I am a straight man. From high school through college and after, I loved me some women. Then I met my present girl 10 years ago. I fell head over heels for her. I still love her. But, little by little, she has become boring to me. Our sex life has cooled. Days run together with mundane activities like watching TV, going to the store, and hanging out with our kids.
We own a house, we’re financially stable, we look very traditional. But I am far from conservative. I love nightlife, crazy friends, and good drink. She was aware of this when we met because we ran in the same circles. My boredom is compounded by a craving for sex with other women. It doesn’t matter who—the girl at the coffee shop, the checker at Whole Foods, every chick at the gym—I’m up to my eyeballs in covet.
I want out. I want to be a father to my kids and take care of my wife financially. But I want out. I am a few years from 40. What is the best course of action?
Too Young To Flail
One day, I’m gonna throw my hands in the air and declare that, from that blessed day forward, I shall no longer tinker with the machinery of monogamy. That day hasn’t arrived, as I still have mortgage payments to make and opposite marriages to save—so here’s a little tinkle for you:
You say you want out, TYTF, but are you sure about that? In her book I Don’t: A Contrarian History of Marriage, Susan Squire asks: “Why does society consider it more moral for you to break up a marriage, go through a divorce, disrupt your children’s lives maybe forever, just to be able to fuck someone with whom the fucking is going to get just as boring as it was with the first person before long?” (Emphasis added.)
Writing about Representative Christopher “Craigslist Congressman” Lee last week on Balloon Juice—a blog I read daily—BJ contributor “Mastermix” said: “If we want to do something about the high divorce rate, we might want to get real [about] the role of a discreet, mutually-agreed-upon affair as a safety valve.”
In other words, TYTF, destroy the only home your kids have known and put yourself and the wife through the hell of divorce, and here’s what happens next: You dog around for a few years and before long you shack up with a new woman—a woman who might want or already has a kid or two of her own—and a few years after that, you’re trapped in another monogamous relationship that bores you, and a few years after that, you’re writing to ask if you should put your second wife and your new kids through the pain of a divorce, all so you can make an embarrassing pass at a barista who has zero interest in fucking you.
Instead of putting your current family—and your hypothetical second family and that poor barista—through that, TYTF, why not risk leveling with the wife you’ve got now? Your marriage is already on the ropes, TYTF, so you don’t have a lot to lose. Ask to have a “safety valve” installed on your marriage in the form of permission to have a discreet, mutually-agreed-upon affair, should the right opportunity/barista present itself/herself. It may not be a pleasant thing for your wife to hear, but “I’m leaving you to go fuck a barista to be named later” won’t be music to her ears, either.
She may surprise you, TYTF. It’s entirely possible—I hope you’re sitting down for this—that you bore her just as much as she bores you. If she’s itching for a few adventures of her own, social and sexual, then spend whatever money you were planning to spend on lawyers and counseling for your kids on flying grandparents in to look after the kids while you two head out for a weekend away.
But if all she wants is to stay at home in front of the TV with the kids, tell her that to preserve your sanity and, paradoxically, your marriage, you’re going to go out and have some adventures on your own.
If she leaves you over it, TYTF, then you got what you wanted: out.
I’m a 31-year-old lesbian. My girlfriend is in her 30s, but save for a few one-night stands, she has never been with a woman before. I’ve never had better sex than the sex I’m having with her. When I try to talk to her about this, she gets anxious and makes self-deprecatory comments. I want to be with her for the long haul—our dreams fit together—I just need to figure out how to communicate with her about how great our sex is. Got any advice?
Communication
Breakdown
Yeah, CB, I’ve got some advice for you: Shut the fuck up.
I had this awesome new boyfriend once, and the sex was so freaking great that I felt compelled to communicate with him about how great it was. “This is so great,” I would tell him. “Let’s try to figure out where all this greatness is coming from!” But he didn’t enjoy talking about sex—particularly while we were having sex—and he got so annoyed with my attempts to figure out where all this greatness was coming from that he eventually asked/advised/ordered me to shut the fuck up.
Keep fucking the girlfriend’s fucking brains right fucking out, CB, but shut the fuck up. Odds are that she’ll learn to relax and open up about sex, like my boyfriend did. But in the meantime, CB, try to resist the urge to lesbian this thing into the ground by communicating it to death.
For several months now, I’ve had a growing attraction to one of my good male friends. I am an open bisexual male, and my friend is “straight.” We’ve had relations—me blowing him, him jerking me—but he’s adamant that he is not attracted to males at all. He nevertheless sleeps with me in my bed when he spends the night.
The plot thickens: A couple days ago, my “straight” crush ordered an eight-inch dildo, molded from a real dick, complete with balls! He got it to use on himself! He says because there’s not going to be another male present when he uses it, and thus no romance, the act will be “straight.” I define being sexual as enjoying not only the sexual interactions possible between preferred genders, but also the emotional satisfaction, or romance. Does he have a point?
