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Euryanx -> RE: Can vanilla work? (8/26/2005 5:08:38 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Rubyb
What type of relationship do you want with this lady?
What are you getting out of this relationship?
What are you willing to give up to keep it?
Will you begin to resent giving a part of yourself to make someone else happy?
A friend of mine defines love as wanting the other person to be happy, fulfilled, satisfied, more than yourself. Ideally, if you both feel this way, you both get your needs met.
In a healthy, happy relationship, where both partners are having their needs met, love is nurtured by their very actions.
If this woman didn't change for you, as in, 5 years from now, she had the same habits, did things the same way and didn't want to share your non-vanilla ways, would your needs be met?
My grandmother used to say, "You can kill love."
Love can be killed from neglecting your partner's needs or not allowing your partner to be satisfied (whether deliberately or not). It's like a virus that becomes toxic and one day you wake up having more resentment and anger than love towards that person.
How do you get your heart back?
That depends on the type of "love" you had in the first place.
Was it that all powerful "romantic love" with roses and rainbows, or more like the love of a best friend or a family member.
Broken hearts mend by mourning.
Minds heal faster when they acknowledge what is being mourned.
Sometimes a piece of your heart is forever with that other person and that's okay, too. Your heart is big enough to share.
Lots of good posts and food for thoughts here. Thank you all.
Ruby,
You make a lot of good points. I like what you had to say about getting one's needs met. Recently read a book called "His Needs, Her Needs," that speaks about this very subject. It was written by a marriage counsellor. His basic premesis was that relationships fail when people are not meeting one another's needs. According to him, most people don't even have a clue as to what their partner's needs are, because people don't clearly verbalize what they need.
When I say i'm not getting my needs met by my vanilla lover, it mostly has to do with my gender issues. I was on hormones for 8 years, and lived as a woman most of that time. When i met my girlfriend, who i'll call Jody, we worked together as a team for 5 years. Over that time we became best friends, and soon realized we were soul mates. Once we began getting intimate she put all kinds of pressure on me to stop taking hormones and go back to living as a man. She just couldn't deal with my gender issues. It took me a year to get off the 'mones, cut my hair, and start living as a boy again - but i did it. In some ways i resent what she did to me - and in other ways i honor her for it - because i actually do like living as a guy again. As a girl i was high maintenance and a total priss. As a guy, i can get dressed and out of the house in 10 minutes, and i've rediscovered a lot of things like sports that i forgot about when i was a girl.
I guess the unanswered question for me, is how strong is my "need" to express my feminine side. Jody hates it. She loves me as a man. But if she discovered that i went out two weeks ago as a femme with a Domme i met here through Collarme (no sex took place), Jody would flip out.
So i guess it's one of those things that i won't know if this is going to work until i go through it. Sorry for writing so much. I'm only scratching the surface of my relationship with Jody, but you get the general idea. The main thing is, i absolutely adore her. The funny thing is, i only dated guys, and lived with guys for about 12 years. I had no interest in women when i was on hormones. Now suddenly i feel like i've rediscovered how wonderfully affectionate, loving, and romantic women are - and i love it.
Thanks for taking the time to express your views. You've got a wise grandmother.
Stay sweet,
S.
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