My wife and I click on just about every level except for sex. After our last child was born, my advances were increasingly rejected. In an attempt to avoid pressuring her, I stopped initiating. Depression and anger set in. But I was committed to being the "perfect husband," so I did not pressure her, hoping her libido would return. It didn't. After two years, I finally lost it and confronted her. I expected that an open dialogue would improve the situation, but a month passed and she never brought it back up.
I realize that I'm lucky to be happy and fulfilled in just about every area of my life, but I've become fidgety, short-tempered and hypersensitive. I do not want to have an affair and I do not want a divorce. I love her and our children, but I'm at a loss as to what to do. I am mourning the loss of intimacy and connection with another person.
Please Advise Troubled Husband
I'll get to you in a minute, PATH, but first …
MTV has elected to speed the moral collapse of the United States by putting me on television. My upcoming sex-advice program is tentatively titled Savage U, and it represents MTV's first foray into non-music-video programming. This news has upset not only my son, who has been in the MTV stage of his development for roughly three years, but also Maggie Gallagher, the head of the National Organization for Marriage, who has been stuck in the raving-bigot stage of her development for nearly three decades.
"Renowned sex columnist Dan Savage, who is an openly gay man," Gallagher wrote on her blog, "will be taking his popular sex and relationship advice column to MTV in a show appropriately called Savage U where he intends to educate your college student about the importance of honesty over just about anything else, including fidelity."
Gallagher, who once had a child out of wedlock, speaks for the fidelity-over-anything-else crowd. Now, some people are capable of abstaining before marriage and being faithful to one partner for life — some people, but not Maggie — but these people represent a tiny minority of sexually active adults. And while those who make this aberrant lifestyle choice should not be discriminated against, the rest of us should be free to engage in grown-up conversations about sex and desire and the more reality-friendly ways in which we define fidelity without being shouted down by the monogamously correct.
"The possibility of taming one's sexual desire for the sake of another, or of a vow, is not in the Savage moral imagination," says Gallagher. "Libido will have out, and honesty about that is the best policy."
The possibility of taming one's sexual desire for the sake of another most definitely exists within the Savage moral imagination. I frequently discuss the "price of admission," that is, the personal sacrifices, large and small, that make long-term relationships possible.
Yes, libido will have out — but "libido will have out" doesn't translate into "Dan 'Doesn't Fuck Women' Savage says anything and everything goes." Two people in a long-term, committed relationship should be open and honest with each other about their sexual interests, turn-ons, drives, etc., because, yes, libido will have out.
Openness and honesty don't automatically translate into everyone gets everything everyone wants. Not all needs can be met. But there are times when monogamy can destroy an otherwise decent marriage.
Take PATH's marriage. If his wife doesn't come around this couple is surely headed for divorce. PATH is not only feeling depressed and resentful, he's also contemplating an affair. Sooner or later, he's going to cheat or walk. But this marriage, a marriage that works on every other level, could be saved if Mr. and Mrs. PATH were encouraged to openly and honestly discuss their sexual needs and their sexual disconnect. If Mrs. PATH is done with sex, Mr. and Mrs. PATH should be encouraged to come to a reasonable, mutually agreeable accommodation, one that allows for Mr. PATH to get his needs met elsewhere if that's what he needs to stay sane and stay married.
I'm not sure what to call someone who places a higher value on preserving monogamy within a particular marriage over preserving that marriage itself, Maggie, but I wouldn't call that person a defender of marriage.
This article appears in Apr 14-20, 2011.