22 ~ Wednesday, December 23, 1987 - North Shore News

Lifestyles___

Q: MY WIFE believes seriously that I avoid sex because of
deep-seated childhood repressions, and several other things,

all deep-seated.

Actually, it is because while she was pregnant, she gave
up being the kind of woman who attracts me. I mean that
she began wearing teenage sloppy-joe clothes and has never
gone back to the other kind of dressing up and grooming
she took pride in from our first meeting until late in

pregnancy.

I think six months after giving
birth is too Jong to keep up the
gimme-a-break-I’m-bushed act. I
buy her things, but she won't put
them on. She has collapsed entirely
in personal style. Have I got to
pretend to be aroused by this
wilfully unattractive woman?

A: Hey, you sound a little harsh.
Give us all a break, including your
wife. Becoming the parent of a real
child can take the starch out of any
man or woman for a while.

I don’t say that for her to get
back to the prior style would not
be good for both of you, but
maybe it is up to you to make it
happen.

Maybe a dinner out. Arrange
for some friends to go out with
you — an event at which your wife
will ‘be required by the friends to
dress and groom appropriately.
And at reasonable intervals ar.
range more such events. And stop
buying her clothes to ‘‘put on.’’
That is demoralizing.

by Ruth Westheimer

Instead, see that she has money
to buy her own- clothes, tell her
you want her to get herself nice
things and assert her special style
the. way she used to because you
always loved that and want her to
look like that again.

You can say that you want the
baby to grow up thinking of
mother as a wonderful-looking
woman; not just a drudge.

Give her money to shop: for
herself — that is so much more
fun, and arouses a person’s inter-
est in looking good, and requires
getting up inner energy for shopp-
ing trips and thinking and planning
purchases.

If she still resists I think you
have to have a little talk and find
out what is going on with her. It
may be resentment, thinking you
don’t do your share of housework
or baby tending. That idea may
surprise you, but from her point of
view it may be a serious one. Find
out if that is it, or what it is. [f her
resistance persists you may need to
see a marriage counsellor.

Q: This guy [ go with actually
doesn’t go. He stays. He works
where he lives. And I go there
when I quit working. His
workroom, bedroom, living room
and kitchen area are one big space
and a dusty ove, too.

He is kind of fascinating and

creative but I do not Jike always
hanging out there — eating, listen-
ing to music, watching videos, and
especially I don’t like making love
there. He says motel or hotel
lovemaking is bourgeois. That is a
joke, but he won't go anywhere
and that is a fact. He has the
money, but he says not the time. I
go there to be with him and he is
working.

A: All I can think of is your ren-
ting a room and asking him to go
there with you. [t just may be that
if you pay he will agree. Otherwise
I think some night when you wake
up and he is back at work you will
just have to dress and tiptoe out
and never go back, but look for

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someone who has seine of the
same ideas and feelings you have.

This man is a hard case if | ever
heard of one, and if the idea of go-
ing out of his way to please a
woman ever enters his mind, you
do not seem to be the woman.
What else do you do with him,
besides hanging out in his dusty
studio or whatever it is? I bet not a
movie, because that is
“bourgeois” too.

If you really want to hang on to
this-man, don’t go on making love
in an unappetizing place. Before
long that will turn you off the guy
as well. Don’t, whatever you do,
clean up his studio or office or
whatever it is — that will only
make you mad because it will slide
back into a mess and you will re-
sent having wasted your hard
work. .

do Collin’ is

having a’ January
furniture sale,

Q: | have three children, a dull,
wearing job, an old house with
heat, plumbing and roof problems,
and no man or problem-soiver in
the house.

About a year ago I started going
out with @ man just for the break
from the depressing routine. I was
hot attracted to him, but he was
friendly and well able to spring for
dinners, tickets, efc.

Now he ups and asks me to
marry him and move with the kids
into his big city apartment and put
the kids into good schools and
change our whole way of life.

It looks as if I have a way to
make all our lives possible. But
how do I look at the wonder-
worker with the eyes of love? The
fect is, he doesn’t interest me —
not ‘‘that way’’ and not really any
way.

but then so
are a lot of
other sfores

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A: I don’t know what you mean by
not attracted by him. If it means
he doesn’t know how to arouse
you, somebody like me, a sex
therapist, can help. If it is some
pinpointable detail — if he scems
to need freshening up, take a
shower together. If he has a musk
you don’t like, buy him a good
male cologne. If it is a_ real
repulsiveness, as far as you are
concerned, if you don’t want him
touching you, you can’t go into a
marriage with feelings like that.

Sometimes ‘‘I am not attracted”
means fears about the prospect.
You may distrust this opportunity
-— fear that it won’t work, that
when you are established in the
plush apartment, he will find out
you are not the wonderful woman

Soe Talk
Page 23

.. but they
aren’ selling
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HOURS: Monday to Saturday 9-5 p.m., Sunday Noon to5 p.m.

Everyihing in the
Gallery is
on Sale.

GALLERY

4240 ManorSt., Burnaby, B.C.
(% block West of Villa Sheraton Hotel)