Absolutely Hate Acronyms
Wasn’t there “another male present” when you were giving him blowjobs, AHA, and he was jerking you?
Maybe if your “straight” friend wasn’t accepting blowjobs from another man and swore on a stack of vintage Playboys that he would be fantasizing about a lady-parts-having woman-person pegging him when he jams that dildo up his ass, then maybe—maybe—he could be believed when he claims to be a straight dude into anal penetration. But a guy who fails to mention a burning desire for pussy to shore up his straight cred—particularly in conversation with a dude who blows him—and instead falls back on a lame “no homo” rationalization (“Hey, it’s not like the dildo brought me flowers or anything gay like that!”) is a lot of things, but straight ain’t one of ’em.
If your straight friend manages to fuck some sense into himself on that dildo, AHA, you might want to take a turn on it yourself.
Find the Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast) every Tuesday at thestranger.com/savage.
@104, interesting perspective. But I think many if not most women prefer some emotional connection with their sex. Even if we’re prepared to open our marriages, we’re not prepared to live with someone who doesn’t find us sexually attractive.
That was the biggest issue for me: if I had concluded that our sex life was over, if I thought that he loved me but didn’t lust for me, I don’t think I could have stayed with my husband during our upheaval this year. Funny to think of gay guys hoping to get marriage without all those messy sexual relations…
@84 Thank you SO much. Being Bi doesn’t automatically mean a free ticket for my partner to sleep with whoever they want. Bi, just like straight or gay, can still be monogamous.
People need to stop with their idiotic assumptions!!!
Flailing is doomed. He’s got himself convinced that the grass is greener, and a world of poon awaits if he can just dump the boring loser he somehow ended up with. Five or ten years down the line, he’ll realize his mistake, but by then she’ll be remarried and he’ll be one of those pathetic 50-year-olds hanging out at the bars, spending his “wild evenings” making embarrassing passes at bartenders young enough to be his daughters, who will put up with his ass only so long as the lavish tips hold out. Hey Flailing, have fun! Your wife deserves better anyway.
It’s not the wife, it’s the age. You just don’t like being 40.
You want a good role model for how you can be middle-aged, married to the same woman for twenty-five years, and still have a good time? Look at my dad.
He just never let himself get boring. He’s ambitious about his career and is constantly aiming higher at an age when most people coast. He’s ambitious about fitness, and beats college kids twice his height at basketball. He puts effort into how he dresses — he looks DAPPER, all the time. He can charm a waitress into giving him extra good service. He isn’t going out to wild parties all the time, but he does go out, and he does like fine liquor. He’s always been faithful to my mom and loving to his kids, but he HAS A LIFE OF HIS OWN, and it’s a pretty damn good life.
When you think about it, it can be better to be a mature man than to be a partying twenty-year-old. You have more authority; you can shape the world more effectively. Think about Jack Donaghy on 30 Rock — is he having a lousy time, just because he’s middle-aged? No, he’s on top of the world. It’s a matter of confidence and ambition. You’re not over the hill, the good part is just starting.
Also:
if you’re not “conservative” by heart, then stop fucking faking it. I’ve never been married, but I’ve pretended to be staid and “normal” and it’s totally exhausting. You don’t have to be Ward Cleaver. Stop telling yourself “I can’t do anything I wanna do!!!!” You’re a grown man, your wife is not your mother, and if you really want something, you can get it.
Make a list of things you wanna do. Then see — are any of them feasible? Are you telling yourself you “can’t” do something that you could actually do and let off some steam?
If your heart’s desire is to go to Burning Man or something, maybe you can do that. If you want to get the kids out of the house and have a sexy weekend, you can do that. People who think they’re expected to play a certain role often deny themselves pleasures because they think they’re not “allowed” to be themselves.
@104 (JackDitch), even though I understand your viewpoint (and you put it in a very thought-provoking way — thank you for that), I think I’m more like @106 (EricaP) above.
I actually think our society already allows quite a number of sexless high-commitment relationships, in some cases legally recognized (parent-child), in others not (friendship). The people in these relationships may live together quite happily.
Still, sex is a powerful reason to be interested in human beings. If we all became sexless, the number of isolated mysanthropes would increase tenfold, I think. In fact, one often sees that sexless relationships, even when those involved are supposed not to lust after each other (siblings, parent-child), often still end up including precisely this element, despite all socio-cultural horror this causes (hence the existence of incest; and the need for an incest taboo).
Sex is powerful. And when you live together with someone, especially someone whose gender is your basic sexual target, it’s hard not to consider the possibility. Even if you start out by clearly, cognitivelyl separating away “sex partners” from “life partners”.
