My husband and I recently realized that in order for us to remain happily married, we need to fuck other people. Enter the boyfriend. This 20-year-old hunk has opened the floodgates. He’s gorgeous and athletic and enthusiastic, gets me off every time, and tales of our exploits have made things even hotter between my husband and me.
So what’s the problem? Well, after two months and numerous sexual encounters, my new lover has yet to get an erection. I know he’s been able to get it up with previous partners. Maybe there’s a subconscious part of his brain that doesn’t want to bone a married woman? I’ve made it clear to him that there is no pressure and that I am more than satisfied. He insists that he is attracted to me and that our current activities are incredibly satisfying.
Am I missing something, Dan?
Nouveau Mrs. Robinson
Before I get to your question, NMR, I need to address the recent Arnold Schwarzeneggerunpleasantness.
I’m getting a lot of mail from people insisting that it’s all my fault. The affair, the love child, the split with Maria Shriver—I’m apparently to blame for everything, save Arnold’s oldest son’s slammin’, nearly legal bod (www.tinyurl.com/3zsdmjf). This is the case because (1) I’m a big proponent of nonmonogamous/monogamish relationships, and (2) aging Hollywood action stars don’t get erections without checking in with me first. And look where the nonmonogamy stuff I’m always pushing got Arnold! Look at the chaos that nonmonogamy creates! Failed marriages! Devastated children!
In my defense, ladies and gentlemen of the angry e-mob, I would point out that Arnold wasn’t in a nonmonogamous relationship. Arnold was in a monogamous relationship. Arnold failed at monogamy. He did not succeed at nonmonogamy. If there is a lesson to be drawn from the Schwarzeneggerunpleasantness, it’s not that honest nonmonogamy never works. Rather, it is the critical importance—particularly during adulterous heterosexual encounters—of anal intercourse.
And please bear in mind, e-mobsters, that you rarely hear about honest nonmonogamous relationships that work, to say nothing of marriages like Mr. and Mrs. NMR’s, i.e., marriages that were saved by nonmonogamy. Successfully nonmonogamous straight couples typically aren’t out to their friends, families, and coworkers. We tend to learn that someone we know is in a nonmonogamous relationship only if it implodes. If a couple is nonmonogamous, nonmonogamy always gets the blame if they split up.
On to your problem, NMR…
What a delightful problem to have! A gorgeous, athletic, and enthusiastic hunk with a hard dick is better than a gorgeous, athletic, and enthusiastic hunk with a soft dick, I’ll grant you. But better a gorgeous, athletic, and enthusiastic hunk with a soft dick than no gorgeous, athletic, and enthusiastic hunk at all, amirite?
While I can’t tell you exactly what’s wrong with your hunk’s dick—it could very well be the infamous limpothalamus (the part of the brain that doesn’t want to bone a married woman; most men don’t have one)—I can tell you that you’re doing everything right. You’re not pressuring him, you’re taking pleasure in him regardless, and you’re not neglecting your husband. And if your hunk was getting it up for his previous partners, it’s only a matter of time before he’s getting it up for you.
But was he getting it up for his previous partners? Unless you’ve seen some video—and that’s video we’d all like to see—all we have to go on is his word, NMR, and he could be lying. Young hunks with erectile problems, too embarrassed and/or ashamed to admit they have a problem, will sometimes lie to their partners and refuse to speak to doctors. But your hunk has someone older and wiser telling him what to do, NMR, and you’re going to tell him to talk with a doctor.
Is it better to stay with your overweight wife—who happens to be the mother of your infant daughter—and cheat on her to get sexual gratification (and be a shit of a husband) or leave her (and be a shit of a father)?
Almost Twice The Wife
Cheating shit or leaving shit—are those your only options?
If they are, ATTW, then stay and cheat. Abandoning an infant—to say nothing of abandoning someone with an infant—is a shit move. So is cheating on the mother of your infant daughter, of course, but it’s slightly less shitty.
But here’s another option: You could go without for six months or a year—you know, like most new parents.
Backing way up: You were presumably attracted to your wife before the baby… otherwise there would be no baby, right? And presumably, the mother of your infant daughter is going without, too, as she’s probably too exhausted to bother with sex. Because she just had a baby. She also may not be feeling it for the husband who doesn’t find her attractive in her current state—a state he put her in.
Take a little responsibility here, ATTW: You knocked the wife up knowing that pregnancy and its tragic aftermath, aka “parenting,” leave new moms with very little time for the gym. If you expected your wife to bounce back to her pre-baby weight in 10 weeks like some sort of celebrity mom, then you needed to get her two nannies, a personal trainer, and a full-time nutritionist like some sort of celebrity mom.
