2 years? How long had it been since her Husband had sex? That was my first thought.

For me, in a relationship, I would say a month or a month and a half.

Yeah, me too.

I know. I didn't ask, so hey has he been cheating on you, but I got the impression that not.

Oh, he is definitely cheating. No question.

She needs to look at his cell phone records and emails. The evidence will be there.

There was a longish dry period in there before we found out about the hormonal creme, but I would not think more than a couple of months between any pair of sex acts -- but the period of infrequent sex was probably 5 years or more. And many of those sex acts did not involve penetration, so we're talking about a long time between penetrations.

You do not need to be 80 years old to have physical troubles with sex -- Frances started having menopause round about 48 years old. It can throw a big road-block in the way of continuing your physically intimate relationship.

Also I'm curious about Will's #4 -- I do not think it's as plain as all that.

Grover makes a good point.

I see it broken down this way. Two years without sex means one of several things:
1. He is having sex with other women.
2. He is having sex with other men.
3. Someone has a physical or serious psych problem.

In any case, she needs to investigate which is true. (Unless she just doesnt care. Which is fine. We are make our own decisions about what makes us happy.)

Grover:
You and your spouse knew what the problem was, correct? That makes a big difference.

I'll admit to being a jaded divorce lawyer.

So you haven't been following the Married, Not Dead column in the Village Voice. It's horrifying (and nigh-unreadable).

I wouldn't say anyone's necessarily cheating. I've heard a fair number of long dry spells from friends with kids (did everyone see that NYT story about people whose kids still sleep with them until they're quite old?) where it seems to be a combination of both people being tired or busy, no privacy from their kids, and the marriage getting a little hostile and tense. It sounds awful, but not necessarily adulterous.

We've gone a couple of weeks here and there based on exhaustion, working late, and so forth -- i don't think ever a month.

Resorting to presidential anonymity allows me to divulge that:

1. I am an otherwise healthy male; and
2. I went 12 years without sexual intercourse between the ages of 24 and 36; and
3. When I did try to have sex again, it took a couple of months to, um, get the engines back up and running again. Luckily, my partner was extremely patient and supportive, and now we have a terrific sex life.

Why did I have such a long period of celibacy? Shyness, mostly, and my satisfaction with my masturbatory sex life. But such things can only take you so far in life.

I didnt mean the two month person and I am not referring to single people.

The two year person was married. If they are otherwise healthy, he is cheating.

So, if she cares about it, then she needs to get them checked up or she needs to do a little snooping.

Based on my observations of 80+ year-old's mobility, there's a get-rich opportunity in a sexual version of the Geek Squad. The clients phone in their order and the SGS sends over the appropriate pillows, slings, & hydraulic lifts, etc., along with the right number of strong guys and gals to get it all assembled and moving. The Boomers will go for it and also game the system so taxes pay for it all.

Longest dry spell was about a year during the great transplant crisis. I didn't care much, the overall stress level was beyond high and into the melt-down range.

1. He is having sex with other women.
2. He is having sex with other men.
3. Someone has a physical or serious psych problem.

I think this is ridiculous. I mean, sure, these are all possibilities. But if you think that a combination of exhaustion, work, stress, and routine can't explain very long dry-spells you're wrong. Marriages can completely calcify a long time before (or without ever) ending in divorce, and do so entirely on their own terms, with no psychiatric problems or infidelity required.

With my second wife, at the end of the marriage we were down to once or twice a year. This is not that unusual, I think, in failing marriages.

And, of course, I imagine that there are people who are happy together and for whom sex plays little or no role in their relationship. I suspect that the number of such couples where both people feel this way is small, but still, there can be love and marriage without sex (not for me, but YMMV).

When I was taking anti-depressants a few years ago, my libido appears to have crashed without my having noticed. I don't know how long this lasted, but I'm guessing a few months; she says it was the worst time of her life. When I went off and switched to talking, things were normal fairly soon. Since I've been less D in the last year or so, maybe "not" is a better way to put it, our frequency has picked up to a level not experienced in decades.

This, not just the drugs, has got to be a huge factor in many relationships.

it does seem that a long time can go by when the marriage has failed but no moves are being made towards divorce. I'm just unable to imagine myself not cheating or bringing an end to things in that case. but some people do have low sex drives and it's not too surprising that two such people might get married. of course there are also situations of serious illess, that's obviously a different case.

a month seems long, to me.

I've been living in the family home with my sister during the 16 months since my mother died. We do a lot of the cozy little things that couples our age do, such as eat popcorn, chat, play with (her) grandchild, fix up the house, feed the birds, etc. So far it's been stress-free and good for both of us.

Looking at my small data set of sisters, wives, girl friends, and other female objects of desire, I concluded that sisters like you better than other women, are much less of a pain in the ass, and are just nicer people. Sexual desire apparently tend to make people otherwise awful and difficult.

Then one day, I said "Eureka!" And the no-relationship policy was born.

My wife and I have had sexual problems off and on throughout our relationship. It's complicated, but there's a lot of anxiety surrounding it for her (and I've contributed in my own ways, of course). Before we were married, we went through a spell in which there was no sex for at least a year. This was absolutely horrible for both of us. (My own preference would be to have sex about 40 or 50 times a month.) But I never cheated on her, and we were very happy in other ways. It's only in the last year or so, after a decade together, that we're starting to have regular (and good!) sex.

So, anyway, I think it's a bit silly (though understandable if you're a divorce lawyer) to assume that the guy has to be cheating if there's no sex. And I think it's wrong to assume that the relationship is about to fall apart if there's no sex, though obviously it can be (and was in my case) connected to other problems in the relationship. Committed and loving couples sometimes just get seriously stuck on this stuff.

There have been times where we went a month or so without. And after the second kid it was almost six months, mostly due to tiredness and being outrageously busy. Normal though is to never go more than a week or two before just doing it so it doesn't become a habit or something.

My theory is, the more you have sex, the more you have sex. And the less you have it the less you want it. It is a circle either way. I know a lot of otherwise happy couples that just don't have sex that often mostly because they just don't. And I've known some that realized this, made a concerted effort to ramp up the sex life, and now are doing it regularly.

2 years seems way too long without someone cheating. I could even see a year, if you really loved the person, but 2? Something's gotta give by then.

I'm dating two women.

Woman #1 has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia. Her libido ran up the white flag years ago.

Woman #2 was great... until she started on Celexa for her persistent suicidal impulses. She's much happier, but the sexual side effects you hear about about some antidepressants? Yeah, she got both barrels of those. No interest at all, though she's very game for a lot of kissing and some oral sex (she's very nice to me; she gets a lot of back massages for her troubles).

I'm seriously considering putting out a personals ad for a fuckbuddy. I really really love both of these women and don't want to break up with either and lose the relationship. I don't need more relationship in my life, and I don't need a strong ongoing sexual connection to feel a strong intimate connection.

But I would like to be getting laid more.

My longest married-but-not-having-any-sex-at-all spell was about a year and four months. And I think we just passed the eight month mark again now.

What's this sex thing everyone's always talking about?

In other news, I just saw the guy that won the lotto on the front page of Yahoo, completely ignoring my advice about keeping it a secret. He's going to have to unplug his phone and go into hiding.

20: The takeaway is that unlike some other situations, where there is no possibility of patterns changing and the best solution is to quit, it's quite possible for sexual activity to pick up after years of decline. This must happen all the time.

Marriage is not like a job, there is something special about its capacity for renewal.

So, anyway, I think it's a bit silly (though understandable if you're a divorce lawyer) to assume that the guy has to be cheating if there's no sex. And I think it's wrong to assume that the relationship is about to fall apart if there's no sex, though obviously it can be (and was in my case) connected to other problems in the relationship. Committed and loving couples sometimes just get seriously stuck on this stuff.

Agree completely.

ignoring my advice about keeping it a secret

I think for the big jackpots, there's some amount of required public appearance that each winner has to engage in, so keeping it totally secret isn't an option. But I'm not sure about this.

There's an ongoing long-term kerfuffle in Japan about sexless marriages. Multiple surveys: at least 30% of couples report no sex for over a year.

Wow, the former presidents are out in force today! Perhaps we should head over to Bohemian Grove or somewhere for a little old-skool Masonic bonding.

Alameida, I'd be hesitant to classify menopause as a serious illness. Its consequences are far-reaching and not all pleasant, but it's pretty standard part of life.

"Two years without sex means one of several things:
1. He is having sex with other women.
2. He is having sex with other men.
3. Someone has a physical or serious psych problem.

In any case, she needs to investigate which is true. (Unless she just doesnt care. Which is fine. We are make our own decisions about what makes us happy.)"

I will quote myself. Two years is a HUGE red flag that there is a problem. Often, that means someone is cheating. Often, that means someone has a physical or psych problem. In any case, it needs to be investigated.

FYI: Psych problem includes depression.

I've had dry spells of up to six months from time to time (the worst was a year in college during which I nursed unrequited love for a lesbian), but one to two months is more normal, and always outside a relationship. Dry spells inside a relationship invariably tempt me to be unfaithful, which is one of the reasons I don't think I'm cut for marriage.

Having gone back and forth on this one, I find myself in agreement more or less with will, especially at #30. Within a marriage (or other long term relationship), two sexless years is a sign of some significant problem, whether it be impotency or menopause or depression or infidelity or just plain lack of interest on the part of one or both partners. Methinks any of these would qualify as a significant problem in any relationship.

BTW, one of the nice things about pseudonymity is that there isn't much of a need to resort to the former president dealio.

I dunno, my anonymity is flawed, but even if it were solider I can think of things I wouldn't attach to my own persona. (Just to remind any former presidents out there, you're anonymous to other commenters, but not, unless you do something with your IP address, to bloggers. I try generally not to check, but I have been overcome with curiosity and I have poor self control.)

one of the nice things about pseudonymity

But *I* know who you are, NCP. Mwahahaha!

(To clarify 33: I don't mean that there's any easy way to track down real world identities, just that a former president posting from the same IP address as a pseudonymous commenter is pretty obviously the same person.)

Unrequited love in college is the stupidest thing ever. I blew a precious year on that too. Once I perfect my time travel machine that will be on the agenda for the discussion I'll have with my 15 year old self.

Nine month dry spell ongoing. Spouse has been working insane hours. Getaway planned for later this month. Wish us luck.

