My wife and I have been married for four months. We've never been truly sexually compatible. I don't mean to sound crude or macho, but she is rather petite and I am a girthy. Added to that, she really doesn't have much of a sex drive (once a week, and with great delicacy). I love her to death. She is sweet, beautiful, intelligent, and supportive. We have had lots of talks about our differences in bed and most of them have ended with her sayomg, "You should sleep with other people—I just don't want to know about it."

Until recently I resisted temptation hoping for some sort of other option.

Two weeks ago I slept with a mutual friend who I have always liked. She is attractive, kind, knows both of us, is not interested in a strings-attached relationship, and most importantly she knows how much my wife means to me. We slept together twice. The sex was raw, experimental, and fun. It was great being appreciated sexually again and to be able to have sex without feeling like I was hurting someone. Unfortunately, my wife asked me yesterday if anything was going on. I told her the truth. She is now thinking of leaving me.

She says she is not mad at me, and that she understands, but she cannot deal with it. The anxiety is killing me. I feel like I am losing the love of my life. I feel lost. I would have never endangered our relationship had I known this would be the result. I know there is no real advise to give here except for a phat "you're going to have to just deal with it." But thank you for listening anyways.

Her Heatbroken Husband

My response after the jump...

Always happy to listen, HHH, and while I don't want to salt your wounds—and I doubt very much you want your wounds salted—I gotta say...

I'm gonna give your wife the benefit of the doubt and run with assumption that she didn't set out to entrap you—that is, she didn't intentionally engineer a way out of this marriage that allows her to play the victim. I assume that her offer ("sleep with other people... I just don't want to know") was genuine and that her hurt when you actually went ahead and slept with someone else was unanticipated.

Now for the salt: It's possible that your wife might've been less hurt if you hadn't 1. started fucking other people sixteen weeks into your marriage and 2. if you hadn't fucked a mutual fucking friend. We'll never know if your wife would've reacted differently if a little more time had elapsed between the taking of vows and the fucking of others (two more months? two more years?) and if there had been a little more distance between your wife and the other person you fucked (a few more degrees of separation?). Maybe your wife didn't mind letting go of sexual monogamy but still wanted to be socially monogamous, i.e. perceived to be monogamous, and your choice of fuckmate shattered that. You clearly needed to draw your wife out about this at greater length before you acted/fucked.

It's also possible that you didn't do anything wrong. People have been known to give their spouses permission to do something they hoped they wouldn't—dumb, dumb, dumb—and then are crushed when their spouses take them at their word.

Two last shakes: sexual incompatibility is a big deal and, over time, it destroys marriages. If you know that you're sexually incompatible, HHH, it might be a good idea to end this marriage now while you still have some affection for each other. (If you knew you were sexually incompatible before you married, it might've been a good idea not to marry.) Stay and sexual frustration and resentment will curdle you both and ruin you for new partners that you'll be seeking out in five or ten years time. And part of me wonders if you didn't fuck this other person—someone your wife knows—because on some subconscious level you knew it would blow up a marriage that was destined to fail.

I'm sorry you're hurting, dude, I hope I didn't make it too much worse.