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,
My husband of over 20 years and I have mingled in BDSM/kink for most of our relationship. Although he’s more into certain things than I am, I have tried my best to please him but maintain certain boundaries. Recently, he gave me the shock of my life.
He told me he wanted to get a submissive to do the things I don’t enjoy. The last six years have been rough with multiple cancer treatments and surgeries. My body isn’t what it used to be and we haven’t engaged in sex or kink as much as we used to. But the thought of him being with someone else makes me sick to my stomach. He backed off as soon as he realized how much this hurt me but I know he still wants to do this. I want to discuss my concerns and boundaries but he just keeps telling me how much he screwed up and that he doesn’t know how to fix it. If I don’t let him get his kink urges out and he does so anyway, it would lead to a divorce. I have so many questions and don’t know how to ask him about any of them.
—Tied Up and Broken Hearted
Jessica Stoya: I get the sense that our letter writer is a hard no on opening up the marriage, but is afraid that their husband will go outside the marriage if they don’t open it up.
Rich Juzwiak: Yeah.
Jessica: And it feels like the LW is pushing themselves to make a compromise because if he forced the issue by stepping outside without an agreement, that would be a deal breaker. So, the LW is tangled up in fear.
Rich: Yes. There also seems to be this kind of ricocheting anxiety. They write it made them sick to their stomach. He got upset about that, and now they’re getting upset about his reaction to their reaction. It’s probably worth listening to your first reaction. That is, unless you feel like you were being rash or dramatic and saying, “That makes me sick to my stomach,” was a knee-jerk reaction that actually with some time, evolves to, “Well, OK, maybe that’s not so bad.” Right? I don’t understand exactly where the LW is emotionally. I don’t understand if they’re operating out of fear, as it seems, or if this has settled in and now they’re like, “Actually, I could do this. I could figure out a way to do this.”
Jessica: See, that resonates with me because in business negotiations, 90 percent of the time when someone presents me with an idea, I’ll say, “No, no, it’s not possible. Wait, hold on. Let’s consider this.”
Rich: Yes.
Jessica: “What if it was like this? What if it was like…” I am 38 years old, I have been doing business for almost 20 years in one way or another, and I still to this day, when someone brings me a perfectly good idea, will initially respond with, “Absolutely not. Wait, hold on, maybe…” So, I’m not sure whether it’s a character flaw I need to work on or a very understandable aspect of being human.
Rich: I think the latter.
Jessica: I feel like it’s both. I think it’s a very understandable part of being human that also needs to be worked on. So, I can absolutely see our LW going, “No.” And then saying, “Well, actually, if it were done in certain ways, if my concerns were being effectively heard, if the boundaries were clear and in a certain position…”
Rich: Within this dynamic that he proposed, there’s a lot. It could involve sex, but it could also not involve sex. I mean, sometimes sub-stuff yields unpaid labor, essentially. And if everybody’s down with that and this sub is doing stuff that our LW doesn’t want to do, as the husband proposed, you could just focus on the good of that. You don’t have to lift a finger.
But I know it’s more complicated than that. It does seem like there’s a lot to talk through. It would be good to reconvene and lead with, “It’s OK, I’m open to figuring out how to make us both happy with this. Let’s talk about this. Let’s start this conversation. You don’t have to keep apologizing.”
Jessica: They could try, “I freaked out and now that I’ve had some time to process, I want to talk through this suggestion.”
Rich: Yes. And give him some time to process your processing. You’re at the end of the cycle of your freakout. He might still be in the middle. That’s why he keeps apologizing. So, it’s this kind of ripple effect. Let the water still first, and then move in and start talking about it. This is going to have to be a negotiation. Maybe nothing comes of it. Maybe it’s still too much. But if he wanted this, it’s very likely that he’s going to be OK with you coming back around and having a conversation in which he gets to have some portion of what he wants.
Jessica: As far as the many questions our writer has, something they can do on her own time is write down all of those questions. Mental health experts say writing by hand is the best way. I tend to type into a memo note on my phone or a document on my computer. Even talking things through with a trusted friend could help. But just get it all out, sort through it, and then write down those questions and prioritize them. Figure out what the most important questions are and start there. Because this big of a tangle with this much of an echo throughout the relationship is probably not a single discussion issue. It’s probably a thing that you’re going to have to talk about in chunks over time.
Rich: Yes. Also, if, for whatever reason, you can’t spark that conversation in which you both re-examine this, then you can give him a letter. You can give him basically what you wrote to us in letter form. That could get things going, and then he could write you back. As long as you’re communicating, there’s not really an issue. It feels like a slower pace in this instance would actually be useful because of the kind of knee-jerk ricochet that happened. So, take a beat, take some time. It’s really OK to do that.
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