tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-369707972162200426.post6501940313427282371..comments2023-09-01T08:52:07.177-07:00Comments on Giraffes Make Me Laugh: Leather and LaceTMShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11674680231294740530noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-369707972162200426.post-56735695968970302882009-12-11T08:36:09.601-08:002009-12-11T08:36:09.601-08:00Frances,you're right. Dreaming and sharing is...Frances,you're right. Dreaming and sharing is part of the joy of being mated i.e., paired up for the length of it all, like swans. Sometimes it's hard to see that future when you feel that "unfathomable distance" between you, a chasm that has opened up and seems to be getting wider and wider on its own. I like that phrase you've chosen to describe that moment when you look at each other across the kitchen and it feels like its far longer than the 14 feet. <br /><br />For me, dreaming about a future is closely connected to wanting the present. So, when the present is unsettled, unsatisfying, unpleasant, the future becomes even more frightening. <br /><br />Creating oneness, on a physical level, for me, is teaching me to open up and be vulnerable. I'm not saying that sex is always the answer: sometimes there's nothing that beats a good book, in the bath, with a Diet Mountain Dew, and a quiet midnight house. But intimacy is always the answer, and when you've lost the easy, honest, intimate flow that exists most times, and find yourself sinking, then physical intimacy is, despite all inclinations to withdraw, a way to reboot and to reach out.TMShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11674680231294740530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-369707972162200426.post-60055795020187360442009-12-09T23:57:07.140-08:002009-12-09T23:57:07.140-08:00Interesting thoughts, I am a bit older and have no...Interesting thoughts, I am a bit older and have now lost my loving husband. I remember a time in the early years due to differences in focus that we drew apart and there was an unfathomable distance between us. We felt we were falling out of love. We were blessed with an illness and a long trip that gave, for us, what it was we needed for renewal of our relationship that never went away again. We talked and read together for almost a week. After that we would take trips and one would read to the other and we would discuss what we read. There was discussion of dreams and hopes and together plans. It was hard at the end of 38 years to know, I didn't have a friend to lay and discuss the future with any longer. Sex is good, but sharing and dreaming together has a level all of its own. <br />Thank you for letting me comment.<br />FrancesFranEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00727917499152200255noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-369707972162200426.post-37695989465232576242009-12-09T16:28:55.321-08:002009-12-09T16:28:55.321-08:00The underlying impulse behind this post was to put...The underlying impulse behind this post was to put into words the feeling that sex between a man and a woman, particularly a married man and woman shouldn't be used like a reward for good behaviour. (Of course, there are times when you can promise a really interesting experience in return for his completing a particularly horrible job, like fixing the chimney flue:)). By this I mean, there are those times (days, weeks, months) where the state of the married union is tenuous. Where we find ourselves, like Mary and Britt in the quote, staring across at each other and realizing we are fragile. <br /><br />We get married precisely so that we can love, in all sense of the word, our partner. And when times get shaky, we reject the one resource that can soothe and strengthen more than any other. The impulse can be to withhold intimacy until you are on stronger ground. But I don't know that there is a way to get onto stronger ground without sharing physical intimacy. A therapist told my husband who was counselling a couple that the couple could get through their problems IF they continued to have sex. Without it, there wasn't much hope. I've thought a lot about that. <br /><br />It seems counter-intuitive to withhold intimacy, but to reach out at those tense times requires a certain amount of blind courage and deliberate vulnerability that draws upon the idea that I want us more than I want to preserve my sense of self. In my own (admittedly very limited)experience, sex for a man refocuses him to the woman, and sex for a woman opens her heart. By its very nature, it requires you to turn toward each other both physically and emotionally and that opens up space for dialogue.TMShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11674680231294740530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-369707972162200426.post-73848664052505706432009-12-08T19:41:38.634-08:002009-12-08T19:41:38.634-08:00Amen, Prism! I SO agree. Great point...(-:
And Tes...Amen, Prism! I SO agree. Great point...(-:<br />And Tessa, what a comfort it is to read posts like this one and know that I'm not the only one who has moments of "reading signs in the sheets." You have such a gift for putting into words what I (and probably a lot of us) experience but can't articulate into words.Jennifer Gibbs Kambourianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13896771627443560279noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-369707972162200426.post-64730110715426391062009-12-08T18:21:38.539-08:002009-12-08T18:21:38.539-08:00I know that for me personally, that tried and true...I know that for me personally, that tried and true wedding advice "never go to bed angry" is terrible! Often, the reason I am angry is that I am tired--and I am NOT good with tired! A good night's rest (even better when my hubby is home and I get some love!) makes almost everything better in the morning. <br /><br />I know when I am feeling stiff and prickly, my husbands arms can melt my heart, and help me sort out my troubles. Glad to hear I am not alone!Prismhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10832326824464581309noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-369707972162200426.post-12411095034117253502009-12-07T19:51:13.031-08:002009-12-07T19:51:13.031-08:00This comment has been removed by the author.amantehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05751104812079907116noreply@blogger.com