I'm a recreational hypnotist who had a look at some videos I found as a result of reading MWAH's letter; they are pretty useless and unlikely to do him any harm or good. But, Dan, I wanted to suggest that your advice should have extended to telling MWAH to avoid real-life hypnosis as well. I would screen this guy out pretty quickly -- among other things, for being under psychiatric treatment -- but others may not and there is the real capacity for harm here. MWAH should also avoid audio files made by strangers, but then that advice would go for pretty much everybody. Most recreational hypnotists have a very strong set of ethical boundaries, because the tools are so strong, but there are always bad apples in every barrel.

@82: The big thing that all those other "normal" kinks have in common is that they, unlike cuckolding, are solely between him and her. Being "open" to them or finding them "normal" does not necessarily translate that those are HER kinks or that she is hot for them and missing out, merely that she does not find them to be frightening or disgusting.

Your point that she should own her own sexuality is valid -- and yes, she should put some serious thought into what sort of sexual quid-pro-quo would make her happier -- but your presupposition that those kinks are "normal to her because they are "hers," not so much.

@99/102: It's very common in a marriage to divide up chores, including bill paying and checking the monthly statements from whatever accounts. (I do the bills, which requires week-to-week organization, and my husband does the taxes, which requires patience with long forms. We tried swapping back and forth, and quickly decided specializing made everyone happier.) Yes, with hindsight she should have been monitoring them, but that's hindsight. If you don't trust your mate not to rob you blind you REALLY shouldn't be married to them. Checks and balances and constant vigilance while you stay bound to someone you can't trust is not the right answer.

I could probably empty our joint savings account, and my husband our kids' college accounts, and it would take a while for the other to notice. Because we're busy and busy people split up responsibilities.

Do I see a strong element of compassion and empathy in your advice this week Dan? Lovely to see.

I'm amazed by the people who think EFFED hasn't told her husband his thing is not her thing. I mean I wouldn't mention it either, as it's so bleeding obvious. He's told her the fantasy, she said no, so he starts dirty talking about it in bed? And doesn't notice she's shut down sexually? Give me a break.

And while we're here I hate that NYT article. Talk about STILL being from a fucking hetero male POV. The amount of women in good relationships where they are having hot satisfying sex who want sex with other men (as in actually want it, not just think about it, not just fantasize about it, not who say it sounds interesting, but who actively are out trying to get yet MORE dick) is pretty insignificant. No not because we're oppressed by society. Because we're getting fucked properly.

Hetero women often will lie about their sexual satisfactin. "Sex isn't the most important thing." Especially when a guy is "good on paper" and would "make a good father/provider." Add in social conditioning where it's considered so terribly rude to admit a guy isn't satisfying you in bed, and where we're taught a guy who makes us crazy in the head because he's so crazy in the bed is definitely a bad thing, and instead we should strive for something nice quiet and calm. Don't want to get too rowdy or anything. Gah. No wonder we settle for lame unsatisfying sex.

Then a bunch of men go study it and a few women and think hey "maybe women actually wanna fuck a lot of people!" Maybe. Or maybe they'd like to just get laid properly for once by a guy who isn't a complete asshole.

Could I have a more specific pointer to the NYT article, please? Or just the date so I can find it easily?

Thanks for clarifying the lines between GGG and allowing one partner to take over the sex life of a couple. I, like EFFED tried to be GGG about my partner's fetish for years. But, soon enough, his fetish was all we were having for sex, and he felt it was unfair if I asked for a few vanilla encounters.

Everyone should be GGG, but if only one side is, then DMFA.

@110 - http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/magazi…

"My husband ended the affair and wants desperately to save our marriage."

Sure he did--more likely, the bimbette took off as soon as the well went dry. Unless being flat-broke and breaking it off is just an amazing coincidence...
He's not to be trusted. Any man who would steal from his own children once will do it again. DTMFA.

She doesn't need to sue separately from her divorce. She just needs to request that the college fund be restored as part of the divorce settlement.