Perhaps I’m being too hard on you, ATTW. For all I know, your wife is one of those lousy spouses who abandon routine physical maintenance once the first kid arrives, because, hey, now you’re stuck! Forgoing routine physical maintenance is the mother of all take-you-for-granted moves, one that quickly kills desire and slowly smothers love, and it can constitute grounds for cheating and/or leaving. (Normal and natural aging, health issues that make routine maintenance impossible, etc. do not by themselves constitute grounds.) But it’s too soon to know if your wife is one of those lousy take-you-for-granted spouses, ATTW, as your daughter is still an infant.
Masturbate, help out, make sure your wife has the free time she needs to take care of herself, and you may find that you don’t have to be any sort of shit.
I’m writing about the “Choicer Challenge” you’ve issued to all the bigots out there who say that being gay is a choice. I think you’ve set yourself up for a possible failure here, Dan.
I’m a straight guy. I am also a stubborn motherfucker. If I were one of those choicers, Dan, I would suck your dick just to win the argument. That’s why the Choicer Challenge should say that they have to suck you off while maintaining a glass-cutting boner. I could will myself to blow you, but willing myself to get hard during it? Not possible!
Bone Machine
Good point, BM. The Choicer Challenge is hereby amended to include the production of a glass-cutting boner while blowing me. I’m waiting for your call, John “Choicer” Cummins.
Find the Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast) every Tuesday at thestranger.com/savage.
@101 EricaP
She didn’t change unless you count that transition away from the honeymoon period that we all experience. I know this because we’ve talked about it and I can observe her contentedness with our infrequent, extremely vanilla sex life. She’s just as happy as ever with what we do, it’s just that now she only wants it 1% of the time she used to. It’s not bait and switch if that’s what anyone is thinking. The honeymoon ends.
Honestly, I think the idea of me having sex with someone else is terrifying to her. To her it means the end of our marriage. There’s no way that would work. It would crush her and that in turn would ruin me for any kind of life without her. She’s the one.
Knowing how things turned out I would absolutely marry her again. Would she make the same statement? I’ll have to ask her. She sees how difficult it is for me to go without sex with her, without sex with men, without kinky sex. It doesn’t change the way she’s wired.
I teach writing at the college level, and I am always looking for creative ways to talk about such issues as tone. I wish I could use the examples provided by both ATTW and the guy last week who “required” a large clit and “bald” pussy, or he didn’t see the point in returning to see her.
The reason that people are so irate in their responses is due to the tone of the letters. These may no doubt be nuanced issues and the letter writers may be sensitive and caring humans, but the tone of entitlement and apparent lack of empathy implied affect the way readers perceive these people. And the hyperbole, which can sometimes be benign, but in the context of ATTW’s letter, just reeks of hostility. Of course the fact that some readers are taking the claim that a woman doubled her weight within a nine-month period literally as an excuse to justify ATTW’s assholery, is telling, as well.
Critical thinking, people, please.
@103: For the sake of argument, let’s say someone starts out at, say, 120, and gains 60 pounds. Sure, that’s not an entire second person; that’s only HALF a second person. (Gosh, that sounds -much- more reasonable.)
A full second person would require an entire second skeleton, set of internal organs, and musculature. How much of the person’s original body weight was fat? How much of the weight gain is fat in proportion to the original person? That 60 pounds may not be an entire second person, but it might well be three people’s worth of fat added on around the edges.
Getting all knotted up in literal interpretations, complete with quantitative analysis and being outraged by one set of numbers but not another, is an exercise in foolishness.
#105 (Mr. J),
Thank you for sharing your experiences with us. You sound like a very caring man, and I hope that you and your wife arrive at a solution that works for both of you.
@104, I just can’t imagine writing in to complain about my husband not meeting my sexual needs without talking about his affirmative sexuality. What he does like. And then, asking for advice about the mismatch. But from men writing in, we only hear about what their wives don’t like. Not about what they do like.
@105: “now she only wants it” What is the “it”? Why is sex an “it”, rather than a bunch of activities, which she probably likes on a sliding scale: some she’d like more often than others. Is there anything that is sexual for her, and not sexual for you? How about things that are physically pleasurable for her, but not overtly sexual? What does that conversation look like?
Given the obviously controversial nature of the false dilemma set up by ATTW, I’m halfway inclined to think it was an attempt at trolling.
@104 again: “people get disinterested for all sorts of reasons having nothing to do with what their partner is or isn’t doing.”
But when a guy writes (@34): “Unless the new mother has had major complications, [six months] is way too long a period to expect a husband to wait.”
What do you make of that? Does that sound like someone who is talking to his wife about hormone-levels, about sound-proofing, about reducing their stress and finding better timing to try to reawaken his wife’s sexuality? No, he’s just “waiting,” not so patiently, for her to step up and do her fucking job, taking care of his penis.
@111: To me that sounds like someone discussing general principles, not his own situation.
@112, but the general principle is that men wait for women to fix themselves and “get back into the ol’ sex game.”
