Hold your hormones! Revenge sex best served cold

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/06/2019 (2286 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: My husband left his cell at home. I had three days off and was bored, so I decided to take a look. I know how to get into his fancy phone because he uses only three passwords — his three favourite pet names for me.

What a surprise I got. I hadn’t “wife-checked” his phone for about two years and he’s been a busy boy — doing many bad things online. He has picked up some girlfriends along the way, or sex buddies. I must say I had to laugh when I saw how he piously told one woman he could only have phone sex with her, because it “wasn’t real” and he’s a happily married guy.

I felt really hurt, then the anger came in waves. Rather than berate him about it and make myself feel like a victim, I decided to see how my favourite old boyfriend was doing and flirt with him. He was just bored enough with his marriage that he agreed to meet me at our favourite old spot in the country. Yes, I went for revenge — and I got it big-time. No phone sex for me.

The next day, I casually mentioned to my husband, with a smile, I had a good look around on his phone. I wasn’t sounding angry at all. He asked me if I was in shock and when I was going to blow up. I said, “Never, because now we have an open marriage.”

He whined like a baby that he never actually did anything but have phone sex. I said, “Well, since I saw what was going on, I have done something.” He’s in shock. Too bad.

I’m writing to warn guys who think they’re so smart, that an angry wife can usually find a willing sex partner/sex buddy a lot faster than a man can.

— Checkmate! Brandon

Dear Checkmate: Yes, there are more sexually frustrated husbands than wives. Unfortunately, in the year 2019, women still do more than their fair share of child-rearing and housework, plus earning paycheques in the workplace. It’s not surprising they aren’t feeling as sexy as their husbands a lot of the time, because they’re dog-tired. So, men with plucky women like you should be aware that any number of male friends and former boyfriends, and sometimes male co-workers, are willing to take an angry, cheated-on woman into their beds.

They enjoy satisfying the woman with some warmth and novelty, and you must know men are competitive. Many guys like the feeling of being thought better as a lover than the husband. They’re also helping the hurt woman get revenge, so it works for their egos in that respect, too.

You’d best talk with a relationship counsellor by yourself so you understand the ramifications of this move you made and mistakenly bragged about. You need to know ahead of time what you want to do if your husband is going to leave the marriage. Or maybe he’ll accept the challenge of an open marriage so you can both see other people for sex, and try to keep the marriage together. Frankly, that’s pretty unlikely, and you should also see a domestic lawyer and accountant your husband isn’t already using ASAP.

Your mistake was telling him. Being mysteriously cheerful would have driven him nuts. Now you’ve created a clearly stated revenge situation. If he hasn’t had sex with one of his telephone honeys, he probably will now!

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I’ve been taking a lot of guff from my wife. She criticizes everything I do. I think there’s nothing to criticize me about, but she looks for little things to show me how to perfect whatever I’m doing. Finally, I yelled at her: “Get off my back and stop criticizing me!”

She backed out of the room. She knew I was past the boiling point, and it seemed like she expected I might hit her. Now she is tiptoeing around me like I’m some kind of abuser. I’m not. I just reached my limit. What should I do? She’s been staying at her girlfriend’s place, and when she comes home, she stays out of the room I’m in. She’s just overreacting, don’t you think?

— Not An Ogre, Selkirk

Dear Not An Ogre: You’re not scaring yourself when you yell like that, but you’re terrifying your wife. A person’s reaction is what’s real for them, how their own emotions feel. So saying your wife is “overreacting” comes from your own set of emotional measurements, not hers, which are completely different.

Tell her you’d like to have a quiet talk and that you won’t be roaring anymore, so she can relax and be in the same room with you. But, do tell her you need to make a trade. She has to stop nitpicking until you can’t stand it, because it feels like baiting. She has to let you do things your own way and not be looking over your shoulder to criticize.

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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