seeking relate-abillity. is it wrong to do?

[KimberlyS]

First some back ground. Ok I will say yea I am a guy and love look of the feminine figure. And the female breast is the one of the top things for me that just screams feminine. And to my delight my wife has become more endowed through the years. But her endowment is not something she enjoys and her struggling with her weight as long as she can remember has not helped much either. She has mentioned several times through the years her desire to have a breast reduction. Of course the male within me cringes. But yet I do try to be understanding. To add to things a few years back she had some cists removed making her about 1.5 cups larger on one side than the other. Well the last few times she has mentioned a breast reduction the look on my face must have provoked the comments like "you do not know what it is like to deal with them". And I do really try to understand. And I know she has dealt with some back problems because of them, but I would not say it is the only reason.

Well again beginning of last year she threw the comment at me that I did not have to deal with them, and did not know what it was like. So this summer I decided to get some relate ability to her. Definitely something I never serious thought I would ever get. My thoughts were always it would be fun to try, but not realistic or for my general out and about CDing. I had thought about going to a larger form, to a C cup instead of the B cup I had. My wife is a DD and a petite person. So me being a bit taller I thought if I was going to relate to her I needed to be a bit larger, so I went for a DDD set of forms. The weighting is a bit less than real, but I have been wearing them around the house when I can this summer and I have been getting some good relate ability. Including tired back and shoulders and having to work around them and having them in the way.

This last week I did not have my forms along, but used some water balloons a couple of times when I got out. Something I never thought I would do because I was always trying to blend when I was out. But being farther from home I thought it was a good chance to get some more relate ability. And yes I got some good relate ability in having to deal with them in different ways.

Ok now on to my question for the GG's. Is what I am doing to get this relate ability wrong? I really questioned my self initially getting the larger forms. Was it more for me or for getting relate ability. I have been truly trying to understand this from my wife's point of view with her wanting a breast reduction. And while I do not understand her want, I do understand more and more as I wear the forms what she has to deal with and go through. And does make me wish that I would have spent the extra money for forms closer to realistic weight. But one thing with the water balloons I found out last week is they do have a more realistic weight to them along with more natural movement to deal with. Of course the more I wear the forms the more comfortable they are for me to wear them. They just feel like they belong there and should have always been there, be them the new larger ones or my smaller ones. I am begining to question what I am doing to gain the relate ability continues to be more for the relate ability or more for me and my CDing as it goes on. Or is the dual functional ok? I would love some GG input on this please.

kim

[DonnaT]

While we are waiting for a GG response, let me make a few pointers.

Your being able to remove them is a bit like weight lifting. Your muscles get time to recoup when not wearing the forms. This will build fiber in the muscles originally affected by the extra weight, making it easier to carry the weight for longer periods. Your wife doesn't have that pleasure.

And it seems to me, that the original troubles you experienced were related/similar to your wife's, so I would think you've already achieved relatability.

So, if you constantly had the problems you first experienced, what would you do to ease those problems?

[Brenda Scott]

Before marriage, my wife had a breast reduction. It helped her so much. Having that much bulk was painful to her. She was so much happier after she had the reduction. She told me that when you have a breast reduction, your odds of getting breast cancer are reduced. She was able to still nurse, but had less sensation. And I still had plenty to work with.

It's her body. Be supportive.

Brenda

[Absaroka]

Okay as usual the non GGs are speaking first, interrupting like typical men if you will,but.....

It's your wifes body. Period.

If you want relatability relate to thinking you need surgery and your wife is telling you not to because she will lose a turn on. A turn on that is physically painful for you but that;s okay, she just likes to look and feel turned on. And then relate that to a feeling of autonomy, or lack of it.

It's all very well and good to experiment with the larger forms although as has been pointed out you can remove them. And if your wife is petite and a DD maybe you should experiment with G or H forms if you really want the feel. But if you really want relatability it should be with a burden you don't like. Try wearing a suit and necktie to bed or something. And no you can't take it off even though you can't sleep and you have something important tomorrow that you need your rest for.

Diatribe aside it's good of you to try to empathize with your wife.

Absaroka

[Elizabeth]

Kimberly,

If your wife told you her leg was broken would you go and buy crutches so you could relate to her? or would you just take her to the doctor? By asking this relate-ability question, you are questioning whether or not she is suffering. Can you not just take her word?