@104 to echo something thankfully pointed out in @106, I was reacting to the tone of THIS SPECIFIC LETTER, which, as @106 points out, conveys entitlement, lack of empathy, an apparent lack of awareness of the demands of parenthood, and then the fat phobic hyperbole of implying that his wife doubled her size.
I wasn’t saying that there are not complex reasons why couples come to dry spells. I wasn’t saying that a woman’s issues, selfishness or struggles can’t be at play in those dry spells. I wasn’t saying that ALL men disregard whether or not their wives and lovers enjoy their sex lives.
I was saying that THIS letter–it’s tone, it’s implications–imply selfishness and entitlement and an utter lack of awareness of the realities of becoming a parent.
So don’t you anti-women’s studies me by implying that that academic field exists only to blame men for bumps in relationships–your reduction of women’s studies to a zero sum game that you combat by arguing “oh women can be bad too” says far more about you than any women studies I’ve read. And that shit is says ain’t flattering.
There’s a big difference between someone despairing about a partner letting his or herself go over time and a NEW FATHER considering fucking divorce because of his wife’s pregnancy pounds and the time she has devoted to caring for the child. NOTE: the writer doesn’t mention weight before the pregnancy, the possibility of post-partum depression thereafter, nor any concern (as EricaP noted) of them having sex for their mutual benefit. Instead he makes a cruel joke at his wife’s expense while complaining about a dry spell that most people would expect in the wake of a pregnancy.
And, if you notice? His concern is how he will appear should he take the only two options he can see for himself: he’s either a bad husband or a bad father. He doesn’t express concern for his wife (about THEIR sex life, not HIS) nor concern for the well-being of their child. Go back and read it: it’s ALL about him.
In contrast, take a look at what Henry_Paris wrote @403 in “I Want My MTV” thread. This is how you rebuild the sexuality in a marriage. (I’m going to post this in sections, because it’s long)
..I’ve been clawing my way out of a similar situation for the past two years. It hasn’t been easy and things aren’t yet fully back on track, so take anything I say with a grain of salt. But solid progress has been made, so I thought I might share a few things that did and did not work.
Just for background, my wife and I had been married for ten years before we starting trying to have kids. We wanted two, we had two, I got a vasectomy. My wife’s libido flatlined after the second child and never recovered.
Trying to initiate sexual touching or trying to discuss the situation would cause her to become intensely depressed. She flatly refused the suggestion of counseling (bad experiences with counselors in her past). So I stopped initiating sex, and stopped discussing the situation, in hopes that her libido would eventually recover on its own. A year and a half later, we still hadn’t had sex.
At that point I said “We need to work on this or it’s going to cost us our marriage, and we love each other too much to let that happen.”
We opened a bottle of wine and spent a long time trying to sort out all the related issues. At least in her case (some may apply to your situation, others may not), her issues were A) body issues– not feeling sexy made her uninterested in having sex, B) role issues– the ‘mom’ role had taken over to the exclusion of all else, C) physical changes– her body responded differently than before giving birth, things that used to feel good no longer did, her sexual interests and focus had changed, and D) opportunities for sexual intimacy seemed to be limited to after the kids went to bed (at which point we’re both exhausted).
So here are ten observations from the long road back:
(to be continued)
(More of Henry_Paris’ wisdom):
1. People tend to discount general compliments from long-term partners. Saying “You’re sexy” has very little impact on body image / self-esteem. Very specific compliments (“you have tremendously sexy legs”, “you should wear this particular dress, you look stunning in it”, “when your eyes are smiling like that, you’re irresistible”, etc) often get past that filter and make a difference.
2. Take her shopping to pick out lots of sexy but comfortable underwear, so she can wear sexy underwear any time. The act of picking it out together is bonding and sets the tone, and later she’ll feel sexy while wearing it. Throw out all the grandma-underwear if possible.
3. Find ways to have dates and other uninterrupted together time. Try to spend a high percentage of that time NOT talking about the kids. Talk about each others interests.
4. On that note, facilitate each other having time for hobbies, friends, and outside interests. It’s too easy for your life to become all about the kids, and you’re both more interesting and alluring partners if you have your own identities and can talk about something you don’t both already know.
5. When you’re bottling up frustrations, even in the interests of helping your partner, that can eventually bleed through into coming across as sullen, brusque, irritable, etc. Resentment comes through and that’s *not* sexy. Odds aren’t bad that she feels like she’s being attacked as the bad guy for not doing something you weren’t asking her to do and for not feeling like initiating sex with a sullen, brusque, irritable person. So you both have to genuinely get past feeling like the other person is some kind of an opponent and find ways to feel like you’re on the same team. “We are working together to find ways to get more sexual intimacy back into our relationship.” If you’re not both genuinely bought in to fixing things and not looking to blame the other, it’s not going to work.
