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I might be falling in love with my husband’s identical twin brother.

My husband and I have been in a traditional monogamous cishet straight marriage for twelve years. It wasn’t until the last few years that I started catching feelings for my brother-in-law, who is also married. I first started to notice my BIL in a way that surprised me when we went on a family vacation together. He’s just so empathetic, compassionate, and articulate. He also has the same body my husband does (obviously), although my BIL is little fitter. What is really hard to understand is that my feelings for my husband haven’t changed. Do I love them both? Is that possible? Our sex life isn’t suffering. I’ve never been someone who can have orgasms without a vibrator assist, and I’m fine with that. Sometimes though, I find myself thinking about my BIL and feel extremely turned on.

I feel extremely guilty about this because acting on it would mean betraying everyone I love. Sometimes it’s extremely overwhelming. I find myself watching my BIL and wondering if he feels the same way about me. I think he might — to a degree — but I know neither of us would want to jeopardize our marriages and I would never ask my BIL to jeopardize his relationship with his brother. I also love my sister-in-law very much. But I can’t help but wonder that in some weird parallel universe maybe I was meant to be with my BIL. I can’t tell anyone about this and I’m desperate to hear what you think. Could I have chosen the wrong twin? I am afraid the only way forward is to just keep quietly loving my BIL and never say anything

Crumbling Rapidly Under Stupid Heartache

It’s certainly possible to love more than one romantic partner at a time — please see the hundreds of columns I’ve written over the years about polyamory — but it’s not always possible for a particular individual to have more than one romantic partner at a time.

Like, say, a person in a traditional monogamous cishet straight marriage. Even if a person — say, a wife — in marriage like that could get permission to date and/or fuck other people, CRUSH, she probably wouldn’t get the okay to date and/or fuck her husband’s identical twin brother.

You know what else is possible? It’s possible for a cishet, married monogamously married person to have one of those run-of-the-mill, all-consuming, life-affirming, harmless crushes on someone they’re not married to. (It’s impossible to have a crush on someone you are married to.) When a married person has one of those run-of-the-mill, etc., crushes on someone who isn’t their spouse, CRUSH, it’s not a sign — it’s not a sign all by itself — that there’s something wrong with their marriage. Happily married people are attracted to other people, have crushes on other people, and  sometimes even fantasize about alternative timelines where they’re married to the person they’re crushing on — that friendly coworker, that hot barista, that unattainable movie star — instead of the person waiting for them at home.

But when the object of a crush is someone explosively inappropriate… so explosive that the disclosure or discovery of the crush would have a blast radius so wide nothing for miles could possibly survive… that crush can best be understood as a kind of death wish. In other words, CRUSH: sometimes a crush is just a crush and sometimes a crush is a manifestation of a subconscious desire to blow it all up.

What can be done about a death-wish crush? Nothing. All you can do — if you don’t wanna blow it all up — is wait it out, CRUSH, same as you would one of those harmless crushes. It might take a few weeks or months… or it might take the rest of your life… but crushes, death-wish or otherwise, don’t last forever.

P.S. I can see two silver linings in this death-wish crush of yours, CRUSH, given your particular and highly unique circumstances. First, if your husband ever finds out you have a crush on his brother — and here’s hoping he never does — it’s not like you have a crush on his physical opposite. Unlike a woman with brown hair and small breasts who realizes her husband is crushing on a blond with big tits, your husband won’t have to worry that he isn’t your type. And if like all married people you sometimes fantasize about other people when you’re having sex with your spouse, CRUSH, you won’t have to close your eyes to picture your crush instead of your husband. You won’t even have to squint.

P.P.S. No more family vacations.

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I’m a 36-year-old cis woman and I’ve been with my boyfriend for just over fifteen years. We’re generally happy and we have a great and very active sex life. We’re monogamous, we’re kind to each other, and we spend a lot of time together. The thing is, we’ve never gotten married.

