# Beyond Romance Fiction... your suggestions?



## Randy2 (Jul 19, 2016)

I am mostly happily married for the first time at 58 and now for 7 years to a wonderful woman who had only been with 2 other men in her life. So the variety of our relationship and sexual experiences and expectations are very different. 

Over our 7 years, full-on sex has declined to twice a week at best, and is more conservative than I would like. I almost always initiate and , like many men here, would like her to initiate more. There has been growth here on both our sides. There is playful occasional daytime groping and suggestive verbal joking. And reasonably erotic cuddling as we go to sleep or as I wake up hard. I'm looking for more growth.

She doesn't want to/won't talk about it. "Why do you have to analyze everything?"
Forget couples counseling...at the moment.
She does want and needs to please people - and me. Her busy calendar of helping others often gets in the way of our intimacy or wears her out.
She is a night-time reader and is getting me to read more. So I'm looking for book suggestions from you which will generate conversation and perhaps enrich our sexual lives together. Just having the books on the bedside table will possibly change things without being overt.
Self-help books about sexuality are a non-starter. Again "Why do you have to analyze everything?" Discover your Love Language;5 Love Languages" NOPE. I think it needs to be fiction. 
Erotic films/video or watching porn are TOTALLY impossible for her to learn from or appreciate or tolerate or talk about.
Romance fiction with glossy buff bodies on the cover are likely too obvious-looking.
I started with Amy Sohn's "My Old Man". My wife was surprised reading the suggestive jacket cover but she was not upset. 
I just got "Rapture" by Susan Minot from the library. If my wife asks ?.I'll respond, "It's apparently about what's in people's heads during oral sex. Given my difficulty reaching orgasm during oral sex, I thought it might help" So maybe we'll talk about that. By the way, she orgasms easily and every time during oral sex.
John Updike's "Couples" was not available in the library, but I did get his "Villages" and "Licks of Love" shore stories some of which may be about and banjo licks or other licks.
Any suggestions???


----------



## ButWeAreStrange (Feb 2, 2018)

I haven't ventured into romance novels personally, but luckily many historical fiction books have plenty of the same elements so at the very least that might be another genre to peruse. Even historical-fantasy novels, like the Outlander series, have massive amounts of romantic and sexual scenes (as well as great action sequences) that also use a lot of context that could then be turned into conversation openers.


----------



## brooklynAnn (Jun 29, 2015)

I am a simple girl. Any romantic novel will do but I love me a good Nora Robert's novel. It always leave me feeling a bit amorous. 😁


----------



## LuckyM (Apr 8, 2018)

There are plenty of books such as Diary of a Married Call Girl (good novel)
Have you tried your local library?
Depending on its size, you could discreetly browse there for female authors
or if you feel comfortable ask a librarian on the phone.
If you live in a very small town or village, don't do this
because they may gossip.


----------



## Steve2.0 (Dec 11, 2017)

Married man sex life primer - by Athol


----------



## Steve2.0 (Dec 11, 2017)

And your wife wants you to read more... nothing wrong with that. Reading is great and has many benefits..
But why are you allowing her to choose the TYPE of book you read?

She is removing 'self-help' from your list and you need to stick to Fiction?
I stopped reading Fiction 4+ years ago when i realized that Self-Help books provide FAR more improvements in my life than fiction.

Fiction is like fast food. Nothing wrong with it, but its not going to improve brain function, muscles or anything beneficial except a great tasting meal.
Self-Help, Motivational, or Training books provide you with skills you can implement and improve your life.

Good books are:
How to win friends and influence people - Helps tremendously in every social situation and work situation
7 Habits of highly effective people


----------



## badsanta (Oct 13, 2014)

Randy2 said:


> She does want and needs to please people - and me. Her busy calendar of helping others often gets in the way of our intimacy or wears her out.
> She is a night-time reader and is getting me to read more. So I'm looking for book suggestions from you which will generate conversation and perhaps enrich our sexual lives together.



In my opinion your wife wanting to read books is an "escape" for her that allows her some personal space. Meanwhile your pursuit of reading sexual content for the purpose of sparking a conversation and creating more of an intimate connection with your wife will only serve to make you look needy and cause frustration and anxiety for both of you. At the end of the day, that will just be counterproductive and cause more problems. 

You would probably be better off explaining to your wife that you need "quality time" together as a couple and that you would be willing to work with her to help free up some time in her schedule. Instead of her going to help others, perhaps you could volunteer to take care of something on her behalf while she stays home and relaxes. Then by the time you get home she would likely be more receptive to some attention. 

An illustrated example might be a family member or neighbor in need of some help. Perhaps your wife wants to see you willing to step up and help out some in the situations. In the event her love language is "acts of service" she would likely be building resentment in the event she sees you unwilling to help any of her family or friends on a regular basis.

