I've been with my husband for about fifteen years, married for seven years. He recently announced that he wants to separate so he can think about whether he's able to stay in our marriage or if he needs to explore his fetishes without being tied down to me.

I have known about his fetishes since early in our relationship. The bone of contention is that I would only do it sometimes but I would not indulge his many sexual fantasies all of the time, as I'm not really into them, and this caused him to suppress his desires. Since the birth of our third child he hasn't been happy and we sought counseling with a counsellor who specializes in fetishes. We did this because my husband got depressed and wanted to end his life and—yes—that got my attention. Now I want to fulfill his fantasies and fetishes. I would be his "mommy," as he has a diaper fetish, and I would follow the long list of role-play activities he likes (all communicated in an email), which include changing his diaper, humiliating him, spanking him with different instruments, feeding him, etc.

He also wanted us to go to munches and to fetish parties so he could meet other people into his fetishes. I was okay with munches. I didn't want him to see a dominatrix or have his own play partner so I agreed for him to go to fetish parties. We have gone to five in two months; at these parties he has been spanked by different woman who he meets there. He is now conversing with a Dominant woman via email who he had been spanked by at one of the parties. They now have an email relationship, which I'm not entirely comfortable with, as he is doing this in secret through an email account I don't have access to. He says he wants a "mommy" and doesn't want me to do it anymore. At first he wanted to pay this woman and do it at her home (she has a nursery), but now he's met a couple of different women who enjoy being mommies and he wants to explore his baby fetish with these women

His fetishes are very sensual, intimate, and sexual. When I do it with him it involves a lot of sexual acts and he is very submissive. He wants to be diapered and babied and fed and humiliated and breastfed. He wants to do all these things with these other women—including being breastfed. Also, he wants to give oral sex to them as well. I am not okay with this and this is where we are at odds. He now says he will divorce me if I don't agree to this.

I love him and I admit I wasn't supportive of his fetish needs for a long time. He is very angry about this and feels because I forced him to suppress his needs for so long that I should let him do this with other women. But this is against everything I want. It feels like he would be having an affair if he went to some other woman's house and role-played his fantasies, which include oral sex, but he's saying it should be fine as he's not having "actual sex," i.e. like penetration, and because he doesn't love these women. I keep saying that I will meet baby fetish needs but he says I'm only doing it because I love him and that I don't really want to do it. He also says he doesn't want to do it with me because there's a nine-month-old baby in the house and he doesn't want to do it with me until our new baby is out of diapers.

I am stuck and don't know what to do. I love him and don't want a divorce but he wants me to be okay with him doing his baby fetish with other women and this this behavior does not belong in a monogamous marriage. Help!

Mulling Over My Mate's Yearnings

So... two young children, an infant in diapers, and an angry husband who wants to be diapered, breastfed, dominated, humiliated, and spanked. Even if he was content to have you do the diapering, breastfeeding, dominating, etc., MOMMY, even if you enjoyed doing all of that for him, do you really have the time and the energy?

If I were you, MOMMY, I would be thrilled—ecstatic—to be divorced by this man. Or I would be only too happy to see him take his needs and his nappies elsewhere. Rather than feeling threatened by all these other women apparently anxious to role-play mommy/baby scenes with my husband, I'd be sending them chocolates, flowers, thank-you notes, and cases of wet wipes.

But I'm not you, you're not me, and your husband ain't my husband. (Thank you, Jesus.) So what to do...

Your husband sounds like a selfish asshole, MOMMY—a selfish asshole with lousy timing. He could've prioritized his fetishes/fantasies and made these demands before you two married and/or after your kids were older and you two had more time on your hands for elaborate role-play scenarios. But he didn't do that. Maybe he was struggling with shame, maybe he wanted to trap you at home with kids before making these demands, maybe your sex-/kink-negativity shut him down and his needs and resentments finally boiled over. But whatever happened, however this went down, what happened next doesn't leave me feeling particularly sympathetic to your husband's plight: he somehow managed to convince you—with the help of a counselor—that it's your fault he feels compelled to get his baby on with other women.

That equal parts bullshit and gaslighting. I think your husband wants to explore his kinks with people who share them—and that, by itself, is not unreasonable. It can be dispiriting/deboning to be indulged by someone who isn't into your kinks, no matter how patient and/or desperate to please they are. But instead of honestly owning up to that—"I know you're willing, honey, but it doesn't work for me when we do it because you're not into it"—he put the zap on you head. He's convinced you that you're entirely to blame for his wanting to get diapered elsewhere.

I could be wrong, of course, and I only have your version of events to go on. And there's really only one thing we know for sure, MOMMY: Your husband has issued an ultimatum. You either give him permission to get diapered/breastfed/oral'd elsewhere or he's going to divorce you. Your loving and (taking your word for it here) lovable husband presented you with two bad options and you have to choose between them. Your marriage, if it continues, will not be monogamous.

Again, MOMMY, if I were you, I wouldn't wait around for guy to divorce me. I would hire a really good lawyer and divorce him first.