My husband asked to have sex with another woman. The saga that followed changed me.
How to Do It is Slate’s sex advice column. Have a question? Send it to Jessica and Rich here. It’s anonymous!
Dear How to Do It,
Three years ago my husband of a decade cheated on me—sort of. Our relationship was in a bad place—we had moved overseas for his job, and I was working a part-time remote job from home, and doing all the household work and childcare for our 1-year-old. I felt isolated and lonely, so I was grumpy and easily frustrated. His response was to pull away from me and our son, locking himself in his office to play video games and spending the weekends sleeping, which made me even more resentful. I begged him to be present and empathetic, but for whatever reason he couldn’t or wouldn’t do that for me.
After some months of this, he told me he had met someone at an event and wanted permission to have an open relationship. He stressed that this would be purely sexual. I was absolutely not OK with it, but he kept pushing and I gave in. I’ve never had a problem with ethical nonmonogamy in theory—much like skydiving or smooth jazz, fine for those who liked it, but not for me. I read all the books and blogs and listened to all the podcasts, and I tried to be accepting, but rapidly spiraled into the worst mental health crisis of my life. I sought medical help. He reluctantly ended the relationship. The other woman had developed feelings, and it got messy. Her social circle overlapped with ours, which meant we sometimes encountered her at parties and events. We were able to keep it quiet, somehow, but it was an unpleasant situation.
Cut to present day. We now live in a different country. We went to couples therapy for the entire following year, but to this day, I still carry the deep wound of those dark months. He continues to say he wouldn’t have pursued the open relationship if I had been a better partner to him at the time. He feels that my mental health crisis was “manipulative.” He points out that he never lied to me, which is true, and that he got my consent first, which I argue was coerced consent, and that he ended the relationship at my request, which is technically true, though he took his time about it. We haven’t really been able to talk it all out since the conversation never goes anywhere.
We have two young children who adore their dad, and we have spent the majority of our life together moving every few years for his job. I miss the kind, thoughtful, loving man I married. I don’t want a divorce, but I also struggle with feeling stuck in this deep well of grief for the marriage I thought I had. What makes it worse is that while he was in this relationship with another woman, he was more loving and attentive to me than he had been in years. These days we’re OK, and manage to enjoy each other’s company from time to time when we’re not exhausted from working and parenting two small children, but the whole sordid story still hangs over me. Every time we have sex, I can’t stop visualizing him with someone else and feeling disgust. I’d like to go to therapy again, but we’ve seen a few therapists and it’s not been especially helpful. I want to move forward, I want to put this behind us. Ideally, I’d like us both to learn and grow from it, and to be better partners to each other. But I can’t seem to lose this crushing weight of hurt and resentment toward him for what he put me through. What do I need to do? What does he need to do?
—Still Carrying this Weight
Jessica Stoya: Our writer has the option of going to therapy herself. She clearly has a lot to say and a lot to work through. The reason I say therapy or counseling is that therapists and counselors are trained to work through the past, and things that might’ve been traumatic.
I get the sense that she has the idea that if she can just get him to do something unknown, then that will turn him back into the kind, thoughtful, loving man he presented as or behaved as when they got married. The reality is, as she knows, she can’t control what he does. She can set her boundaries. She can say, “In the event of this, I will do this.” Right? “If you pursue another relationship outside of the marriage, that’s my limit. I will leave you.” But she can’t get him to go to therapy, participate in therapy, or change his behavior. She can’t control him.an autonomous person.
Rich Juzwiak: Yes, I agree with that. And I do want to validate her. She writes, “He continues to say he wouldn’t have pursued the open relationship if I had been a better partner to him at the time. He feels that my mental health crisis was ‘manipulative.’” I think those are awful things to say to somebody. What does he need to do? Well, in a perfect world, he wouldn’t be saying stuff like that.
Here’s what I really think: I don’t know that this gets resolved without the conversation going anywhere. What he “needs to do” is have that conversation and work it out. If he’s not going to do that, how can you possibly continue the relationship? Then you’re just sweeping it under the rug and you’re pretending that nothing is going on. All of that resentment is fomenting. Look at how it’s presenting in their sex life. You’re just cosplaying a real relationship as long as these issues are outstanding.
