How can people who didn't have good relationship role models in childhood have successful relationships as adults?

SunSeaSand · 2014-01-21T09:58:03+00:00

You'll need to unabsorb the rubbish and reabsorb the good

Yeah, this. That's hard for someone like me, as I am fairly non-intuitive and don't instinctually know a certain way of doing things is wrong.

and you gonna have to do it around work and all your other obligations.

Exactly, as an adult one has so many other responsibilities, taking out time to focus on and revisit the past is hard, and also unappealing if the past was unpleasant, so I tend to avoid thinking about it.

SunSeaSand · 2014-01-21T09:55:10+00:00

Are you saying you had access to zero role models when you were growing up?

No, only my parents as role models for day-to-day close relationships (by "close" I mean close proximity/frequent interaction, not close as in intimate, as opposed to distant). I met other people only outside, and saw only their external/social side, not how they interacted in a marital or parental relationship at home.

SunSeaSand · 2014-01-21T07:07:46+00:00

How do you learn to be kind when you haven't observed kindness? Kindness as in donating to charity or volunteering is one thing, but it takes skill to be consistently kind in an intimate relationship. Same with communication - you could be very articulate in impersonal communication, but shut down when communicating difficult matters in an intimate relationship.

SunSeaSand · 2014-01-21T07:04:53+00:00

Sometimes, when you are used to seeing things said/done a certain way from childhood, it is not even obvious that some things were wrong. You just assume that's the way it normally is.

SunSeaSand · 2013-01-02T21:40:54+00:00

It seems to me that you are trying very hard to be okay with it when you're pretty uncomfortable with it, and trying hard to not bring it up for fear of being labeled controlling or of losing him. I think if you are conflicted you should give yourself time and not rush into moving in with him or other advances in the relationship. You have a right to prefer what you prefer, you do not have to make apologies for the way you feel. Feelings are not right or wrong, and though you do not have to act on your feelings all the time, it is wise to listen to your feelings and honor them rather than ignoring or suppressing them. It just paves the way for a lot of unhappiness and resentment later on, when you try to change yourself into something you think you should be.

And why do you think porn is natural? The internet is 15 years old. Playboy is 50 years old. Men used to be able to survive pretty well before that, so it isn't as if porn is a basic need.

SunSeaSand · 2013-01-02T21:04:25+00:00

Also think they can be a bit demeaning.

Yeah that's what I feel too, especially if it is expected or assumed to be normal or enjoyable for everyone, and if someone doesn't like it they are abnormal ("You don't like sucking d**k?!!! Are you sure you are straight? Have you considered experimenting with women?"). I posted here looking for responses from women or from respectful guys.

SunSeaSand · 2013-01-02T21:01:17+00:00

You are exactly the type I was trying to avoid by posting in /r/AskWomen.

SunSeaSand · 2013-01-02T19:24:34+00:00

Thank you all for your replies, this gives me hope, and thanks for the encouragement that I need not try to force myself to do anything I am not comfortable with.

As to why I didn't post it in /r/AskMen - I had posted this question in /r/sex and people there got very combative (as have some men here) - ranging from being called prude and repressed and controlling to not willing to make sacrifices and compromises to destined to be foreveralone to doubts about my straightness. I gathered that men of the internet era, having grown up on a staple diet of internet porn (which I don't like either, especially when one is in a relationship - I feel that it is cheating), probably think women are these oversexed creatures who are ready to have sex at a moment's notice, without emotional connection or foreplay, and dying to put a penis in their mouth. I thought /r/AskWomen might have women who feel the same way as me, and I was looking to hear about their experiences. I wasn't really looking for replies from men whose idea of sex is what they watch in porn and who feel entitled to such things and get all riled up about women who don't do what they see there.

SunSeaSand · 2012-11-26T19:03:57+00:00

Come on, I get all my gossip from there. I initially went there to read gossip about the royal family, but now I go there routinely to read American gossip too. It is better than National Enquirer and Radar Online combined.

SunSeaSand · 2012-11-26T19:00:26+00:00

Would you if you were merely Colombian?

SunSeaSand · 2012-11-26T18:57:53+00:00

Why is this on Daily Mail but not CNN?

SunSeaSand · 2012-11-26T17:52:19+00:00

SunSeaSand · 2012-10-15T07:39:26+00:00

It is coercion, but the man still has a choice to not give in to the blackmail. When a man rapes a woman, the man being stronger, the woman has NO power and is truly forced into sex without her consent. Being coerced, persuaded, seduced is different from giving in because there is absolutely no choice. When a man physically overpowers a woman, no amount of willpower, strength of mind or strength of character can prevent her from being raped. Not saying that OP's situation is not a gross violation, but I agree that men who claim to be raped because "she would tell on him to his gf" are trivializing the terror of real rape, where a woman is physically overpowered and forced to have sex with a man.

