She Wants an Open Marriage, But She’s Upset That Her Husband is Being “Unreasonable” About It?

Bizarre advice

This story featured weird behavior, terrible advice, and an open marriage. It sounds fun in a horrible sort of way, right?

What we’re talking about here is a recently released advice column from Slate that is, believe it or not, titled this way, “I Asked My Husband for an Open Marriage. Now He’s Being Completely Unreasonable.”

First of all, the letter sent to the advice columnist is, well, really something:

Dear How to Do It,

I was raised in a very religious home where sex and dating were completely taboo. I ‘saved myself’ for marriage. My personal beliefs don’t align with this, but I thought I had no choice.

After a decade of marriage and hating sex, I asked my husband if I could explore sexual experiences and experiment with other people if the chance arose. He enthusiastically agreed but said he didn’t want to hear details. A few months later, he said he did want to hear all the details. A while after that, he said he didn’t want me to do it. He keeps changing his answer.

I’m not trying to cheat; I just feel like I lack any basis for having enjoyable sex, and it seems everyone I know who enjoys sex has tried a few things with a few people before getting to know their preferences. The result has been that I am not in the mood for sex at all, but he still badgers me for it daily. I’ve told him that if he needs sex so badly, he’s welcome to an open marriage. He says he refuses to have sex with anyone but me. I feel a little trapped and I’m always wondering, am I being wrong here?

— Feeling Stuck

There are so many minor oddities and obvious questions we’ll never get answered. For example, why does she “hate” sex? Is it his fault? Is it her fault? Is there a medical problem involved? Who knows? She says that people who enjoy sex have, “tried a few things with a few people before getting to know their preferences.” Why couldn’t she experiment with her husband? Maybe he’s a prude. Maybe she just doesn’t want to do that. Also, it seems extraordinarily unlikely that she walked up to her husband after a decade of marriage, said she wanted to have sex with other people, and he genuinely “enthusiastically agreed.” Then she goes on to note with disdain that her husband “badgers” her for sex daily. Well, yes. No man alive ever got married so he could NOT HAVE SEX. She goes on to note that she feels “trapped” because her husband only wants them to have sex with each other. Of course, that’s just what marriage is.

Believe it or not, many years ago I had a friend who was basically in this same situation. It was a bit of a surprise to me because I had known both of them for a while and the two of them seemed to be one of these couples that fit hand in glove and were perfectly made for each other. One of the couples everyone else looked at and said, “Wow, they really seem to have a great relationship.” Interesting side note: 2 of the 3 couples I have in particular thought that about in the last couple of decades have gotten divorced. At this point, Chris and Dana Loesch are the last ones left, so if either of those two crazy kids sees this, make sure to stay together to keep hope alive for the rest of us.

In any case, after my friend from back in the day split from his wife, I asked him what happened. He told me that one day, she came to him out of the blue and said she wanted an open marriage. He reluctantly agreed because he was afraid he’d lose her if he didn’t. Next thing you know, she was bringing home different guys to THEIR HOUSE every other weekend and, as in this case, she wasn’t even sleeping with him. Things got more and more intolerable for him, and he said the last straw was when one of the guys from work called him to ask for his wife’s number. I’m not sure who technically filed for divorce from who, but it was basically destined at that point.

This doesn’t seem all that dissimilar. It sounds like either she’s upset that she never got to sow her wild oats or alternately, she wants out of the marriage. Whatever the case may be, there’s absolutely nothing in her letter that suggests that she has any remaining love for her husband. In fact, she’s talking about him more like he’s a jealous “just friends” guy she hangs around with rather than the man she married. Ultimately, with the paucity of information here, it’s impossible to say how it got to this point, but it sounds like this is a woman looking for permission to cheat or get a divorce.  

Still, she wanted advice and Slate certainly gave it to her. Boy, did they ever:

Daily badgering for sex is a big red flag. You feel trapped because you are trapped. He told you one thing, changed it, changed it again, and now seems to expect you to suddenly be happy with the sex you previously hated? A reasonable solution for him, since he refuses to have sex with other partners, would be to develop a robust masturbation routine. Does he have one?

It sounds like your situation has gone completely off the rails. I’m wondering if your husband was raised in a similarly sexually repressed environment and if some of his behavior is coming from the internalized idea that all couples should be a closed pair. It’s also possible that he wants to be open and for you to have the opportunity to explore, but is so deeply, naturally monogamous that he’s incapable and his feelings are exploding in awful ways. If you want to preserve the marriage, a couples’ counselor is top priority.

Badgering for sex is enough of a red flag, and more so if this behavior was the norm before your discussions about opening up your relationship. Take stock of the situation: Is your husband demanding and erratic about other aspects of your relationship? If you feel unsafe, there shouldn’t be any shame in going to a friend’s place or a hotel. Read your letter out loud to yourself. Pretend you’re a stranger reading it. Are you worried for the writer? If your gut says yes, go.

Yes, you’re reading that right. The situation has gone “completely off the rails” because, after 10 years of marriage her husband wants to continue to have sex with his wife instead of having an open marriage or developing a “robust masturbation routine.” She then goes on to suggest the idea that her husband wanting to get sex from her may be a sign that she’s “unsafe.” What the hell is that?

This made me wonder if the advice columnist was a 14-year-old girl who had never been in a relationship before. After looking Jessica Stoya up, it may have been even worse. She’s a porn star. If you’re looking for advice about something that goes beyond having sex, asking a porn star would probably be roughly equivalent to reaching out to an inmate, homeless person, or a furry. As an extra added, hilarious bonus, even though I have, to the best of my knowledge, never interacted with her on Twitter, she has me blocked for completely unknown reasons. Given that all good-hearted people love me, that seems like a red flag. Maybe anyone in her vicinity should ask themselves if they’re in an “unsafe” situation.

All that being said, the woman wrote in wanting advice. Maybe someone should tell her something like this:

Dear “Feeling Stuck”:

There’s a lot more information that I’d need to give you good advice, but going off of what we have, it seems to all boil down to one question, “Do you still want to be married or not?” Judging by the tone of your email and seeming lack of concern about what your husband may think, I’m guessing, “no.” If that’s the case, please don’t drag this out and try to make him into the bad guy or maneuver him into a position where he feels compelled to file a divorce because he can’t stand the thought of you with other men. Just let him go, remember that you were married for a decade, be kind to him, and go your separate ways with as little acrimony as possible.

On the other hand, if you do want to stay married, then you may have to give up on the idea of playing Samantha from Sex in the City. If it’s any consolation, I have known several women who’ve gone that route and, in every case, it ultimately seemed to be unsatisfying for them. Additionally, since it sounds like neither of you is happy with your sexual situation, you’ll need to find a way to work that out. Could that be through marriage counseling? Perhaps, although it’s not going to do much good if you’ve just decided that you don’t want to be there anymore.

At the end of the day, you’re going to do what you want to do anyway no matter what advice anyone gives you. Pick a lane, remember that there’s another human being who committed a decade of his life to you involved, and remember that all that lush green grass on the other side may turn out to be a lot browner than you think when you actually get there. Good luck.

She does need that luck and I suspect her husband may need it even more.

---