You can take what he does as a kind of litmus test for whether this relationship is viable. And if he’s not actually interested in working through this stuff, that so obviously needs to be worked through, you have an answer.
Jessica: But the answer for the question, “What does he need to do?” needs to come from the letter writer. What does she need him to do? What does she need and require to begin to trust this relationship again, and begin to feel safe in this relationship again? Regardless of who he behaved as when you married him, you’re dealing with a different slice of that man now. Are you going to tolerate that massive shift in behavior and respect?
Rich: And empathy. There’s a lack of empathy to qualify her mental health crisis as manipulative. Your partner had a crisis, and it’s not all about you. That to me is probably the worst thing in here. That gives me the least amount of hope for the relationship.
Jessica: For me, the worst part is the, “He got my consent first,” which she correctly argues was coerced consent. One of the things that drives me up a wall the most about how basic consent gets taught is this concept that it all relies on, “Well, she said yes. Well, he said yes.” Well, did you push, and push, and nag, and whine, and pressure, and already halfway be doing it? That’s not clear consent, right?
Rich: No, it’s not. You’re right. I do think in my own experiences I’ve found that sometimes with this opening up, you go back and forth and people change their mind or feel differently on a different day. But if the person who’s resistant to the opening isn’t at least bringing it up sometimes as something that they want to do or saying, “Oh, I changed my mind about that,” or, “I’m interested in exploring it,” and if the person who’s pushing for it doesn’t say sometimes at least, “You know what? Fine. We won’t do this. I’m OK with being monogamous,” that’s a huge issue. The idea is you want to at least strive to meet in the middle.
But if you’re not getting anything from the other side that says, “Actually, yes, this is viable, and this is something that I want,” coming from that person unprompted, you’re in trouble. That’s not going to work, and it’s clearly not working.
Jessica: Very clearly not working. The man probably ruined his relationship with his wife, the mother of his children, and it may not be repairable. I think when you’re at the point where you’re having intrusive thoughts during sex that are related to a difficult, hurtful, and possibly traumatic experience that your partner put you through, to me, that’s a sign that there’s very little chance of coming back from that, unless it is an incredible, real, thorough apology and change on the part of the other person. But even then, it doesn’t come back overnight.
Recovering from a harm like this, whether she stays married to him or not, can be a multi-year process. And 10 years later, you can still find yourself affected by it again for a minute. Given that he’s framing her mental health crisis as manipulative, and refused to be present and empathetic, I don’t think he’s going to do what it would take to help her believe in him again.
Rich: There’s one other part that I want to highlight that I think is interesting, which is when she writers, “What makes it worse is that while he was in this relationship with another woman, he was more loving and attentive to me than he had been in years,” which I find sad coming from our writer’s perspective.
But I think the most diplomatic reading I can give this is that this kind of nonmonogamy really worked for him, and it might be something that he needs in some way. That might’ve unlocked something in him. And that is not the life that our writer wants to live. It seems very clear to me. Again, diplomatically speaking, this seems kind of like a mismatch to me. It seems like what he needs is what she’s not willing to give and vice versa.
Jessica: I would go a little further and say even not able to give. Because I think you’re correct. He may be nonmonogamous as a person, not as a practice, but as a person, like you and Lucie were discussing during the Advice Week chat. Meanwhile, our letter writer is clearly monogamous as a person. She tried her absolute best, and did not get any enjoyment out of it. The fact that she had a mental health crisis so bad that it led to medical intervention says to me that she’s not built that way.
Rich: It’s such a bummer when you have someone who is clearly stating their boundaries, who understands enough about themselves to say, “This situation that you want to get involved in isn’t right for me.” Then they go through it anyway. Coerced? I’m sure. But also out of the love of her heart. Clearly that was a factor. And then she suffers an actual kind of breakdown as a result, which she knew all along something like that could happen. She was right along. It’s the worst kind of vindication. It’s the worst kind of being proven right. I feel for her.
Jessica: I want to add that the fact that in the middle of this nightmare she was able to argue that her consent was coerced, shows she is made of grit—it’s like when the skeleton of the structure survives a nuclear explosion. If she finds that it is best for her to leave the relationship and build a new life around herself, she can do it. I’m not worried about her ability to do that and to navigate the complexity of a split household and everything that comes with that. It won’t be easy, but I think she will get through it with her head up.
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