I’m a 20-year-old straight male, but this isn’t really about me.
I was recently back home for a family event while my younger brother, age 14, was away on a mission trip with his church. My iPad died while I was home and my mother told me to look in the kitchen drawers for a charger. I couldn’t find one there, so she told me to check my brother’s bedside table. I opened the drawer and, with a little digging, found a charger.
I also found a few pictures of gay porn and a couple of pictures of male celebrities with their shirts off that had been clipped from magazines. It isn’t the gay porn I have a problem with—I fully support him coming into his sexuality, whatever it might be—but then I found a few things that were a bit more disturbing: a picture of our father in his swim trunks, and another one of a fully naked man with a cutout photo of my father’s face glued over the original model’s face. Needless to say, I was freaked out. I put everything back where I had found it, including the charger, and haven’t said anything to him about it. Now I’m in a tough spot. I know that telling my brother I found the pictures would mortify him, and I feel like telling my father would be a complete dick move.
Concerned And Scared
I can appreciate why those pictures squicked you out—a family member lusting after a family member? Ughers—but I don’t understand exactly what it is you’re afraid of, CAS. While your brother appears to have an inappropriate and—fingers crossed—fleeting sexual obsession with your father, can you picture a scenario in which your brother’s desires, however devoutly wished, could be consummated?
Unless something much, much squickier is going on back home, your brother isn’t a danger to your father, CAS, nor is your father a danger to your brother. The only danger I can see is in the false choice you’ve laid out in your letter. Saying something to your brother will only poison your relationship with him; saying something to your father will certainly kill his relationship with his son. And destroying either relationship over what is most likely a temporary bonerstorm-of-puberty-induced obsession—an obsession that will soon be a distant and unpleasant memory for your brother—seems a bit extreme.
If those pictures weren’t in a place where your parents might also find them, CAS, I would advise you to stuff this one way down the ol’ memory hole. But there they are, in a place where Mom and Dad—BUT ESPECIALLY DAD—might find ’em. So you’re going to memorize this and say it your brother ASAP: “Hey, kiddo, Mom told me to look in your nightstand drawer for an iPad power cord. I found one—along with what looked like gay porn. I didn’t peruse your porn collection too closely because I wanted to respect your privacy. But you need to get that stuff out of the house before Mom or Dad finds it. It’s cool with me if you’re gay, and I love you and it makes no difference—but leaving porn around is not how you want to come out to Mom and Dad, okay?”
Then tell him that grown-ups don’t keep porn in their bedside tables anymore: The internet is for porn, and he can access all the porn he likes safely and discreetly on his iPad.
I would like to know why my husband is divorcing me to marry an 87-year-old woman.
Extremely Humiliated
Only your husband knows the real reason, EH, but if I were to hazard a couple of guesses: Either this woman is extremely wealthy or your husband is a gerontophile. Sadly, neither makes this situation any less humiliating for you. But try to look at the bright side: No one who hears what your husband has done—and no one who knows you both personally—is going to think there’s something wrong with you.
I am a 43-year-old mother of three, married for almost 20 years. Three years and one child in, my husband confessed that he had a penchant for being a BDSM sub. My reaction was, “Okay, I’ll try it, but if you want to explore that with pro doms, be my guest.” Which he did.
Fast-forward a dozen years. I’m going bonkers because my husband is impotent. And don’t tell me ED can be fixed, because in our case it couldn’t. And don’t tell me there are alternatives (oral, manual, toys), because all of those are just not the same for me. My body needs a fully functioning and capable man. So my husband gives me his “blessing” to take a lover. I didn’t even have to ask! I just needed to be miserable and depressed for a dozen years!
Now I have two lovers. One lives far away, and I see him a few times a year; the other is local. The problem is that they are both married to spouses who don’t know. Like me, neither of my lovers is interested in divorce. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I’m not happy with the integrity of these situations. I know that what I am doing is considered despicable by many people, despite the fact that I’m probably a marriage-saving device for both of these women. (Their husbands are happier, I’m not trying to steal their husbands, and I’m not a financial burden on either of them.) I would love to find someone in an honest open relationship, but this has so far eluded me. So I guess my question is: How do I set up a situation with more integrity when the world isn’t really ready for people like me?