JFK is the perfect choice for a President who hasnt had sex with his spouse for an extended period of time. I heard they went long stretches without having sex. With each other.

Good luck. We had a getaway this past summer, downtown hotel, that I remember describing here as feeling just like an assignation, a visit to a lover. You know what you're there for, and you may, we did, find you still have amazing capacities.

Jesus Christ, these stories of a year+ are painful. Longest for me was a month, 6 weeks maybe, and that was during/at the end of my wife's pregnancy.

This description, "this Bataan death march married but not having sex thing." is so true.

"you're anonymous to other commenters, but not, unless you do something with your IP address, to bloggers"

Lizardbreath is trying to intimidate and suppress free speech.

40: It does sound beyond miserable, doesn't it.

You're a divorce lawyer, will? Is that mostly people crying and yelling?

from this thread, obviously I am not cut out to be president - I haven't had a significant inter-relationship dry spell.

My one friend who went into divorce law really, really hated it. He said that he mostly dealt with people who are at the lowest, angriest point in their lives and that he had trouble keeping that vibe from bleeding over into his own life. I haven't seen him since he moved to Florida several years ago, so don't know whether he's still doing it.

It can be tough, but you also have a unique opportunity to help people when they are at their lowest point in their life.

Who would you rather help: insurance company or an individual laid low by personal troubles?

I see lots of tears, hear lots of yelling, but I also hear the most amazing stories.

My theory is, the more you have sex, the more you have sex. And the less you have it the less you want it. It is a circle either way. I know a lot of otherwise happy couples that just don't have sex that often mostly because they just don't. And I've known some that realized this, made a concerted effort to ramp up the sex life, and now are doing it regularly.

Makes sense to me. I've been with a woman for over three years (never living together), and for the first year or so we averaged about one sexual encounter every three weeks, generally meaning "I go down on her until orgasm". We tried actual sex a couple times, but it seemed to be not worth the effort, until about a year had gone by at which point the lack of it seemed odd. So we tried until we got it right, after which we had sex about every three weeks, and about twice as often as that I would go down on her until orgasm.

I sometimes felt the need for more than that, but not a particularly strong need, since I continued my regular masturbation pattern for the most part.

But in an earlier relationship with much more frequent sex (though not intercourse), I more or less stopped masturbating, and thus felt more of a need.

37: Best of luck, JFK. We're planning a getaway as well. I really, really hope it helps turn things around.

People think I was a mediocre President, but people are wrong.

My husband and I have been together 20 years. Over the past ten years, sex has been very, very infrequent, and it's mostly because of me.

We shagged like mad bunnies, several times a day, when we got together in university, and we still had regular sex for several years after that, although it dropped to a more typical 2-3 times a week.

But then:

1) My libido started to decline even more for no reason that we could see (no kids).
2) I developed a painful gynaecological problem that wasn't properly treated until last year. We had sex occasionally when I was asymptomatic, but much of the time, we had to stop partway through because I was in pain. (Who knew that having a hung guy could be such a drawback?)
3) We both got fat, which made a lot of our favourite positions awkward, at best.
4) And the less sex I had, the less sex I wanted. I got pretty used to a near-sexless life, while my husband learned how to masturbate to Internet porn.

He made it clear to me that he would like to have more sex, especially when my medical treatment finally started working, but it was really tough to kickstart my libido back into working order. We're finally getting back on track now -- we're both losing weight, which helps -- and I realize I'm damn lucky to have such a patient and loving husband.

I am the greatest American President.

Just in case you wondered, I have never fucked Wilfrid Laurier.

I don't understand the "too busy" excuse. They call it a "quickie" for a reason.

Oh, that one I can see. If you work long hours and have kids, it's very easy for the only privacy you have to be when you're exhausted. I've turned down sex in favor of sleep before, and if it turned into a pattern it could feed on itself.

46.--Thanks. I could see how a person could either really enjoy being able to help at such a time or become completely overwhelmed by it. I'm glad you're one of the former.

Jesus, I'm practically in the normal range in this place.

BTW, Bob McManus's editorials in the NY Post are quite different than what he says here.

I've got to say that masturbation seems like a culprit in a lot of these sadder stories!

I find personally that I tend to get aroused sometime in the early afternoon, and the best way to keep this from distracting me away from the work I'm trying to do is to go masturbate quickly in the bathroom. I have to consciously refrain from doing this if I think there's a reasonable chance that we will have sex that night...and since there's generally a low chance, I don't go to the bother of restraining myself from masturbating, because the arousal distracts me from getting things done. And then if Zoe actually seems to want to have sex, I often have to say that I don't think I'll be able to come because I already did today. This is a pattern that I wouldn't fall into if we had sex once a week or more.

This is one way in which our society's outmoded masturbation taboo was a good thing.

I could also see a divorce lawyer really enjoying putting bad guys through hell. Seems like better odds, really.

I speak only for myself, obviously, but the amount of sex I'm having has no relation whatsoever to how much I masturbate.

I could see how a person could either really enjoy being able to help at such a time or become completely overwhelmed by it. I'm glad you're one of the former.

"have a unique opportunity to help people when they are at their lowest point in their life." is Will's code for the endless stream of vulnerable women coming through his door who get back at their husbands by banging their lawyer.

During my occasional attempts at dating during my eclectic non-relationship-free period, I would avoid masturbation for two days before a date. Not only did it help maintain my oomph, but the whole world looks different when you're horny.

the more you have sex, the more you have sex. And the less you have it the less you want it. It is a circle either way.

This ain't me at all.

30: You still seem to be assuming, by listing limited options, that everyone has an active sex drive which must be directed somewhere, or else they have psychological problems. See here: some people really do innately have low sex drives, and don't find it problematic.

Hell, of course, is if only one partner is like this. But see 17.

the amount of sex I'm having has no relation whatsoever to how much I masturbate

This may be true in the statistical sense, since 0 is hard to correlate to any positive number.

I have a friend who, to take him at his word, is in the midst of a nearly 4 year dry spell with his wife. Not his choice. Again, to take him at his word, no third party involvements on either side. I have virtually no sex drive, but even I would have left by now. (And yes, there are other problems in the marriage, and it's probably his own damn fault and I can't see what she's hanging around for either.)

When I was married, two or three month dry spells were not uncommon -- and more than once a month was nearly miraculous. Initially thought it was mismatched sex drives. Turns out, though, that my lack of interest had alot to do with how I was treated.

You still seem to be assuming, by listing limited options, that everyone has an active sex drive which must be directed somewhere, or else they have psychological problems

CATHEXIS

57: "a culprit" s/b "what keeps the relationship from breaking apart"

The problem is that once your partner is comforting, instead of exciting, you don't have any imputus to sex each other except for the sex itself. And most people aren't as into that, at least from a planning perspective. Just forcing yourselves to do it, like washing dishes right after dinner, is the solution.

I think it's wrong to assume that the relationship is about to fall apart if there's no sex, though obviously it can be (and was in my case) connected to other problems in the relationship. Committed and loving couples sometimes just get seriously stuck on this stuff.

Amen. I suspect that one of the hidden truths of the post-feminist, sex-positive, internet-porn age is that it's not at ALL unusual in a lifelong relationship to have stretches of time where you don't have sex much, if at all. And it's pretty damn cynical to assume that this means, or should mean, that the relationship is over. It's one of the things I hate about monogamous marriage, the implicit claim that if you don't meet my needs x, y, and z regularly, I'm outta here.

I was going to anonymize myself, but fuck it: Mr. B. and I have had sex maybe once or twice a year for about 2 1/2 years now. Are we happy with that? Hell no. Is it indicative of other issues? Hell yes. (And no, the boyfriend isn't the "reason," thanks, although Mr. B. is bothered by the notion that I'm not sleeping with him b/c I am sleeping--about 3-4 times a year, by the way--with the boyfriend. Which isn't the case, but obviously his feeling like it is despite my assurances isn't exactly helping anything.) Do I want to leave him? Never. Does he want to leave me? No (although in moments of extreme frustration/despair he's been known to ask why we're married--his having asked that upsets me greatly btw).

The fact is, I adore him and he adores me. But for various reasons--depression, frustration, our unhappiness on my last job, calcified communication patterns around some of this stuff, stress, lots of change and business and being tired, etc. etc.--we didn't want to have sex for a while, and then we were out of the habit, and now we're trying to figure out how to get started again when we both feel skittish and defensive and terrified of misstepping in a situation that feels kind of delicate.

If this stuff never happens to you, thank your lucky stars. But whore that I am, I married him for who he is, not for his enormous cock. I have to believe he feels the same way about me.

(Even though my truly prodigious cock *is* definitely one of the perks of my personality.)

Well, I'll repeat the story of my neighbor, who had so much hot sex with his crazy-lady girlfriend that he was falling asleep on the job and almost got fired. She otherwise made his life a living hell (alienating him in the first month from his mother, his kids, and his friends), and he's slowly patching himself together after finally breaking loose. But he still gets dreamy-eyed when the the sex part of it comes up in conversation.

What are we to conclude from this? Hmmm.....

19 does sound like a very pleasant life.

Just forcing yourselves to do it, like washing dishes right after dinner, is the solution.

That sounds way, way more depressing than 19.

Although, I was thinking of suggesting it to JFK before the getaway -- just have sex a couple of times to take some of the pressure off. I wonder if part of the difference between some people who have long dry spells and some who don't is in willingness to settle for perfunctory sex when that's all you have energy for.

That's probably true. Also, the vacation/getaway thing. I'm sure that 90% of the difference between sex-with-boyfriend and no-sex-with-husband is that when I visit boyfriend I don't have to play Mama all day long. I adore PK, but jesus, I don't understand how people with more than one kid *ever* have sex.

I have trouble understanding how having sex with someone else is considered cheating after a 2 year non-sex period. You old foggies are crazy.

Just forcing yourselves to do it, like washing dishes right after dinner, is the solution.

It's to imagine having to "force myself." That would be bad times.

I don't understand how people with more than one kid *ever* have sex.

He he, after we went through a six month dry spell after the second kid, it was erratic for a year or two, once a month sometimes, and other times nothing for a couple months or so. Eventually, the kids get to the point where they keep each other occupied, making you less tired, and sleep all night giving you more time. Eventually you rediscover that sex is GREAT and get back into the groove. After all that, this past fall the Wife and I did 12 days in a row one stretch and we're back to 3-4 times a week, when feasible.

