Tips on growth for a man?

[Fons]

Hello fellow FLR forum members!

I am Fons and i am happily married for over 30 years.
Only the last two years i am reading and discovering about FLR.
It has been an adventure; self exploration, lots of reading and experimenting.
At first, as with a lot of men in my situation i think, it was about not being satisfied with the sex-life.
Nowadays i learned and recognised the selfishness enclosed in this sex centered focus.
I learned about my deeper needs below it; to long to please, to long to be loved, to long to get attention in my own “love language”. During this journey i recognised we are in a kind of level 1 FLR but not openly named so.

Thanks to this journey things are slowly turning for the best! Although there are challenges. My beloved wife is not much of a talker. She is more of a “the proof is in the pudding” woman. Maybe this is a result of my (hopefully old) habit to mansplain. Anyway; talking about FLR, levels and foodgroups is not the right way at this moment i feel. It wil lead to a feeling I want something she has to do and that is just the opposite of what to achieve.

So … I am bound to a non commercial version of the Nike slogan “Just do it”. Be supportive. Be open to her suggestions. Be open about my own feelings. Don’t touch her if i long to be touched, just describe this longing even if this feels humiliating. This helped to get on the way. We have a lot more “love moments” these days.

But now my question; I would love to stimulate my love to be more outspoken. I mean I learned her message “Do you like to do XYZ” to interprete as “I would like to do XYZ”. This has helped but it is sometimes exhausting. On several occasions i named this explicit and we had a laugh about it. And we followed-up on her idea doing XYZ. And i named it to be a good idea to do XYZ. My life challenge these days is to be supersensitive to these kind of hidden signals (at least for me as a man they seem hidden signals). It is a happy trail to follow because of the rewarding “love-moments” but sometimes i long my wife to be more outspoken about her wants and desires like the full blown FLR ladies i read about in this and other forums. And at the same time i recognise this is my wish and not hers. So who am i to long her to be different?

OK; so the short version of the question is; Do you have tips on resources or otherwise to help grow me and or my love to let her being more outspoken or me or me being more sensitive and more patient towards her needs?
Let me know your thoughts; even if you think my question is stupid.

Thanks for reading this, it has already been a pleasure to dump this from my heart.

Fons

• This topic was modified 4 months ago by Fons.

[Philip]

Well, like many others here, congrats on having the balls to get where you are. There is an Audible book, Surrender,Submit,Serve. She mentions a periodic Command and Control meeting. That is a place for each party to discuss openly and calmly how things went over the last period. Whatever that period is, You nee a mechanism to ask for the chance to address your urgent concern. It’s important to not allow anger to fester and grow, especially when simple discussion can set everything right. Good luck!

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