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I
am a 28-year-old straight girl two years into my first marriage.
New job, new home, and new city 1,200 miles from my closest
friends. It was really lonely at first, not knowing anyone
nearby. Plus, Hubby is far less social than I am, and has
not gone out of his way to help us make any friends to hang
out with. He’s happiest at home on the couch, in front of
a good movie, which is how we spend a lot of our time.
Adding to that is the fact that Hubby is now working late
nights. I’ve spent a lot of lonely Fridays and Saturdays at
home. A hot bath coupled with a good book is fun only so often
before it becomes pathetic. Enter Elaine. She’s my running/workout
buddy, my wine-bar buddy, and happens to be a lesbian. She
recently split with her partner of eight years, and as a result,
we’ve been going out a lot more often.
Hubby is not happy. He feels threatened by Elaine’s lesbianness,
and equates it to me hanging out with a single straight guy.
I did have a couple of straight-but-drunk escapades with women
WAY back in college (hubby knows), but I am not gay, not interested,
and NOT A CHEATER. Plus, I am simply not Elaine’s type. She
has never once come on to me, nor has she said/done anything
that hinted at an other-than-friendly relationship. How can
I convince Hubby that my friendship with Elaine is platonic
and nonthreatening? And keep him from pouting and griping
every time I mention her name? She’s the only friend I have.
—Sick
Of Being Home Alone
It
might help, SOBHA, if you didn’t use inelegant phrases like
“two years into my first marriage,” unless you mean
to imply that second, third, or fourth marriages are in your
future. If I ran around introducing my boyfriend to people
as “my current boyfriend” it might give him a complex,
too. Just sayin’.
Here’s how you set your husband at ease about Elaine: Keep
doing what you’re doing—all of you. You get to hang out with
Elaine, which is within your rights (married people are allowed
to have friends and nights out); he gets to grumble about
it, which is within his rights (married people are allowed
to have feelings and insecurities). Only the passage of time—along
with regularly offered reassurances, your acquisition of other
friends, and Elaine’s eventual acquisition of a new girlfriend—will
convince your husband that Elaine’s intentions toward you
are merely friendly, and that you’re not itching to eat pussy
for old time’s sake.
It would also help if your husband spent some time hanging
out with you and Elaine. Invite her over for one of those
on-the-couch movie nights. And if Elaine isn’t willing to
hang out with your husband—if she’s not willing to do what
she can to set him at ease—then your husband’s suspicions
about her intentions may not be entirely irrational.
Recently I brought up the idea of adding a little kink
to my boyfriend’s and my sex life. Nothing extreme—just some
light bondage and some toys. A simple “No, I’m not interested”
I would understand, but he freaked the fuck out. He got angry,
saying that he didn’t know I was a “freak who was into sick
shit.” The next day he called me like nothing had happened
and I’ve been hesitant to bring it up ever since. We have
been dating for a few months, and he seemed like a nice guy,
not some sexually conservative nut job. I don’t know what
caused his freak-out and I don’t know whether I should head
for the hills or what.
—Slightly
Kinky Lady
What
caused his freak-out? Dunno. Your boyfriend could be insecure
or repressed or uninterested in kink. And any or all of that
would be fine, SKL, and something you might be able to work
with or around, if your boyfriend were capable of discussing
his insecurities, repression, and/or disinterest without resorting
to sexual shaming and emotional abuse. While I would never
advise someone to run from a good, decent, vanilla boyfriend,
that is precisely what I would advise someone whose boyfriend
resorts to emotional abuse to shut down a conversation about
the sex life he shares with his girlfriend—that’s shares,
not owns.
But before you head for the hills, SKL, give the asshole a
chance to redeem himself. Perhaps he feels bad about freaking
out and is too embarrassed, ashamed, or clueless to broach
the subject. So sit him down and say exactly this—yes, memorize
it—to him: “What you did to me the other night was abusive
and unfair. Lovers should be able to talk openly about their
sexual interests. So let’s try it again: I’m interested in
some light kink. If you’re not, that’s cool. But there’s nothing
wrong with me. If you’re not willing to meet my needs, or
if you feel that my kinks give you the right to treat me like
shit, then there’s something wrong with you.”
If he apologizes and promises to make amends (and pick up
some rope), you can keep seeing him. If he blows up again,
SKL, DTMFA.
My (now ex-) husband loved to fantasize about me fucking
other men. At first I was repulsed, but he kept at it and
eventually I started indulging his fantasies by making up
stories to tell him while we were having sex. Eventually this
led to my husband asking if we could have threesomes with
other people so he could watch me getting fucked for real.
We did this a few times.
I eventually had a couple of affairs that I didn’t tell him
about. Of course he found out and now he’s divorcing me. I
feel terrible about what I did, but I can’t help but wonder
if his need to see me with other men and my subsequent feelings
of inadequacy (and my need to be with a man who just wanted
me) contributed to my affairs. Now I am terrified to get into
another relationship. I don’t want to wind up with someone
who has fantasies like this again.
—All
Screwed Up About Sex
If
the marriage of a cuckold fetishist and his adulterous wife
can’t survive a routine infidelity then, jeez, what hope is
there for the rest of us?
Look, ASUAS, your fears are understandable after what you’ve
been through/been put through/put your soon-to-be ex-husband
through. But your odds of winding up with another cuckold
fetishist? Pretty slim. Your ex-husband’s kink may be enjoying
its 15 minutes, but it isn’t all that common.
Dan! Everyone has an opinion, but you’re the one with
the advice column. So stop printing goddamn response letters
from readers every other week.
—Quit
It Already
You’re
right, QIA—I’ve been running way too many goddamn response
letters from my goddamn opinionated readers. It’s almost as
if some of my goddamn readers think they know more about putting
together a goddamn advice column than I do. Christ, the nerve
of some goddamn people, huh?
Speaking of goddamn response letters: Tons of my goddamn readers
wanted to share their goddamn opinions with IMHB, the man
whose wife declined to get reconstructive surgery/new boobs
after losing both her breasts to cancer. You can read their
goddamn response letters at www.the stranger.com/savage/boobs.
Download
a new Savage Love podcast every Tuesday at www.thestranger.com/savage.
mail@savagelove.net
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