The secret to a happy, long-lasting relationship - why is this bothering me so much?

[mdavza]

So now we know. I read [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1357771/Couple-sex-day-year-revive-marriage.html
this]] yesterday. I think it's insane, and it's bothering me a lot. She doesn't strike me as a complete idiot and the last few paragraphs are telling, but does it always come down to sex and the power struggle to do with it?

Yes SP that's true. It's perfectly possible to have excellent sex with someone you don't particularly like very much or aren't getting on well with.

But women are told over and over again, that our desire is predicated on liking and respecting someone, that we only like sex if we're in lurve and also, for many women, they perceive it as their only negotiation tool in a relationship. And of course, we're taught that it's something we do for men, rather than for ourselves.

So it becomes acceptable to withhold sex as a means of negotiation, but it would never occur to most women to not do the laundry/ cooking/ vacuuming etc., which is something they don't like anyway. I'd much rather give up doing the laundry if a bloke is getting on my nerves, than give up having sex. And yet that doesn't seem to be an option (not that I believe the way out of an impasse is for people to go on strike about things, I think that's not a constructive way to solve problems anyway and wouldn't want to conduct a relationshipn like that, but YKWIM I hope).

I do agree with HerBeX that sometimes sex is on the backburner for other reasons which are completely understandable and that society isn't very accepting of that. There's an oft quoted statistic that 6momths after a baby is born 50% of couples haven't got their sex lives back at the place they were before the birth and, instead of making us say 'Meh.' that's supposed to be a shock and a problem.

That links in too with what we were discussing on the chat thread about women running around after a man trying to reassure him that he's still the centre of the universe when she and the baby really ought to be.

Exactly SaF. My doctor tells me that bf-ing is like a mini-menopause. Maybe this is yet another reason why extended bf-ing is frowned upon?

Well it's because women's concerns aren't to be considered as important as those of men, isn't it?

Lots of men aren't still getting up in the night, adjusting to having a new baby, getting used to changes in their body.... having a baby impacts a man's life much, much less than it does that of a woman. So of course, what is considered normal and reasonable by him, may be completely different from what is considered normal and reasonable by her.

And because he is the measure of all thigns, not her, we as a society define what he considers normal and reasonable and expected, as normal and reasonable and expected. And women's experience is sidelined. As always.