I have trouble understanding how having sex with someone else is considered cheating after a 2 year non-sex period.

I agree, but there was a thread on this that was pretty heated.

74: I dunno. I found settling for perfunctory sex pretty fatal to the sex drive -- turned sex from this hot thing you do when overcome with passion, or this tender thing you dowhen drawn together in intimacy into this blah thing you do out of obligation because we really oughta be doing it more. Made sex less pleasurable when passion or intimacy actually did surge because in some warped Pavlovian way it just became associated with a chore.

Just forcing yourselves to do it, like washing dishes right after dinner, is the solution.

And actually, this is the way to do it. Not forcing yourself when you really, really don't want to. But to get back into the swing you need to just do it, and semi-regularly, and pretty soon you are back in the groove.

Hrm. I was thinking 'perfunctory, but still fun', not so much 'I suppose we'd better get it over with for the night'. For us, it seems to work out that having had low-key sex two days ago or whatever makes it easier and less pressured to get into it more intensely when the mood arises.

Although, I can see AGG's point as well. YMMV.

The thing about getting out of the habit really seems to be true, at least for some people. And at the same time, it just gets insanely complicated, and in ways that make it difficult to just try getting back in the habit. If one partner wants to a lot then the other partner can very easily get to feeling pressured. And then, given a certain psychological make-up, the focus becomes, "Am I doing this just to please my partner? Will I resent this afterwards in a way that will only make things worse? And if I do give in here a few times, do I create a new expectation? What if, after a few times, I find I still don't want to, and there's this new expectation I've created?"

The good news is that with just a few thousand hours of talking, crying, slamming doors, criticizing, apologizing, retracting, and more talking, you too can find a common ground on this difficult issue. I'm very sympathetic to anyone who doesn't have the stomach to go through that, but in our case it was very much worth it. Of course, you need other very good reasons to stick together for that to be true.

74: The other alternative suggestion to JFK is to agree beforehand that there will be NO sex the first dayor two of the getaway, just whatever other crazy kid fun they can find. Takes the pressure off for that first day, anyway -- and making sex that forbidden fruit kind of thing can occasionally restore some old-fashioned teenager-like horniness.

I don't understand how people with more than one kid *ever* have sex.

B, I suspect that at least part of the issue is that you don't have a bedtime for PK.

82 gets it right.

I can't imagine dealing with a high-stress event (which is how i assume parenting is) WITHOUT having sex...

Oh, man could I see that. Yeah, right after the kids are asleep is prime time -- I'm a sleepy person and if things get going much later than that I'm out for the night.

"30: You still seem to be assuming, by listing limited options, that everyone has an active sex drive which must be directed somewhere, or else they have psychological problems. See here: some people really do innately have low sex drives, and don't find it problematic."

Two things: First, I thought I included "if she cares." Second, I should have said that two years is a huge red flag that there might be a problem.

If you and your significant other have discussed it and are fine with it, then it isnt a problem.

you don't have a bedtime for PK.

Holy shit, that's nuts. 8:30 damnit. Maybe 9 if it's a weekend.

I have trouble understanding how having sex with someone else is considered cheating after a 2 year non-sex period.

It would depend on the specific reasons why there has been no sex for 2 years. In general, I would say it's cheating if it allows one partner to satisfy their needs while at the same time ignoring and perpetuating the underlying problem(s) in the relationship.

79: Yeah, but i don't remember ever being on the pro-cheating side at unfogged before.

I was in a LTR for 12 years from the ages of 19 to 31 (not married, no kids) and never went more than a few weeks absent geographical separation or physical illness. Now I've been single (except for short flings) for 5 years, and there have been 2 longish hiatuses (sp?) of about 15 or 16 months each in that time. It sucked, especially for the first few years where I'd been used to a regular sex life and was just hitting my supposed peak. I thought about sex ALL THE TIME and had newfound sympathy for teenage boys. It seems to have eased off a bit now but celibacy still sucks. One night stands are not really what i want but seem to be all I can get.

Do you no-sex people flirt with your partners?

"(And no, the boyfriend isn't the "reason," thanks, although Mr. B. is bothered by the notion that I'm not sleeping with him b/c I am sleeping--about 3-4 times a year, by the way--with the boyfriend. Which isn't the case, but obviously his feeling like it is despite my assurances isn't exactly helping anything.)"

I'm with you. I cannot see why someone would think that hot get-away sex with boyfriend (who doesnt share the stresses of work, money, kids, and every day boredom) would ever interfere with having hot sex with Mr. B.

i am not the same commenter as Chester at 49/ 64 above, sorry for not spotting that. site owners please to replace with dead president of your choice if it's confusing.

"I've got to say that masturbation seems like a culprit in a lot of these sadder stories!"

Wow, Jackmormon is against masturbation.

I don't in any way mean 86 as a criticism. Just speaking from experience.

92: AMEN.

"It would depend on the specific reasons why there has been no sex for 2 years. In general, I would say it's cheating if it allows one partner to satisfy their needs while at the same time ignoring and perpetuating the underlying problem(s) in the relationship."

I agree with MAE.

Same with 99 -- I don't think not having a bedtime does PK any harm, I just know that if my kids stayed up any significant amount later than they do now, I'd never get laid because I'd be sleeping instead. (And 96 is really kind of unpleasant.)

I wouldn't disagree.

Gosh, 96 really is kind of unpleasant.

Of course, so is letting Kissinger goad me into complicity in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Indonesians.

I apologize for 96. I thought that was a glaring contradiction. But I couldnt delete it. Can someone else do it?

God, please let's never again mention Henry Kissinger in the context of a sex thread.

I wrote fast without fully thinking, but couldnt unsend it.

He's the doctor of my dreams.

Power is, of course, the ultimate aphrodisiac.

(And no reason to delete, people say unpleasant things around here all the time. We mostly try to edit only for privacy concerns.)

110: When someone walks in my office and says, "I've been unhappy for a while, but I finally decided to end it," I ask them to tell me about the new person. They initially deny it, but then confess.

We only have so much emotional energy. When we use it on someone else, we cheat our partner. MAE hits it on the head:

"It would depend on the specific reasons why there has been no sex for 2 years. In general, I would say it's cheating if it allows one partner to satisfy their needs while at the same time ignoring and perpetuating the underlying problem(s) in the relationship."

(Heck, half the time the people saying unpleasant things are me.)

112: you are a lawyer, arent you? we can't help ourselves.

Re. PK's bedtime, it is now 8 pm in bed, 8:30 lights out. That's when I'm in charge. When Mr. B.'s in charge (which is most of the time, since it's really the only chance he gets to be with PK during the week) it moves towards somewhere between 9 and 10.

With that info, Will, wanna rethink some of the implicit accusations in 96?

The good news is that with just a few thousand hours of talking, crying, slamming doors, criticizing, apologizing, retracting, and more talking, you too can find a common ground on this difficult issue.

Heh, Amen.

I didn't read 96 as being accusatory but saying, "Well of course he'd be bothered by that."

I simply thought it was naive to think that the boyfriend doesnt impact your interest in sex with B or his with you. You admit that B is bothered by it, but you say he shouldnt be.

Let me clear: If you and B have a great relationship and a great sex life, and you also have sex with someone else, then fabulous.

But, if you are having problems, and he is articulating that the boyfriend is one of the problems, then why do you think that it isnt one of the problems.

116: Perhaps, but it isn't necessarily so. It just isn't. I know people in similar situations who get hotter when they have sex with others. For them, sexual desire isn't a zero sum game in which more for one means less for another. For others, by contrast, it is a zero sum game. Surprise, surprise: Human beings turn out to be very difficult to responsibly generalize about.

I mean that it isn't one of the problems for me--that is to say, it's not part of why I'm not having sex. It *is* one of the problems for Mr. B., but that's more about his being upset that we're not having sex, if that makes sense; if we were, he wouldn't give two hoots about the boyfriend. So it's one of the problems, but only in the sense that a symptom is one of the problems of an underlying illness, as opposed to a cause.

Anyway, sorry for being defensive on the issue. I'm touchy about being "blamed."

Gerald: I agree that sexual desire is different.

But, read what was written, one partner is having a problem with it. That was the starting point for this discussion.

Read 117

120: Right. I was really trying to get at what B says in 119. But I should just shut up and let her speak for herself. Just happen to feel strongly about this one.

If you and B have a great relationship and a great sex life, and you also have sex with someone else, then fabulous.

See, here's my issue with that statement: it sounds to me like you're saying "fabulous" only as long as my relationship with Mr. B. includes a "great sex life." But I don't think you can make one relationship contingent on the status of another like that; if you form a relationship with someone under one set of circumstances, and then the circumstances change, cutting off the relationship is a poor solution--whether the relationship is the marriage, or the boyfriend.

Power is, of course, the ultimate aphrodisiac.

I've always figured that this had to be the correct explanation if Henry Fucking Kissinger was actually getting laid.

It seems fair to think you might not try/sacrifice whatever as much to fix things if you're getting sex somewhere else.

As much as we love Dr. B and appreciate how she's expanded our vocabularies of human experience, we can hardly restrict ourselves from the occasional burst of impolite slack-jawed astonishment at her state of, if you will, affairs. Will should go read a few comment threads over at B's place for amends and education. It's hardly beyond the pale to goggle at B for balancing multiple partners. I might recommend "I don't understand how you can..." instead of snark, next time.

I've mentioned before that Bitch, PhD played a critical role in the dissolution of my sex-foundered marriage. (and been admonished for not using Presidential anonymity in doing so; feel free to search the archives to uncover my normal pseudonym, I was of two minds of using it here). My wife sent me a note saying, "Do you want to sleep with other people?" I responded with a curt "no". A day later I sent her a link to the BPhD blog with a note saying "but if that's what you're thinking about, you should look at this stuff, she articulates these ideas really well." This led to an exchange of about 40 pp of Bitch-excerpting correspondence (wife had been staying out in the desert to work on a novel) where she established that she wanted to sleep with other people and put our marriage on hold for a while. She came home, we drank and cried it out and listened to "Your Ex-Lover Is Dead" fifteen times on repeat; three days later my parents showed up in town and we threw a fifteen-person dinner party without cracking.