(Still more of Henry_Paris’ wisdom):
6. If you don’t have a lock on your bedroom door, get one. Train the kids that sometimes Mom and Dad need some time to be alone and rest and not be disturbed, short of an emergency. This can allow for the occasional quick daytime tryst. Also try waking up before the kids to fool around.
7. All the time, and especially early in the process, spend a lot of time touching in intimate ways explicitly *without* the expectation of things proceeding on to sex. I’d usually initiate this by saying “Let’s just cuddle– no sex” and then curling up together to watch a movie or read books. Lots of body contact. Maybe an arm around her back, wrapped around to cup and hold a breast while you read. It not universally true, but some women take much longer to get into a sexual mood than men do, so if she feels like any time you touch her intimately you’re angling for sex and she’s not yet in the mood, she’ll react negatively. If she gets a lot of intimate touch without the expectation for sex, she’ll likely see it as pleasurable and be in a sexier mood later. Plus, having intimate touch feel familiar and comfortable will make the transition to actually having sex after so long without it less jarring. Trust me, the first time will feel like you’re trying to have sex with a stranger. It’s creepy and off-putting.
8. Especially when you’re just beginning to resume having sex, the word “thank you” anywhere close to sex is somewhere between a bear-trap and a land-mine. “That felt wonderful”, “I had a great time last night”, “You really drove me wild this morning” are all fine. “Thank you” can be interpreted all kinds of wrong ways. Just avoid it. Trust me.
9. People’s physical responses and sexual tastes change over time, even moreso in the absence of a shared sexual routine. You both have to recognize that re-initiating things is going to involve a LOT of communication and discovery. Frustrating as it is, you have to treat it a bit like you’ve just started dating again. You need LOTS of communication, LOTS of attention to body language, and NO assumptions based on the past. You’ll also want to both keep a good sense of humor about it all. It’s not a bad bet that you’ll discover that some things you used to do before and loved don’t rock one or the other of your worlds anymore. If you’re brave and mutually agreeable to a ‘no-fault for respectful experimentation’ rule, it’s worth trying some things you used to dislike. Sometimes they turn out to be hot now.
10. Be clear from the start that while sex is pleasurable, what you’re missing is that deeper feeling of sexual connection with her. I think sometimes the lower-libido partner thinks “if my partner is craving sex and I’m not, they can just masturbate”. But that’s like saying “You have a box of granola bars in your cubicle, so why do you keep asking me to go on lunch dates with you?” Help her understand that not being desired by a sexual partner makes you feel like an undesirable, unattractive person. Let her know that being her lover is part of your identity and an important part of how you define yourself. And then just listen. A lot.
“For the sake of argument, let’s say someone starts out at, say, 120, and gains 60 pounds. Sure, that’s not an entire second person; that’s only HALF a second person. (Gosh, that sounds -much- more reasonable.)”
No need to speculate–that sounds a lot like my own situation, except that I gained 65 lbs. All of this, according to my OB, was completely normal and healthy. I was very athletic before pregnancy, and I had no complications or health issues during pregnancy whatsoever. A lot of weight came off in the first few months, and then more during extended nursing. I couldn’t exercise, though–I was in terrible pain for two months. The baby screamed non-stop and slept precious little. But even under the best circumstances, it would take a long time to lose that much weight! After almost a year, I still had 20-25 lbs to go, but then I got sick and spent a week eating through an IV, which took care of it in a less-than-desirable way.
So, a year went by post-partum with my husband having a big fat wife who was much less capable of having sex than before. Somehow he managed not to leave me or cheat, and amazingly, the next year he had his “old” wife back. It’s delightful to realize that many people would consider my husband justified in cheating on me because I wasn’t doing enough to solve my weight “problem”, or because it took a long time to burn off a LOT of weight that was perfectly normally acquired during pregnancy. I thank God my husband is not like that, but the important thing is, I think all husbands and wives deserve to have a spouse who is not like that. Or else you really shouldn’t marry, or should work out terms for some other kind of marriage.
Thanks for sticking up for new mothers, Dan. Glad my man was more understanding than ATTW. And yes, after three years, I’m back to my pre-baby weight.
@114: Sorry, my bad. I thought that was in response to one of the commenters (Mr. J, I think? not going to go back and check), not ATTW.
This is why I’m not ever having babies. And why I prefer to fuck women.
I sometimes wonder if some of us have a very small, uniform and yet precious treasure chest of sexual likes and dislikes. Some of us like and are satisfied with what we have and others of us like to “mix it up” or add to the contents.