Normal Soccer Mom From Afar
The answer NSMFA seeks is obvious—there are hard-up single men out there, married men in honest open relationships, men in the organized swinging movement, and she should go fuck some of them—but I’m including NSMFA’s problem in the column for all the smug monogamists sending me angry letters in the wake of Mark Oppenheimer’s recent feature about monogamy and its discontents in the New York Times Magazine (“Married, with Infidelities,” June 30, 2011). While regular readers of Savage Love know where I stand on monogamy—with the realists, monogamous or not—not many readers of the New York Times knew where I stood.
Anyway, smugsters, here’s what I think is interesting about NSMFA’s letter: Everyone involved is perceived to be in a monogamous relationship, by their friends, family members, neighbors, bosses, coworkers, elected representatives, etc.; two of the women involved—the duped wives of the men that NSMFA is seeing on the side—may actually believe themselves to be in monogamous relationships. But not one of these three couples—not one of these six “traditionally married” straight people—is actually in a monogamous relationship.
Just something to keep in mind, monogamists, before you hit “send” on your e-mail to me about your beautiful, deep, and meaningful monogamous relationship, about how your parents never cheated on each other, about how none of your married friends would ever cheat on their spouses, and about how people like me have no idea what real love means because we’re not in monogamous relationships, etc., etc., etc.
Because you just never know, do you?
Find the Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast) every Tuesday at thestranger.com/savage.
Dan,
Usually I can go along with you, but your response to EH revealed some distressing ageism and sexism.
Maybe because she’s his soulmate?
Maybe because she makes him laugh?
Maybe because she turns him on?
Maybe because she’s fun in bed?
Maybe because she listens and cares about him?
Maybe because she’s tough and/or smart and/or brave and/or wise and/or playful?
Maybe because she shares something with him that the wife doesn’t–like ethnicity, religion, political attitudes, interests?
Maybe because the relationship with the wife has been a downer for a while now?
Maybe because there really is something wrong with that wife (like her bewilderment and refusal to even consider there might have been something wrong with their marriage)?
The idea that a man who chooses to marry an older woman is either a gold digger or has some weird kink is–well, stereotypical, to say the least.
This 87 year old woman is a person, and, like almost any person, she has things that might attract another person. Without knowing the particulars, why speculate narrowly and crassly?
monkey@27 “my kinky side, which has been buried now for more than a decade.”
Just wanted to give a quick plug for considering “kink on the side” separately from “sex on the side.” Depending on how you are wired, it may be possible to satisfy the kink in ways that recharge your family rather than draining “more energy than you get back out” (@38) If you simply yearn to give or receive a good beating or spanking –- that can be very satisfying, and in my experience the interaction can stay at the level of friendship among fellow hobbyists, rather than becoming an emotional entanglement.
40devinderry– Thanks for the timely reminder. I missed Colbert Report last night, saw your comment today, and caught the rebroadcast on Comedy Central just now. My only problem with the interview is that Colbert was so funny, such a good comedian, that it was a shame seeing Dan playing the straight man.
all the letters this week have an air of FAKENESS, specially the first one
For your advice to CAS, I agree with everything you told him to say to his brother, but his brother’s Ipad may not be totally private (who knows if one of his parents won’t borrow it for some reason) so it may not be great for him to download anything, though if he surfs and then deletes his browsing history, he should be in good shape. Also, since you need a credit card to access a lot of that material, his brother may be in a bit of a bind there too.
Am I the only one who thinks the NSFMA letter is bogus?
It’s like cleverly disguised cuckold porn…he is a submissive, he can’t get it up, she has multiple partners to satisfy her (which was husbands idea)…
I don’t know…just seems like someone into cuckolding wrote out his fantasy from a wife’s perspective. She needs a “fully functioning and capable” man to satisfy her, which would state that her husband is not only sexually defective…but also incompetent?
