Letters to the Editor
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The Boy Would LOVE It!
Any boy or young man would LOVE to do it with you! These kids you read about, and that 24-year-old poster (previous) who say that making love to a lovely woman in her thirties or forties caused harm... They are are oddballs at least, almost certainly liars.
And you almost certainly would enjoy. But better not to do it. The boy will tell. Do you recall all the junior high teachers who have gone to prison in the past ten years? Gone to prison for falling in love with their students?
Instead, find a sleazy greaser who is over 21.
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Really now
The husband is not getting it done. The stepson is now looking attractive.
That sounds like a ticket to solitude.
Why not by something that takes C or D batteries and name it after your stepson?
And, apropos of nothing, what does Woody Allen say during sex?
"Hey, Baby, who *used* to be your daddy?"
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Of course, don't do it
Cary is wise in saying that you need to be the adult here. Be firm, and motherly, and don't let it even get to the stage where you have to discuss the purported attraction, titillating as that might be.
But I disagree with those who think he is not interested in you sexually. Oedipal thoughts are natural in any teen boy, and one who is dealing with a stepmom rather than a biological mother is more likely to give them free rein. He might indeed "make a move." Be ready to repel it without embarrassing either one of you.
Your real problem is the lack of sex with your husband. Teenage stepson or not (and the answer is -- definitely NOT) your marriage will not survive without an intimate physical connection.
Has it crossed your mind that your stepson might be aware of, and trying to fill the shoes of, his inadequate dad?
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I have the hots for my stepson
If you act on these feelings for your stepson you may very well ruin his life, yours and everyone involved. I had a friend who's wife and son went thru the same thing you are talking about. Afterwards the son felt so guilty about what he had been doing with his stepmom, as this relationship continured over the couse of a year, he shot and killed himself. He left behind a very tearful apology letter to his father. This young boy is not a full grown adult with mature thoughts. You however are a mature adult. Act like one.
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10 reasons to listen to Cary
1. Jail
2. Registering as a sexual predator the rest of your life
3. Losing custody of your daughter
4. Divorce from a guy you say you love
5. Public humiliation
6. The sex in jail is even worse than no sex
7. You'll be destitute for life due to permanent unemployment
8. He's your kid!
9. You are just avoiding the real problem: not enough sex with hubby
10. Cary is much more polite and kind than the rest of us.
Seriously, you say you know better and nothing will happen, but who are you kidding? Get on the phone to a behavioral therapist and get some help redirecting your thinking right now. Get hubby to a doctor, do couples' therapy, do romantic couples' weekends, do structured marriage renewal weekends, get a divorce and find an unrelated 20-year-old and go for it.
In short, deal with the real problem. You are at the peak of your sexual passion and obviously hubby isn't. You're transferring your appropriate passion for him to a younger version of him...sooo wrong on sooo many levels. And what's next...in 10 years you'll be competing with your daughter for the attention of her boyfriends?
Get a grip!
Put your energy into solving the problem, not creating a whole stack of new ones.
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The real problem is your lack of marital relations, not the attraction factor between you and your stepson
"My marital relations" are close to nonexistent, due partly to the usual stress and partly to my husband's low libido."
Anyone else see this giant red flag waving in the letter?
You are not depraved for finding your stepson attractive, and I radically disagree with the poster that you are 'betraying' your husband or your stepson laying in bed thinking about the stepson. But you are playing with fire doing this, and what's more I think you know it. Time to take a step back and give yourself a brisk mental slap in the face.
You have what sound like long-standing feelings of rejection and sexual frustration and blame then on your husband's libido....and voila, a younger model - one that shares hubby's actual DNA no less - has stepped in to fill your needy void.
It is time to ask yourself not 'is he attracted to me too?" (don't waste your time on questions the answer to which will not impact responsible decisions about behavior one way or another) but to ask yourself "why am I so flattered by this?" Don't stop at "he's young and hot!" because that's simply endemic to his age...also endemic to his age is the fact that he's not very educated, not very experienced, ragingly horny for anything female, probably thinks fart jokes are hilarious and still calls binge drinking until he pukes 'partying', qualities that, were they present in a 35-year-old potential affair partner, (even a tall dark and handsome one) would doubtless take the blush off the rose.
The attraction to the stepson is circumstantial; recognize it as such and redirect your thinking. From now one, when you think of the stepson, your first thought must always be: "what a good kid, it's great that he was able to come through a potentially traumatic divorce without being screwed up. Hopefully my being a decent stepmom had something to do with that. Full stop."
This is your first thought when he is around, and when he's not around. This is the thought you summon if he manages to catch your eye at the dinner table - only he won't, because an eye that doesn't want to get caught can't be, and yours NO LONGER WANTS TO GET CAUGHT, because that would be leading him on.
If he waylays you for a casual chat, smile, think ""what a good kid, it's great that he was able to come through a potentially traumatic divorce without being screwed up. Hopefully my being a decent stepmom had something to do with that" and continue to do the dishes or wipe the counter or make banana bread while you chat. You keep your mind on the topic and not on the kid. You listen to him, instead of watching his mouth move and making too much eye contact. In short, you control yourself, by erecting an invisible but impenetrable wall of sexual neutrality.
No more thoughts about his hotness, his tall-dark-handsomeness, about whether or not he finds you desirable. Those facts play a very very secondary role to other facts: that you are a defacto custodial parent and he is a minor and your relationship with him is defined and governed by the social and legal construct of family and the moral expectations of same.
There is a much more important and difficult subject to fill the void that has been pleasantly occupied by your Humbert Humbert musings - the sexual wasteland of your marriage. It is clearly time to do something about this problem; as you are finding out, it can and will spawn other problems, also of a sexual nature.
Therapy isn't always the answer but in your case I think it will do some good. The issue is not "uh oh I am attracted to my stepson and don't know what to do about it." The issue is "My husband and I are rarely if ever intimate and I have lost my personal connection to him, and I need guidance to figure out what to do about that." If you don't do this, you will likely end up having an affair - not with the stepson, but with the next hot guy that shows interest in you sans all the emotional and legal baggage. It's time you nip this brewing catastrophe in the bud, until you've at least had a chance to decide what it is you really want , vs. acting on barely acknowledged feelings of rejection and need for intimacy by sexualizing attention from the nearest good-looking male.
And finally, since you wanted advice about what do do if the stepson acknowledges feelings for you, here's what I'd suggest:
a. Stop wanting it/waiting for it to happen, thereby draining it of significance if/when it does
b. Do not allow any conversation to stray into areas that suggest you are open to titillation.
c. do not fish, verbally or nonverbally, for compliments or acknowledgment from the stepson. are you choosing to wear revealing or particularly flattering clothes, hair-dos and makeup around him? Stop.
It's highly unlikely a 17-year-old would voice or act on an attraction to a much-older adult (and one that is a quasi-parental figure) without a lot of encouragement. So stop with all the encouragement (and catching his eye, and thinking about him in a yearning way is encouragement; you are vibing him). Stop the encouragement and likely the incipient problem will disappear. If it doesn't, and he, against all odds, makes a declaration of love or lust despite your de-escalation, then use mom-speak to defuse the situation: "You're a good kid, and it's no wonder your dad and mom are so darn proud of you."