I'm under the impression that for a great many cuckold fetishists, a big part of the fantasy involves lack or loss of desire on the part of the wife for the poor inadequate little nothing they fantasize themselves to be. It seems to me that Letter Writer's response to the dirty talk if anything, reinforces the behavior, because she is displaying exactly that -- a loss or lack of desire for her poor cuckolded (if only in his imagination) husband.

(For that matter, it sounds like #83 is in the same position: her cuckold fetishist husband has managed to maneuver the fantasy to its logical conclusion, where wife no longer has any desire whatsoever for husband, but wants to keep sleeping with other guys against the heartfelt but ineffectual wishes of Poor Widdle Him.)

What LW needs to do is the equivalent of stepping out of character, striking the set, bringing up the work lights, and sending the audience home. Every single time he brings it up, it needs to be, "Playtime's over, asshole. I told you that was out of bounds. I told you the only person I want to be with is you, and you are ruining even that for me, you stupid shithead."

For all of you saying that she should destroy / sue / make her CPOS husband pay: You got kids?

Because - when there are children involved, warfare spatters them with blood. Furthermore, no matter what kind of lying, thieving, skeezy CPOS he is, the courts view these things as he said / she said when it comes to such things as custody. And the "she said" is often viewed as the hysterical rantings of an emotionally disturbed jilted female who might be too unstable to raise said children.

Unless this lady has deep deep pockets, and is willing to destroy the relationship between children and father (and pay for the therapy that will follow....) - vindictiveness is a dangerous strategy for all concerned.

(I was married to a thieving cheating POS.)

What if EFFED's husband wanted a blowjob and it was something she just didn't want to do, something she found so disgusting that even talking about it made her want to shut down?

What if EFFED's husband wanted to dress up in stockings and ladies' underwear, and she was totally against that?

What if EFFED's husband had a thing for light bondage or being peed on or fantasy talk about giant squid and refrigerator repair?

I've been reading the replies above, really considering what you have to say and not discarding it out of hand. (I'm such a fan of Mr. Ven that I take disagreeing with him particularly hard.) So take this question not as an argument but a genuine desire to know.

What's the difference? Why do some kinks or desires get met with an answer of take turns in which you do what he wants sometimes in exchange for his doing what you want sometimes, while others get met with get out of there or end the discussion with just say no?

@ Tim Horton

Thanks for sharing.

I have always been baffled by this phenom. I was heartened by this part:

They’d all taken reassurance in one another’s indifference and shared their amazement about another neighbor: “She was married as long as I was,” Linneah remembered, “and she had four kids and she was P.T.A. president, and she was ready to go with her husband 24/7, and we were all like, Wha?”

I of course, felt the opposite. Amazement at the women of the article, and took reassurance in that neighbour. "I'm not alone"

Ugh. EFFED's husband is living my own nightmare of having a partner totally turn off/shutdown. It's hard for me to imagine being so wrapped up in your own fantasy and mind that you don't notice you're partner has totally checked out. That seems a few steps removed from inconsiderate.

I hope she follows up on Dan's advice & can tell him her needs and hang in there for herself and I hope he wakes up about how he's behaving.

@117, I don't think it's the cuckolding kink that is the issue, but rather the escalation when she's not into it and isn't getting any sex of a kind she enjoys.

Same thing could happen with any other kink, where it changes from being something they enjoy together (even if one enjoys it a lot, and the other gets off on seeing that enjoyment) to something that takes over their sex life to the point where one partner no longer looks forward to sex at all.

myd@118, I didn't know you had four kids. Impressive.

@Erica

I originally posted it with a "P.S." section, preempting what I assumed would be lots of comments about how at my age, I couldn't possibly know anything about the subject matter.

Then I thought, hey girl, you don't know people, you can't go around assuming what people are going to say. Oh well.