And the desire to be with one’s sex partners, which so often leads to feelings other than simple sex, makes me again agree with EricaP: it’s difficult to feel really interested in someone as a life partner without sexual interest being involved. Often enough it won’t seem worth the trouble. I don’t say it’s impossible; by all means, if you can do it, if you can stay truly committed for someone throughout life, with your heart in the relationship, while having no sex (or looking for sex elsewhere), by all means do it.
But I don’t think this will ever be a majority strategy. No; I think people for whom sexless life commitment is the best commitment will remain a minority. Most of us will have to go on dealing with sex, romance, and the attending drama in one way or another. (Note that I’m not necessarily saying monogamy; commitments of various kinds are possible.)
First: TYTF is a douche. There’s suffocated and there’s self-centred and he is the latter.
Second re @11: I can’t imagine why a woman wouldn’t want to fuck a man who thinks and speaks of her as a cum spittoon. Trust me, once a month is 12 ore per year than you deserve, scumbag.
Lastly, GymGoth @74 asked this question:
I think I can field that one. Because, all other things aside, finding a sex-positive therapist is hard; finding a therapist who will even admit that sex is often vital is hard. Most therapists will try to fix the partner who is being refused rather than the refuser, no matter what the circumstances. It is also distressingly common for the therapist to gravitate towards the woman’s point of view simply because the therapeutic process is so in line with how women in our culture are are raised and communicate; therapists, like most people, feel more comfortable with and sympathetic towards people who think and talk like they do, and in our society that’s women.
As tired as Dan is of people saying divorce is OK, but non-monogamy is not, I’m tired of people saying sex has to get boring in a marriage, so non-monogamy should be OK.
Yeah, non-monogamy is better than divorce, but it’s a distant second best option to actually making the marriage work. Only 1 time out of 100 is non-monogamy going to be what the wife is looking for, too.
TYTF sounds like a garden-variety het male: selfish. He thinks the problem is his wife. “…she has become boring to me.” No, YOU have gotten BORED with her. Looked at in that way, the choice isn’t: boredom or excitement, divorce or open marriage. It’s: give up or work on the real problem.
Figure out what it is about you that’s making you dissatisfied with your marriange, then show up for your marriage, remember why you chose this woman to spend your life with, remember all the good things about having a family with her (not just the sacrifices that entails), pour your energy into loving your wife and understanding what she needs, put your creative energy into your sex life with her instead of daydreaming about how much you want to boink the barista. And if you need a relief valve, it’s called using your hand (and porn, discreetly).
It makes for less exciting advice in a column, but it’s what that prick asshole needs to do. He’s just trotting down the same cliched, pathetic path as countless dissatisfied middle aged men before him. Individual selfishness probably shouldn’t be our first priority when re-writing the unspoken rules of society, IMHO.
@84 and @107
Really? Being bi doesn’t automatically mean poly? Wow! My whole life perspective just changed. I had absolutely no idea until you two self righteous douche rockets came in on your high horse to make your own incorrect assumptions about what I do or don’t know.
Of course being bi doesn’t equal poly. In my case it is and does.
@ 113 – “remember why you chose this woman to spend your life with”
The problem is that people too often get married because they’ve been told all their life that they’re supposed to, that this is what they should aspire to.
At a certain age, you start believing that you’re too old to keep sowing your wild oats, and societal pressure to get married and form a family starts to become unbearable (or merely too annoying). Instead of asking yourself if you really do want to conform to that model, you choose a decent person and get married. Then you hit middle age and realize this is not what you really wanted, that you didn’t actually want kids, whatever.
Since you think you did everything right, as you were told to, you don’t think you’re to blame and you don’t try to have that very important talk with yourself about where YOU fucked up and what YOU can do to fix it. Instead, you blame everyone else.
Not trying to defend TYTF, just saying that if people were more honest with themselves before making a lifelong commitment, this sort of situation might occur less often.
@104
There’s a lot to be said for your suggestion because I, too, believe it would provide a more stable and nurturing environment for groups of people. In some ways, we already have had it in the past – in the form of extended families, especially in rural areas – but have lost it in a rush to acquire greater privacy and autonomy by moving to live in big cities. I emvision large pods, with bedrooms surrounding a shared communal space (Hee! I just wrote a story using such a structure) where you’d have a number of diverse people living there (straight/bi/gay, partnered or not, with children or not, unrelated by birth), each of them knowing that they belonged. Oops! Have I just described a commune?
Each group could be convened based on shared principles … and could approach how to handle differing philosophies of life. I could see some groups deciding that members within would be open to sex with each other as FWB if they weren’t already in a sexual relationship, but only after having committed to not be jealous or vindictive should such arrangements not work out. People can decide in advance that they will not react negatively. It takes discipline, but is not impossible.
However, modern Western society is built upon all sorts of binary designations with the most obvious being Male/Female and Single/Partnered. And let’s not forget the really important one: Have/Have not.