@58 – NSFMA is a real person. She has written in to a different thread to continue the discussion. Here’s part of what she posted there…
>> I really appreciate all the comments and am fascinated by the whole topic and the complex issues that are raised. It is hard to respond to every point but I will say Dan was right about me being sarcastic about the 12 years of misery (and that PE is premature ejaculation) It WAS hard, I DID get depressed and it DID NOT occur to me to do anything other than to keep trying within my marriage to figure it out. But my husband and I always worked toward open communication and while I can’t say I was never for a moment resentful, I can say I think we did pretty well talking about and plodding through these very, very difficult issues and for this I am proud of us. We have now been successful partners for 22 years in business and parenting while remaining best friends. And don’t you all worry about his sex life! He is very well taken care of. On the issue of “find a single guy….” Won’t a single guy fall in love or want more or want to fall in love with someone eventually? That means you are really talking about a series of single guys which means many partners over the coming years (if I’m lucky) and if the goal is to feel physically comfortable and have something that approaches a “normal” sex life in terms of frequency. Many partners just seems a physically, emotionally and logistically unsustainable option. I was looking for longer term solutions. Polyamory would be of much more interest but, as one respondent notes, more easily found in major metro areas where I am not. Also, I still have children at home and I can’t see how we can make such a wholesale change in lifestyle at the moment. The idea of getting the blessing from the wives has been discussed and will be continued to be discussed. I can’t be happier to have the conversation going more national every day thanks to DS and others.
I usually love Stephen Colbert, but I thought he was kind of a dick last night and didn’t let Dan get a word in. (Dan seemed irritated too, with good reason.) For the general masses, Dan’s ideas are too complex and intricate to be conveyed in 3 minutes, and it didn’t help that Colbert took over half that time talking himself. Not a good forum for what could have been an awesome conversation. (Still love seeing Dan live, though!)
@39 Sometimes, even if a letter is fake, there are still things that can be learned for other, real, people who may be in a similar situation.
I sure wish this blog was organized as comments with responses in strings. It would be so much more like a real blog.
@60, you probably haven’t noticed that Colbert does all interviews like that: infuriating to fans of the interviewee, but pretty much just like an opposition host (o’reilly) would. Imho it’s good for liberal viewers to get a taste of how tough (and stupid) the opponents of liberalism can be. Colbert Report is a safe place for that.
“Because you just never know, do you?”
It’s called lying, and if you do it to someone who thinks you care about them you’re an asshole.
@60, and as far as Dan’s response, I’d say he was pretty typical in being annoyed by Colbert’s always interrupting to go for a laugh, and being a big enough boy to not lose his cool. He also sufficiently, if not entirely, of defended against Colbert’s intentional caricaturing of his philosophy.
Best column in a while! Just watched you on the Colbert Report – nicely played. although, clearly men need, and in the last letter, did, recognize women have sectual urges too!
In regards to having sexual fantasies about family members:
With some discomfort and a lot of shame I have to admit that I was also having some of those fantasies back when I was nothing but an ever-horny teenager who didn’t know shit about real sex and relationships.
The good news is that they were never pursued and totally faded shortly after.
That said, few years after all those family-related fantasies died so did my beautiful aunt. I ended up masturbating in her honor and refuse to feel guilty about it.
Maybe the father in swim trunks picture + magazine cut-out were a gag, and the younger brother was just careless about leaving it in his drawer. Doesn’t necesarily mean the kid has a sexual obsession!
Late to the game, but one of the best aspects of an open relationship is your partner finding someone who shares the interests they have that you hate so you don’t have to keep going to those damned opera/orchestra/country/rap/pop (pick your poison) concerts.
Nobody is perfect for everybody, but two people can get very close.
Letter 1 – not fake. I grew up in a 4 boy family and ‘accidentally’ finding porn was something that happened more than once. We are talking an era before the internet.
Great advice Dan, but just keep it to the basics – I saw your porn, find a better place to hide it.
Its very likely Mom saw it first and is subtly getting brother to do the talking, but really the best thing is to open an opportunity for little bro to talk – knowing he is not being judged.
Big bro could make an effort to mention in general family conversation other gay friends etc, and how fine he is about it.
And yeah its just a passing faze – someone who has been abused doesn’t make fan-porn of their abuser.
Just saw your interview on The Colbert Report. Maybe you should just keep your mouth shut and stop pretending to speak for the entire gay community. You played right into anti-gay stereotypes and made all gays look like promiscuous sluts who believe that monogamy and marriage are incompatible. If it’s possible, you gave homosexuals and even worse image in the minds of most heterosexuals than they already have. You messed up big time dipshit.
Re “Concerned and Scared,” I am also concerned and scared (and while I think the advice given is sound)I feel that this situation DEMANDS some thoughtful advice regarding the possibility that the child is being abused by his father.
