Dear Dr. Brian:
I have been in a relationship with my partner for 12 years and over this period of time, we have both been unfaithful. My partner is very well-endowed and an exhibitionist and enjoys showing off his penis to others. Last week we were driving home from visiting friends when he suggested we stop off at a local cruising area. I agreed, but deep down I felt really sick about it. He ended up getting a couple guys to give him oral sex and I was very hurt and upset by this. Sex with him has become boring and it’s very much one-sided and he has no sense of adventure with me. I’m becoming more and more frustrated and am beginning to feel like the relationship may not last much longer. What do you suggest?
Help!
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Dear Friend:
This situation sounds very hurtful to you and I can appreciate your pain; intervention is necessary as soon as possible to avoid any further damage. Scenarios like this come down to an understanding of your sexual values and boundaries; that is, what sexual behaviors and activities you are comfortable vs. uncomfortable with as well as those that you are willing vs. unwilling to tolerate. Based on your describing a physical feeling of “sickness” toward your partner’s preferences, it would appear that your value system likely opposes such activities and your inclinations probably lean more toward monogamy and a sexually adventurous lifestyle predominantly as a couple. The distress you’re feeling is originating from the fact that you’re giving your partner permission to do something that goes against your grain and value system. The associated pain is a natural consequence of allowing this behavior to continue and it would be important for you to examine the reasons behind your accommodating your partner’s behavior when it seems to hurt you so badly.
You and your partner would benefit from having a conversation about your sexual needs and values to determine if there is a goodness-of-fit with your sexualities. After listing those sexual behaviors and activities that you both desire, the two of you can then go about deciphering between those sex acts and beliefs that match and those that are in conflict. Can compromises be made? Can a new sexual contract be made that respects each person’s values and ideals?
If you’ve already had this discussion and your partner continues to partake with a sexual smorgasbord that opposes your preferences, his behavior could be deemed abusive. If you haven’t told him how you feel, it will be critical for you to do so as soon as possible because he can’t modify his behavior or work with you on meeting each other’s needs in an agreeable fashion if he doesn’t know that it bothers you, and it will require you to assert yourself and speak your truth directly and unapologetically. If you have spoken and have come to a mutually-agreeable decision and he continues to engage in this behavior and you say nothing, it becomes your responsibility to stop the destructive pattern. By going to the cruising areas with him, you are enabling his behavior and giving him the message that you’re ok with the fact that your needs don’t matter. Stop! Please don’t do this to yourself. Your needs matter and count and you deserve to have a sexual relationship with a partner in which you feel safe and respected and who wants to work together as a team to cultivate a pleasing erotic life in which you are both satisfied.
If neither one of you are willing to compromise, this may potentially be a situation of incompatible sexual values and you will have to determine if the relationship is viable under this type of pressure. Value differences tend to be leading cause of breakups because values are so core to who we are and what we stand for; when we compromise them, it tends to have the effect of “eating away” at us and will be a constant shadow menacing you. Determining the role that you want sex to play in your life and considering the other aspects of the relationship and their alignment with your ideal life and partnership will be important to reflect upon with your decision-making.
All the best with this, my friend. You deserve a relationship of trust, respect, and sexual vitality, but both partners must co-create together a vision of what would be most meaningful to them. I hope you and your partner can come to some new understandings and agreements that will be fulfilling to both of you in the long-run, but please be sure not to settle and sacrifice who you are by allowing fear to hold you back from living your life the way you ultimately want it to be. You deserve that happiness, but only you can conceive it and make it happen.
All my best,