My guess is that the large breastforms are for you and have nothing to do with relate-ability. While it may make it easier for you to relate to her problems, it has little to do with deciding to do something about the problem. And besides, even if large breasts were no problem for you, that still does not mean it's not a problem for her.

Just my opinion.

Love always,
Elizabeth

[Georgia(SO)]

Hi. Answer from a G/G here - I don't know anything about whether the larger forms were subconciously for you, or whether you were really trying to be emphathetic. I also don't know that it makes any difference...

She has told you a number of times that she wants breast reduction surgery, for whatever reason. I suspect that you trying to "understand her reasons" is much like me trying to "understand" why my guy dresses like a woman. "Understanding" - as in getting the motivations and reasons behind the action - is not required. Accepting what is for what it is, understanding or not, is what is required at this point.

-g(so)

[Stephanie H]

KimberlyS
You will never be able to relate only understand in a sensentive manner.
The efforts that you have gone through during the past year will never match the feelings that a large brested women experences.
It is also not for you to approve or to disapprove but only to support you spouse on such a major decision.
A women does not wake up one morning and say "I want a breast reduction" She has had the coversation with her sisters if she has them/ her mother if she has one, several of her close girl friends and most likely her doctor.
You are just one of many people to who she seeks recognition of her decision. Also, a large breasted women has had many more physical issues than a small breasted one.
My most direct comment is:
"Suck it up....it is not your image that she needs to maintain.... you have minimal say in the decsion. Put your arms around her and say. Hon..... I am here to support you. I will never completly understand what you are going through but I do know that you are not comfortable and need relief"

[KimberlyS]

Thank you everyone for your replies. I guess I should clarify some. I have not told my wife she could not have a breast reduction and would not do that. I know it will be something she will have done some day. I have asked her the normal whys trying a bit more to understand, but normal response is because they are big and she does not like them. As an addition they are heavy and cause her some pain. So I am not trying to talk her out of it. More trying to get a grasp on her reasons which most seem to be because she wants to. I know I will never fully understand. But would like her reasons to have more substance which they do not seem to have. I know she struggles a lot with her self image of herself. And I am not much one for elective medical procedures. Also when she seems to bring up the subject it is usually out of the blue catching me off guard why it suddenly came up. And then she does not want to talk about it or go into any detail. Thus leaving me perplexed, wanting information and questioning. Which she may be taking it as begin against it possibly. And all of the above may have led to her comments of "you just do not know what it is like". And no I do not.

But some times communication needs to flow from the GG's side also. My wife has a habit of coming to me with a question and want a decision made, where she has already made the decision. And to find out she had been thinking about it already for along time. Some times years. And she wants me to make a decision to agree with her on the spot. It sounds like a CDer coming out to their SO and wanting immediate acceptance.

As for me getting the forms, I was questioning that already heavily which is why I made this post.

Thanks again for your input.

kim

[Absaroka]

Thanks for clarifying Kim.

I too am not a fan of surgery that might not be neccesary, or to solve problems that might be addressed more conservatively. I've learned through personal experience that simple surgery is surgery on other people, not me. I think concerns about someone we love having surgery of any kind is completely appropriate. Perhaps there are other options, such as weight loss, to reduce her breast size. Ask yourself if there was a safe non surgical way to reduce her breast size, how would you react? Another alternative might be a program of exercise to help strengthen her back muscles. As alternatives to surgery these could be explored and quite possibly would be suggested by a competent surgeon as a conservative option to be tried first. I don't know, I'm not a doctor and have no idea about your wife's physical situation.

All that being said however I think your initial post says a lot. The part about how you react, the part about how you find her breasts attractive (which is all well and good. it's good when we are attracted to our spouse) But I get the impression that there is something going on besides the legitimate concerns to be had over any kind of surgery.

Also there is your last post. Please read what you have writen. You say that you don't really understand her reasons and that they seem to have to do with her large breasts causing her pain. What's not to understand about wanting to reduce physical pain?

Many women find breast surgery traumatic. If this is hard for you think how difficult it must be for her. After all it is her body she is thinking of altering. And the idea that there is something on your body that causes you pain, something that your spouse finds to be attractive (again nothing bad about being attracted to your spouses body) is probably difficult which is why she comes out of the blue with this.

