[bryony]

This is an old argument of bryony's.
Please don't take too much from it as blindly applicable to you. Read between the lines. There is a lot of suppressed pain behind the words. The point B makes is too reduced to be broadly applicable. To put it another way, generalities are usually wrong.

Ironic, then, that you are making a generalisation. What is this "suppressed pain"? Do you mean the article writer or me?

Not everyone who has gender issues even admits them to themselves, and rarely do they themselves know the extent of them, or how they can change over the course of decades. B's point is based on the idea that you knew it all before you met your spouse, and then deliberately hid it for your own selfish purposes, and then spring it on your spouse when she has no cards left to play.

NO. B's point is not that at all. Try reading what I wrote, which was NOT aimed at Robyngurl but the absolutely totally selfish husband of the Salon article author and people who do the same thing.

No kidding such an individual would have something to feel ashamed about. But it is only a characterization, not a reality for most of us.

Sounds like a generalisation to me. The author of the article certainly experienced it.

Read through the past few years of postings on just this forum, never mind the others. Take a look at the long term progress and changes in both bodies and minds even among the participants here, never mind the minds of those they associate with. You will perhaps realize people change. And sometimes those changes can be adapted to, rolled with, accepted. And sometimes they can't.
Writings like the Salon article always make me very skeptical. I don't judge people based solely on the feelings of others about them. So I don't judge that woman's husband based on just her view of him.

I think all this shows is that I can empathise with the wives more than you can.

What does your wife think about it?

I also would suggest that even her comments about what he told her are actually only her understanding of what he said, probably coloured by her feelings about her understanding.

And I would suggest that you are saying that because it is what you want to believe.

Don't assume you are a bad person just because someone else says you are.

Nobody HAS said that. Robyngurl chose to interpret my remarks on a personal basis.

Find your own way. Exercise empathy.

Empathy for the women in the relationship is what I exercise all the time.

Find joy. Together if possible.

What does this mean? Apart if not? That's the kind of advice I find worrying.

I see nothing misogynistic about what we are doing.

Even if it is without the knowledge of the spouse?

If we have any gender based hate in our ranks, I suspect it is directed more at male culture than female.

Certainly.... and a big part of that culture is being unable to empathise with the wife.

B.