Even though it’s the 21st century, kids are still being raised (for the most part) with the expectation that, when they grow up, they’ll get married and have children and a place of their own. This is a standard definition of success. Because of the binary restrictions, there is no wiggle room for any other definition. If you’re a girl, you’ll fall in love with a boy and vice-versa. Besides, there’s that old stereotype that used to govern most relationships: Men gave love to get sex, whereas Women gave sex in order to get love. Yeah … so fucked up to equate a good relationship with an equation. And I guess that’s why society still thinks that sex MUST be a component of a relationship because, otherwise, won’t the poor man be frustrated? /sarcasm!
I believe that such a living unit would be a far better place for people who are single (whether by choice or happenstance) to live because, even if there isn’t a sexual relationship, there are many relationships formed. And a place to come home to at the end of the day, knowing that there’ll be more than just four blank walls and a yowling, hungry cat waiting.
Unfortunately, before such a thing could happen, there would need to be a legal framework in place: perhaps seed money to gain admittance to the group, regular financial contributions towards upkeep to the best of one’s ability, and physical and emotional investment in the success of the group. If people wanted to leave, there would be measures in place so that the group would be protected against unnecessary disruption. It’s already difficult enough to handle breakups between two people (though those are the adversarial ones). It would require a lot more dedication and persistence to figure out how to ensure that people are looked after, whether they stay in the group or leave it. And, yeah … Have/Have not would require a fundamental upheaval in a mostly Capitalist mindset that rewards the so-called virtues of 1) getting; 2) keeping; 3) wanting more. Given the current financial/political climate (especially in the U.S.), I may as well consign this one to the category of Fanciful Notions.
#92 emmalou proclaims “And for god’s sake, shave off that ridiculous goatee/mustache/soul patch.” Way to try enforce rigid social roles on a guy who’s basically pathetic because he’s forced himself into a rigid social role of boring married man instead savoring the enjoyment and experimental possibilities that only a long term relationship can offer. You demand that he heads home to play with sex toys and oral sex, but you seem to think that only the young should play with their hair, play with their dress and play their style.
@115 – It’s still chickenshit to second-guess the choice to get married once it’s made. If you make that choice (and I’m not saying anyone has to – stay single all your life if you like the thrill of the hunt), then have the courage to own up to it.
I’m with you, though, that people should be honest with themselves before they get married and know the reasons they’re doing it.
@103
Marriage, n: the state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two.
Ambrose Bierce
Thanks to all who replied to 11! I just knew using the spittoon line would get the juices flowing. Let me credit The Hite Report on Female Sexuality for a line I saved away for a rainy day.
As for what I know about marriage: I am a Professor of Sociology so I do know just enough to be dangerous! More importantly I read Dan’s column AND Sex at Dawn so I know as much as there is to know: Marriage was an institution created to insure men of their paternity of children and thereby direct his drive towards their care and upkeep. With men in control it effectively turned into an institution of sexual slavery for women. OK, so are we all on board?
So lets knock half of you off board then shall we? With the thoroughly liberated women firmly in charge of the culture if not the actual mechanisms of political power (not yet but soon) we have the spectacle (played out over and over again) of women agreeing to love, honor and cherish and then cutting off and/or severely limiting sexual access to the men AND then using this pernicious institution to insure fidelity- OR ELSE! This is NOT an isolated incident but rather the norm today.
Marriage is a honey trap and this guy- any guy (or girl) who is not getting the sex they want and need from the relationship should have carte blanche to fuck around. End the Repression now!
Finally I note the claim that the ratio of married men with unmet needs to married women with unmet needs is about 30 to 1 has not been disputed. If a couple are fucking like rabbits at the beginning of the relationship and it dries up after a few years and a few kids you can be almost certain it is the WOMAN who has CHANGED NOT the man. He wants and needs to fuck but being “liberated” she feels no need to satisfy him, knowing that courts favor the woman, that she can and will use the children- just like she uses access to her body- as a weapon of control, and that society will condemn him if he tries to escape the trap….
Professor, I agree with you completely, find nothing inherently misogynistic about your words (crass language meant to incite aside) and agree the prevalence of women who enjoy sex on this forum may be proportionally higher than the population at large. An anecdote which is (to me) rather alarming evidence of this: a female coworker of mine made the comment in a group discussion somehow regarding gay men marrying straight women as beards, “It seems like this would be the perfect arrangement, you get to be married, have a companion, but you never have to have sex!” I was appalled! We are the same age (mid 20’s), how could this lady have forsaken sexual activity at such a young age? Will her opinion change as she gets nearer her sexual peak in her 30’s? Doubtful. I feel sorry for the men who get trapped (and it is a trap) into sexless marriages with women like this.
#7: Best comment on lesbian discussions ever.
