Asking The Wrong Question

I have an issue and I earnestly seek your guidance on this. I am a 52-year-old man and my sex drive is as strong now as it was when I was 18. However, my wife has lost all interest in sex. I have tried to control my urge through meditation and seeking solace from prayer, but in spite of everything I still get bad thoughts and watch porn on my laptop—and feel guilty about it later. These last two years of abstinence have really been getting to me. I have tried dropping hints to my wife but she doesn’t really seem to get what I’m saying. Are there any ayurvedic medicines to control my sex drive?
–Need Control

Two years? Two years? I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound shocked, but this literally boggles my mind.

Honestly, you sound like a saint for putting up with this. I know that all couples go through rough patches every now and then, and sometimes you can end up with someone whose libido just doesn’t match up with yours—either they want sex more than you do, or you want more sex than they do. This does not have to be a deal-breaker and compromise is possible. But two years of no sex and no discussion about it sounds like an honest-to-goodness nightmare, and there’s no reason you should have to put up with this. (Just to clarify, this goes for anyone—man, woman, third-gender individual, what have you—who is being denied sex in their relationship, not just husbands who are being cold-cocked by their wives.) The fulfillment of sexual desire is extremely important for relationships to work. You have a right to want sexual fulfillment and you certainly shouldn’t feel guilty for having sexual desires, particularly if the most extreme thing you’ve done is something as harmless as watching porn. In strict point of fact, your wife also has the right to expect sexual fulfillment—which in her case means abstinence, I suppose—so maybe the two of you are not meant to stay together, or perhaps you should open your relationship so that you can continue to pursue sexual relationships outside your marriage. If your wife is having a tough time or is stressed out, then she’s under an obligation to talk it through with you and help come up with a workable solution. In any event, since she’s not doing the talking, you’ll have to take up the burden. You need to sit her down and tell her what this is doing to you. Pose a few options—breaking up, opening the marriage, whatever—and talk it through. But make it clear that this is important to you and that together you need to come up with a solution that works for both of you.

And in response to your other question, I have no idea if there are ayurvedic medicines that control the libido.

Part-Time Lover

I need your help and advice. I am a happily married 40-year-old man. I have a very loving and beautiful wife and lovely 9-year-old son. I have a healthy sex life with my wife–she is very cooperative and never shies away from sex. However, I recently met a good-looking woman who lives near our house. She is about the same age of my wife. We’ve crossed paths many times and a while back she started showing interest in me. Without realizing what I was doing, I reciprocated. Recently when we were together she asked for my number and expressed interest in having sex. I tried to explain my apprehensions about getting caught and the consequences if my wife finds out. My neighbor is also afraid of being caught, but she’s still pretty keen on doing this. She even told me that we only have to meet every few months and that she’s only looking for a casual thing, no attachments. I told her that we can’t be together like that but that we can still be friends, and she started to plead with me.

Now I am in a soup and I need your advice. On the one side, I am really scared about the consequences if I just go ahead with it. Like my wife, I come from an orthodox background, and if caught I will lose my family. All my life I have criticized people who indulge in extramarital affairs. On the other side, I don’t want to disappoint my neighbor and whenever I meet her I feel guilty that I am not man enough to satisfy her needs. Should I go ahead and have sex with this woman or should I stay faithful to my wife?
–Torn Between Two

It’s funny, but not once in this letter have you said anything about not wanting to hurt your wife by having an affair. You’ve mentioned not wanting to get caught several times. Not that this is so bad—a lot of people resist the temptation to cheat more because they don’t want to get caught than out of any loyalty to their partner—but it is noteworthy. I’ve also noticed that you frequently avoid taking any responsibility for your behavior or desires. People don’t reciprocate attraction without realizing it. They don’t talk about wanting to have an affair because they feel guilty about not satisfying that person’s needs. Face it, you want to sleep with this woman because you’re attracted to her. This has nothing to do with feeling an altruistic sense of duty to provide her satisfaction, or being a dupe who was seduced into being attracted. Step one for solving this problem: Stop being a chump.

Step two: Tell your wife what’s going on. Sit her down some quiet evening when the kid is out with his friends and tell her exactly what’s up. Now, I’m not advocating a tearful confession full of apologies and promises to do better. There’s no crime in becoming attracted to someone else after long years of exclusive coupling. At the risk of sounding tautological, the challenge of monogamy is, you know, being monogamous. Living with someone and splitting expenses are the easy parts; it’s remaining sexually exclusive that’s the toughie. And frankly, it’s not always necessary. A lot of couples find that they value their domestic and emotional partnership a lot more than sexual fidelity and are willing to open up their relationship to other partners. Hell, some couples find that having an open relationship is the thing that helps them stay to together. You may start this conversation with your wife and find that she’s totally cool with you sleeping with the hot neighbor—provided that you’re totally cool with her boinking her office assistant. Or you may find that she’s not okay with you or her sleeping with other people, and you aren’t either, and that you want to find a way to channel all this sexual energy you’re feeling into re-energizing your sexual relationship with each other. Who knows? Both options—and all the permutations in between—are equally valid provided they work for you as a couple. But you can’t be fair to your wife without being honest. She has a right to know what you’re thinking and be an equal partner in deciding what to do about it. You have to tell her the truth about what’s going on and take things from there. It’s the only decent thing to do.