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BY DAN SAVAGE
My wife and I have been married for 14 years and in a committed (I assumed) relationship for 17
years. Sex between us (often kinky) has always been great. We have a wonderful life together and two
perfect children. I thought we were good; turns out things were too good to be true. I learned recently
that my wife has been unfaithful to me throughout our marriage. She began an affair with an older man
soon before we were married, and they were physically intimate for five years, including bondage and a
Master/sub relationship. The physical sex stopped, but phone sex and online flirting continued up until
I discovered this two weeks ago. This is a man I know. She has introduced our children to him. There’s
more: She slept with another man (just once, more bondage) but also flirted with him online and met up
with him while I was away. She slept with yet another man she works with (just once, vanilla this time).
She had phone sex with at least two other men and flirted with still more on Facebook. This came out
because I was jealous about something that now seems minor and checked her e-mail. (Not proud of
that.) She is repentant and relieved that I finally know, and she promises that she will be faithful from
now on. I’ll always love her, and I know she loves me. We had one session with a counselor and anoth-
er is scheduled. Results were mixed. One thing that came out was that she has never been faithful to
a romantic/sexual partner. I could forgive a one-time drunken fling, but this is a consistent pattern of
infidelity that runs from the beginning of our marriage, and I had no idea. I cannot process it. I thought
she had always been as loyal as I’ve been, which is to say completely. I can’t put my wedding ring on—it
feels like a lie. I have no one to talk to. For the sake of our future, the love we still share, and our children,
we are committed to fixing things, but we’re not sure how.
Heartbroken And Devastated
I’m going to preface my response with what someone in my position is expected to say and what, given
the circumstances, may even be true: Your marriage is over. The scale, duration, and psychological cruelty of
your wife’s betrayals may be too great for you to overcome.
But you didn’t need me to tell you that, HAD. You knew that already. So I can only assume you wrote want-
ing to hear something else. You don’t need me to outline the reasons you should leave, and you don’t need
my permission to go. You wrote because you’re looking for a reason to stay.
I’ll give it my best shot.
A long-term relationship is a myth two people create together. It’s not chemistry, it’s not math, it’s not
engineering. It’s a story, HAD, a story we tell each other, a story we tell others, and a story we tell ourselves.
And sometimes it’s a story we have to revise.
Right now, it feels like the story you’ve been telling yourself and others about your marriage is a lie: not
partly, but wholly. You thought your marriage was a loving, committed, and “completely loyal” one, but it’s
not—it can’t be, and it never was, because she was cheating on you from the beginning.
But loyalty isn’t something we demonstrate with our genitals alone. Your wife wasn’t loyal to you sexu-
ally, HAD, and that’s painful. And the conventional “wisdom” is that people don’t cheat on partners they love.
But you were married to this woman, and you describe your marriage as good, loving, and wonderful. And it
somehow managed to be all those things despite your wife’s betrayals. She must have been loyal to you in
other ways or you would’ve divorced her long before you discovered her infidelities. Think back over the last
17 years: every kind and loving gesture, every considerate action, every intimacy, every moment you took
care of each other—was it all a lie?
I’m not trying to exonerate your wife, and I’m not trying to minimize her betrayal or your pain. But if you
want to stay together, HAD, you’re going to have to tell yourself a new story, one that makes room for con-
tradiction (loves you, cheated on you), betrayal (shitloads), apologies (shitloads from her), forgiveness
(shitloads from you), and… some accommodations going forward. If I may paraphrase Maya Angelou: When
someone finally shows you who they are—after you found the incriminating e-mails—you should believe
them. Your wife has never been faithful to you or to anyone else, HAD, at least not sexually. Adjusting your
expectations and making accommodations accordingly is more realistic than expecting your wife to become
a different person.
Finally, HAD, a little bonus advice. I ran into Esther Perel, author of Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic
Intelligence, the day your letter arrived. Perel is a psychotherapist and couples counselor whose most recent
TED Talk (“Rethinking Infidelity”) is one you’re going to want to watch. I shared your letter with Perel and
asked her what she thought: Based on her vast experience working with couples confronting infidelity, did
she think your marriage was doomed?
“No, I don’t,” said Perel.
Perel’s response honestly surprised me. We spoke for 10 minutes, and I recorded the conversation. It
won’t fit in this space—so I’m going to post Perel’s thoughts as the Savage Love Letter of the Day when this
column comes out. So you’re going to get a second opinion from an actual expert, HAD, and—spoiler alert—
it’s a hopeful one.
I’m a cis woman in my late 20s. About three months ago, I had my first one-night stand. I’ve no-
ticed my thoughts have continued to gravitate toward this man ever since—despite having other sexual
partners in the interim. I recently ran across his profile on Tinder—however, I’m fairly sure he hasn’t
logged on for a while as certain things weren’t up to date. While I obviously swiped right, I’m curious as
to whether it would be seen as inappropriate or possibly invasive if I were to reach out via the powers
of social media. The night we had went well—it was all incredibly comfortable sexually, and I found him
very interesting to talk to both before and after we hooked up. I should mention that I left rather swiftly
that evening without grabbing his number in an attempt to “play it cool.” I definitely don’t want to cross
social or personal boundaries, but I’d like to see him again.
Creep
There’s nothing creepy about letting someone you fucked know you wanna fuck ’em again or, hey, maybe
even date ’em for a while. It gets creepy only if they don’t respond, or if they politely decline, and you keep
letting them know you would like to fuck/date them some more.
You liked him, you had a nice time, the sex was good—and you left, stupidly, without his number for
fear of looking clingy or uncool. Social media has come with costs—trolls, bullying, Donald Trump’s Twitter
feed—but the ability to locate someone and ask for a do-over/screw-over is one of the benefits. So look him
up on Facebook or Instagram and send him a note. If you don’t hear back, consider yourself swiped left and
move on.
On the Lovecast, the devastatingly hilarious comedian Emily Galati: savagelovecast.com.
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