I think Dan was spot on with his response to TYTF. Yes, TYTF did not specifically state that he wanted to end up in a new committed relationship, BUT this is a much-needed dose of reality. It’s a psychological reality that men have a tendency to mentally inflate their self-image – believing they are more attractive than they are, believing they have better chances at hooking up with whoever they want than they actually do, etc – while women have a psychological tendency to do the opposite. Not that every male or female fits this pattern, but it is the dominant pattern.
Chances are, TYTF has a fantasy in his mind of being “free at last” and getting all the pussy he’s ever dreamed of, but once he gets out of his marriage, the reality will set in. One reality, as Dan pointed out, is that there’s a strong likelihood that the hot little barista is going to tell him to fuck himself rather than agree to fuck him. He will find that his best chances are with women closer to his age, and regardless of the age of the women he hooks up with, he’ll find that many of them are interested in having some form of LTR, not just random casual sex with him. And once that reality starts to set in, yes, he will probably find himself in another LTR. And regardless of the flavor of that relationship, it will become “boring” as TYTF seems to define it: patterns will establish, things will calm down and cool off a little, wild nights at the bar will diminish.
If TYTF is truly miserable in his marriage, he should end it. But the question on my mind is whether he is truly miserable, or he’s going through something of a mid-life crisis and imagining that without the marriage, his life would be wild and carefree again. He did not imply he’s discussed it with his wife, which says to me he’s running wild with these dreams in his head, rather than approaching his relationship in a constructive manner. It doesn’t sound like she’s callous and unyielding to his sexual needs, it sounds like his main complaint is the predictability of his current life. And if that’s the case, the problem is likely to be one that he cannot solve in the way he invisions. He should end the marriage if he hates his wife and she refuses to accommodate his needs after honest conversation (like others said, she might be damn bored too!), not because he doesn’t want to be “trapped” in a domestic relationship. If he didn’t want that, he should never have married and had kids in the first place.
@11/120 – Proof that having a degree and being intelligent are not the same thing.
Divorce is the answer! Talking with her is the answer! Therapy is the answer! Go cheat is the answer! Isn’t it great how the answers are so easy and obvious?
Here’s the thing. Sometimes you marry the person of your dreams. You work every day to keep life interesting. You support each other through thick and thin. Life is a shit storm and you cling to each other with unbreakable love.
She becomes more beautiful every day. You look at her across the breakfast table and her middle-aged hair is a mess etc. But the look on your face is that of a blind man seeing the sun for the first time. Every day.
The only problem is you’ve grown over many years to be sexually incompatible. So you ask to open the relationship up. No. Go to therapy? No, I don’t see a problem/I don’t believe in therapy/the sex is fine for me. Cheat? Good luck. Try finding a woman who’ll have you without your wife’s permission. And even if you could, could you bring yourself to follow through? If you’re an honest person it will simply not be something you could ever do. Because you truly, deeply love her and you never will divorce her.
It’s lovely that Dan promotes what he does. Once in a while a little advice on coping with “no” would be helpful. Sometimes people decide things unfairly. It doesn’t negate everything else.
Sometimes you get the bear and sometimes the bear gets you.
milena, if he really is a prof one has to pity his students. they’d probably love to transfer out of his class once they realize what he’s like, but run into that most impenetrable of university rules when dealing with such profs: “we hired him, you deal with him”.
@124, how about trolling the internets for women to chat with & see if you can get them to cam for you, while you postpone the meet-up they keep asking for. That way you can keep thinking of yourself as “honest”, but still get some heat for your fantasies. Anyway, that’s what other guys in your situation seem to do.
@124 – more seriously, there’s a book called Passionate Marriage by David Schnarch. Check it out.
@126,127 I really do hope that was a joke. I always look for your comments with interest. I caught my breath when I read that.
I am not other guys.
Great column this week @11.
jenesasquatch, your situation is difficult but very simple. If you’ve tried openly asking for what you want and been shot down, then you really only have two options.
1. Resign yourself to not getting what you want. Depending on how badly you want it, do that for very long and you may find the experience of looking at her is more like a sighted person staring into the sun at noon. Love means wanting your partner to be happy and fulfilled. Or maybe you just don’t want it that badly.
2. Tell her your needs have to be addressed or you’re leaving. And if that doesn’t do it, then leave.
If you can’t cheat and you won’t leave, then the person responsible for your lack of sexual fulfillment is you and only you.
I am so tired of men blathering about their needs in marriage and how wah their wife won’t put out and omg what’s wrong with her. Please. If you were laying the pipe properly and she was all week kneed and jello thighs and losing her voice from moaning you wouldn’t be having this problem. 99% of the reason men are sexually unsatisfied is because their wife doesn’t put out frequently enough. You know why? because she probably finds sex boring, exhausting, and sort of like some exercise she has to do at the end of an already very long day because the overwhelming majority of hetero men SUCK IN BED. Worse, women have even been socialized to buy into this. “I don’t mind not coming, it’s about the journey!” OMG. Can you imagine a man not getting off, not because he was tired or had an illness or whatever, but because he simply wasn’t being aroused enough, and still classifying the experience as “good sex”? NO. But women will. And they do it often. When really it’s a warm wet sweaty energetic hug.