Coming to mind is my knee problems. Nothing about sexuality or attractiveness there. The doctors agree I will need surgery someday. One doctor said do another arthroscopy now. Another doctor (with a much better reputation, I checked a lot) said arthroscopy probalby won't help, is not worth the risk and don't do it, wait till things get worse and then do a replacement, and then in the meantime pursue other more conservative measures which may postpone surgery for 10 or 15 years. He says maybe the problems will solve themselves, but probably not. I decided that when the surgeon advises against surgery I should listen. But I had major ambivalence, balancing the hope that the simpler surgery would help and the desire to get it over with with wondering if anything would help. Pain will play with your mind incredibly and if your wife is having back pain that alone is an emotionally difficult thing to deal with without the added layers of surgery (of any kind) or surgery to remove part of what society labels as being of consumate feminine importance.

I would think that the next move would be for your wife to get medical advice from someone who's opinion she trusts and who's reputation she has researched, and also for her to gather other information. I would think that your next move should be listening as hard as you possibly can so that she can discuss what is probably a difficult subject with you.

With all that in mind it is good that you are trying to be supportive and to understand. But your effort with inserts is probably a lot like trying to relate to someone with a broken arm by wearing your arm in a sling even though there is nothing wrong with it. Probably the smartest thing you've done is to ask other women their thoughts. I hope more of the GG's will post.

Absaroka

[KimberlyS]

... What's not to understand about wanting to reduce physical pain?

Absaroka thank you for turning my light on. I think now I understand what I am looking for from her. She has always ended with pain being the final reason, not the reason. She starts out with more wishy washy statements and kind of reasons. Not saying self image is not a good reason, but it is elective. It is like the pain reason is added at the end to give it better justification type of way.

And no I will never understand her reasons or the pain being it mental or physical. But I would like her reasons to justify doing it with a bit more substance. My wife like my self and most people, has made some decisions and I supported her blindly later wishing I would have asked more about it. Not always changing the decision but maybe changing the when or how it was done or how much was done. It is the old making a decision just on your knowledge may not always be the best decision. Other people bring different knowledge and views to the table.

Again a lot comes down to communication, communication, communication. And while we are better at it than we use to be. We still struggle with it.

Thank you again for all your input. Any more is always appreciated.

kim

[Absaroka]

I think the key for you is putting aside any ideas about what you might want your wifes body to look like and approach this from the standpoint of how does she decide if surgery is appropriate. Let her breasts be like any other body part.

Absaroka

[Georgia(SO)]

KimberlyS -

I have read your additional comments and I am struck by something here - you mentioned several times, in several different ways, that physical pain seems to be a justification or - essentially - not the main reason. So, we are left with the idea that they cause her some form of psychological pain. You may be right -

Again, I am struck by the similarities to CDing issues here - my guy can't tell me *why* he needs to dress as a woman. Most of ya'll can't explain it in concrete terms. I would guess that your wife's desire for breast reduction surgery is somewhat similar in that it is an undefinable need. There are a number of issues in any person's life that can't be boiled down to logical Reasons 1, 2 and 3.

I have talked with you a number of times on this site, and nothing you have ever said indicated you were the kind of guy who would say No to his wife on an issue like this, so I'm not going to stomp my foot and say "It's her body". Rather, I want to look at your need to understand where she's coming from. I'm afraid that is an unattainable goal, just as it is not possible for me - a single gendered g/g - to "understand" this concept of bi-genderedness in you guys. My brain just won't wrap around it, and I'm afraid that it is unlikley that your brain will wrap around your wife's need either.

I also gather that you are feeling somewhat guilty about trying to understand by wearing larger forms. You have no reason to feel guilty, regardless of your subconcious motives. You didn't hurt anyone, that I can tell, and so you have no reason to feel guilty. I also think, however, that there is no real test that you can do to truly feel what your wife feels. First off, you can take the forms off - she can't. Secondly, you don't experience, on a 24/7 basis, people talking to your chest rather than to your face, or assuming that because you have big breasts that you have no brain. Third, this is obviously important enough to her that she wants to undergo surgery to accomplish it - people don't decide this lightly, so I would suggest that you just take her at her word that she needs to do this.

I also would suggest - gently - that you seem to be disturbed at your own reaction. I would think it would be useful to think to yourself about why you are disturbed - does it make you feel like a chauvinist? Do you not find small-breasted women attractive and you fear that you will no longer find her sexually attractive. None of these things are wrong, mind you, but you do need to understand where you, yourself, are coming from. Once you get a grip on your own feelings, then you can truly offer her the support she needs.