She moved out, we saw other people; I simply didn't have the kind of equanimity that Dr./Mr B do, god bless 'em. I was hurt that she was fucking around; she was hurt that I was actually fond of the woman I started sleeping with. I called it quits six months later and haven't spoken to her since; she's dragging her heels on agreeing to a divorce. I don't think she really wants one.

On the original sex-infrequency question -- she had fucked up daddy issues like what, at least a quarter of the women I know, and I think I'd become a kind of safe father-figure for her -- someone with whom she could feel safe and not at all sexual. Not, alas, what I signed up for. But we would have periods of a month broken by a mercy fuck. Took us til the fourth day of our honeymoon to get it on, which should have raised a flag.

For people who are going through this in marriage or LTR, I strongly recommend Passionate Marriage by David Schnarch. He has a funny last name. It's a good book; if I get a chance later on I will do a tight three on it.

Oh, one more thing: after we'd gone out for a round with other people and come back to one another, she did point out one factor in the sex problem was that my cock was uncomfortably large for her. I've been wanting to share that with people for a while.

BitchPhD:
I didnt mean to give that impression. I agree that you can have a fabulous, amazing relationship without sex. Two people can determine what a relationship means to them.

And, once again, I am not making any moral judgments. I personally believe that you can love more than one person at a time.

But, when you start to have problems, you have to be open to examining all causes. Sometimes what seems to be a sympton is a cause.

123: I always, er, thought that Henry Kissinger was kind of cute, owing to the nebbishyness, the smartness and the glasses. It's too bad he's a war criminal and probably one of the worst human beings ever to live.

Will, quit digging.

125:I remember your story and the role of BitchPhd in it, but didn't realise the reference to it was your idea.

So you and she still have an ongoing relationship? That's good news to me.

And thanks for sharing.

"we can hardly restrict ourselves from the occasional burst of impolite slack-jawed astonishment at her state of, if you will, affairs. Will should go read a few comment threads over at B's place for amends and education. It's hardly beyond the pale to goggle at B for balancing multiple partners. I might recommend "I don't understand how you can..." instead of snark, next time."

I want to be clear. I've read her blog before and knew of her arrangement. I wasn't astonished at all. I'm also not offended or put-off by it. I am not judging her morally.

The key word that you wrote is "balancing."

Like I said, I'm just defensive about the topic. Because I know that 124 is right--it *does* seem fair for people to think that. But I resent the implication (or maybe just my inference) that this means I don't care about Mr. B. "enough," or am not fully committed to the marriage, or whatever. It's probably my issue, and it's why I don't write about it on my blog--I don't want to deal with the inevitable comments. But it's an interesting problem, and one I think few people will acknowledge (the married-not-having-sex-but-no-that-doesn't-mean-we-should-divorce thing, I mean), so I wanted to acknowledge it *somehow*.

Much was made of Kissinger's sexiness at the time, and the marriage to Nancy McGuiness was discussed in relation to this reputation.

129: No ongoing relationship. We've not spoken in six months. We have one mutual friend who graciously passes information back and forth; I just heard via her that the wife was balking on the divorce paperwork.

I'm of such a disposition that it would be easy for me to maintain a relationship with her and suppress just how much anguish there would me, so it's kind of liberating for me to just block her out entirely while I'm processing and just living past the whole deal. I expect we'll have some sort of relationship eventually. But the reason I had to cut it off is that there was no way in which she was acting with me; it was comfortable for her to keep me around to affirm her worth as a person, but she had this monstrous, narcissistic vision quest she needed to act out, and I couldn't really play the role she'd asked me to anymore.

She keeps sending me art. I asked her to knock it off, but then she send me another little photocollage in the mail with no explanation.

Henry Kissinger: the Justin Timberlake of his generation.

The key word that you wrote is "balancing."

Agreed. But does this mean that things must balance at all times? Or that if they fail to do so for more than X period, that one is required to quit? Because I just don't believe that when it comes to marriage. Obviously everyone has some things that are intolerable to them for any length of time. But just as obviously some things that are intolerable to some people are fine, or at least tolerable, to others--commuter marriages, infertility, illness, whatever. Aren't commitment and loyalty valuable characteristics? Do commitment and loyalty in the face of difficulty necessarily imply that someone's being taken advantage of?

134: Whatever you do, do NOT allow an image of Kissinger or Timberlake to intrude into your imagination the next time you're masturbating or having sex.

Good luck!

Particularly not an image of Kissinger having sex with Timberlake. While Timberlake's dick is in a box.

I never said anything about quitting the marriage.

If anyone's life is out of balance AND they are not happy about it, then they should examine what is causing the inbalance. This can be applied to anything: work, tv, unfogged (gasp!), other romantic interests. You dont quit the marriage because those things are causing a problem. You decide what your priorities are and then make decisions. Very important = you decide what your priorities are.

I agree entirely with that. I suspect most divorces happen because people aren't honest about the examining and deciding, rather than because X or Y is inherently intolerable.

90: To clarify, I meant situations where one party's low sex drive goes undiscussed - making cheating / psych problems not the only possibilities. (An increasingly tangential point, but still.)

President Wilson, I suppose it's too late now, but having more frequent sex can often help with the uncomfortably large cock problem. Of course, then you have a chicken-and-egg issue.

"I suspect most divorces happen because people aren't honest about the examining and deciding, rather than because X or Y is inherently intolerable."

I am amazed at how many people's vows apparently include "till death do us part UNLESS things get difficult or stressful."

large cock [...] chicken-and-egg issue

Chickens will still lay eggs, even in the absence of a cock.

I am amazed at how many people's vows apparently include "till death do us part UNLESS things get difficult or stressful."

I think that things like "if you're not having sex, someone's cheating" kind of encourage that, though. Who cares if someone's cheating? The issue is that you and your partner aren't having sex. Deal with that.

Wait, President Wilson is getting it on with fowl?

Y'all think you're clever, but really you're being insensitive to the burdens that we, the massive-cocked, have to bear.

145: The people on this blog are so hard to keep track of. How many are polyamorous? Who sexes chickens?

It's not unheard of. A friend of a friend claimed to have, while in the Navy, been shown porn films semi-officially (like, they had them on the ship and called them training films) including something called Barnyard Follies. He did a really comic impression of the noise a sedated chicken makes when wrongfully interfered with.

"I think that things like "if you're not having sex, someone's cheating" kind of encourage that, though. Who cares if someone's cheating? The issue is that you and your partner aren't having sex. Deal with that."

Well, a lot of people care if someone is cheating.

But, I attempted to spell that out in 7. It is a red flag and you need to figure out what is going on.

147: I think we need a spreadsheet.

Unfogged: The Movie

In an attempt to jumpstart their stalled sex life, Mr. and Dr. B. ship PK off for a week at his Uncle Ogged's. [PK: "He's not my uncle, he's a Lur!"] PK finds Ogged in a deep depression stemming from his cancer and his constant poolside rejections. But, after a day of pranks [PK: "Then we spray what in their window?], Ogged is cheered up enough to play a prank of his own: cutting PK's hair in his sleep, Delilah-style. Upon waking to find his precious hair gone, PK confronts Ogged on his treachery and demands to meet "all the other internet assholes who wanted to see my hair cut." Thus Ogged and PK go on a whirlwind trip of the United States, through great american towns like Teoville, and even to the south to meet Apo [PK: "Wow, you really do have black friends"]. Eventually the end up at the flophouse, whose denizens have a surprise ready: unfoggeDCon II! There PK is reunited with his post-coitaly glowing parents and a great time is had by all. [PK: "Comity!"]

Right, I know people care. But *why*? If there are truly no problems other than the actual cheating, it just seems petty and shallow. If there are problems for which the cheating is a symptom or a proxy or a cause--including hurt feelings, jealousy, etc.--then obviously it's an issue. But people act as if cheating, in and of itself, is the problem, rather than the hurt feelings or emotional indifference or what have you. I hate that. I hate it as much as I hate the idea that people would divorce over, say, how to fold towels or what color to paint the bathroom: if you disagree about that stuff to the point of divorce, it isn't the paint color that's the issue.

"We loved the script, really. Loved it. But we think it could use more Motumbo. And we're not sure American audiences ready for a Lur in a leading role... I'm thinking more Welsh."

142: "I am amazed at how many people's vows apparently include 'till death do us part UNLESS things get difficult or stressful.'"

I'm admittedly a little sensitive on this point, and I'm sure you didn't mean to generalize, but I don't really think it's terribly helpful to make divorce into some major moral failure. Sometimes people reach a point where "till death do us part" actually starts making death feel like something to look forward to, and divorce is probably a very good idea at that point.

Why is 153 a president?

Who sexes chickens?

w-lfs-n

151 is fantastic. But it needs to include ogged and PK initially hating each other (and the unfogged commenters they meet inadvertantly saying things that emphasize their frustrations with each other) and then bonding in the quiet moments of the road trip.

Spreadsheet here; mail me if you have a google account and would like to edit.

Does the final column refer to yourself or your sex partners?

158: For the "Big Cock?" column header, you may want to clarify "has" vs. "is".

159: Added a column.

160: Or I may not.

152: I think the situations where "there are truly no problems other than the actual cheating" don't really exist. Cheating is almost invariably tied into inadequacy and jealousy. If it's not, it's just...I don't know, poorly scheduled polyamory? People defining the sexual commitments of an LTR or marriage should be up front with themselves and their partner about what fidelity means to them. Maybe they'll be the lucky ones like you and find that sexual fidelity isn't required to solidify their relationship.

Maybe we are lazy in our conversations; maybe it's easier to say, "He slept around on you? You should leave him" than to say, "Did you feel ashamed that all you had to offer physically wasn't enough for your partner? Did sexual fidelity allow you vulnerability you couldn't otherwise have?" People should work through their problems before they throw in the towel, but it's willfully naive to say that cheating is on the level of, well, towels.

158 -- should contain a column for nicknames/aliases like "hovercraft" (tag line: "the hovercraft is full of eels"?).

However it is done, clearly the line for Ben w-lfs-n must include "WMYBSALB" and "LittleBitchNotYetPhd" somewhere on it if it really going to help make unfogged more comprehensible. Either that or it could just contain links to standpipe's blog.

153: I stick with presidential once I start with it, the better to secure my double-super-secret identity.

