We’re going away for 3 nights for our anniversary. I recently bought some toys for both of us. I wonder if I should pack them all up, or let her pack hers in her bag.
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First, congrats on the anniversary and I’m glad you’re both getting away for it.
But I sense danger here. I’m older too and long ago I watched “Lost In Space” all those decades ago on TV and there was the famous line from the robot that went “Danger, Will Robinson”.
I worry if you leave it up to her, there will be no toys upon your arrival at your anniversary get away.
I would love to be wrong of course and if you do let her be in charge of packing them, I sincerely hope I’m wrong. I’d love to be proven wrong regarding this of course.
I applaud your efforts over the last month or two in trying to reignite your sex life with your wife. While not perfect, you have made some nice strides.
Most of all, I really hope the two of you have an enjoyable get away for your anniversary, whatever it is the two of you end up doing.
Letting her pack them would be a chance to see if she is really interested in changing things up. I fully expect her not to bring any of them. In either case, if I pack them, and we do not use them I’ll be very disappointed. If she doesn’t pack them , I’ll still be disappointed, but maybe less so. We were away visiting friends over the last week with no intimate time for us. I would hope she would be wanting some at this point, I certainly am.
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I understand. Hoping for the best for you.
I would be careful about this mndset, because she may not see getaways the same way you do. For her — like for my husband — a getaway may just be that: a getaway from the norm. That doesn’t mean she’s not interested, it just means her focus is on… well… getting away.
How abut packing them, but planning a night with a dinner, wine and seeing where the night takes you? If it leads to intimacy? Great. Sex? Awesome! The toys get used? Fabulous!
I know it can be hard when your partner seemingly shows no interest, but sometimes, if you take the initiative, you may be surprised by what happens next 
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Why not ask?
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I pack some toys for us when we go away sometimes we use the toys and other times they stay in the case but always nice to know we have them with us.
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For one, we have never had toys to pack in the past, now we do. We just spent 4 days away visiting friends. The anniversary trip will take us to one of our favorite cities, for relaxing, shopping and dining. We will have at least one very nice dinner, with all the wine and treats, as is our habit. I suspect we will return to the hotel, get comfortable and watch tv, and read or play games. Anything other than that would be unexpected. If we manage any sex, it’s likely to be on the second morning, as we need to leave early the last day because she has a meeting to get to that evening when we get home. We might even skip the third day, just to have her home for it.
She makes priorities for meetings, and gatherings with her various groups she is involved with. Sex play is not one of those priorities. I’m trying to be patient and hoping some of the recent discussions we have had will bring about some changes, we will see how it goes. At least we will get a decent meal or two out of the trip.
I would suggest that you decide what to take together. Just ask her if she’d like to take some and if she says yes, chose what you want to take together. If she says no, then you have your answer and you won’t be disappointed during your holiday.
If you pack them and she isn’t interested when you’re on holiday then you’ll be disappointed. If you let her pack them and she doesn’t think to take any then you’ll also be disappointed. Have the conversation before you go so you can enjoy your holiday with or without toys.
Have a lovely holiday and try not to put too much emphasis on sex, there’s more to holidays and your relationship than how much sex you’re having or which toys you’re taking. Take the pressure off and just try to relax and enjoy your time together!
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Maybe just ask her or you both can select some and pack together.
Why not just ask her if she wants you to pack them? Sounds like it’s some sort of test.. or mind games? If so it’s a little childish.
We always take toys with us when we go away and 9.5 times out of 10 I pack them, not because she doesn’t want to use them but probably because I’m the more organised one out of us.
Well I’d did dig out several toys, and am going to ask if she is interested.
However, none of you is living in this house, and I know my wife pretty well after 23 years, and how she reacts to things, especially with things that were not her ideas. She can be quite unkind. I do take people’s thoughts under consideration, however I am the one who needs to live with the aftermath if things go sideways. We have not had a very active sex life in a while,as you probably can guess. And what we did have was extremely sedate by forum standards. I only ask folks to be kind, as you almost always have been , and tolerant while I vent a bit. This forum is my only lifeline to knowledge and compassion with our intimate questions. If I thought I could just BLURT out any idea to her, and expect it to be well received, I most certainly would do that. Thank you all for your input, good or bad. I do appreciate it more than you can know.
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I’m sorry to hear that. Leaving the sex topic aside now, the toys, whether to bring them or not, it seems like a discussion should be in order about the way she is and how she treats you when she is being so unkind. That should be its own discussion between the two of you at some point.
