Thank you for your answer.

You are welcome - and right back at ya. If you don't mind, what percentage of your sex life was "unprotected?" Just out of curiosity if you don't mind my asking, do you feel a huge difference between a penis in a condom vs one that is not? My gf says that she feels a difference, so I am curious.

Hi. I can enjoy men wearing condoms but of course feel more without. These days proper etiquette is if he wants to wear one and you want to be with him you don't question it in any circumstances. A few years ago for an AB answer I figured our maybe 70% unprotected. Which I know is irresponsible and even though when I was young no way did I want to have kids. On one level. On a deeper one yeah I always wanted them. And still do you know even though I have not been able to conceive for maybe at least ten years. So I can't - I know how it feels to be what lots of people and often even I consider "stupid and irresponsible". And then sweating every period which I did for years and years. I was always more content to leave the birth control up to guys since back then so many of them were very responsible. But a lot of them either pulled out or refrained from orgasm altogether which is still technically "unprotected". Though in my case always effective. I had a series of diaphragms and sometimes even used them. Or I would be super-careful with my primary relationship but just cast my fate to the wind secondary guys. Later on I just figured I was no longer able to become pregnant so even stopped thinking about. Though I did become pregnant in my 40s. Altogether five times that I knew I was and probably more when I did not know. I had an unfortunate abortion when I was 19. the other times I miscarried in months 1,2, or 3. I attribute that to the all drugs I did when I was young which I guess weakened my ability. A major part of what we are as women lies in our bearing and raising kids and though I know this is sort of silly I can't help but think of myself as inferior because I was never did or was never able to.

Thanks for that. Two things - one, I get that you feel down over not having children, but that does not make you less of a person. I have read your answers and you are a special lady. Yes, it is sad that you never had children - but that is no reflection on you. The abortion is harder. As I told you, I had an affair with a married woman and got her pregnant. I am not proud of it, but there it is, She told me she was pregnant - and although I was not sure how to handle it with her husband, I knew I wanted to have the baby with his wife. Then she got an abortion. I was crushed and I remember crying and drinking way too much for several months. I will always wonder about my baby I never knew - but you know what? So I've been there in a way, and I know that we grow from the experience. The price was high - and although I am a daddy three times over now I still miss the baby I never knew - but you are a wiser and better lover and friend because you have the compassion that comes from that pain. That's a hard lesson but a good one, so don't be so hard on yourself. On a lighter note, you said that in your day the guy was expected to provide the birth control. I remember that, too. It's funny. Now I think that all the burden is on the women. Man, my sex life would have been so much easier had things been different back then. I talk about the sex I had, but do you know how sexually frustrating it is for a guy to be told "no" because he didn't bring the condom? I must have taken a Niagra Falls worth of cold showers back in the day. Ha. Cheer up Officegirl - you are a good lady.

Thank you. At the time, and I was 19 then, I just wanted to get it done and get on with my life. There was never any question for me. I just went through it alone mechanically and I remember feeling glad it was done but then a great sadness and guilt settled over me. I couldn't go back to my boyfriend because he was a jerk the way didn't really care. I drove to the house of a former bf because I knew he would listen to me and comfort me. He was older and nice. I remember I cried but then stopped myself and I just wanted desperately to feel better but in those days sex and drugs were about the only ways I knew to do that. I was bandaged from the procedure so when we got in bed he rubbed his cock against my clitoral area until I came a few times but I wanted him up me and I pulled aside the bandage so he could enter but he was afraid to go too deep so he did more shallow which did the trick a few more times. Then we talked and I dressed and went home to my bf. Bet you never knew a girl who admitted to that! But the child I had murdered became an a presence in my life and I even named him. One of those things you can't take back any way but you just have to go on. Guess I didn't deserve any children after that. Please don't go evolutionary on me but that is a big hole in my life and I think has kept me from reaching out to people as much as I should have. I mean not having kids. A have two wonderful stepdaughters I relate well to - one immediately though the other took some time and living with us to accept me - and I love them to pieces but they have a mother. Think too that is why I used to befriend young women on AB and try to help them even though they probably didn't want any help from me. One I became very close to and we talked via phone and I even made plans for her to leave her abusive home and come and live with us but we had a very public falling out on here a few years ago and that was it. Oh as far as birth control I was always happy to let men take care of it.because a lot of men in those days were very responsible. Like my husband. Younger women today know and do so much more than we ever dreamed of but I think there is just so much more that is expected of them than there was of us. In the 70s and 80s we were supposed to be the complex ones who needed special care. And though I envy in many ways the lives of so many young women I know and have met on AB I really do miss the way things used to be. And still are as far as my life and that of my husband is concerned. He grew up in the same period and absorbed most of the same energy and expectations and understandings and ideals. My life has been anything but conventional but I have enjoyed it - most of the time. I have been very fortunate in many ways.