152: Cheating is more like a symptom that can come back to compound the problems that originally spawned it. Speaking very generally (I adamantly refuse to comment on you or Mr. B) the reason it compounds the problems is that many people aren't cut out for being genuinely polyamorous, so hurt feelings, jealousy, anxiety etc are highly likely.

154: It's not the divorce that's the great moral failure, it's the lying/cheating. That's deliberately and non-consensually altering someone else's reality for one's own benefit (not all that much different from the WMDs in Iraq bullshit). I don't regret the divorce, I do regret and will always regret the way I handled the ramp up to it.

There are several different scenerios:
1. cheating
2. couple agrees that one or both can have sex with other people and they are happy with it.
3. one person wants to have sex with others, and the other doesn't want that, but isnt ready to end the marriage over it.

I heard that TeddyR has a big stick.

Also, 4. Someone wants to end the relationship and doesn't have the guts to do it in any way other than by cheating.

164: Sign up for a google account, mail me, and I'll give you access to it.

151 is adorable.

Dear lord what have I done.

Also 5: 2, but then couple starts having problems for other reasons and the extracurriculars become an issue.

Maybe we are lazy in our conversations; maybe it's easier to say, "He slept around on you? You should leave him" than to say, "Did you feel ashamed that all you had to offer physically wasn't enough for your partner? Did sexual fidelity allow you vulnerability you couldn't otherwise have?" People should work through their problems before they throw in the towel, but it's willfully naive to say that cheating is on the level of, well, towels.

I think that's all I'm getting at. Not only that people should work through their problems but that ideally we should work towards saying the hard things with intimate partners--even if the hard thing is "I'm not capable of being that honest." Then the partner can (one hopes) be empathetic and willing to let it lie, or else decide that he or she can't cope with their partner's need for euphemism or emotional protectiveness (which we all have, sooner or later).

154: I personally don't care if people divorce for any reason whatsoever, unless and until they have kids. At that point, I do think there's a moral obligation to stay together absent actual cruelty (emotional, physical, whatever). Of course, there's also a moral obligation not to subject kids to deep unhappiness.

Euphemism?

That spreadsheet had better be filled by 6 PM or I'll be disappointed.

176: You going to contribute?

This is just Hamilton Lovecraft's way of getting all of our email addresses for some nefarious plot.

This is why we need to cover our tracks and not make it obvious by signing up and then instantly posting a profile of ourself.

178: One of you has got to help me get this money out of Nigeria.

I don't really have a moral objection to divorce either, but I do suspect that a lot of successful second marriages are built on experience and wisdom that could have made the first marriage successful if the parties had been able to apply it there. But it's very hard to get out of entrenched ways of dealing with each other, it takes two to make things work, and living with another person is just plain difficult.

178: But seriously, if that's a concern, create a disposable gmail address for it.

Hamilton, I love my row. Thanks.

164: I can't find my bookmark for SB's blog -- can someone explain the "full of eels" thing to me?

33: Of course, IP addresses can reveal one's workplace (if one posts from there) and/or rough geographical location, even if you don't have your own domain associated with it -- and if, say w-lfs-n and Ogged were shacking up, a static IP would reveal all. But we can trust the bloggers to be discreet, right?

Right?

*crickets*

can someone explain the "full of eels" thing to me?

It's a Monty Python reference.

we can trust the bloggers to be discreet, right?

So long as you aren't TrollCharlie, yes.

say, COMMA, dammit.

174: Indeed -- the best interests of a child/children should always be paramount. The difficulty is that actual cruelty -- particularly in the emotional sense -- is rarely visible from outside the home and it's way too easy to pass judgment that someone just abandoned their vows when things got hard.

181: Sometimes that wisdom and experience is in learning to recognize who you really shouldn't be with. Ah, if only we knew when we were young what we know now...

Comma, dammit (you have an unnecessary comma in 186).

We took the link to his job back down, which makes us pretty discreet. Kinda.

Indeed -- the best interests of a child/children should always be paramount. The difficulty is that

...there are no rules that could possibly apply universally to the infinitely varied institutions known as "marriage" and "family".

187.2: And sometimes it's in accepting that your life is going to meander along a path that is different from what you expected and learning that you're not exactly the person that you thought you were (or becoming a different person than you would otherwise have been).

Not arguing, just saying.

Hrutr Herjolfsson in the Burnt Njal Saga was the man (cursed by a Norwegian princess) who was too large for any woman.

190: Exactly. My nephews (the oldest was 13 at the time) begged my sister to leave their father and when she did they were grateful.

191: Not argumentative at all -- in fact, comfortingly optimistic.

A coupleof Googles revealed that it was the Queen of Norway, and you have to wonder whether the curse wasn't really impotence, and the "too large" part just a lame excuse.

Vikings and penises

Man, I'm glad 193 was explicitly to 190, as interpreting it as in response to the previous comment is a bit too much.

188: Waah. How about just "dammit?"

Aaaand...

Reading the tail end of this thread - the problems-in-marriage stuff - makes me nervous. I'm in a relationship which has been going on long enough that expectations of marriage have appeared, in the relationship and from nearby parties. I feel like that kind of happened without my noticing, and I don't like it. I don't really feel like I want to get married, and all of this reinforces my sense that I shouldn't let it just happen to me, or agree to it without being enthusiastic about the prospect. But if I'm not enthusiastic about it now, will I get there? If not, should I be here at all? Is it okay to like things as they are? I guess it depends on whether the other person is okay with that themselves, but it's impossible to get into that without getting "it's not that you don't want to get married, it must be that you don't want to get married to me" from the other person.

Why don't you want to? That is, is it 'don't want to get married' or 'don't want to get married to current partner'? Because you're absolutely right that you shouldn't get married if you aren't enthusiastic about the idea; if you aren't enthusiastic about marriage, you should clarify your thinking and tell your partner so that either you can go trundling along in happily unwedded bliss, or they can dump you for someone who wants to marry them. If you're feeling ambivalent about your partner, you should probably again clarify your thinking to see if you can either arrive at enthusiasm for them, or a decision to go do something else.

If you aren't enthusiastic about getting married, then for heaven's sake don't do it. The proper question is *why* should y'all get married? I'm sure there are many people who will disagree with this statement, but if you aren't looking to have kids (and you aren't in dire of dishes), then there just isn't any reason.

Mao, my wife entered into our marriage by quieting her doubts about what the institution and its expectations would mean for her; two and a half years later, those doubts came back with a vengeance. I'm not sure if this applies to your situation, but I wish we had taken a breath and said, "if we're going to do this, we need to figure out a few things about sex, about fidelity, about the way we interact. We've been able to muddle along to this point without really uncovering them, and if we poke at this stuff it could get kind of dark and difficult. We should do some of it with a couples counselor; we definitely shouldn't think we can figure it out ourselves."

On the other hand, if that had happened, we probably wouldn't have gotten married, and we had a really fun wedding. So I'd say, if you both want to throw a big party and get lots of stuff, quiet your doubts and let the chips fall where they may.

Woodrow Wilson, our coldest president.

And the expectations of nearby parties is TEH VERY WORST reason to get married.

If you aren't enthusiastic about Getting married: then for heaven's sake don't do it.

196: Interesting.

I suppose there's always the problem of whether someone is being told he's too big as a form of ego-stroking, a clever way to let him down gently. Similarly, someone who wanted to boost your ego, because she loved you and wanted you to feel good and confident and why not?

In that respect, a conversation I had when young has always seemed credible to me, because it was in the form of an angry complaint about some boorishness or other: "Just because you've got a.... doesn't mean you can just..." Is there a word for being humiliated and pleased at the same time?

Mao, my wife entered into our marriage by quieting her doubts about what the institution and its expectations would mean for her; two and a half years later, those doubts came back with a vengeance.

Our early years were along somewhat similar lines, including a brief divorce after five years. We're now approaching 20 years together, and while it hasn't been smooth every step of the way, it's a pretty damn good marriage and has enriched both our lives. Generalizing about this stuff is really, really hard. Pattern X doesn't work, except when it does.

Masochists are pleased to be humiliated.

193: IMX, "staying together for the sake of the children" is a hideous idea. When I was a kid, I used to beg my grandparents to let me come live with them because my parents' marriage was such a freakin' disaster. My siblings and I would have been much better off had my parents divorced. Hell, my kid is much better off with the Biophysicist as his primary male influence than his father - something he brought up himself, noting on a Father's Day card "Thanks for being the role model I don't have anywhere else". He loves his father, but neither respects nor trusts him.

The longest dry spell I ever had was during a time between meeting the Biophysicist and his moving cross country - we didn't see each other for seven looong months. [Before that, many hotel guests complained to management...] My previous marriage had been open, so the relatively low sex drive my ex had didn't really make a difference. [Tho' I do think that, if one has a girl-on-the-side, one should not treat her in such a manner that she cries on one's wife's shoulder and has to be reassured that she's attractive, it's just that one's ex isn't really into fucking all that much...]

[Thinking about it - hell, even when I worked all day, went to law school four nights a week and had a toddler, there was frequent sex. But I'd left the ex by then, for other reasons.]

The Biophysicist and I clarified at the outset that we both preferred to be monogamous. Our styles and preferences match rather well, so that works out wonderfully. If only we could get the kid to go back to working weekends, so that we didn't have to worry about grossing him out...

"staying together for the sake of the children" is a hideous idea.

190 applies to this argument as well.

While I'm getting the sordid details out there, may I add that the more-comfortably-hung dude she started sleeping with (and AFAIK still is) reminded both her and a friend of ours of my father? Seriously, my friend met him in a professional context and was almost, like, "Nice to see you again, Mr. Wilson."

To preempt: no, it was not the more-comfortably-hungness that reminded her of my father.

"If you aren't enthusiastic about getting married, then for heaven's sake don't do it. The proper question is *why* should y'all get married? I'm sure there are many people who will disagree with this statement, but if you aren't looking to have kids (and you aren't in dire of dishes), then there just isn't any reason."

Amen! That is where my gf and I are. Although I was wondering why she keeps gazing at wedding rings.

213: Jewelry is nice. So is a big party where everybody you knows gives you something and tells you how beautiful/handsome you look, and a honeymoon in a scenic locale. There's nothing odd about thinking that. But you can buy jewelry and take a trip without getting married, and come out with more in the bank when all is said and done. Plus, your taxes go up when you're married.

