men - women

2/12/2006

Dear D,
You sound so wonderful. My heart is full with great kudos for your bravery and the lightening speed with which you've pretty much dismantled your defenses and created an entirely new space for yourself and your relationship to rest in. You are quite simply amazing.

About the mood swings. You've moved so fast and stirred so much up, stuff is just coming up and most likely will continue to come up as you disarm more and more. Going through the pain that comes up is what's getting you to the other side, so every time icky stuff comes up, it's another opportunity to go deeper, release more, get more joy! Seems like a nice, dependable process you've got going there! Doesn't always feel great, but you know you'll have a reward at the end when you go through it. The water gets muddy, and then it gets clear.

About me. I hesitate to imagine what it's like to be a man and what is or isn't standard. And the most obvious thing I can get my mind around is that they compartmentalize, and we don't. They see absolutely no relation between a picture of a strange woman's naked body and genitals and the naked body and genitals of the woman they love. One goes straight to the physical - must be some completely different part of the brain, and one goes to the heart, the core, the psychology.

It is disturbing. I always feel disturbed when my husband says something that rings of - what is to me - the most superficial sexual context imaginable, and then in the next moment he can reach for me in a completely, utterly different way. I can feel the difference. It's as though one moment he's a schoolboy and another he's my husband.

My belief is that I don't need to give a moment of my life's energy to thinking about my husband's (or any man's) psychological process. (Unless that would interest me intellectually - which is NOT a good place to go with someone you want to have a deeply connected, intimate relationship with.)

It's his to deal with. All I care about is that he knows what makes me happy and what doesn't, and that he demonstrates, repeatedly, his intention to do what makes me happy. The rest he is free to contemplate, and I am free to ignore.
Hope that helps.
Love, R