Board Discussion - Emotional & Physical Intimacy

[jbnati]

Good thread Denver. I sure as heck don't have it figured out or I probably wouldn't have ended up here in the first place. I think at one point in my M, I had realized it wasn't necessary 100% a low drive on my W's part, that it did have something to do with that emotional connection. Unfortunately, it may have been too late at that point. I'll admit, too, I was not having the easiest time figuring out how it worked for my W.

I appreciate all of you ladies that have posted here. I am learning a lot from all of you. I certainly still have a lot to learn.

I think I'm at the point where I know where I need to be, but the hard part is figuring out how to get there.

[Denver_2010]

AlwaysTrying - My W began individual counseling for herself about 5 weeks ago. It seems to be helping her tremendously. She and I went to a weekend marital retreat that she suggested weekend before last. We both know that marriage counseling will be necessary if and when we get to the point that she feels comfortable throwing caution to the wind and committing to the M. While I think that she has made a decision to reconcile somewhere in her head, I think that she is still afraid that she will change her mind. So, she is not comfortable announcing that she is committed. If you read my threads, you will see that she has made the mistake of telling me that she was ready to commit in the past only to backslide. There is a lot of hurt that she needs to overcome. She is working through being able to choose to forgive me, even reading a book on the subject right now. But it is hard for her. And I understand that. This time does seem different though. We shall see.
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I think Starsky's take on the success rate here on the boards is dead on. People may buy the books before they get to stage 4 critical with their marriages and there is probably a much higher success rate. But I think that it is much more likely that people end up here only when their marriages are hanging by a thread... when things are desperate. Thus, the success rate that you see here on the boards is much lower.
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Brian - Thank you! I needed to get away from the boards for a while.
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After divorce I finally figured out why. Everything outside of the bedroom translated in. He treated me poorly outside, constantly criticizing me, putting me down, bluntly approaching me on things he could have been much more tactful about. So in the bedroom I became self-conscious waiting to be criticized, scared of doing something "wrong" like he always claimed I did outside of the bedroom.

Turns out the poor emotional connection was the cause. I am not low drive, it turns out.......

Kudos to you Denver. You seem pretty in tune with a woman's emotional needs. You seem to be listening to your wife and paying attention. For years, I didn't know men could do that:) It's one thing to not understand how women are wired. It's another thing to not try to figure it out. I wish you the best of luck with your M.

Thank you gabby. I would NOT say that I am in tune with anything about women. But I am trying. and I am listening to my W. That is all very new to me. I wish that I had learned to do that long ago.

Your story of how it was for you in your M sounds very much like I believe my W to have felt. Unfortunately, I did not treat her well, respect her, and was often critical of her. I think that it resulted in a very poor emotional bond between she and I.

This is why I began this thread. Why I am trying to learn about emotional intimacy as it relates to physical intimacy. I don't want that to be an issue any longer if I am lucky enough to continue to progress towards reconciliation with my W. Plus, I have a feeling that many men here can learn from this because I think that it is probably a common problem in marriage... especially those that end up here.
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I with you jbnati! We need to figure out how to get there so that this issue is not a problem in the future.

That what this process is about whether or not we save our marriages... improving ourselves for the future.

[♪CS♪]

Women are stupid. They expect we understand.

Men are stupid. We expect them to understand.


‎"Self-love is self-confining. When couples learn to expand their sympathies, and give up limiting them to themselves – whether individually, or to themselves as a couple or a family – they may transform their relationship, and the emotional disharmony that selfishness has produced, into a relationship of selfless, divine love.

Selfless love is the key. Couples that at first defined their relationship in terms of “me and thee,” later, with the growth of understanding, learn to think unitively. Human love, thus, can expand into the love of God.

Without God, human love is never perfect. No marriage is truly fruitful without the “secret ingredient” of divine love. Earthly love that reaches not past the beloved to embrace divinity is not real love at all. It is ego-worship, selfish because rooted in desire.

True love emanates from God. Only hearts that have been purified by self-expansion can embrace the fullness of that love. In expansion, the heart’s feelings become channels through which God’s love flows out to all the world."

P.Yogananda

I probably define God different than others. We probably all have our own definition.

A truly healthy relationship are two people who live together, but also not dependent. We are not just "we". Never. We can't addict ourself to an R.

And if an R is unbalanced. Either direction. It's not healthy.

Seems to me a lot of people here were the R managers. Other person gets pissed about. Leaves. Then we try to give them power back to fix it.

I don't see that as a long term fix. There is no real power or control over the other person in the first place. The illusion in either direction is not healthy.

If we simply live life in a way we know is true. And another person is doing the same. Those two can live happily ever after. If not. We are forcing it. Expecting it. Faking it. Depending on it.

I will always say to anyone just starting this journey. Throw everything out the window and start with nothing more than finding a center for yourself. Without that. Everything else is fake. Temporary.