I should say again to Mao that while not getting married if you don't really really genuinely want to is the way to go, if your partner and people around you are expecting it, the decent thing to do would be to make your position on the matter clear. Lots of people want kids, and there isn't an unlimited time window there (I have friends who are, I think, stumbling toward a divorce. They've been married for ten years, and as I understand it (I know him better than her) went into the marriage planning to have kids. At first she wanted to put it off, and now it's something they just can't talk about any more, and fairly soon it won't be an option for her. He loves her, but really wants children. And they both seem terribly unhappy. Not that this is your situation, but you can save a lot of heartache by making your plans clear.)

211: You left the "IMX" off the quote; I wasn't making a generalisation, just adding to the anecdota.

213: Maybe you should just offer to buy her new dishes.

An aside: Friends of mine got married by a JP. When his very Catholic aunt found out it hadn't been by a priest, she demanded the set of dishes back. His mother had to reimburse her for them before she'd let it go.

Hmmmm... come to think of it, I've never got dishes as a wedding present. We did get an ounce of really good grass for wedding #1, tho'.

Being clear about what I want really is the crux of the matter, isn't it? The trouble is that I don't really know what I want, I just know what things I presently like and what future things I don't currently feel excited about. Introspection and having plans for the future have never been strong suits of mine (suddenly, the poor choice of pseudonym becomes clear). I'm much more comfortable just muddling around in the present, and in most ways it's worked pretty well. But this is an endeavor that kind of requires planning for the future, and thus knowing what I want, and thus nervousness.

One of the things that made me surest that Mr. B. and I should get married is the fact that right up until we walked down the aisle, we were both telling each other that we could call it off at any time.

people around you are expecting it, the decent thing to do would be to make your position on the matter clear

Before I was married, when people would ask us the "when are you getting married" question, we'd always answer, "As soon as we find the right people."

Nobody ever asks a second time.

The trouble is that I don't really know what I want, I just know what things I presently like and what future things I don't currently feel excited about

So just fuck around until the other person forces the issue. Maybe you'll have sorted it out by then. As long as you haven't made any explicit promises which you intend to betray, I think this falls into the "don't go looking for problems; they'll find you" category.

217: That is a rough position to be in. Not much to say but Let A Thousand Flowers Bloom!

219 is so awesome I am going to make it my fifteenth point.

My taxes went down.

I was expecting this thread to consist entirely of comments like, "*I*'ve never gone more than one week without sex! Those poor, poor people who've had to do without it for more than a month!" What a relief that I'm not a complete and utter freak.

A few months into my last long-term relationship my sex drive died completely, and to this day I don't really know why. I had no desire for my partner, nor for anyone else, for that matter --- I had no lustful thoughts towards anyone and didn't even masturbate. I could only force myself to have sex every couple of months, and then after a few years, less frequently than that, even. I wasn't unhappy with a sexless marriage but my partner was deeply, desperately unhappy. He used to go a little psycho over it every now and then. I remember one time, for example, when we were arguing about sex in the car and he deliberately swerved the car into the opposite lane to express his rage. I wanted to fix things for his sake and our sake, so I saw doctors but none of them had anything useful to tell me, except, "oh, low sex drive is normal."

Not having a sex drive didn't in itself bother me, but I did become extremely resentful over the bitter arguments and blaming. My partner used to say that I should give him access to my vagina regardless of the fact I didn't want to, arguing that if I didn't care about sex, I shouldn't care whether he was using my body to get himself off -- which felt to me like he was asking me to acquiesce to my own rape (I realize that that's incoherent, but I guess I'm trying to express thought that the mere suggestion felt like a violation). Anyway, after that I couldn't trust him. Things deteriorated some more and it was only after I had been apart from him for six months that I felt any bit of sex drive returning.

The whole thing just left me feeling like all I'm good for is to get someone off and if I can't do that I'm not entitled to love or loyalty or patience or anything. While my sex drive is fine in the early stages of liking someone and getting to know them, I can't be sure that it's going to stay at that level for any length of time. Which probably means that I'm going to be alone forever.

I originally wasn't going to post this, even anonymously, because I hate the thought of anyone pitying me. I think my ex-partner is the one who should be pitied, since he had so little control over his drives, and suffered a lot as a result.

Just don't be surprised if the other person in the perpetually uncommitted relationship up and runs away with a circus acrobat one day.

220: See, that's exactly what I was advising against. I get the impression that that's how lots of people end up married who shouldn't be -- they go bumbling along until the unenthusiastic partner realizes that the other party is absolutely convinced that an irrevocable committment has been made, and then the unenthusiastic partner feels like too much of a bad person to back out. And then they get divorced three years later when Junior is eighteen months old.

223: What an incredible jerk your partner was.

but if you aren't looking to have kids (and you aren't in dire of dishes), then there just isn't any reason.

A clue that Apo's wife is reading this blog will be that she comes home tonight and kicks his ass.

You people have 15 minutes to improve the spreadsheet in 158, but for now it's pretty shabby. I thought it was a great idea.

217: Then maybe the question is whether you really like being with this person. If you do, and if getting married is important to her, would acceding to her desire be an acceptable form of muddling through?

People way, way overrate the rationality of how they go about big decisions. Ultimately, it's a matter of make a choice, come up with an acceptable rationalization, and go from there.

225: I think the trick is not to let feeling like a bad person trap you into a marriage.

227: I bet she agrees.

227: We wanted to have kids and needed dishes.

I remember one time, for example, when we were arguing about sex in the car and he deliberately swerved the car into the opposite lane to express his rage.

I'll be the first to admit to being cranky when I'm not getting any, but that story is nuts.

223: That "demanding access" thing made my jaw drop. As described it sounds totally fucking nuts and out of line. Same with the swerving the car into oncoming traffic thing -- that's beyond frustration and into WTF, serious psych issues.

It's not unreasonable for someone to be unhappy in a saner way with a sudden one-sided sexless turn to a relationship, though, given that one of the major common reasons for having relationships is sex. That's the kind of situation where it would seem reasonable to talk about how maybe if the other person is unhappy with sexlessness, they should make other arrangements, sleep with other people, that sort of thing.

232: No kidding. john tyler, I think maybe you just aren't sexually around by sociopaths with rage issues.

Yeah, that I could see. But the car swerving, asking for undesired sex, and so forth? Pretty awful.

maybe you just aren't sexually around by sociopaths with rage issues

While that's probably an excellent tendency over the long haul, the sociopaths with rage issues that I dated were fantastic in the sack.

224: commitment and marriage are not the same thing. There is overlap, that's all.

Now 227 is probably operative.

Same with the swerving the car into oncoming traffic thing -- that's beyond frustration and into WTF, serious psych issues.

Umm, no, not necessarily. Does indicate a bit of a temper, though.

239: reckless edangerment is more that `a bit of a temper' though --- agree it doesn't necc. mean *serious* psych issues, but issues nonetheless. That sort of behaviour is never ok.

Don't piss off DaveL, people.

I wouldn't characterize him as having rage issues generally -- he's pretty slow to anger, and in every other way we got along really well. But that one issue made him go nuts, and at those times, he really was not in his right mind.

Agree with everyone else: Tyler's ex sounds weird, wrong, and frightening. I don't know if pity comes in at all; I'm just glad you're out of it.

242: If you don't mind me asking: Did you (& he?) expect monogamy at this point?

not that 244 implies any regection of the `weird, wrong & frightening'

the sociopaths with rage issues that I dated were fantastic in the sack.

No need to mollify your wife with compliments now; the damage has been done.

241: Not me, but based on personal experience. A truly volcanic temper can coexist with a lot of other, nicer qualities.

244: No, I don't mind.

For most of the relationship, we expected monogamy (we didn't really entertain the idea of an open relationship -- it wasn't really done among his set, and while I had known a lot of people with open arrangements, they were pretty unstable and stormy). But then, about six months before we finally broke up, I told him that I didn't mind if he had another girlfriend. So he got a girlfriend. But that kind of arrangement wasn't what he really wanted, and eventually we realized that there really was no good reason to be together any more.

That sort of behaviour is never ok.

I've always wondered what work statements like that are supposed to be doing. It's either trivial--no one would argue that such behavior is OK--or it's intended to imply "and therefore decent people should have nothing to do with someone who acts like that," which is just wrong.

203 and 208, how did those expectations play out? Was it an issue of how you two interacted in the marriage or how others treated your wife or both?

And for the married women, did you have concerns like that, and were they unfounded?

I'm wondering how much of this is actually associated with marriage, how much of it may or may not be self-inflicted ("now that I'm married, I need to do X") and how much of it just happens when you reach a certain age/point of stability in your life.

Also: re: 200: the more marriage pressure I get, the more I wonder why it's so damn important to other people.

I think there's not been enough lamentation for those with celibacy imposed upon them by lack of opportunity. Where's ogged?

"That sort of behaviour is never okay" as in "if you know someone who is endangering theirs and their partners' lives for any reason, they should be seeking help."

I've known and still know people who've done worse things than the car-swerving story. I wouldn't say "decent people" should have nothing to do with them, but it does affect how I see them and how closely I'm willing to be associated with them.

249: I think it means "That sort of behavior is unacceptable regardless of whether a generally decent person is doing it -- anyone in a position to object or to make it stop should" and it's used in borderline cases. Obviously murder is 'never ok' regardless of what you think of the person who did it, and obviously being a little unfairly testy is fine if the person doing it is generally a good guy. The point is that swerving your car with a passenger in it into oncoming traffic is in the murder category, not the minor snappishness category.

which felt to me like he was asking me to acquiesce to my own rape (I realize that that's incoherent,

Not at all incoherent. Exactly right.

On the "make other arrangements" front -- I'm sure there are situations where license to fuck around can help you through a rough patch, but when sex with, um, Edith wasn't happening, I didn't want to get my prowl on. I wanted to fix it with her. (And I'm sure my efforts to do so were at times insensitive enough to approach those of j-tyler's ex above; I hope they were at least a few degrees removed.) The way we were going, we probably could have bumbled along miserably for a very long time; it was when she decided that not only didn't she want sex with me, but she did want it with other people, that the end drew nigh.

Hey, incidentally, any mail I get regarding the spreadsheet is covered by the "sanctity of off-blog communication" rule -- I don't need to know which spreadsheet-access email addresses go with which comment handles, and I intend to forget anything I learn.