Sadly, a lot of women actually think they don’t like sex or aren’t interested in sex. One day they go nuts and fuck their work buddy or their pastor or the UPS guy. And maybe he knows a trick or two and suddenly “omg that’s what my pussy is for!” And then they get verrrrrrrrrrry angry that the previous men in their lives sucked so bad in bed.
Don’t ever marry someone with whom you do not have blistering wicked red hot ear burning sex. It won’t get better. If she took two months to give it up, you’ll be the guy complaining she never blows you. Marry someone who likes to fuck as much as you do, the way you do, and don’t settle for anything less. Once you find that person, then figure out if your values are compatible because trust me it’s a lot easier to stay together fighting over politics than it is to stay together fighting over fucking.
Now on the flip side, if a woman doesn’t fuck her guy properly (and no honey once a month with the lights off and “nothing fancy” as some women put it is not enough) then she abdicates her right to bitch when he goes off elsewhere.
@118 Agreed.
@122 Word.
I don’t want to be redundant, but I wonder if TYTF suffers from what all of us as human beings are susceptible to suffering from: always thinking the grass is greener on the other side. I wonder if he were currently 39 and never had been married, if he would be bored with having had 200+ sexual partners (random number here) and finding it empty and unfulfilling because he had never had a serious connection with any of his partners. In this, I agree with # 113. Let’s face it, there will always be options that will appear to be more appealing. We can’t control that.
However, I also don’t think the answer is as simple as how you present it @113. I personally believe it is hard and close to impossible for a person who has conditioned their body (and mind) to being sexually fulfilled by having multiple lovers at one time (not necessarily in one setting) or to having “kinky” sex to all of the sudden after saying the words “I do”, instantly be satisfied with sex with one person and/or having conservative sex. I think people are either monogamous or polyamorous. I think parents and society should discuss options with teenagers and inform them how to successfully pursue these options. If they plan to marry a person who wants mutual monogamy, teach them to practice that sexually. If they are willing to be patient and wait for someone who is open to a polyamorous marriage, that is an option too. However, teach them not to lie to themselves or to the people they date and pretend to be someone who is sexually monogamous.
@TYTF, I would say that you also knew going into the situation that you were signing up for one sexual partner for the rest of your life. As a self-responsible adult, you could have and still can communicate to your wife your sexual needs. And as the Sociology prof stated in #120, she signed up to take care of your needs when she married you. This hasn’t changed. The two things that seem to have changed are 1) you may have gotten lazy (as all of us do) with exercising self control when presented with temptations and 2) she may have gotten lazy (as all of us do) with keeping you curious and satisfied.
Although I am not married (consider that as you are reading my advice), I do practice monogamy with whomever I am involved. I can honestly say I enjoy it. I find it very satisfying and the sex between me and my partner only gets better with time. Fortunately, I have had partners who were just as open to new experiences as I am. However, I generally try to have that interview to find out if we are sexually compatible as I am getting to know them.
To the Professor: if you’re redux of evolutionary psychology is to be believed (the field itself a grotesque reduction of human behavior) why do men so readily turn their backs on their children’s welfare upon divorce? After all, this court system you’ve described only “punishes” those men who resent having to care for their children. The implication lurking there, to my mind, is that the man doesn’t feel obligated to take care of his children should the wife spurn him in some way. If, as is the maxim of evolutionary psychology, male competition and behavior is simply a matter of ensuring the survival of his offspring, how do you explain that the courts have to intervene to force a good number of men to care for their children after divorce?
I think this every time I hear a man ranting about the legal system “favoring the woman”–apparently he doesn’t think his children need food or shelter in his absence?
In short, evolutionary psychology is too often used to justify a post-feminist misogyny. The only difference between your #11 post and your followup was that the former was a more true reflection of your feelings. After all, maybe you should pay more attention in your sociology classes, cuz they get this shit right.
We are not taught to navigate aging, in or out of relationships, with grace or dignity. The term “mid-life crisis” is used as a joke (“just get a red sportscar!”). No one wants to admit they are having one. Rather than seeing these feelings of boredom, being trapped, mourning the loss of our youth as an opportunity for personal growth, we flail, and break people, including ourselves.
I think Flailing needs counseling. It may be that his marriage can be opened, or refreshed, but until he goes through the process of working through some of these perfectly normal life-stage appropriate feelings.
I would also recommend the book “Mating in Captivity” by Esther Perel.
@ 118 – “It’s still chickenshit to second-guess the choice to get married once it’s made”
My point was precisely that this wouldn’t happen so much if they thought about it beforehand.