Anyway here goes: I didn't mean I was literally her but more that I feel a kindred spirit with women who are sexually incongruous with their hyposexual peers. I have met tonnes of women my age who have the indifference/aversion to sex normally associated with middle aged women, whether SSRI-induced or otherwise, whether single or in LTRs. Maybe it's a generational thing.

I don't have kids, but I have had the kind of lifestyle that lots of people (my age or older) cite as an excuse for not being interested in sex. While not literally children, I think that's what they were getting at. Did you read the article?

"Every woman raised a mix of possible reasons. There were the demands of graduate school, the demands of children, the demands of work, medical issues, men who weren’t always as kind or nearly as engaged as they could be. But at bottom there seemed to be one common cause: they had all grown tired of sex with their long-term partners."

And let's not make the same mistake I made last time, so I'll preempt: yes I understand that having kids is a unique libido killer, both in the hormonal effects of pregnancy, etc etc etc, and in experience of role change, differing ways of seeing your body, and the unique demands of parenthood. As I said above: I didn't mean it literally. But I have reason to believe that the teenage girl who gets slut-shamed in highschool, the 20-something hypersexual woman who feels alienated by her more "normal" female peers... reaps the benefits in her 40's, 50's and beyond by being just that kind of woman.

@122 - people your age who are hyposexual compared to the hyposexual women in the NYT article are apples/oranges. The article is focused on a specific subset of women: those in long-term (read 15+ years of marriage/co-habitation) who have no spontaneous sex drive.

What makes the article fascinating is the fact that these women were NOT hyposexual in their youth, in their dating years, honeymoon years, etc. They still love their husbands, find them attractive. Husbands are trying to spice things up and the women still want to want to have sexual desire, but it isn't there. It's really freakin common.

The article explores causes (I lean towards the theory of men's sexual drive is spontaneous and women's is responsive) but the bottom line is (perhaps threating to some men), that these women may really have a buried sex drive that has been extinguished by long term monogamy - and therefore dispenses with the myth held by some that women are naturally monogamous.

With respect, by definition you can't really relate to the article if you haven't been in a 10+ year monogamous relationship.

I'm not all that up on how the cuckold fetish works but could't she just as him to pretend to be the "other man" and give her all the attention that her husband won't/can't?

@124: Doesn't work that way, I don't think. He has to picture someone else ravaging her, it'd still require too much of her involvement/storytelling, something she can't find the distance to spin a yarn about.

It's not like pretending to "cheat" on your wife by putting her in a wig and picking her up in a dive :p

I read your column all the time first time ever felt compelled to respond, but the last letter is just too heartbreaking not to say something I agree she was a selfish greedy pos, but he has his nerve now wanting things to go back to normal I am guessing she probably broke up with his ass and he is hurt so now he wants "to work it out" I would tell him to kiss down in the crack of my ass and get the best lawyer in town

@Tim Horton

I'm really tired so I'll only say this for now:

the idea that the take-home message from the article was that people/women are "naturally" polygamous, is just one of the many facets of how atrocious the science writing in that article was.

I think Heartbroken's husband's so-called "girlfriend" was probably some stripper who took him for all his money, and dumped him when the money ran out. He viewed the relationship as romantic, but she was probably charging him, either formally or informally, for the time he spent with her. She could also just be a gold-digger or user, but men don't usually max out credit card bills and go through their children's college funds for Susie Jones who works a straight job. His behavior is indicative of someone who was sexually obsessed and was willing to do anything to keep the sex coming.

Funny how he didn't show any remorse or come crawling back home until he was flat broke. I agree with #127--she dumped him, which is the only reason he came home.

A little off topic, but does anyone know where I can find a good spell caster?

@134

;-D

I was EFFED for a while, myself, and my ex (yeah, 80 days until my divorce is final) never gave a damn whether I got anything out of it at all. He suuuure loved talking about penises, though.

Finally, I realized he was a closeted gay man and I was his training wheels.

DTMA, and find help with an organization for straight spouses in mixed-orientation marriages.

