Multiple comments to respond to…
Ryan: I know some of you guys will disagree with me, but I’m not liking this whole Jennifer adding in at the end of each post.
Part of this entire plan is doing things without your significant other knowing your motivation behind it. In other words, if your wife or girl friend knew the truth behind why you changed your behavior, then they’d probably laugh and not take you seriously. I know mine would.
Jennifer adding her own feedback is like reading a blog about committing the perfect crime, only to see a police officer at the end stating “yea it sure works against us”.
I saw the polls and a lot of visitors seem pro-Jennifer. I don’t get it. I don’t get it because if I’m taking advice from Athol, then I’d expect he’d be practicing what he preaches by using his advice against his own wife. However if his wife is in on what he is doing, then what the heck is going on here? If she knows his motivation behind his actions, then how the hell does it pan out???
…and
Ryan: Be honest men, if you had to choose, which would you want?
1.) To have sex with your wife when she needs you?
2.) To have sex with your wife because she feels obligated to?
Please don’t take this the wrong way, but you make Jennifer sound like such a push over sometimes that the reason why your having sex 25 times a month is because of #2…
Athol: The short answer is that Jennifer comments because while most readers assume our relationship is like this…
Our actual relationship is in many ways like this…
Let me explain… (and I am so sorry for making anyone watch that Batman and Robin clip It was a truly awful movie.)
If MMSL has a default goal that you’re encouraged to reach, it’s a highly sexual Captain and First Officer styled relationship. I’m sure other couples have different goals and adapt MMSL to those ends, and that’s perfectly fine too, it’s their life and relationship. So because a highly sexual Captain and First Officer styled relationship is the default goal, Jennifer and I have to model that relationship, or MMSL doesn’t look like it works.
Or more simply put, if Jennifer never appeared at all, the shouting of “So where’s your First Officer? Where’s Jennifer?” would be louder than a Space Shuttle launch.
In addition to that, many people have been greatly concerned that your point (2) is the case, and that Jennifer is trapped in an abusive relationship with me. There’s been a tiny handful of readers deeply concerned that I am basically raping her repeatedly and have in the past basically demanded Jennifer post on the blog that she is okay or the police will be called on me. I am completely serious about this.
Jennifer actually posting on the blog once in a while quite happily, sexually satisfied and in general agreement with me is my first, best, and frankly only defense against such Good Samaritans trying to destroy our marriage. So Jennifer and I present a united front, and model a happy, sexual satisfied Captain and First Officer relationship. This isn’t difficult for us to do, because it’s how we actually are.
Because Jennifer and I are “at the goal” of MMSL, it’s perfectly fine that Jennifer is aware of MMSL. Those that are making making the journey toward the goal, may or may not have their wives aware of MMSL. The less interested your wife is in you, the less likely you’ll be telling her what is going on with reading MMSL. In some cases the wife tells the husband about MMSL, so its impossible to hide it then. In some cases the results are so dramatic that the wife believes the husband is cheating on her, so the reveal has to happen.
In general women quite like MMSL, and my female readers love Jennifer like you wouldn’t believe. Those people on the poll that said they would actually be more interested in meeting Jennifer than me – they are all female. Despite being clearly aimed at men, some 60% of regular MMSL readers are female according to the Alexa tracking of Amazon.com cookies… which surprised even me. Plus 90% of book purchases are made by women, so I’d be just stupid not to appeal to women.
All that being said, Jennifer and I aren’t a fictional couple. This is not the Cosby Show. We are not the Huxtables. While we do present a united front, that is just teamwork and not faked perfection. We’ve made mistakes with each other and we’ve had to learn things about each other over the last seventeen years. We are incredibly open about about our life together and do reveal at least some of the bad along with the good. Unfortunately our experience of revealing the difficulties of life together have shown that it gets hyper focused on a tiny minority of people and we get ruthlessly attacked for not being perfect.
As there’s no perfect solution that will appease everyone, I’ve decided to please myself, and I love Jennifer’s input and presence here.
But the absolute number one reason Jennifer is directly involved in MMSL though, is because I am married to her, when I talk about my sex life, I am by default talking about her sex life. We are on our real names here. People in our real life read the blog and book. Without her explicit permission to publish MMSL, I would be riding roughshod over her right to privacy and be doing a very stupid thing indeed.
Anyway… here’s Jennifer.
Jennifer: This is something we talked about before Athol started writing the blog. I’m a private person and there is an element of discomfort at times seeing your sex life on the Internet. But good things are coming from MMSL so I’m okay with it. It’s gotten easier as time goes on too.
We’ve also talked about how much power I really have with this whole thing. All it would take would be me saying the sex is terrible or I’m unhappy in the marriage, and that would be the end of everything.
I also find the phrase “use his advice against his own wife” to be very interesting. I definitely don’t see it as him using his evil powers againts me lol, I see it as him helping me to understand how relationships work, how men think, and how we each have an effect on the other’s behavior.
I must admit I had no idea I would get such a positive reaction from people though. Athol works so hard at MMSL, and some people want to meet me more than they want to meet him??? It doesn’t seem fair!
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