People second-guess their choices about just about everything all the time, especially if they didn’t actually make that choice but only caved in to societal pressure (buy a house, get married, have children, go on this radical diet, listen to Lady Gaga, go see this movie, become a doctor, buy a sports car, whatever).
All I’m saying is that everyone should get to know him/herself better before involving others in their personal mess. Unfortunately, in the real world, most of the time, we do that by involving others and later realizing we fucked up our life and theirs. “Live and learn”, as they say.
When you don’t learn from those experiences, though, and you keep blaming others for the mess you’ve created for yourself, THEN you really are chickenshit.
@wendykh, do you really think a man can stay happily married to a woman he is sexually compatible with and not morally or politically compatible with? From what I understand, men date women they love to fuck but marry someone who is compatible with their personalities. They may bitch about the sex after the marriage (as we are seeing), but I don’t think men view sexual compatibility as a long run necessity. Hmm…I suppose this is the reason for this column.
jenesasquatch@128 – didn’t mean to offend. I chat with a couple of guys who won’t divorce their wives but who want more diversity in their sex lives. I’m half-amused/half-annoyed by the phenomenon of guys who won’t have outside sex but will do sexy chat with me. Just tell your wife already, I tell them, and we can meet! But that’s not what they want. Either because they worry what she’ll say, or because they don’t want her to be able to screw around, or because this is just more convenient — the chat is what they want. If that’s not applicable to you, so much the better.
My post @127 was serious though. That book was very helpful to me this year.
Thank you, Erica. I will take a look at it, but if it wasn’t clear from what I wrote, passion isn’t lacking for either of us. Nor is mutual respect. That’s the point that gets lost in these discussions. That’s what is missed by the people above who trivialize my comments and my life.
Hey, “Professor”… why not shut the fuck up and take that shit to a therapist? You clearly need help far worse than many who write in to Dan for advice.
marriage is like many things…it is a living and breathing entity that you have to adjust your style to after time. What works in the beginning obviously does not work 10 plus years down the road. If having an open valve works…hey! Who the fuck cares? Honestly, I would not care if my husband went out and got laid occasionally. I am just that fucking kinky. Hearing “war” stories is a thrill to me. Monogamy is overrated and if you can make a marriage work with HONESTY…then it is so much better.
@130:
As for option 2:
She gets the house, the kids, the car, and you get $85,000 in legal fees.
You can also skip divorce entirely and be legally separated but married in perpetuity. Tell anyone that you’re having any sort of relationship with that you’re still married and can’t get out. I suppose that’s another alternative.
TYTF,
WTF ever. Grow up and realize that you have managed to bring children into the world with this woman. Now get off of your high horse and realize that a) your sex life probably bores the shit out of her too and b) try some honesty!
I honestly would love it if my man would get that kinky and have some “war” stories to fantasize about. I am a bisexual and HONESTY works wonders…tell the truth about what you want out of life and quit trying to fit into the mold of perpetual asshole that many fall into. Men and women typically are not meant to be “tied” down but it is mutually advantageous to raise children together and have a haven and home for them. Put em to bed; get GMA and GPA over…you and the wife do your own thangs or do those thangs together but do so HONESTLY! Just my thoughts.
@138 maybe you could try explaining to us what the real problem is, instead of being coy? You wrote: “She becomes more beautiful every day…The only problem is …we’re sexually incompatible.” And now you say “passion isn’t lacking for either of us.”
Okay, so what is the basis for your incompatibility? Has one of you recently come out as gay? That’s a different kind of issue than most married-guys-who-want-something-extra. Maybe you don’t want actual advice, but you posted enough about your situation to intrigue several of us. We don’t mean to “trivialize” your problems, but clearly you haven’t given us enough information to understand your relationship.
@ 141 – If people weren’t so hung up on getting married for marriage’s sake (because of the social recognition/advantages that come with it), that could be a very good alternative.
I never could fathom why people want to get married a second (third, etc.) time. Wasn’t the first marriage enough of a lesson? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice…
@ 143 – I thought that was a hypothetical example.
@38 wanna break another cherry 🙂
@116 (Helenka)
Totally. Not just a legal framework, but a social one…peers who are willing to give respect and encouragement to those kinds of relationships.
Conservatives have equivalents to this, with fraternal orgs on the light end of commitment, and religious orders on the heavy end. I’m not gonna hold up the Jesuits as the route to a happy sex life, but if you took away the repression of a celibacy requirement and introduced the kind of communicative flexibility we see in “open marriages” and polyamory, they’re a lot closer to what I envision than anything I’m seeing the left fight for. I don’t know if it’s possible, but the lack of such a thing does seem like a big hole in the typical liberal vision of society–it’s the angle that we’re not even considering as we liberalize our view of domestic commitment.
Keep in mind that there are also real legal hurdles to setting up any sort of domestic partnership with more than one person. Until Obama fixed it, hospital visitations could be difficult. Health care is still difficult.
