Monogamy, as a way of life, is pervasive. There are good reasons why. Providing a stable environment for raising children and controlling the spread of sexually transmitted diseases are two of the most important.
But all rules have limits. Monogamy, in Western culture, is based on the assumption that the partners have freely selected each other as mates and will satisfy each other’s sexual needs within the relationship. What should happen when this assumption turns out to be false?
A woman who called herself “Trapped” raised this question in a letter to newspaper advice columnist Cheryl Lavin about a month back. Trapped said she married her husband 16 years ago. For the first eight years the couple had “an extremely active, passionate sex life,” but then the sex stopped.
“I cried to him about how unhappy I was without it, how it affected my feelings for him, how much we need physical intimacy to stay close and how it affected other areas of our relationship,” Trapped wrote. “I went to bed angry and woke up angry.” Due to a stroke the husband suffered, Trapped continued, “I’ve decided he needs me too much for me to ever divorce him,” even though “I’m miserable without sex.”
The columnist’s advice: start an extramarital affair.
“If you were my sister, I’d tell you to find a male friend and have a discreet sexual relationship,” she wrote. “It’s certainly better than wishing your husband were dead. And no one who isn’t in your shoes should condemn you.”
Having challenged the prevailing orthodoxy, the columnist invited comments from other readers. And the responses poured in. So far Ms. Lavin has devoted four columns to reaction, pro and con, from her audience.
A few readers, as one would expect, thumped the Bible and condemned the columnist for promoting sin. Many others, though, agreed with the advice and said they had done the same thing.
Samantha wrote that she “was so incredibly angry” at her husband for rejecting her sexually that “at one point, I was seeing three different men at the same time” before settling on another man for a relationship that’s lasted four years. Rich, whose wife stopped having sex with him due to medical issues, began “having discreet sexual encounters with women who know my situation.” Nora, “after years of frustration,” rekindled a relationship with a previous lover, which has continued for seven years. Married to a woman who “has lost most of her sex drive,” Joe “opted for the affair and can live with myself.”
The readers who had engaged in affairs cited no concerns over unwanted pregnancies or STDs, techniques for controlling these hazards being widely known. Instead, they considered the biggest risk to be emotional involvement with their outside lovers. Although they needed and craved the sexual attention, they intended to maintain their marriages for conventional reasons: economic stability, non-sexual social ties, raising the children. Most professed love for their spouses, even though sexual intimacy had withered. The challenge, they suggested, was preventing the outside relationship from corroding the marital ties even further.
I am most interested in this last point. Nimue and I have developed a strong love for each other. At the same time, neither of us is ready or even willing to walk away from our marital lives. I don’t believe our emotional involvement endangers my home life, because Nimue and I have been successful in containing our relationship on a separate plane. But that may not be true of everyone who begins down this path.
Can a sexual drought be ended by a purely physical relationship with an outsider? Outside of, or even including, prostitution, can sex be satisfying without at least some emotional connection?
(Note to readers: you can locate the original columns at this archive: http://www.tmsfeatures.com/tmsfeatures/subcategory.jsp?file=20080626ctnyz-a.txt&catid=1060&code=ctnyz)
It can, but it never stays purely physical. That is something that they don’t warn you about. If it is sustained, someone always seems to fall in love. It is difficult to maintain the pure physical relationship, and can literally be impossible for some.
I have an open relationship with my fiance, and we’re happy with it. We both have a healthy sex life, but there are things that both of us can’t satisfy with the other. We want the other’s needs to be met, but can’t do it ourselves. Instead of breeding resentment and dissatisfaction with the other partner, we allow them to explore the other options.
The key to our success is the ability to talk with one another. We let each other know what is going on and who we’re thinking about. Most of the time, nothing comes about from a prospective interlude… but, when it does, it hits and interesting need.
I asked the questions in an open-ended way, Dana, anticipating that different people might answer them differently. For myself, I will go farther than you did. I find sex meaningful and satisfying only if I care deeply about my lover.