I’m only fit to speak for myself, but I know that most of the sex I had in the first year of both of our children’s lives was not because I wanted it. We had it because he wanted it and I knew that he needed to show me how deeply he loved me. Though talking I learned that sex was a major way he communicated love to me, and I wanted to hear him “say” it. He’s an amazing man with a small “treasure chest”, and I’m the inventor, creator, and choreographer who’s always wishing to add to my chest. I’m so glad that I “heard” him, and that I allowed that message of “this is how I need to say I love you” to sink deep into my heart. My tired and exhausted body became trained, and I don’t recall regretting any intimate moment we had. My mind and heart followed my body. Now that our children are teens we can continue to build upon that foundation and we talk openly. Those years help to expand his “treasure chest”, and in love he’s the one willing to follow trusting that his mind and heart will arrive. It is a journey.
I guess I’m prone to seeing the glass half full. And, that we can improve if we are willing to work. That and seeing one’s children grow into compassionate young adults is an honor, and worth every moment of the journey.
Fair warning, I can’t keep a consistent thought in my head today. The above may make no sense, none whatsoever.
@95/Terminally Frosty — A full grown man needs reassurance that women normally gain weight with pregnancy?
And pointing out that one guy is an asshole isn’t misandry. Calm down.
@109 EricaP
“It” is a few activities under a narrow definition of sex. In other comments you cite examples of groundwork intimacy that we share– stroking her hair, light touches, hugs, kisses, holding hands, etc. Those things are not sex to me. They are extremely important intimate acts that make sex more likely and more fulfilling (as you pointed out). So the “it” I’m referring to is what we do when we get naked to have sex in earnest: oral and PIV with me doing most of the leading of the dance. We went from hours of that per day all the way down to 10 times per year. She to this day is very clear about not wanting to try new things or radically increase our frequency.
“Is there anything that is sexual for her, and not sexual for you?”
No. I will literally do anything she wants sexually. Should she decide what she really wants is to pull my head off during PIV like a praying mantis I’ll give it a go, although she lacks the upper body strength. As I said above I do all the little things that don’t involve bodily fluids already. Call those things sex if you like. No matter. We both enjoy all of them immensely.
“What does that conversation look like?”
What do you mean?
@122 Kim
That’s very beautiful, Kim. Thank you for that.
@124 – I mean, have you asked her if holding hands, reading/watching porn together, playing footsie, giving massages, if she sees any of that as sexual? I know that you don’t. But maybe her experience of them is different from how you imagine it.
@126 EricaP
Those things are “sexual” in the sense that she needs them in order to get in the mood for sex later. That I definitely get. I can be in the mood for sex at almost any moment. She needs the groundwork. So you are correct that her experience of those things is different from mine. That’s fine with me. Providing her with what she needs is my passion.
But maybe she likes them for their own sake. Not as groundwork/foreplay.
Don’t you think that a lot of those “gay people are gay by choice” tight-asses are that way because they are bi or “closeted” or otherwise kinky and self-hating themselves? All I can say is that when I’m within 20 feet of Rick Santorum, he starts to tingle my gaydar (never mind the many kids). Sadly, if a single dick-sucking of a hunk would rip them out of the closet, I suspect they’d already be out.
Okay Dan, I’m a totally str8 guy who could choose to have a glass cutting hard on while I suck you off. I could. Really. Let’s try it. Okay? Can we? Please? Where should I meet you? Really…totally str8 here…..boner…. the works. Huh? Can I?
It’s good to see you back here, Kim. I hope that this means your recent crisis has passed and that all is well. I’ve been thinking about you and your family, and holding you in my thoughts.
EricaP: thanks for sharing Henry_Paris’ wisdom here. I remember the I want my MTV thread, but I never made it to post #403!
He’s got a lot of valuable insights.
@128 EricaP
Yes she does. In fact we both do. I don’t do those things just because I have an agenda.
@122 Kim- wow, that was poetic. Coming from a man that has little emotion and even less poetic license, it is the highest compliment I can pay.
Wow, at the bottom…
ATTW:
Next time you’re typing, take a good look at your hands.
Love them. They will love you.
And that’s going to be pretty much it for a while. Your wife is not happy with what’s changed, how her body went from entertainment centre to food court, how her breasts hurt, the floppy belly, etc. She also has a hormonal thingy that prevents her from being interested. Apparently there was a selective advantage 250k years ago and we’re stuck with it.
You are not alone.
You have your wife, sure, but I meant that all your married with kids friends have the same problems, the same issues. It’s universal.
I have 30 seconds of laptop power left.
Thank you, Mr. J, nocutename, and Tim Horton.
Take care,
k
Erica, you’re fantastic, and your comments on SLOG are always worth consideration, but you often seem to assume much. And, those assumptions always fall into the same two categories: men do not effectively communicate with their partners; they are generally not interested in their partners’ sexual needs.
As much as you disliked the tenor of my previous comments (which I’m just throwing out there, I don’t have all day to qualify myself in huge posts or time to dig 400+ comments down a thread), from many guys’ perspectives you’re also beating a dead horse.
Have a pleasant night, and see you on the next thread.
