Offensive displays of affection not turning her on

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This article was published 30/09/2017 (2948 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: My husband is constantly expressing his attraction to me in the most immature ways I can imagine. I won’t go into detail, but his gestures and comments are often offensive, full of dirty humour or just plain non-romantic. He thinks it’s funny and gets offended when I don’t reciprocate displays of affection back to him or reward him for his gestures.

I’ve told him a thousand times that I want him to be gentle and sweet; to act like a man, not a teenager. He doesn’t get it. He’s constantly complaining that I don’t love him or that I never show him affection back. Really I’m just feeling over-pressured, turned off by his lewd behaviour and sometimes grossed out by his comments. I love him, but our sex life is suffering because I want to have sex with the man that my husband is, not the teenager he’s acting like. What can I do?

— Grossed Out and Grown Up

Dear Grossed Out and Grown Up: When did you know this about him? Did you not have sex until you were married? This seems like the kind of guy a woman would drop if she had experienced this before there were permanent ties. I sometimes get letters like this from young women who come from religious backgrounds and were virgins when they married, then discovered the young husband thought of sex as a dirty thing, a kind of off-colour joke, and had no idea of how love, sex and romance are combined in a passionate, loving relationship.

If you love him in other ways and plan to stay married to him then you need to give him the education he never received. Just criticizing his techniques isn’t helping. He needs to know learn some substitute behaviours, because he can’t dream them up himself. Rather than books about sexual technique, it seems he needs to read some novels of the erotic romance variety to get the idea of how passion and romance are intertwined.

Movies of that variety would help too: not pornography, but romantic movies. One day, out of the blue, ask him to try an experiment: he can’t say or do anything except for what you tell him. You will make love to him with words, movement, massage, with candles burning and you will take the female superior position and initiate intercourse as well. That will require some enjoyable study for you, too. Keep doing this until he’s internalized the lessons in lovemaking and is ready to try it as well.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I dumped a girl and now I am sick without her — I have been crying and threw up twice. I want her back. Everybody at school knows I just dumped her, and I heard she isn’t going to speak to me again, but I just found out there are two guys who want her. They can’t have her! She’s mine and she loves me.

I broke up with her because she didn’t think I was good enough to take home to meet her parents. We saw each other all summer, but she met me places instead of having me pick her up at her house. Her parents are very rich and live in the best house on the best street in our area. She used to tell me she loved me, but she still wouldn’t invite me anywhere near her house.

She is a beautiful girl and has plans to go to university. I’m better at working with my hands and will have a job in the trades, where you can make big money, so my parents say. Please tell me what I should do.

— Want Her Back, Winnipeg

Dear Want Her Back: She made a choice at the beginning, way before this breakup: your relationship would be fun and affectionate, but not long-lasting. Not taking you home was insulting to you and shouldn’t have continued as long as it did before you walked away from her. Other guys may get involved with her and suffer the same fate. Look at this as an opportunity to find a natural girl who makes her own decisions about guys. This would be a mutual relationship where the two of you have respect, admiration and attraction for each other.

You broke up with this girlfriend to try to force an introduction to her parents. In a healthy relationship, both of you would want to introduce each other to your folks. Meeting you away from the house should have been a red flag that something was going to go wrong. Don’t be tough on her in your thoughts. She may be under the thumb of some very powerful and/or strict parents. That isn’t the kind of girl to chase and try to get back; it would just lead to much more pain and trouble ahead.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I wore my favourite jeans, a white shirt and a tie to church with my parents last Sunday. I have long hair and wore it in a ponytail. After church my father told me I embarrassed him at church and he wanted to cut my hair. I told him I would rather move out than get my hair cut. My father threatened to not give me the money they have saved for me for university.

I said I didn’t care and I was leaving. My father made a rough grab for me and I easily pushed him off. I’m much bigger than now than he is. I told him if it came down to a physical fight I would win. My mother started crying and I packed everything including my electronics in boxes, threw them in my car and went to my grandparents’ six blocks away. They welcomed me in. They are my mother’s parents and my dad calls them old hippies. I will live there while finishing my Grade 12 and get a part-time job.

I love my parents but don’t want to live with my father ever again. How do I make peace with them and leave the living arrangement the way it is? I don’t want to be enemies, especially with my mother. Help, please.

— Black Sheep, South End

Dear Black Sheep: This is old animal kingdom stuff, even though you’re living in the modern world. Your father tried to assert his dominance by attempting to cut off your long hair. You did what a strong, healthy young man would do; the fight ensued and you moved on to a greener pasture where you would be accepted. It’s too bad when the family breaks up over father-son dynamics, which almost always results in blows, but you would be surprised how often it happens, especially when the young bull outgrows the old one and has a different style.

You’ll be hearing from your mother immediately and repeatedly, but ask her to give you some time. The first few days are too early to cave. You need to show your parents you mean business and will be staying with your grandparents. Even though it’s emotionally uncomfortable for everybody, give it a week for the parental home to grow cold and uncomfortable for your father. He and your mother will need privacy for some important talks.

If you don’t have a part-time job, use the nervous energy you feel now to find one. Offer to pay your grandparents some room and board once you get a paycheque. They may refuse or they might be glad of a small amount for the increased grocery and hydro bills. At any rate, it will make for a better relationship and show everybody, including your parents, that you are maturing. If your father apologizes, accept it with grace and class, but don’t go home unless you really want to.

Please send your questions and comments to lovecoach@hotmail.com or Miss Lonelyhearts c/o the Winnipeg Free Press, 1355 Mountain Ave. Winnipeg R2X 3B6.

Miss Lonelyhearts
Advice Columnist

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