Why? None of us think being unkind to our partners is a good thing and none of us want our partners to be unkind to us.
Yes, easy for me to say. Like you, I had to live with aftermath of my 1st wife with many things and it’s easier said than done of course, to deal with a partner who is unkind at times, like when things aren’t her idea.
My point in this isn’t about sex toys, whether it’s her idea or not, it’s about how she treats you and how she is unkind to you like you said she is when things aren’t hear idea.
I’m assuming she’s close to your age and you’ve said you’re 75. You’ve also said she’s a therapist too, for her profession, so I think you simply having a conversation about this with her would be something she should be able to take well. Whether she’d take it well is a different point though.
Even if she doesn’t take it well, I feel it’s still a topic that should be addressed by you to her at some point. After your anniversary get away of course.
Again, my ex-wife didn’t take it well when things weren’t her idea, even when they were about minor, trivial things let alone big things.
If she wanted to go out to eat, we did, even if I didn’t want to.
If I wanted us to go out to eat and she didn’t want to, we didn’t go out to eat and she’d be mad at me for suggesting we go out to eat.
Same with what we did on the weekends, where we went, where we went on vacation etc. Things had to be her way… or else. It didn’t matter if it was sex, things we did, places we went etc. It didn’t matter if it was small trivial things or much larger more important things. It’s the way she was, whatever the topic was about.
I’ve been there, had to live through the aftermath with her many times. Sadly, back then, I was never able to have substantive discussions with her regarding her behavior, her reaction to things I said I wanted to do, to her tone of voice to me when responding to me, her facial expressions and body language, both of which were aggressive and letting me know to knock it off and accept what she was saying right then. If I didn’t, she raised the emotional intensity to the point she overwhelmed me. She didn’t back down. She began easy with me and if I pushed back, she raised the stakes and pushed back much harder, enough to end the discussion then and there.
I’m sorry to say this over and over, but there are so many similarities between your wife and you and between my 1st wife and me, in our relationships I mean.
What you just wrote above is something I could have easily written many times back during my 1st marriage had I been on such a forum like this, had they existed in the 90’s and early 2000’s (I have no idea how old this forum is by the way).
Back then I simply didn’t have the arrows in my quiver to have such a conversation with my 1st wife. I was afraid of her, I walked on eggshells around her. That’s how I grew up with my mom too. I didn’t have the necessary tools in my toolbox to properly deal with my ex-wife so she walked all over me and ruled our roost completely. She knew she could, she was that way with me when we were both 14 when we began dating and that’s the way things always were between us, right up to and through our divorce.
You are kind, you are measured, you are thoughtful, your heart is in the right place and you come at things with your partner from a good place, from the right place. You mean well.
Importantly, it’s NOT all about you either. It’s about your wife too and that comes through loud and clear in your many comments and posts on this forum.
You aren’t mean, you aren’t spiteful and while I obviously don’t know your wife at all, I can’t imagine she doesn’t know this about you, that when you come to her to discuss an issue, she knows you’re being kind, thoughtful, measured and that you’re not only talking about it from your perspective, but from her point of view too.
Sadly, I cringed a bit when you said “however I am the one who needs to live with the aftermath if things go sideways.”
I never like hearing that a person has to tiptoe around their partner and be worried about the aftermath of something. To me, that’s just another way of saying a person is walking on eggshells around their partner.
Things my ex-wife did and said affected me of course. And that was her point many times. Many times things she did and said were NOT just about the current issue. So many times the way she acted, responded and treated me were a warning from her to me to NEVER bring such an issue up to her again, or else.
Due to the way my ex-wife was, I had to watch what I said, how I said it (my tone of voice or body language, my eye contact with her etc.) to my ex-wife. I had to think whether what I was going to say or do would upset her.
That is not a good way to live, I think we all know that. But you are living that way when you said “however I am the one who needs to live with the aftermath if things go sideways.”
In relationships, things can and will go sideways. That’s life, there are issues, things aren’t always rosy. I get that. But when things do go sideways, neither partner should worry about what their partner is going to do, say or how they will react. That’s stifles their partner, it stops them in their tracks BEFORE they even say anything, which is what my ex-wife did to me so many times.
I hope you see I’m not talking about whether you or she should pack the sex toys for your anniversary trip. That’s not my point at all.