I made it clear at different points in our relationship that I was open to it, but he’s always been against it. He says he just doesn’t see the point. It’s never been something I dreamt about, but I figured we’d get around to it eventually. Lately I’ve been feeling more and more like this fact — the fact that we haven’t gotten married yet — is an indicator that something is deeply wrong with our relationship. He’s not anti-marriage. He’s gotten choked up during the vows at every wedding we’ve ever been to. So now, fifteen years in, I fear it’s not marriage he doesn’t want, it’s me.

Other context: I come from a very broken family (abusive home, two siblings died from drugs/suicide, I’m estranged from nearly everyone else), and I’ve always felt that no matter how great my life might seem outwardly, deep down I’m radioactive because of where I came from. I’m also the primary earner in our house, with a very good income. He’s in a creative field and I’ve bankrolled our life together. I’ve been happy to do it. That said, his entire family is super weird about money, and I watched his sister marry and divorce an absolute troll because he was loaded. I’ve got no interest in giving him an ultimatum. Talking about it can’t change how he feels deep down towards me. What do I do?

Relationship Isn’t Nearing Goal

If you wanna marry this man — if you’re ready to marry this man — stop waiting for him to pop the question, RING, and pop it yourself already.

Zooming out for a second…

While a person can fake wanting to fuck you and/or spend time with you… a person can only fake that shit for so long. So, based on your description of your relationship, RING, it sure sounds like your boyfriend loves you. If he was only interested in your money and your willingness to subsidize his artistic endeavors, boredom and/or resentment would’ve creeped in around the edges years ago. And think about it: if your boyfriend didn’t love you — if he was only after your money — he would’ve proposed to you, married you, and divorced you years ago. Again, if you’re still getting wanna fuck/wanna hang vibes from him fifteen years in, odds are good they’re genuine.

And, hey, the world is full of happily married men and women who didn’t think marriage was for them, i.e., men and women who only agreed to marry because it was what their spouses wanted. In some cases, these reluctant-to-marry-but-now-happily-married types only had to be asked once, RING, but in others the partner that wanted marriage had to issue a shit-or-get-off-my-face ultimatum: we’re getting married or we’re going our separate ways. There’s always a risk, of course, that a reluctant-to-marry or doesn’t-see-the-point type will pick the second option — end the relationship — but you can’t get what you want without making demands.

And if he can’t have you without marrying you, RING, suddenly marriage has a point, right?

P.S. When people hear “creative” they usually think “extrovert.” But not all creatives are extroverts. If your boyfriend is a behind-the-scenes creative (writer, composer, illustrator) as opposed to a front-and-center creative (actor, singer, contortionist), he may dread the idea of being the center of attention — and the bride and groom at a big wedding are the center of crushing amounts of attention. So, if your boyfriend is an introvert, make it clear to him that it’s marriage you want, RING, not a big wedding.

P.P.S. And if he refuses to marry you — if he refuses your ultimatum — you have the option of backing down.

P.P.P.S. Before anyone jumps into the comments to call RING’s boyfriend a moocher: We can’t condemn straight men who are uncomfortable with their wives making more money than they do — and there are examples out there of straight men so threatened by successful women that they’ve actively undermined and even sabotaged their wives’ careers — and then shit on straight men being “bankrolled” by their committed romantic partners. If we don’t want straight men to feel “emasculated” for earning less than their female partners — and we live in a world where women are increasingly lapping men educationally and professionally — shaming straight men who earn less than their female partners isn’t going to get us there.

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I’m a man in my thirties. I have been in several serious relationships with women, but I am also attracted to men. I’m not attracted to men in any emotional way; my interest in men is purely sexual. I have kept this a secret my entire life. I guess I don’t know if I would be considered bisexual or not. I do enjoy watching gay porn and I fantasize about having sex with a man, but I have turned down several opportunities to be sexual with a man. Which I almost regret. I am now in a serious relationship with someone I love. She wants to settle down, get married, and have kids. Do I owe her the truth? Or do I take this to the grave? The older I get, the harder it is to hide. My girlfriend is very supportive of the LGBTQ community. But I don’t know if she would be open to actually bringing another man into our bed or letting me experiment with another man on my own. I would love to hear your thoughts.

Truth Or Lying Daily

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