The sad thing about Dan’s proposal is that he’s not offering an alternative to the zero-sum game idea of marriage.
He’s basically saying “let’s go from monogamous, sexless marriages where the men are miserable (and ‘monogamous’ relationships where the men cheat) to nonmonogamous relationships” the problem is, that I’d wager that most of the women who don’t want to fuck their husbands are going to be miserable if their husbands are fucking someone else.
Really it’s just “lets have the wives be miserable instead of the husbands”.
Unless there’s something I’m missing.
Personally I’m still holding on to the fantasy that if my S/O gets laid on the regular with me then he’ll be able to keep it in his pants around other women. I guess I’m just old-fashioned like that.
the second letter is fakey, fakey, fakey. Dan, do you contact these outrageous letter writers to verify the information? i know you did that with the young man whose gramma had a masturbating parakeet.
@49
Super sexist, but I’ll say it.
Women expect better of eachother. If I ever was cheated on I would be mad at the man and I would break up with him.
It’s not “as much” your fault, but helping someone cheat is also shitty and unethical.
So I would also be mad at the woman. Unless she didn’t know he was in a relationship and he was lying to her, too. Then I’d buy her a drink. Maybe we could be pals.
It’s like cleverly disguised cuckold porn…he is a submissive, he can’t get it up, she has multiple partners to satisfy her (which was husbands idea)…
I don’t know…just seems like someone into cuckolding wrote out his fantasy from a wife’s perspective. She needs a “fully functioning and capable” man to satisfy her, which would state that her husband is not only sexually defective…but also incompetent?
The letter is not fake in the least but you are perceptive in discerning some of my husband’s proclivities.
The first thought I had at LW1 is that the brother was PERHAPS being abused by the father. Maybe the brother can ask his brother some open-ended questions such as “how are things? is everything okay?”. Maybe that would open the door?
@38: I appreciate your concerns and those of the poster whose name I’m too lazy to scroll up and find. Missing from your perspective, however, is a great deal of pertinent information – I’m simply not going to divulge every detail, for a variety of reasons. Some that I don’t mind sharing:
The sexual incompatibility far predates our child’s birth and the attendant issues. It’s taken me this long simply to realize that my desires are not bad or abnormal.
We have a very strong support system, including relatives, daycare, schools, sitters, friends… the list goes on. Our daughter is not severely disabled. We have much, much more time for our own pursuits and interests than most people in our situation do, and we’ve worked very hard to get it this way. Part of that work has been extensive counseling and a recognition of the need to remain people first and parents second. Is it perfect? No. But I’m fairly certain that at this point, the “trapped” feelings you rightly deduce would be much the same with any child. I have a serious problem with breaking up a wonderful home run by two best friends who love each other and their daughter.
I’ve seen firsthand what happens to caretakers who subsume themselves in that role and either break out disastrously… or don’t. If I’d wanted to do that, I could have – the opportunities are bewildering, really, and it’s kind of a shock to realize how many people are okay with deception. But I’m not okay with it, or with burying issues by creating tangential drama.
To me, this feels much more like resuming the course of our marriage than trying to escape from it. It’s been coming down the pike from the beginning, I suspect.
i HOPE the first one is fake. smacks of fakey fakeness.
#4 Your comments are a platform only for your SPAM
@75: Dan has nothing against monogamy. If you and your S/O are having regular sex, and have agreed to be monogamous, and are GGG, then that’s awesome. His point, which is a good one, is that in those monogamous relationships, we need to stop pretending that monogamy is easy. Sometimes we fantasize about other people, and that’s ok. We just need to be honest and admit that just because you love someone, it doesn’t mean that you never ever like or lust after another person.
For sexless marriages, maybe it would make the woman miserable if her husband slept with another woman, but it is ridiculously unfair to refuse to let someone have sex ever again with anyone, including you, if you’re married to them. To paraphrase Dan, if sex is not at all a big deal and it’s totally ok to stop fucking your spouse, then your spouse should be allowed to do this not-at-all-a-big-deal thing with other people. If it is such a huge deal that you’re only allowed to do it with one other person, then that other person should be willing to do it with you.
@75: “the problem is, that I’d wager that most of the women who don’t want to fuck their husbands are going to be miserable if their husbands are fucking someone else.”