I was EFFED for a while, myself, and my ex (yeah, 80 days until my divorce is final) never gave a damn whether I got anything out of it at all. He suuuure loved talking about penises, though.

Finally, I realized he was a closeted gay man and I was his training wheels.

DTMFA.

I can tell you how to find a spellcaster. Just send 500 USD to the Western Union Account of RAB, IBADAN, Oyo State Branch of First Bank Nigeria, Lagos State, Nigeria. Send your cash money today to avoid the insane crowde of ten thousands who would benefit from this ofer.

@132: Actually the children don't need a father and a mother. (Man did you come to the wrong blog for that.) They need all the caring adults possible in their lives, and to the extent their father is willing to be that and work with the mother, trying to restore both financial security and emotional stability to their lives, maybe he can have a role.

But this is a guy who stole from them. Literally. And from their mother. You don't get some sort of infinite "You donated some chromosomes, so no matter what you do everyone will bend over backwards and do cartwheels so you can feel dadlike and special. Rob them, smack them, abandon them? It doesn't matter, because you're the dad and people are supposed to make it easy for you."

Dirtclustit @23 & @68

You're reading into Dan's response something that simply is not there.

EFFED is the acronym of the sign-off that the letter-writer HERSELF chose. Dan was not choosing to subtly imply that the letter writer was "EFFED" or "fuct" by calling her that. He refers to every single letter writer by the abbreviated form of how they sign off.

There is nothing in Dan's letter that subtly suggests the letter writer needs to rethink whether she really, truly, in her heart-of-hearts, wants to give cuckolding a try. Dan told her plainly and absolutely: "Tell your husband in no uncertain terms that you don't want to hear about cuckolding anymore. Period." It's hard to misinterpret that or leave it open for other possibilities.

Your writing is still confused and incoherent, which prompted many to question whether you're all there. Either English is not your first language or you have hebephrenia. Whatever the issue is, I suspect your own communication issues are what are causing your gross misunderstanding of what Dan was saying.

Heartbroken - I truly feel for you. I speak from experience, and am going to echo the previous comments telling you that your husband's behavior sounds a lot like bipolar mania or sex addiction. The financial transgressions you describe seem to go against the very deep-seated (usually male) desire to be the ultimate provider for his children, and it usually takes a pathology to override that instinct.

This is not said to excuse, but to explain, and to help understand this situation because it is something that you will live with forever regardless of its origins, I'm sorry to say. (Even after the kids grow up, there's grand-kids...)

I ask you to be analytical about the situation.

In the past, has he had issues with attention, fluctuating energy or motivation, and random interests? Was he ever a 'thrill seeker'? Was he 'the life of the party' sometimes, and Eeyore at other times? Were there other changes that took place around the time or just before the affair began? New sleep habits, medications (esp antipressants or ADHD stimulants), or new stressors? Were there other behaviors that were strange or unpredictable? Any relationship problems with co-workers or other family?

If he wants his married life back and you're willing to try to forgive, make him agree to three things (in order!)
1. He must give you medical power of attorney; you must have POA to be able to know that he is following up on your other two conditions.
2. He must go for complete physical and psychological evals and then follow through with whatever treatment is indicated.
3. He must attend rehabilitative therapy consistently, whether individual or group, to understand the root of his transgression as well as make a plan to thwart it if he feels the impulse again.

Either way, get yourself an STD test (cheating is usually not an isolated thing, and it may have taken more than one woman to drain the accounts) and retain a lawyer. You may not end up suing, but having to protect yourself & kids from his ridiculous behavior as you split.

Good luck, and please seek the support of other people who have suffered as you do. (NAMI is a great resource for those who have suffered the effects of loved ones' mental illness.) It somehow makes the pain easier, to know that others have also felt it and that life goes on.