And right now, my sights are set on occupancy laws that limit the number of people who can live in a house based on their family relationships. That is to say, three adults who are legally related might be allowed to live in a house, but they wouldn’t if they weren’t related (so it’s got nothing to do with the actual capacity of the house.) Such laws are common enough, having bitten both myself and single/poly friends through the years as we’ve explored alternative domestic arrangements. So there’s not just a lack of encouragement for such things, there’s express discouragement out there.
@106 (EricaP) and those who’ve echoed her:
I’m not even gonna dig into the many/most women/men/people debates, except to say that I’m not so sure the sex-centered vision of marriage you’re talking about represents the average sentiment better than the damned-near chaste vision of marriage promoted by conservatives. Amongst those conservatives are many whose hearts would break a little to hear someone speak of leaving a *loving* spouse for lack of *lust*.
Unlike those conservatives, I don’t think lust can just be disregarded–it’s a biological need, like eating or pissing, and simply denying somebody sexual outlets can really mess them up–hence open marriages, safety valves and good old-fashioned affairs.
But personally, I’m positive that “I’m gonna lust after you till death do us part” is not a commitment I could ever keep towards ANYBODY–being *expected* to be lusty is one of the biggest turnoffs in the world to me–and those legions of conservatives out there do give me hope that there’s plenty of people out there who share my priorities in this regard.
It’s love and familial obligation that I’d be willing to commit to till death do us part. That’s the kind of commitment I think government and society has a responsibility to encourage. I just wish I had more options for that than the sex-centered vision of the left and the sex-deprived vision of the right.
I don’t propose any easy or immediate answers, I’m just tossing out my thoughts and desires. Thanks to all those who responded to them; even where I disagree or am bothered, that was some thought provoking feedback.
@143 You don’t trivialize. I wouldn’t respond to you if you did. Mapping out who is to blame or saying someone forgot/never knew how to fuck is trivializing.
I don’t mean to be coy and I’m not looking to have my problem solved. I’m just saying there are things to accept in life. It’s all well and good to advise someone to communicate or cheat or lie or divorce. Sometimes you tell the truth, communicate, get told “no”, and stay together. That’s something to think about. Maybe that ability makes for stronger love and a lasting marriage.
@148, One reason I said ‘yes’ to opening my marriage was that my husband told me he had already cheated. I felt I had a choice between divorce, or opening the marriage, because I felt I couldn’t trust him to just stop having outside sex. Maybe we could instead have worked for years on rebuilding my trust that he wasn’t lying to me… I didn’t see that choice at the time.
If you are able to accept her ‘no’, and if she is able to trust that you accept it — then you guys have a wonderful relationship, and I’m jealous. I’m sorry it isn’t always fun for you; if it helps, our arrangement isn’t always fun for us, either.
Great comments from most posters. One point to add: Has TYTF given serious considerable to his reaction (emotional, visceral) to his wife having hot sex with multiple younger men? His selfishness makes me wonder if that isn’t the kind of “open” he is envisioning. If TYTF is happy to babysit while the wife gets some on the side, then maybe they can talk about opening things up.
re: Too Young To Flail (wants to fuck around).
the three choices have been laid out here already.
1. Have an affair
2. Work on improving what you have
3. Divorce.
I want to address #2- working on what you have.Don’t assume what you have is the best you CAN have.
I am a woman who has been married for 36 years. My married sex life has been a huge bore from day one. Nice man. Bad fuck. I chose option 1 to keep myself sane. Without making a public announcement to him.
Now- 36 years into this thing my husband all of a sudden decided to become a good lover for me. Wants our golden years to be golden indeed. He is monogamous, it is not like he learned this stuff from someone else. But he saw he was losing me and started to use his imagination.
Hey- this is possible for you too. Work on it. You have all that history together. It takes two to tango- or fuck in this case. Before you go out and bore a new partner get off the internet porn sites and read a book or read some internet sites about how to satisfy a woman. How to do new stuff. As someone older and much wilder than you, believe me, you have NOT seen and done it all.
@131 and @121
I’m with you two. I’m shocked when I hear a woman complain about having to have sex with her husband. Sex is supposed to be FUN, isn’t it? Why would you marry someone who isn’t any good in bed?
Hell, I don’t even stay the night if the guy can’t get me off, let alone a lifetime.
@149 Your strength comes through in your comments. That’s partly why I look for them. You really boiled it down there. It’s not always fun. All my best to you.
@11: Um…sorry, Professor, but I can’t agree with you about marriage.
While the idea that “marriage was designed to keep men faithful providers for their wives and children” is a lovely thought, and when it works, It’s a Wonderful Life, it doesn’t always turn out that way, does it?
And you never answered my question: What are you a professor OF, exactly?
@84: RIGHT ON!!! @11 is a Professor of Idiocy 101!!!