Sorry, having real trouble dredging up ANY sympathy for that position. If you aren’t interested in sex, then you aren’t interested, period. Have the courage of your convictions. If you really, truly just don’t want it any more, then you have nothing to say on the subject, other than “Thank you” to your partner for respecting your wishes and leaving you alone on that particular subject. If your partner is coming home happy, satisfied, and sharing their good energy with you as a result, you owe the other person a “Thank you,” too, for taking care of your partner’s sexual needs when you can’t be bothered to do it yourself.
If you really can’t leave the subject alone, then you have no business trying to opt out.
@48, 49: People may not have the same obligations to other people’s spouses as they have to their own, but as human beings in general we DO have a moral obligation to treat each other decently and honestly whenever possible. So if you have sex with someone and you know that person is cheating with you, then yes, you do share moral fault in the situation. The fact that your moral fault is not as bad as the other person’s fault is not the point; it only matters that you should shape up and not do this bad thing anymore.
@49, you’re assuming a whole host of false things about me and what I said. What made you think I’d be less pissed off at my husband, if he cheated on me, than at the person he cheated with? I’d be pissed at her/him too, yeah, but my husband would certainly be the primary concern because he’s the one who made the promises to me. The stuff you said about having to one day rely upon other women, or like myself as a woman, is utterly cracked out. What? I rely on other women all the time, have done so and will continue to do so. I like myself as a woman just fine. I would consider myself an immoral, stupid bitch if I were to sleep with a man who was already committed to some other woman, and that’s that. There’s no need to do that to someone else, period.
That EH letter was awesome.
@monkey. Thanks for sharing. I feel ya sister, I’m right there. I want to open things up and I think he would too, but there’s always the chance it will make things worse instead of better and that is a really scary risk when there is a child involved. Although I know hubby agrees with non-monogamy philosophically, I also know he has a jealous streak and an affair would hurt him. So I’m left feeling torn between feelings of selfishness and a desire for self-protection/self love. Funny, I always assumed He’d be the first to stray.
I have to say that my first thought when I read C&S’s letter was that the father might be incesting or might have incested the little brother. About 10% of boys are sexually abused, most abusers are family members – so it’s very possible. But whatever the situation – erotic fantasy or sexual abuse – all that C& S can do is let his little brother know that he’s there for him, with love and no judgment, in whatever ways he can. Whichever situation it is, it’s very delicate. If the little brother is being incested, then this is a very serious trauma that could affect him for the rest of his life, and it would be incredibly helpful if he got some love and support.
Because you just never know…true, and not so negative. It’s all really okay. Some of us just deal with figuring out our non-negotiables are actually quite negotiable. Cheers nonetheless.
While I have forgiven my cheating spouse I will never forgive her ex-lover. However, if I ever find out that has she continued or resumed contact with him its over. Whenever the opportunity to do him harm, whatever it may be, presents itself I will do so without a moments hesitation. He has taught me how to hate and made a lifelong enemy in the process. If I could destroy his life I would. I will celebrate any misfortune that befalls him and will let him know so. Forgiveness would be possible under certain conditions, but I doubt the cheating has the decency to do it. I have informed my wife of all of this when I took her back. Things can never be the same between us and I don’t know if we have a long term future together. There will be no second chance.
I think “sexless marriage” is often an exaggeration. What if it’s a sexdrive mismatch? How mismatched are they allowed to be before it’s unfair? It’s easy to say “I have no sympathy if she’s not fucking him” but what if it’s once a month? Once a week? Once every two months? Sex is a pretty diverse behaviour, one mans “happily satisfied” is another man’s “sensory deprivation” (or woman’s, for that matter).
I understand what you’re saying, but it’s not really as clear cut as it’s made out to be. At one end of the spectrum you have “Honey, if you never want to have sex again I think it’s only fair that you let me have sex with someone else” and at the other you have “if we’re not having sex five times a day you’re going to have to let me have a girlfriend (or boyfriend) on the side”. The ends are easy (the one guy’s reasonable, the other guy’s an asshole) but what about the middle?
It may seem intellectually clear that “no sex = not a big deal therefore outside sex = not a big deal” but people seldom make such decisions based on logic, they make them on emotion. Emotion doesn’t always yield so easily to if-then-therefore reasoning. Even a woman who agrees to the fact that it’s fair and let’s the man go for it may still be extremely upset on the inside. I see that as less than ideal.
