How to Do It
I need those gory details!
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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,
I have been married to my wife for 17 years. About 12 years ago, before we had a kid, she had a six-month affair with another man. We briefly separated and came close to divorce, but we went to therapy and we got back together. We had a child and, while our marriage has its issues, have generally moved forward quite well.
Our sex life is good for long-married, busy people with a kid. It is a little more routine than I’d like and, relatedly, my wife is not at all open to discussing desires or interests. We do what we do, and it is great, yet this is a point of some frustration for me. The big issue is that I have not been able to entirely move past the affair. While I do not dwell on it constantly, sometimes it hits me like a ton of bricks. I need to know more. There’s just one problem.
The affair is not something we have really discussed since having our child. A few months ago, I allowed myself to really dwell on it, and told my wife that I wanted to discuss it. I told her, or tried to tell her, that I wanted to know the story of those four months. Certainly, we discussed this when it all went down, but that was a very raw and emotional time, and whether I didn’t ask everything or I forgot it over the years, I don’t have a clear picture of why she cheated or what happened.
I feel I need this understanding in order to fully make sense of our relationship, and thus, in a way, my life. Part of it, certainly, is that I want to better understand the larger feelings that led to this—the disappointment, the sense that our marriage was not working out. But it is also true that I want to understand the sexual aspect of it, to know if she responded sexually to him in a different way than she does to me.
She is completely against re-opening the issue. Aggressively against it. Her position, essentially, is that this was a discussion that was had, or should have been had to my liking, when we got back together; and that now that we’ve shared so much since, and had a child together, it is cruel for me to make her rehash this episode. My position is that it is natural that this was an event that would be tough to shake, and it is reasonable that I need to work through it, even so many years later. Indeed, now,