@137, yes, my experience is that many guys do not effectively consider their partner’s sexual needs. Things which are not sexual for a guy, are hard for him to think of as sexual for her. But the way my mom talked about my dad bringing her sherry when she was nursing, you could tell that was sexual, to her. For me it’s scratching my back, and fairly intense pain. Neither one looks sexual, to your average guy. But I get less sexual if I don’t get them.
@Hunter78
You take what’s in the sign-off acronym (and not in the letter) as totally representative of reality?
So, when someone’s acronym says, say, “All day, I think about pregnant ladies,” you assume that means that, literally, the writer is thinking about nothing but pregnant ladies all the live long day?
And, even taking that as true, the fact remains that, if the writer is ready to dump or have an affair while his daughter is an “infant,” he HASN’T been fair to his wife. Even if she did gain 100 lbs – weight can come off and effort can be made. Expecting her to do it swiftly while taking care of a baby is unreasonable, self-centered, and unimaginative.
And yeah, you seem to have absolutely no understanding of what a “normal” pregnancy might be. 100 lbs might be a lot, but 60 or 70? Not that unusual OR unhealthy. My friend just got put on bedrest for 6 months. I doubt she’s going to be in tip-top losing the weight condition after she’s done birthing twins and sitting on a couch for 6 months solid. It takes time.
@139 We obviously are doing guesswork as to how much weight she gained and how young the infant is because those key details weren’t provided. The signoff of “twice her size” is hyperbolic and intended to convey his disinterest (if not disgust) with her current body.
Now, the reason I read it that way is, as @140 put it, the lack of consideration for her as a new mom implied by the letter itself, in addition to the exaggeration of the situation to the point where he’s contemplating divorce with a newborn around. If it was, as you guess, 100 pounds, it’s a big fucking difference whether it’s been 6 months or, say 2 years since she gave birth.
I also read it that way because, in my experience, guys who are prone to confusing pregnancy weight with regular weight gain, confusing normal weight gain via aging with weight gain that poses a threat to one’s health and happiness, and especially those who conflate 20 pounds with 60 pounds and up often have very deep seated fears and repulsion toward ANY excess fat on a woman. The “she doubled her size” strikes me, especially with those details missing and his lack of address of her needs or concerns or issues with her body after pregnancy, as a red flag. Consider that he’s publicly insulting his wife about her fatness when she’s currently caring for their newborn, much like the writer a few months ago who referred to his wife’s fatness as his having to eat old moldy cake! That level of revulsion speaks to a selfish and shallow person, not an adult who genuinely cares for his partner’s well-being.
Further, if you notice, he’s concerned with how he’ll be viewed if he pursues an affair or a divorce. Point to me where he expresses genuine concern for the well-being of his child or his wife, cuz I’m not seeing it.
An ideal thought. To what degree are kinks symptomatic of an underlying personality disorder. Is it ethical to validate (enable) destructive behavior? What sets sexual behavior and attitudes apart from other areas of human experience making them a special case subject to separate rules? Are there any absolutes? Where do you draw the line? At point does being sex positive or GGG cross the line?
You know, sometimes Dan makes up the sign-offs for letters. I’ve written to him twice, just signing my real name, and he’s created the sign-off name, choosing, I assume, something he thinks is catchy and conveys the essence of the letter or the complaint.
So all this sturm und drang over how much weight the wife has gained, what her starting weight was, what is a normal amount of pregnancy weight gain, how much the skeletal system weighs (!) and so forth, start to become not only ridiculous, but may not even be relevant to the letter as originally written.
Look at it again. ATTW finds his “overweight” wife incapable of giving him sexual gratification (presumably because of the weight she’s gained in pregnancy which was recent enough that their child is still an infant), and wants to know which of two options–the only two he seems to think are tenable–is worse: cheating or leaving.
He’s a shit; he even knows it. What gets me are the men here on this thread who are defending him by agreeing that an overweight wife is clearly incapable of providing sexual gratification. In a brilliant piece of contradiction, in a letter in which he advocates a purely literal reading, Hunter 78 first reads the sign off as factual, and then does a literary interpretation of the stripped-down style of ATTW’s prose to suggest that the man is in great psychic pain.
If a woman wrote in and said “Is it better to stay with your balding, beer-bellied husband—who happens to be the father of your infant daughter—and cheat on him to get sexual gratification (and be a shit of a wife) or leave him (and be a shit of a mother),” you can bet that you wouldn’t find a lot of women ready to defend her.
75, wendykh– I agree that (some) men need to grow the fuck up. The question is when and under what circumstances? A man whose wife has put on some pregnancy pounds is an immature jerk if he thinks his need for sex trumps his wife’s need for a supportive, helpful, and patient husband.
Now imagine this scenario. (This is a based on a letter I remember from the archives, but I haven’t read it recently to make sure I have details right. I’m exaggerating to make a point.)
