Dear Anne
I have been married 16 years to my beautiful wife whom I love very much. We are both in our late thirties and have 3 lovely kids. We have a fairly good sex life. I have always been turned on by the thought of her having sex with another man but over the last few years this is becoming a problem for us. I am regularly asking my wife for a threesome with another guy. Whenever she goes out for a drink with friends I encourage her to pick up a guy for sex then come home and tell me about it. She refuses to do any of these things, saying that she loves me and it would damage our relationship. This is becoming an obsession for me and I don't understand why I think like this. I am just a normal guy. How can I stop thinking like this before it ruins our marriage? Is she right that her sleeping with other men would spell disaster? J
Dear J
Do threesomes ruin marriages? Yes, very often they do. Either one of the couple thinks, "Ooh, this person is so much better than my partner. Why should I stay with that loser?" Or the one who's been reluctantly pushed into it is repelled by the thoughts behind their partner's invitation to infidelity. Thoughts like "I'm obviously not enough for him; he doesn't respect or love me or he wouldn't want to share me; for him sex isn't sharing love - has he just been using me all these years?" And they feel hurt, rejected, insulted, disrespected and creeped out. Then they commonly want to leave the person who's treated them with such contempt. Only where both parties actively want to include a third (for one of the reasons above) can a threesome work out - but usually only in the short term because they don't have a stable, committed relationship in the first place. And probably won't have once they're tried troilism anyway.
So why have you trained yourself to be obsessed by this? I say "trained" because you've obviously gone over this thought again and again and again, which was and is a choice. You say you're just a normal guy. Well, if a normal guy found the thought popping into his mind, he might mention it to his partner, or just keep his fantasy to himself. If his partner didn't want to try it, he wouldn't keep harping on about it but would work with his wife to find mutually acceptable ways of making their sex-life more rewarding. He certainly wouldn't disrespect her feelings by trying to push her into it. And actually to ask your wife to pick up some stranger for sex - isn't that inviting her to put herself at risk? Haven't you heard of safe sex? Of weirdos, sexual predators and murderers? Don't you care about her? Most guys would be more worried that their wives would go off permanently with the competitor! Sure, there are some people who might view this as normal, but I don't think you'd get that many men or women sex to agree with you in practice. Most of them would find it distasteful. Don't forget, if you're married, you promised fidelity.