Unless, of course, I was already obsessing over you, in which case any mail received will be considered an invitation to stalk.

Oh, sign me up for it. My google id is ELizardB@hotmail.com .

Perhaps I'm misreading the story, but I didn't get the impression that the oncoming lane was necessarily full of oncoming trucks at the time of the swerve. All I'm saying is that it is possible for generally good and decent people to do bad and dangerous things when they're really angry, and trying to make the person stop isn't necessarily a real productive thing to do.

Basically, I put "that sort of thing is never OK" in the same category as "you shouldn't put up with that" as facile responses to bad shit that don't really help anybody figure out what to do.

facile responses to bad shit that don't really help anybody figure out what to do.

Huh. Wouldn't you say that there are categories of angry bad behavior that a reasonable person trying to fix a relationship should 'put up with' in that they should focus on the underlying problems and not the angry bad behavior, and that there are categories of angry bad behavior that are bad enough that they become the problem and should be dealt with immediately? I mean, if Tyler's partner were smacking her around, that would be more immediately important than the underlying relationship issues. And I'd put swerving into oncoming traffic in that category.

250: In my case, it wasn't really about marriage vs. committed LTR without marriage, but more whether she wanted long-term commitment at all. How it worked out was that over time the benefits eventually seemed to exceed the costs.

, but I didn't get the impression that the oncoming lane was necessarily full of oncoming trucks at the time of the swerve.

You're right, Dave. It was much closer to "reckless and stupid" than "attempted murder." Not to excuse it, of course.

258: I guess my question would be what you mean by "dealt with immediately". I think there are categories of bad behavior that ought to cause a person to leave the relationship immediately, and I'd put the stronger partner hitting the weaker one in that category, but I'd also say "leave now," not "that's not OK".

257: it is possible for generally good and decent people to do bad and dangerous things when they're really angry

As long as we're taking issue with the facile, I'd like to single out the phrase "generally good and decent people." Plenty of people are generally good and decent in some ways, and dangerously messed up in other ways. Suggesting that certain behaviours may be symptomatic of deeper issues doesn't mean the people involved are demons sprung from the Pit, it just means they need help. (None of us, of course, is in a position to diagnose anybody.)

I'm not sure what "trying to make them stop" is a reference to. Don't try to make them stop in the moment of their rage? Depends on what they're doing, surely. But in general, I don't care how "good" and "decent" someone is, they should always be encouraged to not be violent toward their partner. What jt describes does not sound in the "shit happens" realm of personal conflict.

261: Whatever's necessary to be sure it doesn't happen again, which is going to depend on the action and on the relationship -- talking might do it, but the point is that the unacceptable behavior is the problem at that point, not anything that the person who's flipped out might think excuses it.

262: You're right, "generally good and decent" doesn't do anything. The point is that people are complicated as hell. Everybody has "issues" (another unhelpful word), but they don't generally come with an off switch, and I'm not convinced that mental health professionals are necessarily more useful in dealing with "issues" than loving family and friends. (Which is not at all to say that there aren't mental health issues that absolutely require professional help.)

As to "make them stop," the point is that you really can't make another person do anything. That's especially true in the heat of the moment, but even when somebody needs and wants to change, it's not something that another human being can make them do.

263: I really don't know what you're suggesting. Elaborate? How do you manage this "whatever is necessary" and "never again" thing?

Like I said, "which is going to depend on the action and the relationship". Leaving, which you suggested, is one possibility. I can picture circumstances in which one warning that anything like that again would irrevocably make me leave. Other than than, I don't know. It would depend.

I dunno, John Tyler seemed to be demanding unconditional love, which i find a worse thing than a demand for unenjoyed sex.

Mrs. Atchison, bless her heart, likes it in the morning. On weekends. An easy enough solution for parents of kids old enough to entertain themselves (read: do some light chores). It's a problem when one or the other of us is out of town -- I have to go fundraising, obviously, or founding towns named after myself, and I was out of town representing Joseph Smith in a voting rights case a while back -- and we can easily let a month get away. Never more than 6 weeks, though.

Any longer, I might just flip out, like Tyler's ex. (Not excusing Tyler's ex, but people flipped out sometimes do things they regret . . .)

265: OK. The point I'm trying to make is that it's a mistake to generalize too broadly based on your own relationships and others you've seen up close. The categories of SO behavior are basically "leave now" and "negotiable". Sure, "negotiable" might include an ultimatum, but do those ever work? (Serious question.)

Also, I wonder how much of the aghast reaction to jt's comment is driven by the fact that this was behavior by a man directed at a woman. I'd put almost all violence by a man against a woman in the "leave now" category, but that's not the only sort of rage-driven craziness that's out there.

264: the point is that you really can't make another person do anything

Course not. All you can do is provide incentives and disincentives, with uncertain results. A good thing to do, though, and I've seen it done to positive effect in cases a lot worse than what jt's sounds to have been like.

266: I didn't get that impression at all.

269: I wonder how much of the aghast reaction to jt's comment is driven by the fact that this was behavior by a man directed at a woman.

If someone had told me the car story about a female partner I'd have pretty much the same reaction to it.

269.1: So what are we arguing about?

Also, I wonder how much of the aghast reaction to jt's comment is driven by the fact that this was behavior by a man directed at a woman. I'd put almost all violence by a man against a woman in the "leave now" category, but that's not the only sort of rage-driven craziness that's out there.

I don't think any of it. The scary driving would have gotten the same reaction regardless of the genders, and while asking a partner to submit to unwanted sex is hard to picture with the genders switched, it'd be just as freaky if a woman did it.

271: Whether there's a difference between behavior that can be tolerated and excused, and behavior that the only reasonable and safe response is to focus on extinguishing as swiftly and completely as possible.

271: There's no reason to be arguing, that's my point. Comity!

Or not.

270: If I thought about it I could probably come up with at least a half-dozen or so, assuming I'm assessing the level of "reckless and stupid" more or less correctly.

Either that's unusual, or I have very placid friends. I can't think of anyone I know who deliberately put their own lives and those of their spouse in danger as an expression of anger.

273: It's this idea that irrational behavior can be "extinguish[ed] as swiftly and completely as possible" that's driving me bonkers. People don't operate that way, at least after their personalities are more or less fully formed.

I have very placid friends

Ding ding ding ding ding!

I'm not getting you. People are either amenable to persuasion or not. If someone's putting your life at risk, and they're irrational to the point of being impervious to any persuasive force you can muster, you flee. If they're not that irrational, but just had an irrational moment, you persuade using whatever tactics you've got until you're as certain as you can be that it won't happen again.

It's going to be hard to tell which situation you're in, and you can't be sure you've been successful, sure. My only point is that you don't, after someone's driven into oncoming traffic, think "He's basically a good guy, he was just angry," and move on. You do whatever you can to be sure it doesn't happen again, and if you can't get to a point where you are sure, you flee.

I have very non-placid friends and trust me, the car story as described is still up there. I can think of plenty of examples of female rage-driven craziness too, of course, but I'm not sure why that needs mentioning in this context.

279: And yours sound terrifying. What's the spousal homicide rate in your social circle these days?

Sorry, 282 was over the top. But I'm not understanding your point: is it that driving your car into oncoming traffic is a perfectly normal thing to do in a heated argument, and anyone getting overly excited about it is being a sissy? Because that's what it sounds like.

I think the deal is that Dave is not conceding that swerving into the other lane necessarily constitutes a deadly threat.

It needn't constitute a deadly threat to be a non-trivially reckless and weird thing to do.

Also, most of his friends have lived their lives on a razor's edge of repressed rage due to being born with names like "Dong Trousersnake" and "Prick Schlong-Johnson".

Yeah, see, in the context of 'expressing his rage' it really is. Depending on the state of traffic, it may not be an immediate risk, but it is at least a threat of deadly violence.

I'm not getting you. People are either amenable to persuasion or not. If someone's putting your life at risk, and they're irrational to the point of being impervious to any persuasive force you can muster, you flee. If they're not that irrational, but just had an irrational moment, you persuade using whatever tactics you've got until you're as certain as you can be that it won't happen again.

We've all internalized 260, right? As I see it, we're talking about stupid and unnecessary risk, but not risk that's necessarily any greater than various other risks we run as we go about our lives. It's the stupid and unnecessary part we're worried about. If we're talking about swerving in front of oncoming trucks, that's a different matter.

And I just disagree really, really strongly with "either amenable to persuasion or not." Sometimes people are persuadable and sometimes they're not. Sometimes they're persuaded but backslide. It's all part of the package of good and bad that makes up an individual human personality. You inhabit a demographic that's pretty much by definition better at self-control than 95%+ of the population, and even then I'd bet that there's all sorts of craziness that nobody ever hears about.

282: Again, 260, but I will say that life has spent the last 15+ years providing the material for several novels that will probably never be written. No actual homicides, quite.

As I see it, we're talking about stupid and unnecessary risk, but not risk that's necessarily any greater than various other risks we run as we go about our lives.

No. The point is that someone who's swerving into the opposite lane to express his anger is threatening to kill you. Depending on whether the oncoming traffic is heavy, he's not committed to doing it, but the threat is clear.

But I'm not understanding your point: is it that driving your car into oncoming traffic is a perfectly normal thing to do in a heated argument, and anyone getting overly excited about it is being a sissy? Because that's what it sounds like.

Go back to my first comment. Not perfectly normal, but within the range of human experience, and not something that's helpfully addressed by saying "that's never OK." "Never OK" sounds like some kind of absolute statement but turns out to be either another way of saying "leave now" or just totally meaningless.

286: I actually do have a friend whose name is Ko/ng-J/ohnson, but that's not who I was referring to the other day.

287: I still think "his" is doing some work in that sentence. In the cases I've seen up close, it's more like "I am so angry that I no longer care what happens to us." Bad, but not a threat by one person to do violence to another. When it's stronger partner doing something violent-ish, the threat element is harder to avoid.

289: Just wrong.

That is, just wrong if expressed as an absolute. That's one explanation, but not the only possible explanation.

290: Not perfectly normal, but within the range of human experience

"Within the range of human experience"? You're taking issue with vagueness and yet this kind of thing keeps popping up.