A man is attracted to a woman, gets to know her, and they marry. The minute the ring is on her finger, she starts to let herself go. This has nothing to do with pregnancy. She eats copious amounts of junk, never exercises, skips the beauty routines (hair, make-up, clothes) that she engaged in when they were dating, and in a few years has gained a hundred pounds. He’s made reasonable efforts to be supportive, but she’s not getting up from the couch.
He wants to tell her to make an effort to be attractive for him or he’ll go elsewhere. She says he has to remain monogamous because it’s in their wedding vows.
What about that situation? Do we tell him to grow up, or does he have a point?
I’d say this guy is justified in divorcing or getting his needs met elsewhere. I’d say ATTW above is not. Where do we draw the line between the 2?
Hunter78, please don’t make up lies about what I said, just to prove your flimsy point. Avast2006 was the one who mentioned a 60 lb gain as being very large, even if it’s not literally “double”. I replied to this because my own 65 lb weight gain was in fact normal and healthy. I began pregnancy with a low BMI and low body fat. My OB specifically reassured me that my weight gain was normal, healthy, and NOT bad for the fetus. My husband’s desire for me, strangely, remained constant. So, Hunter, you are inferring a lot of false claims here. Why?
My point is that after a healthy pregnancy, it was hard to lose a lot of weight. Eventually, I did, but it took a year and an illness to get it done. It was also much harder for me to have sex after birth, due to pain. The baby also made sex more difficult to fit into our lives. Somehow, though, this failed to “choke off” my husband’s desire for me. Somehow, it wasn’t too much for him to wait a year for things to improve, maybe because he’s not an asshole. Strangely, he also supported me as if my recovery from birth was relevant to his own life, too, and not just some problem I was supposed to “fix” for his sake.
Hunter, without knowing any facts about this, you insist that ATTW’s wife has done nothing to “fix” her problem. You therefore seem to think ATTW has an excuse to want to cheat, despite the time frame involved, and the obvious reasons for weight gain and difficulty of loss. You even assume it would be “likely” for my own husband’s desires to be killed by a 65 lb pregnancy gain, which is absurd. Basically, you’re betraying ignorance about what pregnancy and its aftermaths are like, but that’s not stopping you from reaching a lot of conclusions and false attributions along the way.
I think ATTW idea should be dubbed the “Tiki Barber”, although Tiki bailed while she was still pregnant…
Actually, in re-reading, it strikes me that nowhere does ATTW say his wife is uninterested (not disinterested, btw, different meaning) in sex. Nowhere does he say she’s depressed or sleep-deprived, or has taken a hit to her libido. In other words, he doesn’t suggest that she is unenthusiastic in any way for them to have an active sex life. No, his complaint is merely that she’s so fat he can’t get aroused.
Has he heard of turning off the lights or closing his eyes and thinking of her as the same woman he presumably loves and has been attracted to, while he waits out a temporary situation?
Shakespeare’s sonnet 116: “Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.”
So I vote for being the leaving-your-daughter-’cause-you-can’t-get-it-up-for-her-overweight-new-mother kind of shit, because this woman deserves the freedom to find a man who really loves her.
@139 If ATTW is, as you suggest, tortured and resigned and communicating tersely, giving only necessary facts, he still could have communicated a few more facts: something like “When we got married, my wife was 120 pounds. She started gaining weight rapidly about two years ago, and when she got pregnant it ballooned out of control. Now she’s 240 pounds and I’ve lost all attraction to her.” Simple, direct facts, but they would make it clear that the situation is “my wife has a serious weight problem, unrelated to pregnancy” and not “I’m an entitled prick who’s clueless about the realities of adult family life.” Any mention of attempts he’s made to help or encourage her to lose weight would also lend credibility.
Also, 240 pounds on a frame that’s meant to carry 120 pounds is something her OBs would have had something to say about. If she’s really gained that much, I’m surprised he didn’t mention the attending medical concerns around the birth.
Also-also, his timing for this is sucky and suspicious. If she had gained all, or most of, the weight before the pregnancy, why the hell did he knock her up? If he felt trapped and coerced into giving her a baby he didn’t really want, then their marriage has bigger problems than his wife’s weight. If, regardless of whether it was pregnancy weight or not, he was interested in making a good-faith effort to restore attraction with the wife, he should wait till the baby’s 6+ months and then work some of the “Honey, let’s work on being healthier” stuff.
People, if you can’t handle the occasional dry spell while a partner goes through depression, illness, childbearing, or other sex-dampening events, don’t enter a monogamous marriage. And if you don’t want people to think you’re a selfish, entitled asshole, make some attempt in your communications not to sound like a selfish, entitled asshole.
@145 and @147 ftw!!!
What kills me about this whole conversation is the degree to which many men herein have made a host of assumptions that we cannot possibly know based on the information provided in the letter (ffs, one guy speculated that she trapped him into pregnancy and then refused him sex!) while ignoring the tone and substance of the letter itself. That kind of shoddy analysis screams defensiveness.