It is mother's day this weekend. Perhaps do something kind as an act of service for your mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law. Pay attention to see how your wife responds to that and see if something like this helps towards improving your marriage!

Cheers, 
Badsanta


----------



## brooklynAnn (Jun 29, 2015)

@Steve2.0, I love "7 Habits". I have given this book to alot of people. My tenant just got a job at a posh magazine and I gave her a copy. She was so happy.

My kids had to read the kiddy version when they started high school. It was a mandatory read for them the summer before H.S. My daughter said it still keeps her centered and focus. Knowing your circles is important:grin2:.

I would also look at books from Dr. Wayne Dyer. He is very inspirational. These days I prefer to listen to audio books than read. I am getting old.


----------



## Randy2 (Jul 19, 2016)

badsanta said:


> Meanwhile your pursuit of reading sexual content for the purpose of sparking a conversation and creating more of an intimate connection with your wife will only serve to make you look needy and cause frustration and anxiety for both of you. At the end of the day, that will just be counterproductive and cause more problems.


Could be...I'll certainly shift my reading content if it's not working. 



badsanta said:


> You would probably be better off explaining to your wife that you need "quality time" together as a couple and that you would be willing to work with her to help free up some time in her schedule. Instead of her going to help others, perhaps you could volunteer to take care of something on her behalf while she stays home and relaxes. Then by the time you get home she would likely be more receptive to some attention.
> 
> It is mother's day this weekend. Perhaps do something kind as an act of service for your mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law. Pay attention to see how your wife responds to that and see if something like this helps towards improving your marriage!
> 
> ...


That does help some, but....
I already join her in what feels like a lot of volunteer/service work, and I do some of my own. When I help her with a project, she just expands the project, so we don't end up with more personal time. For example, at Thanksgiving, if I do more than my typical 2 hours of meal-prep help, she'll start polishing already-pretty-shiny silverware or rearranging flowers.


----------



## brooklynAnn (Jun 29, 2015)

Maybe she does not want to spend time with you, so she engages in other activities.


----------



## Randy2 (Jul 19, 2016)

Steve2.0 said:


> She is removing 'self-help' from your list and you need to stick to Fiction?


She doesn't remove anything from my list. And she reads plenty of self-help and spiritual books. She isn't comfortable reading books about improving our sexual life, or talking about it. But again, she's getting better. And I'm getting bolder about gradually pushing the limits of what we talk about.


----------



## badsanta (Oct 13, 2014)

Randy2 said:


> She doesn't remove anything from my list. And she reads plenty of self-help and spiritual books. *She isn't comfortable reading books about improving our sexual life, or talking about it.* But again, she's getting better. And I'm getting bolder about gradually pushing the limits of what we talk about.


This may or may not help, but if your wife struggles with feeling inadequate in the marriage with regards to intimacy... this means she struggles to feel loved and accepted for simply who she is. If that is the case then reading a book on intimate-self-help may feel to her as if reading a book titled, "how to become someone you are not so that your spouse will love you."

Then there is also an instinct that many women have that they will likely feel threatened if the husband is reading a self-help book on intimacy written by another women. It may give the gesture as if you are inviting the ideas of another woman into your bedroom and suggesting these ideas may be superior to those of your wife. I ran into that problem with self help books, and my wife insisted that I only read sexuality books written by authors with a doctorate degree. So I did that and that did not help either... years go by... looking back I realize those books only made me look needy and lacking in my own self confidence, and they also served to make my wife feel inadequate. 

Do this... Create a fake book cover and print it out. Title this fake book cover, "Useful Theories about Women" by Albert Einstein. Use this image as part of the design:










Then place this fake book cover over your favorite book of humor/jokes that really makes you laugh. Wait for your wife to ask you about what you are reading. Immediately destroy the book, just smile and be ridiculously and exaggeratedly self confident about yourself from that point on. Never tell her it was just a joke book! 

...yep! that ought to do it! 

Cheers, 
Badsanta


----------



## Randy2 (Jul 19, 2016)

Things seem to be evolving; at least we're talking and including more sexual innuendo and references here and there. I have no idea if it has anything to do with the books I'm reading. Maybe the books are making me bolder, or her. No obvious negative reactions from her.

At dinner a couple nights ago, she noticed the 4 candles throwing 4 shades of my elbow/head on the wall behind, saying "lovely 4 shades of grey". I asked "shades of grey, has that always been a common expression, or an outgrowth of the best selling book and popular movie". We continued with a 2 minute talk about both of us having NO interest in bondage. 
After breakfast today, I noted that a houseplant was blooming "Look the clitoris plant is blooming." She laughed, "It's not a clitoris plant, it's a chlamydia, not that's not it. It's some other plant that sounds like that" . And her or my common retort "That's what she (or he) said when the bed broke" pops out about 5 times a week, when it used to be maybe twice a week.