Peace all. And Denever. SERIOUSLY hope the best for you two. It can be done.

[labug]

Great advice...beginner's mind.

[Denver_2010]

CS's words never fail to inspire. Nice to hear from you man.

"Selfless love is the key"... YES

...something that was taught at the marital retreat that I went to with W was the idea of "oneness". That to have a successful marriage, we must towards THAT with our spouse. That every marriage is either moving towards "oneness", or is drifting toward isolation.

"Oneness" in marriage is only possible only when we consider our spouse before we consider ourselves.

Why have I made some of the recent choices that I have CS? For THAT. THAT is the type of marriage that I want to have.

"Oneness" grows as we believe that our spouse is a gift from God. And like CS, I have a different view as to what that means. But I believe it.

Growing towards "oneness" makes it possible for two spouses, as a couple, to become more than they ever could have been apart.

How a couple resolves conflict reflects the state of their "oneness". Conflict occurs when our personal desires are not fulfilled... when we don't get what we want. Our unfulfilled desires may result in anger. Resolving conflict requires forgiveness. But forgiveness does not mean an automatic restoration of trust. That takes time and consistency of action.

"Oneness" in marriage consists of 3 ingredients:

1) "Extravagant love" - Which is:

*exclusive: one person has your heart for a lifetime
*expressed: it is repeated often through words and actions
*extraordinary: it places your spouse's needs above your own

extravagant love is a choice, not a feeling... it leads to genuine intimacy.

2) the habit of forgiveness - without it there is bitterness, but with it, your marriage will have true security.

3) Enthusiastic encouragement: it believes in and motivates your spouse to grow. It openly affirms your spouse, avoids critical words, and maintains a positive attitude, EVEN in hard times.

Can we make our spouse want and aspire for the same? No, we cannot. We cannot control their thoughts, choices, or actions.

But we can INSPIRE change through our own actions and our own choices.

[Denver_2010]

"At the essence of every woman’s heart is the divine feminine. It contains everything that has ever been beautiful, or lovely, or inspiring, in any woman, anywhere, at any time. The very essence of every woman’s heart is the peak of wisdom, the peak of inspiration, the peak of sexual desirability, the peak of soothing, healing love. The peak of everything. But it’s protected, for good reason, by a series of concentric walls. To move inwardly from one wall to the next requires that you intensify your capacity to devotion, and as you do so, you are rewarded with Grace. This is not something you can negotiate verbally with a woman. She doesn’t even know consciously how to open those gates herself. They are opened magically and invisibly by the keys of worship.

If you stand on the outside of the outermost wall, all you have available to you, like many other unfortunate men, is pornography. For $1.99 a minute, you can see her breasts, maybe her vagina, and you can stimulate yourself in a sad longing for deeper love.

Step through another gate, and she will show you her outer gift-wrapping. She’ll look at you with a certain twinkle in her eye. She’ll answer your questions coyly. She’ll give you just the faintest hint that there is more available.

Step through another gate with your commitment, with your attention, with the small seedlings of devotion, and she’ll open her heart to you more. She’ll share with you her insecurities, the way that she’s been hurt, her deepest longings. Some men will back away at this point. They realize that the price they must pay to go deeper is more than they are willing to give. They start to feel a responsibility. But for those few who step though another gate, they come to discover her loyalty, her willingness to stick with you no matter what, her willingness to raise your children, stick up for you in conversation, and, if you are lucky, even pick up your dirty socks now and then. And so it goes on. You’ve got the gist by now.

Somewhere around the second wall from the center, she casts the veils of her personality aside, and shows you that she is both a human being and also a portal into something much greater than that. She shows you a wrath that is not hers, but all women’s. She shows you a patience that is also universal. She shows you her wisdom. At this point you start to experience the archetypes of women, who have been portrayed as goddesses and mythological figures in every tradition.

Then, at the very center, in the innermost temple itself, all the layers of your devotion are flooded with reward all at once. You discover the very essence of the feminine, and in a strange way that is not exactly romantic, but profoundly sacred all the same, you realize that you could have got here with any woman if you had just been willing to pass through all the layers of initiation. Any woman is every woman, and every woman is any woman at the same time. When you love a woman completely, at the very essence of her being, this is the one divine feminine flame. It is what has made every woman in history beautiful. It’s the flame behind the Mona Lisa, and Dante’s Beatrice, and yes, also Penelope Cruz and Heidi Klum. You discover the magic ingredient which has lead every man to fall in love with a woman.

When you learn how to pay attention to the essence of the feminine in this way, you fall to the floor in full body prostration, tears soaking your cheeks and clothes, and you wonder how you could have ever taken Her, in all of Her forms, for granted even for a second."