It’s about how you have to tiptoe around her, with what you say, how you say it as you’re worried about having to deal with the aftermath from her if you do say certain things to her.
That is what you need to address with her at some point, in my humble opinion anyway.
I do hope the both of you have a nice enjoyable anniversary get away.
I also hope that at some point in the future you’re able to have a discussion with your wife about the way she is and how she treats you and how she’s unkind to you when things aren’t her idea.
It’s not right for her to be so unkind to you and that was your word, not mine when you said “She can be quite unkind.”
I can’t imagine your wife would be happy with you if you were to be quite unkind to her, the way she is to you.
That brings me to my last point. My ex-wife was full of double standards. I won’t list any, we all know what they are.
But in your relationship, your wife is quite unkind to you at times and yet I’m guessing you aren’t that way to her. Somehow, to your wife, it’s OK that she’s like this to you but I’m guessing she wouldn’t be happy at all if you were to be this way to her.
That is a double standard of course. They are another huge pet peeve of mine due to having been with my ex-wife for so long.
Firstly, we were just packing our clothes for the trip, and I calmly asked,if we wanted to bring any toys. She said, “ yes,I was going to “ but, I can read the tea leaves, if I hadn’t asked, they would have stayed behind, 100% .
That said, I showed her my Quickshot and she was surprised. So that’s coming too. On the topic of unkindness. She had a rough childhood, bossed her siblings to keep control. That carried over to her adult life to a large degree. There is no question she rules the roost. I was over run by my first wife, and have repeated that pattern to a degree now. Some of our dealings are near equal, but she does wield a huge sway when intimate matters come into play. There are times, when we are having a discussion about nearly any subject, when I have to chose my words carefully or get talked down at with a lot of ferocity. I know it is unhealthy but because of my low self esteem, I endure it. I do love her very much regardless, like you said do not treat her like she does me. I am never unkind, even when I am clearly right. We did have a discussion about her aggression a while ago, and she is trying to rein it in, but it is so deeply rooted it may well never be under control. We have had a marvelous life together despite the circumstances, and I would not leave her unless she went totally off the rails. I think as this weekend unfolds,we may find some more common ground. Any improvement will be welcomed.
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After the toy reveal I showed her the hair groomer I bought, and explained how well it worked at trimming my pubes,which n I showed her. Her comment was, oh, I thought I was done with stuff…….maybe a bit too much at one time.
I get it, I really do. I was you in my first marriage.
I endured it. I loved her. I wanted, expected and hoped to grow old with her, I wanted to even though things were the way they were.
The only reason I left her was due to finding out she was cheating on me. Then, during the divorce I found out about many more times she’d cheated that I was completely unaware of.
Loving her didn’t matter at that point, I was gone. But that’s neither here nor there to our issues and to the issues you face.
I really do wish you well.
We are climbing this ladder one rung at a time. As long as we are having decent conversations I am fully committed. It would take something extreme to make me want to part with her. There has been some progress lately, and she has admitted that she is often unkind to me doesn’t always treat me fairly. I know she loves me more than anything, and she does try to be better. Because this weekend is special for us, it gives us a chance to retrace our relationship going forward. Since we bought our new house, and we have been remodeling it, there has been a decided change in her attitude, much calmer and caring. It is a change we needed to make long ago, bit is the thing that we both needed for our happiness. Each day brings a new opportunity to make it even more special for us and I are working hard to make it so. Time will tell how things will sort out. I am optimistic about our future.
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I’m going through the same we’re off to the lakes in July. My wife enjoys toys but is not confident with that side of sex so when it comes to packing I pick out and pack the toys and outfits I know she’s comfortable with and a few extra items to try out. My wife has to unpack all the bags when we arrive (OCD thing) so she will know what’s been packed. Then we just see how things go. Maybe I will get a surprise, maybe we just have a great time together with just safe zone sex or if the mood is rite we will get the kinky bits out. The holidays primarily about us spending time together away for our son. Sex will happen and any kinky sex is just a bonus.
Don’t big the trip up in your head as a sexfest you will just come away disappointed.
Many times in the past we have taken vacations and had quite a bit of sex play, sometimes more than once a day. These days, we are much driven to do sex marathons, but still, getting away from distractions should bring in more intimate time. I usually don’t expect sex to happen, but am grateful when it does. The fact we packed up the toys insinuated that there would be some experimentation over the weekend.
How did the weekend go?