Letters to the Editor
-
Well....what do you want more?
I love ice cream. I love pistachio and strawberry and Dr. Bob's dark chocolate. I love LOTS of flavors of ice cream.
Mashti Malone's makes some amazing exotic flavors with ginger and lavendar. All sorts of yummies.
But, of course, when I have $3 extra dollars and its a hot day and I think "Ice Cream would be LOVELY!" I can't have 12 flavors. Or even 3. Really not even two. I can only have one at a time. So I have to decide. What flavor do I want more?
What do you want more?
Do you want to remain happily married in a loving and developing relationship knowing that YOU, also, are a good husband?
Do you want to risk divorce and know that your actions are hurtful, unfair and ultimately risky to the physical and emotional health and safety of your wife, and continue kissing other women? Do you want to do that while stunting the development of your marriage? Do you want to be an emotionally stunted dick, fantasizing about really boring evenings that don't even end in sex?
Or do you just want to rip off the band-aid and get the freaking divorce already so you can eat all the ice cream you want everywhere you like. Because, y'know, that's an option. You could even get laid while on business trips.
Something to consider.
Everyone is gonna want you to be Option 1 guy. You're probably going to continue to be Option 2 guy. But you really should just take Option 3.
-
Maybe Just Try It
If the attractive partner also is married, and wants to stay married...
If the attractive partner is a grown-up who is not likely to rat you out...
Maybe just do it.
You want to do it. See how it feels, when you do it, the next morning, a week later. Then make up your mind.
We all need to get beyond the cliches, e.g. "happily married," and find out what we really think, what we really feel.
-
@ Epizia
He has KIDS and you think he should dump his wife for figurative ice cream?!
LW, think seriously about what you're getting from furtively kissing other women that you're not getting in your marriage. Whatever that is, is it worth the stress you're causing by deceiving your wife? Then talk to your wife about how you can get that in your marriage, OR in a way that doesn't violate whatever boundaries both you and she are comfortable with.
-
What the LW doesn't realize is that
his wife would already want his head on a platter just for the "drinking with attractive women" part, let alone the "talking about sex part" or even the "kissing" part.
In fact, according to the LW, the "talking about sex" part is worse than the kissing part - but in reality kissing is quite an intimate act to be performing on someone other than your wife.
I was recently approached by a married man for "a kiss". I declined, although he is quite attractive and were he single, quite kissable. Up until he asked for the kiss, that is. Something about married/asking for kiss from other than wife sort of turned me off.
Maybe I'm unique that way but I don't want furtive sex with someone else's man, and I include inserting tongues into one anothers' mouths to be pretty intimate if not actually "sex".
I can't understand how cheaply he holds these other women, or his wife, to betray her on the one hand or to ask them to participate in the betrayal on the other.
The guy wants the sin without the consequences. He wants his marriage and kissing other women too. I doubt his wife would agree to this arrangement.
You're already cheating, dude. Admit it. And while you're at it, consider how you'd feel if you knew at that very moment your wife was kissing some anonymous dude back home.
I wholeheartedly agree that the LW needs to make a choice - quit it or get a divorce and have all he wants - but will probably stay in that third grey area just long enough to end up with his dick where it doesn't belong and perhaps a really ugly ending to his marriage.
-
It might be about The Thrill
My dad was happily married to my mom, too, but he cheated on her almost throughout their entire 35-year marriage (which finally ended in his death). The last 7-8 years or so, when my mom found out, were hell for her. And it wasn't exactly easy on us kids, either, though we were all adults by that point.
It wasn't about sex. It wasn't about being unhappy. It was about the thrill of doing something he knew was wrong, about bucking authority / social norms and getting away with it. It was like a drug for him.
So is this what's going on with you? Are you looking for a way to inject some borderline dangerous excitement into your life? Because there are plenty of ways to do so without jeopardizing the physical, mental, and emotional health of your entire immediate family.
-
LW, you are unhappy in your marriage. The answer to this is simple, and not just a "normal" fact of being married.
Dear LW, there is *clearly* something amiss here. Fundamentally, you are not happy in your marriage or else you wouldn't have recurring (and obviously persistent) sexual fantasies about other women that you are making into a dangerous reality.
You need to be very, very honest here, and not claim that your marriage is fine, when your actions clearly demonstrate otherwise. Your actions are speaking more loudly than your words (the noise in fact is deafening) Why are these women attractive to you or is it one in particular? It is only a matter of time (in fact I predict it has already happened) that your fling turns into a full-fledged affair. Then your life will become hell, I promise you, because I have seen many go through it. And nobody involved will behave in a predictable manner. But you are also already cheating your wife out of a truly happy relationship, so I suggest you get honest, like yesterday.
-
Timbuktom - not good advice
See, "try it" is really dangerous. Following alcohol induced lust "for the fuck of it" is likely only to cause trouble.
What will he "discover"? Perhaps that this strange is, well, different than his wife. Maybe better in one way or another, or maybe just the strangeness makes it better.
Maybe that it's more exciting than sex with his wife of untold number of years, the woman who squeezed those kids out in his presence, the particular set of stretchmarks or sags with which he's familiar. Maybe she tastes like peaches, and his wife doesn't taste like anything at all anymore.
Would it really be a good idea for him to experience that, and "then decide"? Do you honestly think he would be able to rationally weigh the 20 years of marriage, the devotion, the friendship, the trust, the shared parenting, against the wonders of discovering all that strange out there?
Once it's done it can't be undone. What if these other women fall in love with him? What if he falls for one of them - and he wouldn't have done that if he hadn't allowed himself to get that close?
Tasting that bit of honey could end up destroying an otherwise workable marriage, not because the marriage was doomed anyway, but because he removed part of the foundation of the marriage, which is the daily choice to remain faithful in spite of all that lovely pussy out there, not only out of devotion but out of the knowledge that the price for it is too high.
Think what you'd be losing, man. And for what?