As I said, the price was high, but it has made you a better and more compassionate person for it. I have no doubt. Oh, and no, by the way, I have never had any woman admit to me that their answer to abortion was sex with another guy. However, it is hard to know how we react to that kind of pain. Then again, I sort of followed a similar path. As I say, in my case, I was crushed. I missed that baby so much. When the woman I had the affair with told me told me she had an abortion, I did not react well. In fact, given that she had just had an abortion alone, as she obviously could not tell her husband, I was harsh and offered no comfort to her. (I'll spare you the details, only adding that my reaction was not physically harsh.) I went through stages, sort of. I started drinking - a lot. I would sleep with any woman who looked at me - I just didn't care and was anything but a considerate lover. I got arrested for drunk driving - which didn't make things better but thank God at least no one was hurt. My car was totaled, though. All I knew was how much I missed that baby. Then after a while I just shut down. I could manage go to work at the new job I had just gotten, but I was hardly a star employee. (Luckily the Member of Congress I was working for stayed with me and I ended up doing some really amazing work with him and when I left the job he told me I was one of the best LD's he'd ever had and asked me to stay.) I stopped dating or seeing women. I would still drink, but now at home alone. Didn't do parties or anything. It was bad - but like you, and it sounds like a bad movie, but it happened - I got lucky. As a staffer for a Member of Congress I had to go to political receptions from time to time. I went to one and met this pretty little economist - hey, they make economists who are pretty, who knew? - who worked for a trade association. We talked most of the evening and as we parted she said, "Why don't we go to lunch sometime to discuss your boss's position on "x"?" I agreed. For a few weeks, I was non-receptive to anything other than business, but she was nothing if not persistent. We did a few more lunches. Then I FINALLY asked her out for a date. We dated it must have been for 8 months before we had sex the first time. (She laughs now. She says she wondered if I was ever going to have sex with her. ) I'll never forget that first time we made love. She won't either, I'm sure. After we finished - I guess it was all the emotion released by my orgasm - I broke down. I cried my eyes out. Every bit of pain I felt for that lost baby - I missed the baby so much - and the aloneness I felt and the shame over the affair and everything seemed to come out in a torrent. Frankly, I am surprised my gf didn't say "What's with this freak?" and run from the apartment. Instead she held me that night and comforted me and told me that I was good and that God forgave me and I just sobbed. So, I GET the pain you felt. I get the sleeping with someone, anyone - because for a time I slept with anyone - and I get the feeling of being mechanical alone, of living life by going through the motions. You were the woman who gave up a baby. I am the guy who had a baby taken from me. So I GET it. No, I won't go "evolution" on you on this - though I could - except in this one small way. That girl who held me that night as I cried my eyes out over the baby that I still miss and think about every day, kept dating me, notwithstanding my crying during sex and everything, and about a year later agreed - right around Valentine's Day, coincidentally enough - to live with me. She has been my best friend and lover ever since. She has been an amazing mommy to the three beautiful children she has given me with love. She supports me when I am down, reassures me when I am scared, and she rolls her eyes and kisses me on the cheek when I get, as I often do, on my high horse but she never says an unkind word to me. In a nutshell,

