Your perfect partner?

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-07-2005
Your perfect partner?
17
Sun, 01-14-2007 - 12:00am
What makes your partner perfect for you- or what would make someone be a perfect partner for you?



Photobucket

Pages

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-13-2005
Mon, 01-15-2007 - 12:47pm

We did have a discussion about this on a DASP board. And I have had the experience of dating someone with ED. He was very creative and pleased me just fine. BUT the thing that made it not fine is that he was NOT OKAY with it. He hadn't come to grips with his situation - got through the surgery, rid of the cancer, but expected everything to work the same or to come back which it did not. Since our relationship was new, it could not weather the storm. He became frustrated and then an old girlfriend called him and he went back to her. They broke up and he came back to me and I would not take him back. So much drama.

Anyway, I have found that men with ED, unless it is from cancer surgery, have it along with a host of other health issues - it is related to body weight, fitness, diabetes, heart disease - and I want someone fit and healthy to keep up with me. I don't want to sign up for a boatload of physical/health issues because I have and value good health to offer. Don't want someone to discourage me from what I have either.

So, it depends. If the man was everything I wanted in every other department and could still please me in other ways and HE WAS okay with it, that is okay. And of course if he got the cancer or other issue later in life WE would deal with it. I think counseling would be in order - because that is a VERY difficult thing for a guy to deal with.

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-30-2003
Mon, 01-15-2007 - 5:11pm
Someone who has a consistent affection for me. I need stability.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-21-2006
Mon, 01-15-2007 - 9:14pm

Well put, West exactly why it was in my list. It is how HE deals with it that is important. Sheesh, guys get wigged out if they percieve they don't measure up in penile size, let alone the funk most men would fall into if it didn't work at all! The absence of a ton of other health issues is also important for me in the early stages of bonding with a guy. I take great care of myself, out of respect for myself. I expect the guy I'm with to do the same. Being in a LTR then having the problem turn up with prostate trouble is a different thing. If the guy freaks and isn't willing to be creative to still experience some kind of physical intimacy the relationship will fail- at least with me it will because I have learned that sex is pretty important to me. I know I'd start to feel deprived. That's just me, other women have different needs.

QB- My "perfect" guy is in good reproductive health.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-13-2005
Mon, 01-15-2007 - 9:46pm

The thing with the prostate cancer survivor is that he could still experience orgasm - and with creativity we could still both have a lot of fun and please each other. I was fine with that.

But he felt such an absence from not being able to have intercourse.

The crazy thing is that he went to a lot of trouble to buy me books and explain how he went to the best and most expensive doctor in the US who is supposed to be able to spare the nerves and thus the patient's ability to hold and sustain an adequate erection. He explained how they diagnosed the cancer and why he chose the surgery - there are other treatment options. On and on. I was impressed that he would take the time to buy the books and seek a good doctor and become educated so well.

But he always assumed that the nerves and ability to have and hold an erection would come back as soon as he healed from the surgery. And they didn't. He never read the part of the book about how many men don't have that again ever. Not even with the drugs, or the hotshot doctor. Or about things you can do to make the drugs more effective (which we did try because I read them).

Of course me being the reader and scientific person I am did read all of that! And that is when I discovered that he never read any of that in the books he gave me. He never entertained the idea that his condition would be permanent. And he was young - in his mid 40s. A single dad to 2 nice boys. And so wildly successful in his career, which had basically consumed his life. He was fun, nice, could write for hours, called or IMed me all the time, took me on a trip to a house he had on an ocean where he said he hoped I was the one he would spend his life with there, etc. You could say he was a catch and that into me.

But the bottom line is there is nothing *I* could do - he had to do the emotional work to be okay with this in his head. And I believe that when his exgf called and wanted him back, he believed if he went back to her it would be like it was. It was not and he called a year later to explain all of that but by that time I had moved on and had no more interest in such a drama or to be the 2nd dish.

This is an issue for many prostate cancer survivors - it wreaks havoc on marriages never mind a brand new dating relationship. So I didn't take it personally.

But I did make a rule - here now ready now. Another thing was that he lived an hour away by plane - although he was moving here which is why I did budge a little with my no LDR rule. So he really wasn't here now ready now. I did learn a bucket load from that relationship. Quite a bit. And I do have fond memories of our travels.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-07-2005
Mon, 01-15-2007 - 11:09pm

Only you, Shrimpy- only you!


LOL!




Photobucket
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-21-2006
Mon, 01-15-2007 - 11:44pm

Given that story, it is good you took my flip remark in my "perfection" list with the intended sense of humor. So sorry it worked out that way for you. But when one reaches mid life and finds oneself single, issues of aging are to be considered. I choose to date men fairly close in age to myself not only because I'm very peer oriented, but also because I want to increase the chance he'll be around as long as me. My father had MS and I know how hard watching him slowly deteriorate was for me, can't imagine what my mother had to cope with. He died of cancer at age 51.
You are right, there was nothing you could do to fix the situation, although it is good to hear that if a guy is willing to try, he can still enjoy physical intimacy with his SO after that type of surgery.

"here now, ready now" I like that. I also don't do LDR, just don't have that kind of time. M and I live within 5 miles of one another and we'd have a heck of a time seeing one another with respective kid schedules, work, school, etc. if we lived an hour apart. The woman he dated before me did live an hour and a half away and he said it really was a problem, he's so glad I am so close.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-13-2005
Tue, 01-16-2007 - 7:33am
Yes - I agree with everything you write. Close is very good - close in age, close in proximity, close in health. That must have been so hard for your mom. And I know I don't want to be in that boat.

Pages