A component of Affair #6: “I Need to Prove My Desirability” is often a history of sexual abuse at the worst and/or sexual confusion at the best.
Infidelity of this nature often serves the unspoken and mostly unconscious desire to “check out” one’s sexual capacities. It’s as if the lid was kept on for years and now the pain and poison of his/her history begins seeping out and is played out in the form of infidelity or extramarital affairs.
This can be a powerful experience for him and terribly confusing for his spouse.
I say “his” because I want to call attention to male sexual abuse.
It’s believed that 1 out of 6 boys are molested before the age of 16.
I’m presenting a powerful video on male sexual abuse.
I invite those who have suffered abuse (male and female) to watch the video. If your husband is having an affair and has a degree of openness about it and it is a possibility he as suffered some form of sexual abuse, give him a special invitation. He might want to view it alone.
HELLO Dr,
I stumbled across you website, 13 mos too late. I am still hurting and lack trust in him. I was in such pain at the time and for several mos afterwards, perhaps this would have been therapeutic for me/us. Confiding in a friend or parent would present a biased, negative opinion of my husband for the rest of our marriage. So I worked thru it on my own, placing much blame on him and reacting in the normal ways. It almost broke us up.
US:
I am 38, he is 48. We are fit, have a varied and vary satisfying sexual relationship, as well as having great communication in every other area. We have children from past marriages in a shared custody arrangement which enables us to have much private/selfish time.
The Incident:
We frequent strip clubs. He asked me what a lap dance was. I told him. I also have friends who are strippers and they don’t BS me. It’s just a tease ladies… to get money. $20 for a 3 min song. – See where they make their money in such abundance? Anyway. I paid for him to have one, I even picked the girl. This place had no champagne rooms, just booths, so I couldn’t go with him. I explained that it is hands off. No mouth contact. You are lucky if you getto touch her boobs – if she’ll let you. She will grind all over your groin, put her boobs in your face but that is it. I repeated this to him abt 5x over several days, it is just a tease. So, he goes to the booth with her and I am less than 10ft away. There is a 1/2 wall partioning the booths and main floor area. I cannot see him at all, but can see her. 3 songs later she comes out and over to talk to me. She is 20something and says that she admires the openess of our relationship. I said well tks it was just a lap dance. She raves on but eventually goes away. We stick around for a bit and it is closing time. On the way home I ask him what he thoght abt it. He said it was great.
He said she stuck her boob in his mouth and allowed him to tongue it. He was allowed to put his hands wherever he wanted. She unzipped him and took him out his pants. She rubbed his penis between her vaginal lips. She asked for more money to go further, and he declined. He didn’t have any on him. Makes me wonder if he would have accepted.
She was smiling at me.
MY Nightmare BEGINS.
I put the brakes on so fast and accused him of cheating. He said it was just a lap dance. I reiterated to him what a LD was. We went home. I was more than fuming. i made him shower and do his laundry immediately. I made him sleep on the couch.
The next day I dragged him back to the club and asked to speak to the manager. We had a not so nice chat and she said she would fire the girl, that this sort of thing happens, but no one comes back to complain. She said she could get a $5000 fine cuz it’s prostitution. I don’t want the club closed, I want it cleaned up and missy’s lil butt out of there. It was done.
We had very frequent sex, 1-4x daily. I refused him for 2 weeks after this. I could think of nothing but him doing whatever and not stopping it. AND possible transmission of STD’s. I thought of leaving. He thought nothing of it, that it wasn’t cheating. Genitals came into contact, yet he doesnt and still doesn’t understand my reasoning.
We tested negative. He will never have another lap dance. I am still here with him. This little drunken prostitute is not worth giving up my life and what we have worked towards retirement for. It took me 7 months to go back to that club.
He was sexually abused by a male cousin at the age of 6, and then agn 9-11 by the same one. At the age of 14 an older woman, aged 37 took interest in him and decided to show him “the way”. Another woman, older, also “took him under her wing” and would pl y him with alcohol.
