COLD

My T is concerned that I don't dress warmly enough on cold mornings. She said she wanted to keep me warm, wrap me up, tuck me in at night. It was a full paragraph of mothering, the longest "I want to take care of you" speach she's ever given.

So why don't I wear enough clothes? We didn't exactly solve this problem, but here are some ideas:
1. I wear as little as possible because I like being naked.
2. I wear as little as possible in order to express intimacy.
3. I dress to express my feminine side.
4. Full winter gear is essentially sexless and I don't like that.

MANLINESS

One of the ways BIL triggers me is that his voice is sometimes deeper than mine. That makes me fear that I am less of a man than he is. The "C word" as Hankster puts it.

Fifteen or twenty years ago, I had a full set of male privileges.

1. I worked full time and my wife worked little or not at all.
2. I unquestionably earned more money than she did. I was the breadwinner.
3. W did all the housework.
4. My car was bigger, newer and nicer than hers.
5. We slept in the same bed and I chose which side was mine.
6. We had penetrative sex, not exactly "on demand", but regularly.
7. I was not in touch with my feminine side.

This was a Paternalist Paradise, or the Natural Order of Things, depending whose side you are on.

Since then I have lost all these privileges. She works longer hours than me and we get essentially the same salary. We share the chores. She is about to get a new car. For medical reasons, she no longer sleeps in my bed and we don't have penetrative sex. What sex we do have is limited to weekend mornings. I am now very much in touch with my feminine side and have lost touch with my maleness.

I really only have two male roles left:
1. I work in the male-dominated technology industry.
2. I am building a real-estate empire. I'm only just starting this, and of course we own it jointly. Nevertheless, it is my phallus symbol.

What is the male role in an equal relationship, in an equal society that is not at war? This is a great unsolved question of our time.
And I am facing it square-on for the first time.

MISC

T says that I insist on telling my story through to the end before she responds. This is not easy for her and it's not the way she works with other patients.