person, but she doesn’t fulfill all. No one person possible could. However she was raised to (falsely) believe that a wife should be EVERYTHING to her husband and that he should want for nothing from anyone else. She now rationally knows that this is not possible and is a burden that she should have never believed in, but she’s having a hard time breaking herself of that notion, and when she falls back into old ways of thinking she resumes feeling like a failure if I want to have sex with other women. And I do want to have sex with other women. In the last few months, she’s let me have sex with three different women without her being present. And we’re all doing great! (One was with the woman’s husband present.) Christy has told me that I can go have sex with that woman again. That woman invited me to have sex with her next week without her husband present. I checked with her husband and he’s great with it.
The other challenge is that Christy has a minor disability that occasionally keeps her from being as physically active as she wants to be. It can interfere at unpredictable times. In the past, I felt like she was sometimes using it as an excuse to avoid uncomfortable situations, and I feel bad for thinking that. (I can’t think of any examples of that happening so it’s probably not true, just my perception.) We were supposed to do something sexy last weekend, but her health got in the way. My challenge has been/is that I not be a mopey sack when that happens. I need to believe that she’s really trying to do her best and that she’s not using it as an excuse. When I mope, she then quietly gets mad and is less willing to accommodate me. We then get into a viscous cycle of digging in. I need to assume she’s doing her best, and I need to accept what she does.
For me the LDS teach there is not just one person in this life or in the next. Many of the GAs have talked about this very issue that there isn’t just one. I postulate it’s many people that we have to interact with to get our needs and desires met.
ReplyDeleteIf the above is true this means one for one goes both ways. You can’t be her only and she isn’t your only. Each needs more than one.
There is an attitude among many Mormons that life should be like a fairy tale. Each woman's Prince Charming should come along to find her and they live happily ever after. For some it is to a point of the brainwashing they do on other ideas, no doctrine involved, just the way things are presented, this is what many take away from the lessons. Christy could have some of that she is dealing with. She could just have a preference for just one as far as feeling certain emotions and those are all she desires. I was recently reading about the difference between swinging and polyamory. In the views of those contributing to the discussion there is a continuum between the two extremes. It sounds like Christy might be near the extreme of feeling fine with sex just for sex (swinging) while you Joe, are a little more in the other direction and want some emotional ties that Christy feels you alone are enough to provide her. I wonder if there aren't more that develop friendships and other emotional ties with those they swing with. I'll bet only a few are able to keep it just sex. I don't see any problem with developing friendships, especially with those you share such intimate physical relations with. I would think some emotional ties would help make the physical more intense.
DeleteWe once tried using a vibrator on my wife, but the feelings were more intense than she liked. It might be the swinger sex is at such an intensity for Christy that she feels more would be too intense. Some have to have things so intense that others would consider it pain just to feel something. My wife is at the other end of that continuum and it could be Christy is closer what my wife is than Joe.
I agree with Joe's last statement, he needs to assume she's doing her best, and accept what she does. I know you love her and want to share some things you find extremely enjoyable. For whatever reason, she doesn't find that as enjoyable. Share what you can. It seems she is willing to let you enjoy what you're desiring on your own but don't let it take over unless her not being into it with you is a deal breaker. I think you should be able to find a way to keep both of you enjoying life. I just think what you're wanting makes it very complicated, but it should be possible.