I had been working with Tim on a project and we’d been getting excited over the fact that he was becoming a dad for a second time very soon. In fact his wife is due as I am writing this blog. Tim and Beth have an older son, about two years old. They’ll be awash in diapers for while!
Tim’s eyes glowed with love and anticipation as we talking about the new baby being a second son. Clearly he is a man who loves being a husband and father and is looking forward to spending doing all the things fathers do with their boys. Then he made an interesting remark, “I can’t wait to get my wife back! I miss her.” He recognized that pregnancy for a woman is a miracle that restructures her hormonal system so that her entire life becomes geared to caring for the new resident in her womb, and giving birth and nurturing her child. He’s been on the back burner willingly, but yearns to reestablish his marriage.
Tim knows and understands this. postpartum he realizes something that a lot of men perhaps don’t take into consideration. He’s going to have to romance his wife as if he just met her. The pregnancy has changed her in some wondrous and beautiful ways and Tim needs to be reintroduced to this new woman, now a mother of two. He’s not fighting nature or narcissistically feeling put out or jealous. It’s just the way it is. In courting her anew as a new bride, he intends to reestablish his intimate relationship with her in a way that allows her to move at her pace, so that sex becomes true lovemaking, and not simply the satiating of a frustrated, horny man.
The dance between man and woman has always been delicate and complicated. Making love to a woman is a continuum. It ought to begin upon waking up in the morning and continue through the day with every encounter until the last kiss at night. This affirms the nurturing space she holds as well as her determination to protect her home. Making love to a man may seem to be more immediate, visual and tactile, but he too has a tender soul that needs opening up and healing by the strong affirmation of his masculine sensibilities and generative power.
Tim is ready to move forward in his relationship with his wife. Key will be that he’ll be making love to the mother of his sons, and no longer to that blushing girl he first met. She is changed. He must change with her and so must their relationship. I am confident that their intimacy will grow to encompass today’s reality and not get stuck in ideals and expectations from the past. I wonder if all men know they can muster such fierce courage!
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