Sexual addiction! and Male-Female energy roles/energies

[Monica]

I"ve often found the best position to take to be somewhere between two extremes. I believe there is always a Middle Way. The balance between tolerance and acceptance of your mate's challenges and insisting upon honor and respect for yourself must be struck.

Yes, I agree, but the challenge is in determining what that middle ground is...what is balance? What is balance for one might be extreme for another. For example, a co-worker once told me that I was 'too extreme' for being a vegetarian. I was amused by this, because I was a middle-of-the-road lacto-ovo vegetarian at the time. To me, 'extreme' was being a vegan raw foodist! (Though now I don't even consider that 'extreme' anymore.) But to her, I was extreme! It's all relative!

And, at which point is there balance? Balance compared to what? If we elongate the snapshot of time, balance might take on a totally new meaning. For someone who was very self-centered in their last few lifetimes, perhaps balance might be to be totally giving. Or maybe one partner is more giving than the other, and as the years go by, their roles are reversed. Maybe the giving partner gets injured and the other partner is forced to learn to give, or has an epiphany of appreciation and starts making up for all those years of not giving.

We have all programmed catalyst to bring us into ultimate balance, but what might appear to be balance at the present moment might not be balancing in the long run. (Just a thought!)

regardless of my relative understanding, it should not be a prerequisite to forgiveness, especially since forgiveness itself can lead to at least greater understanding,

Exactly!

Wow, some old catalyst just jumped up at me. All these years, I assumed it was the former, and I could be right, but what if it was the the latter? That changes the equation dramatically. Thanks for the insight on intent!

Cool!

cultural predisposition towards judging a woman's value on her physical attractiveness rather than on other qualities. It was this catalyst that made me examine my compliments to my wife in a new light and I confess I was guilty of some of the same speech patterns despite my inner thoughts. That awareness helped me to adjust my speech to match my heart.

I've noticed that too. Whenever there is a tragic death of a teenager, notice how the news always mentions how beautiful they were. They might then go on to mention other qualities, but the physical attractiveness seems to be at the top of the list.

It's very deeply programmed. Look at beauty pageants. They give lip service to the contestants' other qualities, by having talent contests, questions about current events, etc. in an effort to show balance, but the bottom line is that only beautiful girls can have any chance at all of competing. Physical beauty is still a requirement for participation.

Here is a tragic yet inspiring story

I would like to find that Q'uo session that dealt with the catalyst of physical beauty, if anyone happens to remember which session that was.

Wow, no doubt they had some real issues. I would wager, though, that the age difference itself was not the cause of any of those problems.

Yeah, probably.

Our love, and our sex life, evolved naturally over time.

Same here!

I think that if you focus on developing your love and deepening your relationship with each other in all other ways, that the quality of your sexual energy exchange will improve by itself. As you both become more spiritual and grow together, the sexual relationship will become more spiritual as well...
...what ended up happening is that from time to time, she "took care of me", that is, gave me sexual release without full intercourse as a gesture of love. Here's a delicate (and true) analogy. Sometimes she needed a backrub after a long day and even though my own back didn't hurt and I didn't want a massage for myself, I was glad to do it for her as a service of love.

Again you could be speaking for me. We've had the very same experience, and even the reverse of that. This is a very astute point. We might think that sex is only 'spiritual' if you hear the music of the Cosmos afterwards, and your head expands into the many thousand petaled lotus, and that's most wonderful, but what you describe here - the simple act of being considerate enough to lovingly give to your partner what s/he needs at that moment - is a powerful act of selfless service!

Still, my best advice is to focus on the love you share, do fun things together, share your feelings and learn to honor and respect eachother in all ways. Work on the love relationship rather than the sex relationship. I believe that if you tend the garden of your love well, that the sexual flowers within it will bloom in their own good time.

Beautifully said!