We have entered the swinglifstyle and it gets more complicated due to my lack of trust in women.
What does the sexual abuse have to do with his behaviour and lack of reasoning or acknowlegement of infidelity?
Please respon
PART TWO:
I thought I should explain entering the swinglifestyle and our choice for it.
The swinglifestyle:
is not as free and easy as one would think. It is an outlet to explore fantasies (should a couple wish to pursue it and make it a reality) or a way to explore curiosities concerning sexuality. There is full swap (each partner in a couple is “swapped”) and this involves all sexual activity. Moderate swap (sexual activity to a lesser degree) and Soft Swap (usually limited to touching and oral). Everyone/couple has their own rules of what activity is acceptible or not. (i.e. anal, swallowing etc.) and all involved have their say and the rules are to be respected.
As a single bisexual woman I steadily “played” with a married couple, prior to my marriage. We had our rules. I did not have intercourse with her husband. There were other specifics, the activity was mainly limited to us women.
I have not suffered sexual abuse, did not lose my virginity at a young age, did not strike out against a religious upbringing or parental influence. This was my own logical choice.
SWINGING:
My husband and I discussed our rules. The couple I was with in the past joined us, and we had several experiences, all positive. A 2nd couple (we knew for 10yrs) approached us. We stated our rules and preferences, as did they. The rules that a couple states tend to be things reserved for themselves -things they hold sacred to eachother… and not to be shared with partners. We also make secret signals that if something is amiss, the situation ends, no question. One must realize that there is sex, and there is making love. Swinging is simply sex. This lifestyle is not for everyone. I would like to state it not trailor trash, economically disadvantaged or the uneducated who make such choices. You can judge how you like. Anyway It was a horrible experience. For me, that is.
The woman in the other couple didn’t respect our rules. My own husband didn’t follow them either. For hours he entertained her in every position possible, with her husband at her side. She was very good at manipulating the situation and controlling it as well. All my signals were ignored by my husband. When I approached her husband a few days later he stated with sympathy that “she has a way of getting what she wants”.
GETTING TO THE POINT:
I have been told that entering this lifestyle is indeed a gamble and that I should expect negative fallout. My point is, we have such great communication skills, why was he oblivious to my signals? He also refuses to this day that he did something or anything wrong, as in the stripper incident – it wasn’t cheating due to no penetration. In this case, he did nothing wrong because I was there. Despite acknowleding the rules we made together. He is not a payback sort of person. There is no payback to be had. I have had 4 months to get over this one, and I am still here with him. Yet it took me several weeks to be with him intimately, there was much emotional disruption to our life. It took time to just get through it in my head. But I am not over it. There is a difference. I was not withholding out of vengence, it was physically and emotionally impossible for me to be with him sexually or not.
I think he has a problem with boundaries and limits. I don’t think it has anything to do with lack of respect for me. But I’m not a therapist.
He is a former pro bodybuilder. He has much sexual prowess without being a flirt. Still very fit 20yrs later and attracts a lot of attention. Women basically fall at his feet. I also attract much attention, and have men stalking me in store aisles. We are an attractive couple. Our nicknames in town are Ken and Barbie. My girlfriends fall for him too, but it is innocent. I am not blind. There is no affair, no one on the side of this I am sure.
His mother crossed many lines of the mother-son relationship by confiding in him her marital problems (even of a sexual nature concerning his father). He had access to alcohol at a young age. He was sexually abused by a male cousin- continually, compounded by the inappropriate behaviour by the 2 older women abusing him at ages 14 & 15. What is the connection between these issues and male sexual abuse?
As far as swinging, I think the woman in the other couple had a secret agenda, to have him in ways which went against the rules we discussed -to be with my husband. I am not the jealous type. But now I have withdrawn us from the full swap scene and we are strictly soft swap, once he proves to me that he can respect boundaries then he can participate to a greater degree. Yes, perhaps it is a gamble. Should another situation be a negative experience where rules are not respected I think we should withdraw from the lifestyle entirely and I will have to question other aspects of our marriage.