Ok, here's my theory based of personal experience and ridiculous self study (potential book warning). GENERALLY SPEAKING (my quid pro quo), in relationships women seek to be esteemed/cherrished whereas men seek to be respected/accepted. Naturally when a woman is feeling cherrished, she throws out respect/admiration/praise towards her man. When a man is feeling respected (you're the bomb), he naturally esteems the woman (want to be knight in shining armor). The "In Love" experience is when both the woman and man believe (either accurately or naively) that their partner will meet the others need, so they're incredibly happy at that prospect, and consequently start unconsciously providing what the other needs in huge waves.
Problem is that after time, for whatever reason, one or the other (usually both) will do something that will send a message "hey, he/she was inconsistent with what I thought because they didn't esteem me or show me respect in that situation." Now here is where things crash (although not immediately). GENERALLY SPEAKING, when the woman receives (or believes she's received) signs of lack of esteem, she will "bring it up" (not necessarily complaining & she might let the first couple of times fly seeing them as exceptions), but will let the guy know that his performance is waining. Problem is, the guy will interpret that as lack of respect (he's no longer the knight, but he's imperfect). Now here's where things really get bad. GENERALLY SPEAKING, when a guy receives (or believes he receives) signs that the other does not respect him, he will get defensive and withdraw (as if instinctively believing that if he backs away, he'll be missed and desired and appreciated). But that withdraw is seen as even less being esteemed by the woman, who pours on the discontentment a little bit more than before, causing the guy to back of and esteem her even more, and so forth and so on until both have no faith that the other esteems at all or respects at all or ever will. Voila. End of relationship.
To make things even crazier, the amount of faith reserves that each has towards the other is totally different. It takes almost no time for the guy to have faith in the woman, but it also doesn't take months of "inconsistent behavior" for him to lose that faith (at least emotionally) because you can't be the hero today and then be a screw up two weeks later (the ever so popular male ego). Women on the other hand have huge reserves, and once that faith is established, the she could go for extended amounts of time not receiving what she needs before she "sees the writing on the wall". By the the time she gets to that point, even if the guy tries to change his ways, it will take quite a while to build that faith back up (the ever so popular fact that saying "I'm Sorry" to a woman is the beginning of the process and not the end.)
Now it really gets screwed up because the guy's idea of what it should take to restore her is totally distorted because for him, it should take a few weeks, maybe a month. But the woman has been in a tailspin for longer than he knows, so it may take months to build back up. After the guy tries for a while and she doesn't respond in the tiime that he thinks she should have, he begins to write it off as impossible.
What makes it all totally go nuclear is that (GENERALLY SPEAKING) aside from the sex drive, men see sex as the woman yielding to him and accepting him, whereas for the woman it is a deeper area that is opened only to one who deeply esteems them as precious. This chain reaction makes the man even more desperate for sex/acceptance while making the woman less desirous for sex because it is no longer precious but demanded/expected. CONGRATULATIONS. You now have my theory behind the huge divorce rate.
The way it all could have been avoided is if both knew what the other needed, and committed to providing it, irrespective of whether their partner was doing it. That way, even if the other has an off day, it doesn't turn into a negative chain reaction. Plus if both are providing what they are supposed to, then they make it easier for their partner to unconsciously keep dishing out as well. Thus prolonging/extending indefinitly the "in love" experience.
So what the heck does this have to do with dolls
If a guy is aware of these dynamics and recognizes that his lady's lack of zeal sexually, intimately, or comfort is the result of her needs having gone unmet (or poorly rationed) for an extended amount of time, and if he decides to embark on the journey to build her back up, he's going to need something to deal with his sex drive, because he can't demand it from her while he's climbing that mountain. Demanding it or even overly expecting it totally sabotage's his efforts to allow her to accept that he is commited to esteeming her regardless of her actions. (wait for the flower to bloom). As the saying goes. "Blessed is the woman who knows she does not have to earn her love." The doll allows him to have that alternative for super sex drive days, or to tied him over while waiting for the flower to bloom, because just as it seems crazy for the woman to try to buy into a guy who has been neglectful for such an extended amount of time, it's seems just as crazy for the guy to keep trying when it feels like he's spitting in the wind.
Ok, this was too much. My soap box has collapsed. Sophistication or silliness. You decide.
![#monalisa :painting:](./images/smilies/new_monalisa.gif)
Vanity of Vanities. All is Vanity.