Having an open relationship based on disclosure and consent is, to me, a sensible way to resolve the dilemma faced by Trapped and countless others whose mates do not (or no longer do) fulfill all their needs. Unfortunately, not every relationship partner is so enlightened. For some, exclusivity is mandated by custom or religion, or the desire to avoid contracting an STD. For others, forbearance from sex outside the relationship serves a psychological need–assurance that the partner is (still) desirable and desired, and will continue to be supported, emotionally or economically.
How do you prevent your outside liaisons from transitioning into emotional bonds? Or is the risk that one or both partners may fall in love outside your relationship a risk the two of you accept?
On a certain level, it’s a risk we take. Normally, we’re extremely selective on who we invite into that sort of situation. They’re picked with the purpose of not confusing things too greatly.
My significant other and I are both very emotional people. We have to have a connection between ourselves and the other person to truly have a fulfilling liaison. The love that we have for each other is the kind that endures. We’ve both gotten giddy at seeing someone else, but there’s just a chemistry that can’t really be compared.
We find people we like. We find people we love. On occasion, it’s been the same person to find both of our affections.
We realize that the one we can’t bear to lose is the other. There is no other bond that actually overrides that. Both of us, who tended to cheat in other, more serious relationships, have found someone that understands the other, doesn’t try to hold the other, and accepts the other for who they are. It’s a perfect fit, even though there are disagreements. Trying to break that would be difficult. Trying to find something as fulfilling would be nearly impossible.
In my mind, there’s a reason why they are the liaisons and the one I come home to every time is him.
You and your s.o. are wise people, Dana, and fortunate to have found each other. It seems as though the risks you are taking in your outside relationships are small indeed–an outcome that should leave everyone happy.
My own feeling is that there is a difference between seeking elsewhere in the context of an open relationship, such as dana describes, and doing it in a context that involves or requires deceit.
It seems that dana and her partner have a mutual understanding, and I think that’s great, if it works for them, which it obviously does … they know each other, and they know themselves.
I think the repercussions and connotations are quite different when both partners aren’t on the same page about ideas of fidelity and freedom. I think that dishonesty, whether it’s a “sin” of omission or commission, impacts relationships. I’m not saying that I don’t empathize with those who find themselves in impossible situations … my mother is in one, and if she decided to cheat on my father, I’d say hey, go for it, especially if doing so improved her self-esteem.
But I can’t get past feeling that if dishonesty is involved, the relationship has more problems than just sexual issues. This obviously doesn’t apply to someone like the wife of the stroke victim … that’s completely out of everyone’s control; just the luck of the draw. And I also know plenty of people whose sex lives are compromised by medical issues who freely and lovingly give their partners permission to have those needs met elsewhere. It’s too bad that not everyone is enlightened enough to do that, but that’s a different topic.
Anyway, back to what I was saying, which is I think that if having sexual needs met outside of a relationship involves concealment or dishonesty, then some pretty hard thinking has to be done about why that’s necessary, and probably some equally hard thinking has to be done about how to either correct that relationship or get out of it, because if dishonesty is involved, sex really isn’t the problem — communication is, and while a relationship may survive sexual problems, it will never survive a serious and chronic communication deficit.
And so my answer to your question would be no — sex can’t be satisfying if it is strictly physical … because really, in most cases, people who are looking for sex outside of a relationship aren’t looking just for a physical release. If they were, they’d be satisfied with masturbating, and apparently they’re not. What they want is the connection with another person, and no connection happens on a strictly physical level. I am reminded of a friend of mine who had a sexual addiction issue … night after night, he would buy blow jobs from prostitutes, obsessively seeking for and buying sex. But the thing that finally woke him up and led him to end his emotionally arid and sexually repressive marriage was the one prostitute who, after the blow job, went to the county fair with him, and spent the day just being with him and having fun. The strictly physical sex never did anything real for him, but her kindness did.
Exactly. The physical can never outweigh the emotional. There is always something a bit more to it.
Occasionally, all me and my S.O. are missing is the chase once again. Regardless of how happy we are in the relationship, a simple fact is that we will never really have that “what-if” kind of feeling. Ours is known. While that is absolutely wonderful, comforting, and joyous, there’s something to be said for the chase.