And your first comment is still wrong. "Never okay" means "this should always be regarded as something that needs to be addressed and corrected." I don't see anything you've said since that really takes issue with that.

I can't see it as anything other than a statement that "I have the power to cause our deaths, and may exercise it." I'm not sure what the distinction is between that and "I am so angry that I no longer care what happens to us," considering that anything bad that did happen would be the direct result of the driver's actions.

293: Yeah, of course it's within the range of human experience. It happened. Where does that get you in terms of what to do next?

That needed addressed by Ms. Tyler getting laid. That sounds easier than turning him into a buddha.

293: I'm skeptical that people really use "never OK" as synonymous with "something you need to deal with," but OK.

294: I don't think you're thinking clearly about the power dynamics that might be involved and the connections among anger, frustration, and despair.

That sounds easier than turning him into a buddha.

The shoes are on the wrong cat, hands Thursday.

297: See, presented with power dynamics expressed in that fashion, I think any reasonable person should (a) take whatever interpersonal steps might seem available to cause power dynamics to be expressed differently (yes, I don't know what those steps might be in all cases) or (b) if (a) appeared impractical, as you suggest it always would, to go elsewhere and find people to associate with who express power issues through verbal whining and petulance rather than threats of mutual incineration. Which is what Tyler appears, very sensibly, to have done.

LB, I'm not speculating about Tyler's situation. I'm saying, based on personal experience, that your interpretation of her situation is not the only possible analysis of what might cause someone to do something stupid and dangerous behind the wheel while angry. But I've already gotten more personal on this thread than I'm really comfortable with, so I'll stop.

deliberately swerved the car into the opposite lane to express his rage.

I'm not seeing a lot of ambiguity there. If we were talking about "Got so angry that he started driving erratically and accidentally swerved into the opposite lane," that'd be different. Still scary, but different.

But you said you were dropping it, so I should. I express power issues through heavy blog-commenting.

Either someone in Ms. Tyler's ex's position is so out of control he doesn't realize the danger he's putting them both in or he doesn't care. ("He" used for clarity here; women can, of course, have rage problems too.) Either way, if I were in that situation, his intentions would be pretty moot to me at that point.

it'd be just as freaky if a woman did it.

It would be freakier, because what sort of man would be letting the woman drive, anyway?

I can't think of anyone I know who deliberately put their own lives and those of their spouse in danger as an expression of anger.

The missus, who spent several years doing DV/sexual assault counseling, says that reckless driving while angry with the partner in the car is a very widely recognized sign of an abusive relationship. Not a rare occurrence at all.

251: Solidarity, brother.

I wouldn't be surprised by that, and I think it brings us right back around to 'not okay'.

305: This thread has got to be making celibacy look more attractive.

Eh, what the hell, I'll respond to that. Try viewing the rage as something that's driven by frustration and hurt and the feeling that you're less powerful in verbal combat and thus losing the argument with the person who's hurting you and who refuses to listen and understand. To the extent that mortal danger is involved, it's closer to suicidal than homicidal, and the "I'm going to make you" element that I think you're seeing isn't really there. Not saying that was JT's situation, of course.

And again, what I'm really on about is less the merits of the endangering behavior than the response from outside. "Never OK," to me, reads as putting the burden on the other party to make the behavior stop and judging that person as inadequate if they don't. It's a way of talking about crazy stuff in relationships that I think tends to create a zone of stuff that's too crazy to admit to anyone outside the relationship ("don't be a sucker" being the prime directive of American life) but not bad enough to end the relationship over. And that can be a lonely place to be.

305, 251: Not having sex for that long is really unacceptable.

I think you guys should break up with yourselves.

308 to which?

To the extent that mortal danger is involved, it's closer to suicidal than homicidal, and the "I'm going to make you" element that I think you're seeing isn't really there.

I just don't think that's an important distinction, given that the passenger is in the same car.

It's a way of talking about crazy stuff in relationships that I think tends to create a zone of stuff that's too crazy to admit to anyone outside the relationship ("don't be a sucker" being the prime directive of American life) but not bad enough to end the relationship over.

This is fair, or at least creating the zone you're talking about is a bad thing, and I think you're right that people do feel that way -- that if they're not successful in stopping people from maltreating them, they deserve the abuse.

I would say that 'never okay', as I meant it, does mean 'bad enough to end the relationship over', and the point of saying it is to give that permission. There is some flexibility, depending on the relationship -- I can concieve of a relationship in which that sort of thing had happened but I was secure that it wouldn't happen any more, and so the relationship could survive. But 'not okay' in that context, means to me that walking away without leaving a forwarding address is perfect reasonable.

I think what 308 boils down to is "see the behaviour as having a comprehensible motivation." But I don't think anyone has said that abusive behaviours don't have comprehensible motivations. If you're at the point of breaking down whether the behaviour in question is strictly speaking more "suicidal" or "homicidal," you're probably talking about a behaviour that needs to be tackled in a pretty serious way, because it is... well, not okay.

307: And how.

The Emerson plan looks pretty good, no?

If this is the alternative, then yes.

Don't say Unfogged never did anything for you.

The balance should be redressed with a "what's the best sex you've ever had?" thread.

That sounds much more depressing than this one.

Not to worry. With any luck a lot of the replies will be "with my left hand."

Teofilo:

yes, it will quickly turn into "sex: better in or out of a relationship"

317: Vaginal.

Relatedly, hitting on the presenters at a conference one is organizing: good idea, or no? Totally hypothetical, of course.

Lyndon:
I am curious whether women stick with the same hand?

And I expect it would get even more presidential than this one. Partially because talking about great sex you'd had in the first person would just sound like bragging.

321: Philistine.

322: Gold, but be sure and do it toward the end of the conference.

But at the end there'll be no time left to capitalize on it!

324: "person" s/b "lady"

Good question, will. I don't know. And 324 is so true.

322: As an undergrad? And doing it reasonably tastefully (that is, no fair offering better timeslots to anyone who will go out with you)? I don't see why you shouldn't.

322: Absolutely not.

328: Absolutely. That takes fine motor control -- who has the necessary manual dexterity with the wrong hand? (Other first ladies' mileage may vary.)

326: Make sure your conference include a wrap party with plenty of libations. You will have been impressing your intended with your superior wit and knowledge throughout, and the culmination* will come naturally.

(* "Culmination" here meaning 'would you like to come up and see my pelican etchings,' since you're going Emersonian.)

Later, all.

330: So maybe I'm wrong, but I'm not seeing a problematic power differential here. This may be because my experience of conferences is nonexistent.

what's the best sex you've ever had

The problem is that for me, and I suspect many others, it was so good that there really no words to describe it (if you described it in mechanical terms, it would be meaningless, because the same actions could feel quite differently depending upon a host of things including, most importantly, in my view, how you felt about your partner).

That said, the answer is it was with someone who was so incredible that phone sex with her was better than a lot of in person sex I have had with other women, and the in person sex with her was, well, indescribably better than that.

333: I'm just trying to fuck with Teo.

Not literally, of course.

That said, the answer is it was with someone who was so incredible that phone sex with her was better than a lot of in person sex I have had with other women, and the in person sex with her was, well, indescribably better than that.

Hippie.

Not literally, of course.

Suuuuure.

There will be a party, on the night between the two days of presentations.

Hippie.

No longer. But 334 is all true.

337: This is the thanks I get for leaving it at that rather than listing the many reasons why not?

340: His butt is way too big, isnt it?

There will be a party, on the night between the two days of presentations.

In that case, meet up with her at the party, fetch her a glass of wine and tell her how excellent/incisive/awesome/h0tt her presentation was/will be.

Then honk her boob. Noise optional.

Counter-twiddling radio-dial-like motions on both nipples at once? Also very smooth.

323: Duh. Each hand focuses on a different zone. You guys *are* aware that there are different zones, right?

Especially if you make screechy noises like you're tuning in and out. Women LOVE that.

344: Other than "Forbidden" and "Not there," what zones are there?

Phantom.

346: "Finally!" and "Oh, there is a God!"

348:that made me laugh

349: Sadly, that's the same reaction I seem to get from every guy I try to point in those directions...

342: scribbling notes madly Wait, slow down, I need to make sure I get all this. 'honk... boob... noise... optional.' Okay, what's the next bit?

Okay, what's the next bit?

Tell her you love her even though her ass is not nearly as nice as [insert actress name].

A virtuoso maneuver.

This stuff is great. ogged would totally be able to get with the lifeguard if he listened to you guys.

[insert actress name]

Betty White's.

Did anyone else see the cartoon in this week's New Yorker where the guy is at a cocktail bar with a woman and says to her, "the nuts are good, but I have a can of really good nuts back at my place," and immediately think of Unfogged?

346: "Keep doing that if you want to live"

I date pushy broads. It's a good life.

Has anyone suggested being crazier?

Makeup-sex is awesome.

Being serious and adult-like is not.

Makeup-sex is awesome.

I find it gets a little fiddly and dull, what with all the little brushes and sponges and things. And you never get the sheets clean.

Mao, if your SO is thinking you're going to get married one day you better sit down and talk about this. For about the latter half of my LTR I thought me and my SO were going to get married in a particular approx timeframe. Then, during a period of it being a long distance relationship, immediately after a not very earth shattering disagreement i got an email to say "actually I don't want to get married or have kids or live in X again and I think you want those things". So that was pretty much that. The long distance was perhaps the catalyst tho not the culprit. So don't let your SO drift on with the wrong idea, if they are.

Yeah, having your SO move out of town is generally not the best sign.

There was some off-blog discussion about whether the proper honk for 342 would be a two-tone bicycle horn honk or a '20s roadster aOOOOOGAH. I'm torn -- they're both pretty hot.

the proper honk

Quacking like a duck has the advantage of surprise.

"For the record, since I started having sex I've gone without for one and a half months or two months on a number of occasions when I went someplace without my SO.)"

I'm sure this point has been made ad infinitum upthread, but this post could only have been made by a woman (or one of the 5-10% of men who are able to get laid seemingly at will). Single men are the peons in the kingdom (queendom?) of sex.

It worked. The death march is over. I hear the laughter of squirrels, and the fresh spring breeze is like a big hug, around the whole world.

That's great, I'm happy for you.

363: I don't know that this is true, MQ. It meets a stereotype, but not my extended (i.e. including anyone I've talked to about this) experience.