Let husband fulfil desire with other women

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This article was published 20/04/2018 (3068 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: My husband and I have five kids, school-aged and adult, so things are getting easier at home. We met young and have had very little sexual experience with other people. I’ve started early menopause and have some health issues. I have very little interest in sex anymore other than every couple of weeks to make my husband happy, but it seems everywhere I look, everyone is doing it.

I feel my husband has really missed out on all the kinky stuff that I am not into. I am seriously pondering leaving him so he can have more sexual fun and I can have a quiet and more solitary existence. I feel guilty for my husband’s plight, but don’t really want to put on an act.

— Not Interested in Sex, Winnipeg

Dear Not Interested in Sex: Are you and your husband good friends and co-parents? You could stop having the bi-weekly sex you dislike, and free your husband up to explore sex with other women by having an open marriage while still keeping the family together for a few more years at least.

By stopping the sex you hate, you’ll become more comfortable in a friend-style marriage. He gets to have fun without guilt, and you don’t have to worry about health issues. Continuing to “take one for the team” while he sees other people is dangerous as it can bring a sexually transmitted disease to you.

Of course, your husband may fall in love with someone else, but that’s a risk you’re already willing to take when you say you’re thinking of breaking up with him so he can be free. If you stay and co-parent pleasantly as friends and he falls for someone emotionally, you will be able to accept he’s moving out fairly easily, and it gets you off the hook as the deserting wife.

If deep down you really want to end your marriage, then talk to a counsellor and face that, and make a decision as to how much longer you need to stay for the grown kids’ stability. Stop hiding behind this altruistic “reason” of allowing him to explore more and different kinds of sex.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I hate it when my wife calls me nicknames such as sweetie and honey. I’m an adult and have a name. She doesn’t like my first name, so she’ll use anything but that. I have offered my second name for her to use instead, but she dislikes that even more. Both names tell the world what country we come from and she doesn’t want the attention of people asking about it all the time. It’s not like she doesn’t have nice brown skin (as I also do). We are both good-looking, fashionable people with good jobs. What is she ashamed of? I asked her last night if she would like my name better if we lived back home again, and she said yes.

I don’t want to move back home. She wants that, or else to try to fit in here. She now uses a common name taken from her longer real name, which is beautiful and has meaning. Please help. 

— Wanting My Real Name Used, Winnipeg

Dear Wanting My Real Name Used: You can get people to use the name you prefer by stubbornly not responding to any other name, but that avoids the real problem here. Your wife needs the feeling of fitting in, either here or back home. But how bad is her compromise, really? Rather than use your formal name, she doesn’t change your name to another name, she just uses terms of endearment. Many Canadian men haven’t heard anything but “darling” or “dear” since they got married. Is it a status or respect thing in your culture to use the formal name? Please write back with more information on this.

Please send your questions and comments to lovecoach@hotmail.com or Miss Lonelyhearts c/o the Winnipeg Free Press, 1355 Mountain Ave., Winnipeg, MB, R2X 3B6. 

Miss Lonelyhearts
Advice Columnist

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