The needs of partners should be as equally matched as possible. This includes sexual, intimate, and emotional, as well as a plethora of other things. It is when these are in imbalance that people seek things outside of their regular relationship.
Neither me or my s.o. are ones to judge on infidelity. We both came from relationships where the needs were wildly different and led us to stray from our partners. Romance is necessary in our lives, and, even though we know that the other would never leave because of a liaison, the thought is there. So, we try all the harder to keep the romance alive.
It seems the key to any relationship is keeping the little things alive. Love notes hidden in strange places. Lunches packed. Random things cleaned. Chores taken over. Favorite meals cooked. Presents bought just because… In my experience, once the dating stops, the relationship goes south. Never stop dating your husband/wife.
Excellent comments, both of you.
David, I understand the example of your friend learning, almost accidentally, that he was searching for love, not sex, in his extramarital adventures.
Let me posit a different set of facts: a man who, for whatever reason, can achieve orgasm only through acts his wife will not perform: oral sex, anal sex, domination. But his relationship with his spouse is otherwise loving and supportive.
Can this man find sexual satisfaction without falling in love with the women who provide it? Can he love both an outsider willing to perform these acts, and his spouse, but in different ways?
Perhaps, as you suggest, such cases are rare. But I doubt if they are non-existent.
Dana, you probably know that “falling in love” with a new person results in the release of endorphins which make you feel good. You tend to idealize a new love until, as time goes on, you learn characteristics that the new love may be hiding which may not be so attractive. And in most cases the thrill of the hunt fades, and the relationship sags toward the routine.
Do you get the same rush out of a purely physical relationship with an outsider? Are such relationships easier to break off after you discover everything you want to discover?
Certainly, as you wrote, small kindnesses, given without request, will help any relationship seem more like a new and exciting one.
Merlin –
Firstly, thanks for the empathetic comment over on my site … nightmarish, indeed. I mean, God help the woman who tries to get in my pants while I’m listening to chamber music.
Which kind of relates to the second part of this comment — I wonder why someone would commit to a relationship with someone who is sexually incompatible (as per your example). I’d think that if I were unable to achieve orgasm except by fellatio, and my partner hated doing it, I’d be inclined to reconsider whether the relationship really had potential for complete intimacy.
I suppose the question really is whether one person can actually fully provide for another, and also, whether there are degrees of infidelity. If, for example, I had splendid sexual and intellectual intimacy with my partner, but I went to the opera with someone else on a regular basis because my partner hated it, would that be infidelity? I doubt most people would think so, and yet … hmmmm. Is monogamy more than sexual fidelity? And if it is more than that, why do we place such emphasis on sexual fidelity? And why is it that when intimacy is found outside a monogamous relationship, it usually leads to sex sooner or later? My partner would probably have good reason to be jealous/suspicous of my operagoing friend; chances are it would be walking a very fine line.
These questions are somewhat rhetorical, though of course I would be most interested in your opinion.
I think that David is right that, if deceit appears to be required, the problems go beyond the sexual. We have to remember, though, that more things hold relationships together than whether or not the primary partners in the relationship get along, have sex, or even communicate well. There are so many external and internal factors that make it at least difficult if not impossible to determine whether the relationship should be maintained even in the face of the deceit and the inherent problems that make the deceit necessary (in the opinion of the one deceiving).
David, your questions raise a host of issues which I hope to discuss in future entries. My ambition for this blog is to discuss not only my relationship with and love for Nimue, though that will always be central here, but also sex and relationships in general, subjects which fascinate me.
Let me respond to your first question for now. My impression is that many relationships begin before the partners have explored the breadth and depth of their sexuality. In some cases (think of arranged marriages in other cultures, and people in Western cultures who have abstained prior to marriage), they may have no experience at all.
As the partners learn more about sex, they also will learn about each other’s likes and, perhaps, dislikes. This is when one may discover that oral or anal or group sex is enjoyable, or develop an overwhelming urge to try it. The other may be repelled by the idea.
And thus the conflict begins. The partners may still love each other deeply, but for one (or even both) the lure of going outside is still strong. What happens if, and when, he or she succumbs? That is the proverbial moment of truth.