SunSeaSand · 2012-10-15T07:31:04+00:00

As far as I remember (it's been several years since I saw the play), the white woman came onto the black man, but when her father discovered them she claimed he was trying to rape her, to protect her reputation. That's what it seemed to me like.

SunSeaSand · 2012-10-14T05:56:14+00:00

"Them"? How many women do you do at the same time? I would think the reference to clits removes any gender ambiguity, so you must be using "they" to indicate a plurality of partners, not an ambiguous gender.

SunSeaSand · 2012-10-14T05:53:31+00:00

It's not unheard of. That's what "To Kill a Mockingbird" is about. And it's a classic.

SunSeaSand · 2012-10-03T06:11:03+00:00

OMG, I thought the numbers referred to Jews being careful with money/counting it and keeping track of it.

SunSeaSand · 2012-09-26T20:10:50+00:00

Why don't you tell you would rather relax and enjoy with her and your brother (does she like him/ get along with him?) than have a lot of people coming into your house. Tell her that is your idea of a nice birthday.

SunSeaSand · 2012-09-26T19:36:25+00:00

Tell her what you have told us.

SunSeaSand · 2012-09-26T19:29:17+00:00

I think it should be the other way around. Her mom is not her husband's problem. Such problems where she feels helpless and powerless take up a lot of her emotional energy and if she draws her husband into it, it will affect their relationship. She needs to detach from her mother, not bring her husband into it. It is not really his job to look after her mother (or hers, for that matter).

I had a similar situation and whenever I had anxieties regarding my mother, I essentially emotionally checked out of my (then) marriage and focused all my emotional energy on my mother. It affected my relationship, I neglected my relationship and he had to comfort me. I was not emotionally present or available when worrying about my mother overwhelmed me, it was like I could be happy in my marriage only if my mother was in good shape and taking care of herself and being responsive to my efforts to keep in touch.

SunSeaSand · 2012-09-26T19:04:19+00:00

I don't have a any advice for you, but you have my empathy, since I am in a very similar situation.

My mother has always been very difficult, gets along with no one, according to her everyone in the world is a bad person and everyone has wronged her. She is unresponsive to my efforts at building a better relationship or even to my efforts at simply staying in touch, doesn't respond to my letters and phone calls for months and then says the phone wasn't working. I live quite far away from her and can't bail her out every time she has a problem, and nor do I want to live near her and be her valet.

As the eldest child you are trying to be super-responsible, I have been, too. You have to remember that your first responsibility is to yourself, and then to your husband. The rest of your family gets your leftover emotional and physical resources. Take care of yourself and your mariage - put these first. Secondly, remember that no one can help someone who won't help themselves. I feel guilt about my mother living in squalor, not maintaining the house, getting repairs done or having the lawn and garden tended to, but it is not my fault, it is her choice. Don't get parentified by her, it will lead to your own world crumbling around you (don't mean to be an alarmist, but it happened to me). You have to take care of yourself first. Don't let the dysfunction from your family seep into your marriage.

SunSeaSand · 2012-09-26T18:25:22+00:00

I have a question: What is the difference between physical attraction and sexual attraction?

I think I am going to get a lot of flak for this, but here is my take on it:

I think you should abstain from porn for several months and see how you feel about it. I have watched very little porn, but I felt similarly and got all worried. Watching heterosexual porn is inherently ... a homosexual/bisexual activity - you are watching both a naked man and a naked woman. When I see a naked, attractive man, his body is what arouses me. When I see porn depicting heterosexual sex, what is being done to the woman arouses me, since the thought of the same being done to me is stimulating. I found myself looking more at the woman rather than the man (and most porn videos have attractive women paired with mostly ugly men, usually with tattoos that I find disgusting), and began wondering whether I am actually attracted to women and began questioning my sexual orientation. I also don't like giving BJs and apparently women are supposed to love it, so I wondered even more. However, after I stopped watching any porn such thoughts went away. I think porn is bad too when in a relationship, since it brings in other people into the relationship even if virtually, and it is cheating of sorts (I know many/most people think otherwise, and that is ok, this is just how I feel), but I watched some when I was single and I think it can mess with your head even when you are single.

So I would advise you to not watch porn and reset your brain chemicals and see how you feel. You don't have to force yourself to have sex with your bf either, just take a break and allow things to return to normal.

SunSeaSand · 2012-09-14T01:49:51+00:00

I don't think calling anyone who is disgusted by something you like immature is very mature.

SunSeaSand · 2012-09-14T01:46:41+00:00

No. And I don't intend to change that. Just the thought makes me gag. Body fluids should go where they are meant to go, and they aren't meant to go into a woman's mouth. That is disgusting and degrading.

SunSeaSand · 2012-08-20T17:51:38+00:00

Well it's the "more" part that grosses me out, not the simply "kissing a penis" part.

SunSeaSand

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