Warning. The language of this column is direct and explicit.
I’m gay, in my forties, married for nine years. My husband, shortly after we got together, committed some small treachery (exchanging photos and messages with another). At the time I confronted him and he lied to me. I decided to let it go, we had only recently been together. A few years later he takes the crabs and sticks them to me. He says it probably has something to do with volunteering for the homeless. I let it run again. A couple of years go by, and in a moment of insecurity I look at his iPad, finding confirmation that with the guy in the photos and text messages, at the beginning of the relationship, he was going to bed. Which causes me serious depression. Years of fears were confirmed, and on further investigation I found that he was also fucking with another. He only admitted when I showed him the evidence. I have decided to forgive and forget. It was too painful, I just wanted to look forward and carry on with our life. At that time we evaluated the hypothesis of the open couple, and I told him that I was fine, what I did not like was to share life with someone who lied so easily. We decided that open duo was not a good idea, and we practically never talked about it again. I am pleased to have decided to look forward, because the last four years have been great. We don’t fight, sex is fine, we have a wonderful house and we have a social life. I hadn’t felt the need to rummage through his things for years. I felt safe in the couple. Until two weeks ago I discovered that he has (again) the crabs and that (again) he has attacked them. He says he doesn’t know how he can have taken it. The betrayals and lies of the past have obviously returned to the fore, and now I question many things. The only way to know the truth I think is to find the evidence, and not really. I don’t start rummaging through his phone and tablet again. If I decide to stay, I’ll stay. But will I stay? Are the betrayals of the past no longer valid because we have moved on? Are these crabs to be considered a separate thing? Can one get crabs in the pubis even with a non-erotic massage? Or am I the fool with a husband who has been fucking around without his knowledge from day one?
– Scratching Head And Meat
Whether or not you stay depends on your tolerance threshold, SHAM. You endured your husband’s infidelities years ago: will you also endure this last one, probable betrayal and all those who – considering the curriculum – will probably come? Answer this question, SHAM, and you will know what to do.
As for the latest crabs, SHAM: yes, it is possible if they are taken during a non-erotic massage. If the place was dirty, if they reuse the towels without washing them, if they don’t disinfect the bed. It escapes me who might want a massage in such a pigsty, but maybe your husband is satisfied.
But I must say that… it is much more likely that your husband, who lied to your face on the previous crabs, lies again. Crabs – pubic lice – are almost always transmitted with pubic-to-pubic contact. Example: one has crabs, rubs the groin on the groin of one who does not have them, and then both have them. Which is not to say your husband had sex with the massage therapist. It could have been a full-body-contact treatment, those in which those who practice it undress and massage the client with their whole body, and even if for me that is an erotic massage, maybe your husband experiences it (and considers it) differently. .
But let’s assume the worst: your husband never stopped cheating on you. That is, he is the man he has always been. Maybe one of those who really want to be monogamous, and when they cheat they feel bad. Or maybe he’s a selfish asshole who doesn’t want an open couple so as not to give you the same freedom. Either way, SHAM, it’s hard to change. So what to do?
Leaving it means giving up the things you like about marriage: satisfying sex after almost ten years, the lack of conflict, the home you created together, the shared social life. But if you stay feeling stupid, SHAM, your anger and resentment, both justified, will end up ruining those too.
Let’s be clear: I don’t think you’d be a fool to stay. Except, if you do, you have to accept your husband for who he is. Not for him, but for you. Or rather, you have to accept it again, since I doubt you had stopped rummaging through his iPad and phone because you thought he wasn’t cheating on you. You quit because you didn’t want to know.
If you decide to stay, SHAM, you may continue to make him believe that a betrayal could cost him his marriage. It won’t stop him – or so far it hasn’t – but if he thinks he’s risking his marriage he’ll be less inclined to take advantage of every opportunity. If you don’t give him permission to “do without saying” and / or tell him that you have overcome his cheating, he will try to be even more discreet and will continue to use a condom so as not to attack you any worse. (I say “it will continue”, SHAM, because if he has always cheated on you, and only brought crabs home, he is likely to protect himself with others, for example by using condoms).
For the record, SHAM, accepting your husband for the man he is without telling him doesn’t seem like an ideal solution, as I’m a fan of ethical non-monogamy. But with your husband, ethical non-monogamy is not possible. He will continue to give you what he has given from the beginning. If you can’t stand it, if it’s something you can’t live with, you definitely have to walk away. If you can live with it, and start ignoring what you’ve always known deep down, you might as well stay.
Good luck.
If the condom breaks, who do you think should pay for the morning after pill?
– Settle This Argument
The state.
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I am about to enter into a sexual relationship with a man who has recently become paraplegic. (For the record, we are both in our 30s, heterosexual and cisgender). After the accident he hasn’t had sex anymore, and therefore many opportunities to understand how sex works for him now. He told me he’s numb from the waist down. I don’t know if he has had erections since he was a paraplegic, but he says that after the accident he can no longer reach orgasm. I was wondering if you (or your experts, or readers) had any advice or resources to point to us. I want it to be an experience that is as fulfilling as possible for him.
– Sensitive Personal Issues Need Exploration
Read the post “Keeping the romance alive after a spinal cord injury” on the Spinalcord.com blog. Contains great ideas, PLUGS, and lots of useful links.
My advice: You want this sexual experience – the first for him since the accident – to be fulfilling, and that’s fine. But the experience is more likely to be positive if you don’t base it entirely on your dick. I am not saying to ignore his dick, SPINE, but you must approach this encounter – you both must – with the certainty of being able to share a satisfying and successful experience even if he does not stand up or fails to come. It will take him some time to figure out what he needs – to achieve an erection or orgasm – and in the meantime, SPINE, has his tongue, arms and hands working perfectly.
Furthermore, non-penetrative sexual relations, or those in the absence of erection / s, are not a consolation prize. They are perfectly satisfying sexual experiences, in which moreover – not a small thing – he already now, erection or not, can excel. If you want him to be reassured about his body and abilities from his first sexual experience after the accident, base it on mutual pleasure, not his dick.
(Translation by Matteo Colombo)
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