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In Reply to: intimacy posted by porceleindoll on November 02, 2002 at 15:38:52:
You're not rambling, BTW. My husband always says I don't show him enough attention. He's very affectionate and I back away from that. What you are describing sounds like me. I thought it was just my problem, but now I'm seeing that all those sexual encounters that were forced on me have left a deep scar that makes it hard for me to be affectionate. I'm the same with my children, I love them dearly, but I have a hard time being affectionate. I never understood why I would be that way when I love them so much. I have one daughter who is extremely affectionate and another who looks for me and calls me all the time. I feel like I'm being smothered even though I love their showering me with this attention. it's confusing for me and for them. I see it in my older daughter too. It's funny because I heard her husband tell her when he asked for a hug - "no pats please." It was funny because she's so much like me - we just kind of pat people on the back and send them on their way. It's very hard for us to give of ourselves intimately like that. We now have a standard joke about the patting hugs.
I think your right in that there was so much Polyanna type of love-bombing and so much fakery that we now have a hard time in being intimate. Then again, I did have a couple of SGAs here that seemed to go through withdrawels without having that love-showering all the time. I felt sorry for them, but we all just wanted our space and they didn't understand that, they were so used to being hugged madly every time they saw someone.