----------



## Keke24 (Sep 2, 2016)

Randy2 said:


> *I am mostly happily married* for the first time at 58 and *now for 7 years to a wonderful woman who had only been with 2 other men in her life*. So the variety of our relationship and sexual experiences and expectations are very different.
> 
> *Why do you say mostly? Are you referencing the issue surrounding sex or are there other significant problems?
> 
> ...


I think the fact that she's a caretaker has a lot to do with her attitude towards sex. People who have focused their entire lives on meetings the wants/needs of others have a difficult time focusing on their own wants/needs. Very often they either don't know what their wants/needs are, do not know how to verbalize these wants/needs and feel bad for having wants/needs. In order to be confident in her sexuality, a woman needs to be selfish about her sexual needs in the sense that she knows what they are/how to ask for them to be met/expect that they will be met when she has sex. There is little room for that kind of selfishness in sex with a woman who defines herself based on selflessness. 

This is why it is so important to talk about childhood experiences not just to understand why people behave/think the way they do. Your wife's caretaker personality was a response to environmental factors in her childhood. Caretakers typically evolve from a childhood environment where it was not ok to have wants/needs, where more emphasis was placed on meeting the needs of parents/other children in the home. The child quickly realizes that they will receive love/be appreciated if they do not have wants/needs so these wants/needs become a burden, something that needs to be denied and hidden away. This is even further complicated when said child is shamed for these wants/needs. And worsened when the narrative surrounding sex is that it is bad, ewwy, shameful, something to give to men.

Conversations about sex should be had with that sort of foundation. You need to establish a safe space for your wife to talk about her childhood and slowly lead up her feelings surrounding sex. These conversations usually lead to the talker discovering things about themself and making connections between their past and their current behavior/way of thinking that they didn't quite realize before. You need to guide your wife away from her focus on everyone else's needs and towards her own. She adopted the role of caretaker because it was necessary when she was a child, that childhood is gone and done and her selflessness is no longer needed (or wanted by you, her husband).


----------



## Ragnar Ragnasson (Mar 4, 2018)

Outlander. Even I like that series.

Sassenach, and all that.....


----------



## Randy2 (Jul 19, 2016)

Keke24 said:


> I think the fact that she's a caretaker has a lot to do with her attitude towards sex. People who have focused their entire lives on meetings the wants/needs of others have a difficult time focusing on their own wants/needs. Very often they either don't know what their wants/needs are, do not know how to verbalize these wants/needs and feel bad for having wants/needs. In order to be confident in her sexuality, a woman needs to be selfish about her sexual needs


Keke - You are definitely right. She is proud of her "radical generosity". When I ask her if she "had fun today" serving at a soup kitchen or helping high school kids or elders, she's gradually accepting that it is "fun" and not just "sacrifice" or "helping". At first she resented me calling it "fun" for her.
If I ask her, "What can I cook you for dinner?" , she is usually silent or says, "Well what do you want?" If I say, "I making grilled salmon, salad, and brocoli (which I know she likes)", she says "Great". In our first year of dating(9 years ago), I asked her to try an experiment. Driving to her house in her city, I asked her, "When I come to an intersection, TELL ME in 2 words, 'Go straight' or 'Turn left' or 'Turn right'". She couldn't do it. 

So yes, I expect there's deepseated discomfort about defining and accepting what's pleasurable. I don't think she's at all ready to confront this. 
Going down your suggested long-term therapy path on this issue could be a disaster. We're older(67 + 61), set in our ways,and she also "takes care of me" in ways. And part of the problem is that I'm a pretty generous person too. To some extent, I NEED to get better about asking for and accepting pleasure. 

So I'm trying to open up the dialogue about sexuality, normalize it, become less private about ourselves as we acknowledge sexuality in others and day-to-day activities., or in this case in books.