That is very sweet. Thank you for your comment. Actually sex unfortunately was always my answer to wanting to feel better about myself. In most situations. As it in many ways still is.. Even though I am older and married and have learned to do so many other things that make me feel good about myself as well. I guess in some ways I still feel like a teenager. Pathetic isn't it? I met my husband Gerry in a college classroom attending a pre-opera performance lecture. There were no seats left so he got up and offered me his. And I suggested that if he did not mind my sitting on his lap we could both sit Which we did. I didn't even think about it or him though we talked briefly during intermission. But after the performance as I was walking back to where my car was parked it hit me suddenly that he might be "the one" and though I thought OK what are the chances of that I walked back to the hall. And there he was waiting at the top of the stairs - for me! Which was - I was thinking could this really be true? And we exchanged numbers. So I was waiting for him to call me for a few days before he did. We talked for three hours or more on the telephone and I knew that whatever else he was the one. Similarly we talked and talked on the phone the next two evenings. Friday evening I almost ruined everything by somehow telling myself it will never work out so I had group sex which I had already committed myself to. Then I did not hear from him for three days and was ready to call him when he called on Tuesday and asked me out for the first time. We went out Wednesday and talked and talked and Thursday when he asked me to marry him and I said yes. So we were engaged before we has sex which was the following weekend. And I was - mostly I had sex on the first date but we were having such a great time with each other I had not even thought about it! And he felt the same way about me - that he had been waiting for me all his life which just sealed it for us. But was anxiety about our first being together because I had not even thought about what it would be like with him except very vaguely and physically he was not the kind of person I was generally drawn to. So I was very nervous our first time but I bed I could feel his desire so I had no trouble being ready. Then I wanted things to be really good so I was telling him as gently as possible what to do with me which I guess he was sort of amused by more than anything. But he wanted it to work between us too so he did what I was telling him to do which was just overwhelming and he kept going with me until I had an orgasm which I don't mostly the first time with someone and I cried and he held me then he finished and I knew things would be OK on the sexual level. In retrospect I scold myself for being so impatient for it to be good. Mostly I let someone figure me out or try to before I start giving hints and that is the best way and most lasting way. But because of my apprehension and impatience I did not do that. With the result that almost every time we are together he has done pretty much just the steps I gave him the first time. Which is great because they work and we naturally became more sensitive to each other the more we were together and adjusted to one another. But I don't think he learned to make it be about himself as well as me enough. Well he does like to be the one in control and the active one but I think he would like me better if he felt he had more freedom with me.

Thanks - and your story was beautiful. I am impressed in one respect. You and your husband hit it off from the outset. I am still surprised to this day that my gf didn't give up. I did NOT start out even remotely open to a relationship. As with so much else, I owe so much of what I have to my gf. By the way, as far as you still feeling like a teenager, believe me. I understand more than you think and, in a way, you and I are similar. You keep your childhood and early adulthood in your mind all the time. It sort of haunts you. I get it. Even today, after all I have and all I have done both as a bf, as a father and in my career, I still miss that baby I will never know. There is a part of me that feels like a miserable failure. That baby was relying on me to protect it and care for it - I don't even know what gender it was, I have to call that beautiful little person "it" - and I failed. That will always haunt me and like you, the only thing that saves me is a person who loves me and holds me - yes, even when I cry after our first sexual experience - and tells me that I am a success and that I am forgiven for the mistakes I made. Believe me, I 100% get where you are coming from. Oh, and one last thing. If I may speak as a man, and yes, I know you hate that whole "evolution" thing - but yes, it is instinctive, a man wants to be in control. I need to feel that I am performing and am - sorry - dominant. However, don't take that quite the way it sounds. I need to feel dominant because I need to know that I can protect my gf and love her. In a man's mind, the distinction between sex and love is not as bright as it tends to be with women. When I feel dominant, I feel more secure in myself and that I am loving my gf more deeply. It is the need for my physical gratification - I need sex - but it is so much more complex than that. Your husband is trying to please a strong willed woman. Sex is love for him, too, and that's why he has sort of, as you put it, made it less about him. If I could offer something, communication works wonders with a guy. If my gf pays me a compliment about anything, she can get a million miles out of me. I don't mean to intrude on your relationship - already I see my gf, smiling, rolling her eyes, kissing me on the cheek and saying, "Oh here he goes again..." - make it about him by just telling him. Communication will make a difference. Tell him that you want him to do whatever makes him happy. You will, I think, see a difference. That said, I will bet my bottom dollar that he "likes you better" more than you realize. As you know by now, we guys don't articulate our feelings very well. Trust me, though, I will bet his love for you is deeper than you can imagine.

Oh, and one other thing, you said that for too much of your life, your answer to feeling better about yourself. I can't say that was always true for me, but again, I understand it. It certainly was true after the abortion. I would sleep with anyone and it made the hurt go away for a bit. (It was like, "She slept with me. I'm great!!!") Beyond that, don't be too harsh on yourself. Sex is supposed to make us feel good. When you are going through a bad time, feeling better is what we want. Even now, if I am down, my gf will "seduce" me and I will feel better because I feel like a man again and things will seem somehow more manageable. It's not wrong in and of itself. Of course, you have a point. it does not solve our problems - and as my affair shows, it can make things worse. So we have to keep perspective. Still, I think you have managed what was, in many ways, a tough early life nobly. Not error free, but noble nonetheless.