To be clear, since a lot of people seemed to be adressing my comment as if I was one of these women. I’m on the high end of the sex drive spectrum and I don’t really see any of this applying to me… I just feel for these women, to some degree.
Oh, dear god, @90, “incest” is NOT a verb!
SERIOUSLY, Nobody gives a shout out for Bonerstorm!!?
Yay Bonerstorm!
Gee Dan, keep telling me that my partner and I are going to end up cheating on one another one day, and I’m going to keep telling you that you are full of absolute shit on that point.
@78 re incest fantasies phase among young gay boys.
Glad you brought it up. I was about to do so but was worried it will come across as homophobic. And as someone who checked out some lesbian porn catering to women, it seems like there is a mother/step mother crush in that community as well.
And if you don’t believe me check some Girlfriend Films productions, available both at Scarecrow and Blue Video here in seattle, or browse their website at
http://www.girlfriendsfilms.com/
It is also common for mostly-straight would-be- crossdressrs boys to try on some of their mothers’ clothing.
Rest assured, it is very very rare that any of these fantasies lead to actual “incestation” (as wrote Libya @90 and was so urgently corrected by Chicago Girl @94)
Hope I didn’t gross out any one, just wanted to let you know that it’s mostly a phase among both genders and different orientations. As cokyballsup @78 summed it up, “It’s harmless and nothing to worry about”.
Oh yes. I made several sacrifices for her most notably staying in a place of her choosing with limited career opportunities and working at a shitty job (mostly because of the benefits) so she could stay home and raise the kids, which placed the entire financial burden on my shoulders. I’m neither a control freak or someone who expected or wanted a marriage with traditional roles. I never commented on or restricted her choice of friends or politics. Big mistake on my part. I want neither tea or sympathy and yes I have anger issues,
“Because you just never know, do you?”
Love that. Not sure who said it but I did hear an fitting quote regarding this once.. something along the lines of “You can never truly know what goes on inside a relationship”
– You definitely cannot know as those people can be completely different people when only in the company of each other. So there really is no ‘normal’ and there never can be. Kind of relieving actually!
gerontophile. Betty White calls them Wrinkle Chasers.
@93: It is, indeed, less than ideal. But if two people enter a marriage without an agreement that they will not have sex at all, and one person later decides they don’t want to have sex, they can not expect their partner to also give up sex and stay with them. That’s incredibly selfish behavior.
@96: Dan isn’t saying one of you will necessarily cheat. But he is saying that if one of you decides they don’t want to have sex anymore, there’s a good chance the other will either cheat or divorce you.
I am straight, female, monogamous, and fairly straightlaced. Nothing in this column, NOTHING in the letters section or comments, has ever shocked me the way @90-Libya’s message did. Please, PLEASE listen to 94 and promise never to use “incest” as a verb again. Better yet, crawl under the bed, give up your internet access, renounce the English language, and don’t emerge back again until you’re ready to rejoin society without doing so much harm.
I am also in a long term relationship with a married man, and I’m sick and tired of people, including my own friends, judging me because “I’m not doing the right thing.” The wife knows I make him happy in ways she cannot, just as I accept that what they share together as a married couple -the history, the familial and community ties, the finances- are important enough for him to stay married. Would I like him to be all mine? Yes. But right now, these conditions are worth the price of admission.
A-muse, does the wife approve of or accept your relationship with your husband? If she accepts it, then I don’t think people should judge you for not doing the right thing. If she doesn’t approve of the relationship, though, then it’s another story. Saying that she knows you “make him happy in ways she cannot” is not the same thing as saying she accepts it, which is why I ask. If she doesn’t accept it, then that very recognition is probably a terrible source of pain, that you’re helping to inflict.
@ 98 — Your anger is understandable and probably justified. So much of the discussion here is theoretical and accommodating. It’s refreshing to be vividly reminded what a CPOS actually does to their spouse. Betrayal sucks, betrayers suck. And rationalizations for betrayal look pretty feeble and sad and selfish once you see the hurt you’ve inflicted on the betrayed.
I’m impressed you gave her a second chance. Not that it’s any of my damn business, but just be careful your anger doesn’t sabotage any genuine attempts on her part to make up for the wrong she did. Not for her sake, for yours. Hope things improve for you.