----------



## Keke24 (Sep 2, 2016)

Randy2 said:


> Keke - You are definitely right. She is proud of her "radical generosity". When I ask her if she "had fun today" serving at a soup kitchen or helping high school kids or elders, she's gradually accepting that it is "fun" and not just "sacrifice" or "helping". At first she resented me calling it "fun" for her.
> If I ask her, "What can I cook you for dinner?" , she is usually silent or says, "Well what do you want?" If I say, "I making grilled salmon, salad, and brocoli (which I know she likes)", she says "Great". In our first year of dating(9 years ago), I asked her to try an experiment. Driving to her house in her city, I asked her, "When I come to an intersection, TELL ME in 2 words, 'Go straight' or 'Turn left' or 'Turn right'". She couldn't do it.
> 
> *Going down your suggested long-term therapy path on this issue could be a disaster. We're older(67 + 61), set in our ways,and she also "takes care of me" in ways. And part of the problem is that I'm a pretty generous person too. So I'm trying to open up the dialogue about sexuality, normalize it, become less private about ourselves as we acknowledge sexuality in others and day-to-day activities., or in this case in books.*


Why do you think asking such questions about your wife's attitude towards sex or exploring her childhood could be a disaster? A disaster for whom? Why do these types of conversations such long-term therapy path? Are you not curious about finding out more about your wife/her answers to these questions?

Have you ever asked these sort of questions? Have you ever really slowed things down just to enjoy something in the moment without the expectation of an end goal or the next step?

Your wife's underlying feelings about sex is not going to change with a book. A book is not going to eliminate close to 2 decades (her attitude towards sex was like established between her childhood and her 20s) of ingrained beliefs about sexuality. Perhaps it's a symptom of your "fix it" male mentality that you seem to be focused on the outcome (more open and exploratory sex) and how to get there as quickly as possible but what you need to accept is that a woman's sexuality is a complex aspect of her as a woman. You creating a space for you/your wife to have these sorts of conversations will be a gift to your wife and ultimately to your marriage.


----------



## Randy2 (Jul 19, 2016)

Keke24 said:


> Why do you think asking such questions about your wife's attitude towards sex or exploring her childhood could be a disaster? Are you not curious about finding out more about your wife/her answers to these questions?
> *As written in my original post, when I gently - or firmly- initiate these kinds of conversations (and I am a professional in this field), her response is a quick "Why do you have to talk about/analyze this stuff", then silence. These are deepseated issues, and successfully navigating change is not guaranteed, hence potentially a disaster.*
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## Talker67 (Apr 7, 2016)

50 shades of gray is a romance novel...sort of


----------



## Elizabeth001 (May 18, 2015)

Talker67 said:


> 50 shades of gray is a romance novel...sort of




I haven’t even bothered to read it. The book reviews on Amazon were awful and I had also read something somewhere that said if you wanted to read soft porn, there were much better options available. I’m following this thread hoping to find some myself!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## KrisAmiss (May 1, 2017)

TAM, ya got nothing?!

My Amazon friends like not a book but TABLETOPICS Couples: Questions to Start Great Conversations. That was from a query "sex starter" - and just one of the results.

I liked Outlander. Jamie is the perfect man... yum

OP, I love how sexy you are with your silly sex references. I like how you want to infuse her mind with subtle messages, not some cheap romance. 

We the Living by Ayn Rand is a love triangle; it's been a long time but I know I really liked that one. 

But oh, I just remembered a weird one, The Garden of Eden by Ernest Hemingway I read 25 years ago. Amazon tells me it's a couple that falls for the same woman. I loved the setting, in Spain? and I remember loving how weird it was. I'll have to re-read and see what I think now.

I didn't read Fifty Shades of Grey, but a friend loved it for the dialogue. The movie was hideous. Just to let you know I have taste ;-)


----------



## MEM2020 (Aug 23, 2009)

Randy,

The playful tone you have adopted is typically the most effective approach to this sort of compatibility challenge.

Her complaint about your analytical style is likely driven by the duration of conversations about sex. In my experience brevity is your best friend since this topic likely makes her anxious. 

There are a few key dimensions to each of these exchanges:
- emotional tone (playful, serious, disappointed, frustrated, etc.)
- request/complaint (it would be nice if ....., vs you are not doing what I want)
- polarity (is the message about YOU, HER or US)
- brevity (30 seconds max on message delivery - if you plan ahead - 30 seconds is plenty of time to make a point/request/suggestion.






Randy2 said:


> Keke - You are definitely right. She is proud of her "radical generosity". When I ask her if she "had fun today" serving at a soup kitchen or helping high school kids or elders, she's gradually accepting that it is "fun" and not just "sacrifice" or "helping". At first she resented me calling it "fun" for her.
> If I ask her, "What can I cook you for dinner?" , she is usually silent or says, "Well what do you want?" If I say, "I making grilled salmon, salad, and brocoli (which I know she likes)", she says "Great". In our first year of dating(9 years ago), I asked her to try an experiment. Driving to her house in her city, I asked her, "When I come to an intersection, TELL ME in 2 words, 'Go straight' or 'Turn left' or 'Turn right'". She couldn't do it.
> 
> So yes, I expect there's deepseated discomfort about defining and accepting what's pleasurable. I don't think she's at all ready to confront this.
> ...


----------

