Originally Posted by holdingontoit
Yes Hitch, I do want to follow up on how she feels about sex. The opportunity to obtain additional insight on that topic arrives rarely, and I do not wish to pass up this one. I would have followed up this morning if she had not immediately gotten into her car to go to work.

Hmmm. I'm not certain she wants to talk about how she feels about sex based upon her response. I think she could have very easily wanted to discuss any of a range of different aspects that came up in your conversation. You made several different assumptions (a nice way of saying DJ's) as follows, "This is the same feeling as when I ask you for sex. You feel trapped. You feel like I don't care about your feelings and I just want to get my rocks off and it could be anyone."

Notice her response did not explicitly address how she feels about sex, she merely stated "is that how you think I feel." You inserted sex into the example, whereas what she reacted to and got emotional about, may in fact have nothing to do with sex in her own mind. You do yourself a discredit by assuming the next step is to ask her how she feels about sex. I understand why you want to, because this is the huge pain point for you, but I wouldn't approach the next conversation with sex as a precursor, I'd simply ask her if she could help you to understand what she meant when she said "is that how you think I feel?" If she chooses to bring up a sexual context, all the better, but I wouldn't bring it up yourself.

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As for the party, Mrs. Hold called to apologize. She said she doesn't want me to hate her guts, and she realizes what she did put me in an uncomfortable position. I thanked her for the apology. I said "instead of fancy restaurant and a hotel in NYC, how about the 4 of us go to NYC to see my Mom on Saturday, and then on Sunday D13 could have her swim team over for a low key birthday party at our house?" Mrs. Hold said she thought that was a fine idea, and we will bring it to D13 later today.


Excellent recovery from the initial misunderstanding. It is refreshing to see this happening between you two, as I've gotten the sense that this level of more healthy negotiation has only recently started to occur! smile

God Bless,

HitchHiker

All I want to do is learn to think like God thinks. , I want to know Gods thoughts; all the rest are just details. , When the solution is simple, God is answering. - Albert Einstein

INTJ married to an ENFJ