~ Arjuna Ardagh

[figgeroni]

Just my opinion....
take it for what it is worth

there is a big difference between f*cking and love

for most of my life I was very good at f*cking someone
I knew the right positions, noises, and the best way to get them in my bed
I had very satisfying relationships based on very good sex and the loss of myself and the morphing of me into someone I thought they wanted me to be

not fair to me or to them

it was very detached and unmeaningful and definitely not a way to connect on an emotional level

emotional connections, for me, came from other things:
hugs around my waist as I was making dinner
remembering my favorite flower
or
my favorite song
small tiny things because I felt I deserved nothing more

after I learned more about who I was and what I deserved...became more comfortable in my own skin and learned I was completely fine...good even...on my own

I was able to find someone who was there through the lights and the darks in my personality

sex is now a way to express love (although not always...sometimes it is still about lust which is OK)

but the emotional connection comes from shared feelings

a shared connection or passion about each other

he is passionate about me...not just for me
he is passionate about what I love and what I want to do...not because he wants to be just like me but because he is genuinely interested in WHO I am...he delights in knowing me deeper

he delights in seeing me smile or seeing me become animated about a thought

he challenges me
he makes me think about who I am and who I want to be

he is constantly growing which in turn helps me grow

he does NOT want me to be like him

he wants me to be like me!!!

he is safe...a safe place to fall, a safe place to grow, a safe place to try new things.

[scaredsilly]

does he have a brother? ;-)

[Denver_2010]

Just my opinion....
take it for what it is worth

there is a big difference between f*cking and love

for most of my life I was very good at f*cking someone
I knew the right positions, noises, and the best way to get them in my bed
I had very satisfying relationships based on very good sex and the loss of myself and the morphing of me into someone I thought they wanted me to be

not fair to me or to them

it was very detached and unmeaningful and definitely not a way to connect on an emotional level

emotional connections, for me, came from other things:
hugs around my waist as I was making dinner
remembering my favorite flower
or
my favorite song
small tiny things because I felt I deserved nothing more

after I learned more about who I was and what I deserved...became more comfortable in my own skin and learned I was completely fine...good even...on my own

I was able to find someone who was there through the lights and the darks in my personality

sex is now a way to express love (although not always...sometimes it is still about lust which is OK)

but the emotional connection comes from shared feelings

a shared connection or passion about each other

he is passionate about me...not just for me
he is passionate about what I love and what I want to do...not because he wants to be just like me but because he is genuinely interested in WHO I am...he delights in knowing me deeper

he delights in seeing me smile or seeing me become animated about a thought

he challenges me
he makes me think about who I am and who I want to be

he is constantly growing which in turn helps me grow

he does NOT want me to be like him

he wants me to be like me!!!

he is safe...a safe place to fall, a safe place to grow, a safe place to try new things.

Just an absolutely lovely post Figgeroni. Thank you for sharing.

[Dory]

Hey Denver!

You've been a great help to me in my sitch so hopefully I can return the favor. I can at least try

It's taken me a bit of time to read up on your sitch, 16 months of threads takes a while to get through, but I'm caught up on it. I have to tell you, you and my H appear to be very similiar creatures, the main difference in our sitch's is that we find ourselves on the opposite sides of the same coin.

But I can at least offer you a woman's perspective:

My M was most definitely a SSM. I was the LD partner & H was the HD partner. My interpretation on what was going wrong is that H needs physical intimacy to generate a desire for emotional intimacy and I need emotional intimacy to generate a desire for physical intimacy.

My H just does not/did not get this, as I suspect is the case for many men.

When I say I want and need emotional intimacy, I want to hear about his wishes, hopes and dreams.

When I say I want and need emotional intimacy, I want to see his vulnerable side and know about his stresses, anxieties and fears.

When I say I want and need emotional intimacy, I want to hear about the minutia of your day, what small thing made you smile, what small thing irritated you.

When I say I want and need emotional intimacy, I want you to want to listen without judgement and hear about my hopes, wishes and dreams.

When I say I want and need emotional intimacy, I want you to want to see without judgement my vulerable side and know about my stresses, my anxieties and my fears.

When I say I want and need emotional intimacy, I want you to want to hear without judgement about the minutia of my day, to know about what small thing made me smile, what small thing irritated me.

All these things being said, there's a number of things that my H could and would do that would make sure that sex was completely out of the question:

~Make an insensitive or mean remark and not apologize for it when I've told him it's hurt my feelings.

~Tell me I'm being too sensitive and shouldn't feel a certain way about something. Never argue with someone's feelings. They know how they're feeling better than you do.

~Barely acknowledge my existence for the evening (whether at home or at a party/event).


Yes, I and most women are more than capable of having and desiring sex merely as a physical act. What my H, and I suspect many men fail to acknowledge, is that a woman's desire for sex increases tenfold when there's an emotionally intimate connection between themselves and their partner.