Incidentally, I see that kind of defensiveness often from white college students in classes on race, where they’re so unconsciously emotionally committed to exonerate whites that they invent possibilities for which there is no evidence in order to downplay or dismiss the actual evidence in front of them. It’s quite a startling phenomenon to witness as a teacher, by the way.
I too agree that someone doesn’t love you if they see you in such conditional and self-serving terms. And, again, thank you for those who made a distinction between a woman who let herself go in a marriage and a woman recovering from pregnancy and tending to an infant.
I can’t stop thinking about this letter. If I was this woman and I learned that this is how my husband understood me and our child, I would fear that I made a horrible mistake marrying him because of the horrible choices that were now in front of me–accepting that he either didn’t love me or didn’t know what love fucking is to begin with.
he didn’t say that she was incapable he said he is NO LONGER PHYSICALLY OR SEXUALLY ATTRACTED TO HER. That’s significant. If he doesn’t like what he sees when he looks at her why should he pretend that he does? He hasn’t lost his sexual appetite altogether, he just lost it for her due to the drastic change in her appearance. Call him an asshole but what how does that make you any different than people who tell others what they should and shouldnt find physically attractive in another person?
Wow Dan! I love you, and I love your column. But, now, after your answer to ATTW, I’m officially “in love” with you! 🙂
@150 Of fucking course he cannot be faulted for what he does or does not find attractive. However, he can absolutely be faulted for not expressing any awareness or concern about the likely causes of this “drastic change in her appearance.” Find me any pregnant women who doesn’t naturally experience a “drastic change in her appearance” both during and after pregnancy.
The issue here is magnitude, expectation, entitlement and lack of concern for his wife and his child.
The guy is saying that he’s considering divorcing his wife because she’s still caring an unspecified number of pounds after giving birth to an infant of unspecified age. He doesn’t mention compassion for what his wife endured to grow, deliver and than tend to a baby, what she thinks/feels about her body or their sex life, or any sense that this is a totally fucking expected and inevitable sequence of events that is called fucking LIFE. We have no evidence that the wife sees the weight gain as a permanent state, only that this dude is contemplating divorce or cheating if she doesn’t shape up immediately to service his needs.
If you cannot see why that’s an entitled asshole, I guess I’m finally out of things to say.
The other thing that amazes me about your line of reasoning is that if you believe that no man should have to tolerate the inevitability of growing old in terms of a woman’s appearance, that said man is setting himself up for a life of increasingly misery and loneliness for his own unreasonable expectations. Again, try to imagine a woman saying, “I’m sorry, I cannot fuck a man whose ass has sagged, whose balls have sagged, who has lost his hair, who wears dentures, who has age spots, who has bent forward over time, who blah blah blah…” Wouldn’t you think such a woman a sad specimen of humanity whose doomed years if not decades of the closing years of her life?
I think it’s interesting that people get so wigged out about lack of fidelity. I was writing a series of interviews with married women on their sex lives and one of the women I interviewed ending up finding sex outside of her marriage. She was bright, clearly explained her rationale, discussed her preemptive measures pre-affair, but readers freaked out. It was a completely black and white issue for them. I am not saying cheating is good or bad–but, look at statistics, obviously it is happening and to act so shocked and judgmental seems disingenuous.
jill
http://inbedwithmarriedwomen.blogspot.co…
@153 Aren’t you extrapolating from a specific situation to a much larger set of issues? I don’t accept the argument that, for example, my critique of this guy’s emotional limitations constitutes “freaking out” about cheating. I both believe in and practice open relationships and I also believe that there are definite circumstances in which cheating is the least worst option. This situation qualifies as neither.
I think justifying either cheating on or, worse, divorcing your wife because she has yet to lose her pregnancy pounds while still tending to an infant is a sign of a selfish, immature and narrow individual. That’s all.
I can’t speak for the others above who have also taken issue with this guy, but please don’t put words in my mouth about my thoughts on monogamy and fidelity, because I’m in 99% agreement with Dan that forced lifelong monogamy leads to unhappiness for all involved, including the children raised in such homes. I think it’s an analytical overreach to presume that folks of that position think that “cheating” as A-OKAY under all circumstances.
Welcome to nuance.
@142 I’m not sure what prompted your questions, but my take follows Dan’s line about “price of admission.” People come with baggage, of different kinds. If you don’t appreciate your partner’s kink (or smoking, or drug use, or child-from-a-former-marriage), then your choices are to stick around and deal with it (“pay the price of admission”), or to leave.
Even if the baggage is self-destructive, you’re not likely to be able to change the person, and the desire to try to save them from themselves shows that you have your own “white-knight” baggage that you haven’t dealt with (The rhetorical “you,” not you yourself, t-and-c).