It is, again, much like my feelings about my sweetie's CDing. I don't find men in dresses sexy. I feared - deeply - that I would no longer find *him* sexy once I knew, once I saw him glammed up, etc. It took some adjusting - some recognition on my part that I liked being the only woman in the relationship, that I was jealous of this femme side, and that I was horrified to find myself feeling such ostensibly shallow feelings - but once I figured out where I was personally coming from, I got past it. I'm sure you will too. You just have to figure yourself out on this issue...

-g(so)

[Carolynn]

Kim,
So far I have stayed out of this but the tone of your last post was too much. I agree with other's who have posted that your "seeking relatability" by getting bigger forms and wearing them is more about you satisfying an itch than trying to understand your wife. You need a wake up call.

If you are serious about improving communication, perhaps you should read:

You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation,
by Dr. Deborah Tannen.

Men seek what they perceive to be logical discourse, reason, or information in conversation, no matter who it is with, while women often seek consensus and understanding of internal and emotional states. Men prefer direct sentences with information content, while a woman may be used to relating her words to shared experience she expects to be understood. Between women and men, often there is not the necessary shared experience, and the woman is uncomfortable for subcultural reasons with formulating the direct staements men want. This leads to miscommunication of the sort you and your spouse seem to be having, wishy washy statements trying to get you to understand her perspective and finally fastening on "pain" as the only shared experience you can understand.

It sounds to me (from your statement "She has always ended with pain being the final reason, not the reason. She starts out with more wishy washy statements and kind of reasons.") that your communication is way, way off, and is typical of many of the examples in Tannen's book.

You will not be able to communicate effectively until you learn to LISTEN to all the conversation, not just try to find the information content you want, reasons that make sense to you as a man. Most men want women to learn to communicate differently (i.e. like men), and that seems to be the case with you! You demand "reasons" that are not "wishy washy". But it seems from your last post you can't LISTEN for anything that is not "the" reason. The only thing you can find as a concrete reason (information) you can understand is the pain, and everything else is "wishy washy". If nothing else, the pain should be sufficient for you to support her.

So much for your understanding "feminine side".

And if you think that a negative self image is not as harmful as any physical pain, I can tell you from personal experience that you are just dead wrong. Have you heard of depression? Do you know of anyone with depression? No? Ask your wife. She may be experiencing it. Do not expect a yes or no answer. LISTEN to her. Depression hurts and degrades one's self image. It is hard to accept by the individual and to admit to another. It is pain that cannot be easily and reliably defined in explaining it to another, and can lead to horrible, chronic physical problems, stress, hypertension, diabetes, heart attacks, and these are very real physical ailments, but the underlying cause, long term depression, is not so easy to define. And if she is being stared at by men and women or feels less than a normal human like large breasted women I have known, then she could be depressed with a negative self image and your lack of understanding is not helping.

Then there is the physical health related problems. Just the sheer mass of large breasts can make breast self exams for tumors more unreliable than usual, and hamper discovery of small tumors during regular breast exams. It could be that your wife has undiscovered tumors in her breasts even now. The more fatty tissue making breasts larger, the more likely wild cells are to develop, whether as cysts or tumors.

That sheer mass is also sufficient to cause spinal misalighnment in some people that can cause excruciating pain and require surgery of several kinds, spine and neck, to relieve. Shoulder tendonitis is also common. Does she have "grooves in her shoulders where her bra straps cut in?

From your statement about a breast reduction being "elective", are you talking about insurance or are you just being a prick about having a toy taken away or having to spend your hard earned money on your wife instead of new breast forms for you? Or are you simply not astute enough to understand your wife as a real human being?

Carolynn

[Georgia(SO)]

Ow, Carolynn - that's pretty rugged.

I will agree that men and women process "reasons" and communication quite differently - men looking for logical 1, 2, 3 prioritized, hard-data information, while women do tend to talk in experiences.

But I still see nothing in any of KimberleyS's posts - either now or previously - to indicate a particularly MCP attitude. And I do think it is important that all of us be able to express our feelings, fears, questions without being called names.

g(so)

[Carolynn]

You are quite right Georgia, and Kimberly I do apologize.

I will just shut up now.
Carolynn