No kidding.

This - marital partners to be meeting their interactional, emotional, and sexual needs leads to this - maintain interdependent relationships with their partners were more likely to experience positive mental health.

Women are attracted to the formula working the other way.

When I "need" my wife the most is when I am down, tired, rattled, or unsure of the way. I need the connection and energy that I can only get from her. This cool drink from her energizes, focuses and relaxes me and helps me get back on "my" way. However when I am down, tired, rattled and unsure it triggers her lizard and is a attraction killer.

I want to change this loop.

Coach,

I think the important word is "Men who perceive."

If you choose to perceive your wife as rejecting you, ignoring you when you feel down, putting more on you when you feel tired, or demanding that you know the way...then you'll feel even more disconnection from her.

She would still be interactional, emotional and might even be having sex with you. You might not experience her as meeting your ENs when you want her to and in the way you want her to...

Your perception matters. And it's really tough to have the clarity and energy when you're down to know that.

Your statement of women being attracted to the formula working the other way cuts out half of why humans fall in love with their spouse...

because they act from love. Part of feeling in love is being in love with ourselves. You don't get a say in that, Coach...my DH is sexier to me also as a result of my acts from love to meet his ENs...not only his response. Part of this has sustained me through times of great distance, withdrawal and crisis.

I'm attracted to the way my DH asks for what he wants from me...I believe I understand the cool drink you're speaking of. I like to drink and be the drink, at different times. He can be fearful and still attractive at times. It's when he's consistently fearful, consistently lost--the duration when I lose my attraction for him.

Takes a few months...not one night, one rejection, one week.

It's not an on-off thing, depending on his response.

Half of it is mine, and mine alone.

But then, I don't look at him as my sole security...when he's rattled my world is rattled. When he's rattled, I'm affected...not undone. We are a safe harbor for the marriage...and for ourselves. Maybe change the loop by the degree take your beliefs to.

My lizard can be riled, and it's my job to sooth it (it's mine), get into my adult brain, pre-frontal cortex, and act from love, anyway.

Now that's attractive to me!

Just reading that made my lizard cry.....not for the reason you might think. I am the same way.....when I need reassurance/the cold drink/ etc the most....is when I feel the least attractive. I still haven't figured out the loop. I can tell when I am starting to go into need mode, and it freaks me out because experience tells me that need repels the very thing I need. That when I could care less and am lots of fun, I am attractive.......but when I NEED.....run away!

Whoever finds the secret formula for that will be a millionaire. Because I am just not wired to do aloof 24/7. When I am aloof I am not invested, which means I am not knowing, being known, or really caring all that much. And I don;t see much point in investing a lot of energy where I just don't care. However, once I start caring......there will be times when I need. That's just how I roll.

hmmmm. I am about 25% through Intimacy and Desire. Very good read. I am starting to notice a dynamic of anxiety offloading behaviors in all kinds of relationships.

Why does a friend demand lots of conversation from me when I feel quiet? Because she is trying--- not very well--- to deal with her own anxiety. But-- ta da ! As the friend who desires conversation less, I am in control of how much conversation there is. (and correspondingly, she desires quiet less, so she is in control of how much quiet there is!)

The trick is not taking on the anxiety, but stopping and calming myself.

HUGE.

And then I started to recognize that a lot of my "need" feelings in marriage are about anxiety, not about need. Disequilibrium. Stop, breathe, don't offload my own anxiety on to my husband.

Oh.

This gets copied and pasted in the "WOAH!" quote file in Word because that just described me to a t. Wow.

Lil so what was the answer for the couple where one wanted a child and the other didn't? Did they find an answer they both liked?

What is she telling herself about you and the situation? How has meeting your ENs in situations like this worked for her in the past?

My book has arrived!!!!

Now I can read it with all of your foot notes. Thank you!

I'm not sure about 'liking' but the conclusion was since the H did NOT want a child, and the W DID want a child, contraception would be the H's responsibility.

After a few months, the H came to a point where he was willing to have a child. I suspect because the responsibility was a bit of a bother. BTW the couple was the author and his W.

I'm just putting my sig on this thread so I can find it again when I want to add something.

I'm finding this really hard to read. I find myself not wanting to read it. I haven't got far past the first chapter. It's a bit TMI for me, I don't like it.....not the me I used to be who would have been turned on by it.

I guess it makes me feel very inadequate and scared. I feel that I am going to fail.

I'm going to read back through the discussion here and hope that I can find a bit that I am more comfortable with.

To avoid TJ have copied this post elsewhere

I struggled the first time I read it and only got through a third of it. This time I pushed past the initial section and found it became less about sexual acts that seemed a touch abhorrent to me, and became more about self validation, and giving myself rather than my body, to the relationship.

Thanks Lil, i'll keep plodding

staytogether, don't worry, I'm plodding along too. The first 3-4 chapters took so long for me. I'm in chapter 4 or 5 right now, and won't have time to read again until after Halloween.

I have lots of thoughts, just no time to put them together in a thoughtful coherent post!

Dear Stay,

I'm with you about the first chapter, since that's the only one I've read so far. And, that was three-or-so years ago. I found it to be extremely dense and hard to understand, much less easy to agree with. I did find it fascinating, however, and that is why I wanted to continue.

I plan to keep reading, or perhaps even going back and reading the first chapter again, since Jayne and Lil have so graciously agreed to go along with me/us slowpokes.

Take care,
Talk soon~

I'm poking my head in here because I want to be able to find this thread later.
Just ignore me for now, ya'll. Think of me as the potted plant in the corner.

Chani, too late - I see you!!!! And glad to see you, too!

Hmm. Interesting. Unless I try really hard, my computer spells your name "Chai." I hope you'll forgive me if I call you that sometime.

I'm glad people are starting to congregate here again!

I am going back to this a bit right now....just in my mind for now. Back to the idea of differentiation and self-soothing. Bottom line, because of the way my family dynamics were and because of the way I have conducted prior relationships....that is going to be my "repeated lesson" until it sticks. My comfort zone is to NOT be as well-differentiated as I should be. To crave that soothing outside myself. You don't rewire 40+ years with a few weeks of reading.

Just made my first Amazon order with a gift card. Too easy.

We'll join in when our copy arrives. Well, uh....H will read with me but I'll probably be the only one posting.

RHW mentioned this book years ago so I'm excited to finally get it.

Thanks,
Ace

I'm up to chapter 3 now. I've got over the yucky bit and have enjoyed the section on differentiation. Recognising that actually in many areas we're ok and being able to see where our starting point is. Both of our families are not well differentiated and as the book says is likely, oppositely so - his family separating and mine unable to move without checking it through with all the other hundred family members.

We have certainly progressed.

How are you getting on poet?

Yucky bit????

I just got my copy and read the dust jacket and table of contents. Not sure if I want to go much further if there are "yucky bits."

Ace

Repetition about her rejecting herself because she will taste him but not herself.

Enjoy!!!

I just got my copy today. Hopefully, I can read up to Chapter 4 by the end of this weekend.

I noticed that a certain very popular and active member of MB recommended this book to a new poster there.

I finished the introduction and first two chapters. This book is not as simplistic as I thought it would be so I was pleasantly surprised. However, the author is wordy and repetitive.

But but but... it wasn't written by the Good Doctor! Will they get banned? Will they end up here?