'Pretend'

"...and she will pretend to enjoy it to please me."

Yeah, well, this is an issue for all couples regardless of age.

At what point does "compromise:" the kind which allows any two different people to share a relationship, turn into deception of self, or of the beloved?

But you know, on some level you actually know when someone else is talking themself into claiming that they want what you want.

CLers are on the alert for this. "Consenting adults" are frequently blind when their partner is going along with them to an unhealthy degree, because the notion of "consenting adults" has a built in presumption that all adults are equals who are looking after themselves and no adult is ever the more vulnerable.

Eventually I came to understand that Luz needed more from me than she reassured me she did. And she was 8 years my senior. The only thing that stopped me from breaking it off earlier was my presumption that she was looking out for her own needs. I never would have doubted her unhealthy dependence had she not been an adult in an "adult relationship."

Dante