@109 You clearly need to get laid.

mydriasis @ 122.... i'm with you on this one. i've never really bought the whole 'hormones / children kill the sex-drive' thing. i'm more likely to slow down because i've been sick, or writing assignments instead of sleeping. i think it has more to do with lack of appropriate support, and exhaustion.
i guess i'm allowed to speak on this one since i do have kids, and my two main relationships are closing on 20 years fast...
i found - the first time - that the two weeks post-baby my midwife insisted i wait before sex, nearly killed me. and it was 5 days before i could stand long enough to shower without help, so it hadn't been an easy ride. by the end of the forth pregnancy, i think it was more like three weeks.
so, either people are trying to have babies in situations where there isn't enough support (like a nuclear family - the stupidest idea ever thought up) or... some people just don't have much of a sex drive.

@sappho

Thanks for sharing. :)

Hi HB. I was you.

Formerly Beloved Husband ran up 300K in his credit cards during the marriage, and walked off with 100K of my savings when I threw him out. I discovered this when I filed for divorce because of his infidelity. God what a horrible year. I felt like such a dummy. I only give you the background, because I felt like I was the stupidest person in the world, that no one else would ever have fallen for FBH's crap. So if it helps, whatever you believed or bought, you are not alone. I was dumber. :)

Divorce him. Cheaters may reform (ed. note: Personally? No. They don't. Fuck 'em.) but thieves never do. Change banks. Get his name off your assets. Get a good lawyer, even though the price will shock you. (divorce is expensive but freedom is priceless). File for child support. Get him out of your house.

I have the state collecting the 100K my FBH stole because I subpoenaed all of FBHs credit cards from the day we were married and broke down the spending into 1) family, 2) business and 3) infidelity. I made it into a pie chart and brought it to the pre-trial conference. It was persuasive and the court assigned him the debt. Do that.

Things get better. Count on a couple of horrible years, but please try to keep in mind that you WILL come out on the other side. I'm happy. My 10-years-younger beloved and stable partner is happy. My kids are happy. My FBH is in Arkansas. I'm just saying.

Possible alternate advice for EFFED...

Given how long it went on, presumably your husband's dirty talk is tolerable to you at least in small doses. So what you might do, if you can stomach it, is make him a carrot-and-stick bargain, something like this:

The stick is more or less what Dan suggested. If he's bugging you about his fantasies in such a way that it bothers you, call things off, don't just close your eyes and think of England.

The carrot is, if he can go... pick a time period, I'd make it at least a month, maybe 2 or 3--without so much as *mentioning* cuckolding to you, then you will, at the end of that period, once, play up a "scene" where you are "cheating on him" (pretend phone calls to your imaginary lover, unfavorably comparing him to same, whatever). Then, after that one night/weekend/whatever, the clock starts again. He has to drop the issue for another month (or whatever).

If he behaves himself, then he periodically gets a wife who is at least pseudo-enthusiastically playing the part of the cheating wife. And you may find it a lot more tolerable if it's only happening on your schedule, instead of every time you're going at it.

If he *doesn't* behave himself, then he doesn't get to have any fun, either.

Suppose that marriage involves two people and that each are responsible for their sex-life, that EFFED had tried to please the man she loved without causing confrontation but she had limitations (we all have limitations). Mr. Savage was reminding her that her sexual desires were just as important as his and she needed to stand up for them. 

Suppose EFFED took this advice and expressed "in no uncertain terms" the strain this was causing their marriage ... And suppose Mr. Savage's advice worked, that EFFED "wake up" and reclaim HER sex life as well. EFFED's husband then has a choice to make. Depending on the man he is will determine the choice.

@Mr. Horton ... You assume too much ... Consider the possibility that there was more in the original letter and that EFFED had tried to be subtle in her attempts to address the situation without making her husband feel ridiculed for having fantasies. Suppose she was trying to be gentle but was unsure how to address it, was unheard when she did try to address it, and the only recourse she found was to shut down. Consider that Mr. Savage, posted ONLY the heart of the matter included in the letter for the benefit of other readers. 

Mr. Savage is right, and because of his wise advice there just might be one less divorce, one less broken family, and one more couple back to pleasing EACH OTHER every night, which is the way it should be. 

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