What Happened Next

When I asked my husband to have sex with men

My husband and I were at the end of our rope. After 40 years, after three big fights in the past three months, after him clamming up and sleeping on the couch for a week, it seemed our relationship was going to implode. I was looking for a studio apartment on Craigslist. He was looking for a studio apartment on Craigslist. We were imagining our (cramped) futures without each other.

The fight had been about sex. It was always about sex.

I’d been sick for two weeks with bronchitis. Then gone for three days to a funeral. When I returned depleted and depressed, and two more days went by without sex, he moved to the couch.

“Why are you sleeping on the couch?” I asked, baffled.

“We haven’t had sex in three weeks!!!”

That was all he had to say about it, so I wove my own story: My husband doesn’t value me. My husband doesn’t love me. My husband doesn’t care if I’m sick or brokenhearted. He only cares if I spread my legs.

I didn’t want to do the usual song and dance routine, coaxing him back into our conjugal bed. And he didn’t want me to do it, either. We were both sick and tired of the same old, same old.

Then, in a moment of genius (or idiocy), I told him to look outside the marriage for sex — with men.

He didn’t balk at the gender proscription. He was bi-curious when he was a teen. But I was his first relationship, at age 21. I’ve been his only relationship in the years since, and I am a woman. So he never satisfied that curiosity; never scratched that itch.

At first, he didn’t take the proposal seriously. “I have a hard enough time approaching you for sex. How am I going to approach a stranger?” he scoffed.

“They have apps for that. It’s easy. You don’t have to do a thing. Just put Grindr on your phone.”

An hour or two later, it was done.

When you are new on Grindr

There was a short learning curve. I took a few pictures. He wrote a profile that included the info that he was older, had a pot belly, was new to the scene (a homosexual virgin), and was married to a woman who gave her blessing. That didn’t seem to discourage. Half a dozen men contacted him that first night.

By contact, I mean opened up a chat. People talk back and forth, sharing information about who they are, what they like, trying to determine if they are a good fit. Grindr also informs you when people look at your profile but don’t contact you, and Grindr tells you how close they are to your current location. The app is built for speed.

At one point, Hub walked over with his phone and showed me a generic icon of a black and white head. The text said someone had looked at his profile who was 1 foot away! I jumped in my chair and looked quickly around. Was he in our apartment?!?

“What does that mean?!?!”

“It means someone in the building looked at me.”

Okay. That was less alarming. So he wasn’t literally 1 foot away. I imagined the AI looking down from space, like God, collapsing the dimensions. I thought of the blonde Belgian who drives a motorcycle and lives on the third floor. Was it him? That would be convenient. I had spoken to him a few times and found him charming. Maybe this would turn into more than a hookup for my husband? Maybe the three of us would entangle… But the anonymous viewer quickly disappeared.

Later, someone asked if Hubs’ wife (me) was interested in joining the sex play. “No. I don’t think so,” I said. Then Hubs showed me his picture — a very good looking man. “Tell him I’m older. Tell him I’m plump,” I prompted, thinking he would lose interest. But he persisted, saying what he wanted to do to me while Hubs watched, describing how much better he would be at railing me than an old man.

Hubs read the words out in real time as the chat continued. The description got hotter and hotter, surprising and titillating us both, before it finally dawned on me. “He’s not serious. He’s ‘sexting.’ He’s probably jacking off right now.” Then he disappeared.

Hubs followed some leads, had a few conversations, and within a day or two, found someone who seemed a good match.

He rented a room and set up the tryst.

Immediate and unexpected benefits

I’m not sure how I got this idea in the first place. It was just intuition. I thought I wanted relief from my husband’s constant need for sex. I thought I wanted to get him off my back. But that’s not what happened next.

I’m someone who likes to leap first and look later. As soon as I get an idea, I want to act on it. So in this case, I blurted it out — asked my husband to look outside the marriage for sex (with men, a criterion I explain in this story) — without really thinking it through. I figured any outcome would be better than the recurring death spiral we were currently stuck in. If it blew up the relationship, I didn’t care. The relationship was on the brink of dying anyway.

But here’s what happened right away:

• Hubs became much sweeter towards me. Normally, he’s mostly grumpy. That’s a character he likes to project and plays up in humorous ways. But after I made the suggestion, he demonstrated more affection for me and more understanding for my point of view.
• He agreed to go to counseling. Our marriage has been rocky off and on for years, but once we tried counseling and it didn’t bear fruit, he never wanted to go again. And honestly, I didn’t care much, because good counselors are so hard to find. This time, though, a friend had recently recommended a gay counselor who had suggested she open her marriage during the course of her therapy. He sounded perfect for us. We knew in advance that he wouldn’t condemn our unusual choice, and he might have some knowledge about the gay hookup scene that we lacked.
• I saw both of the above as a huge leap in maturity. It seemed that suddenly I was married to an adult man, not a child. I was no longer the designated relationship nurse. We were both showing up and doing the work.
• I became willing to take, and he willing to give, more power on the surface of the relationship, righting a sexist power imbalance which was upsetting to me and harmful to us both. The evidence is that I drove the two-hour trek to Christmas, something which hasn’t happened before. It’s not that I love driving. I haven’t been itching to take the wheel. But the symbolism of me leading this minor expedition was restorative and satisfying.
• My sex drive exploded! This was completely unexpected. ~~Was it jealousy? Maybe. But it didn’t feel anxious and destructive in the way I’d experienced jealousy before. ~~Was I was trying to secure his affections — to make sure he remembered how good he had it at home? Could be. But it didn’t feel like a stratagem, either. It felt organic, real. ~~Our experiment has been unfolding for almost a month now, and my sex drive is still firing on all cylinders. I feel like my portcullis is permanently propped open. Whereas before, it would slam shut at suggestions of sex, requiring a conscious effort to pry it back open to proceed, now it stays open all the time. Why? ~~Maybe it’s because this experiment debunks the story I’ve been telling myself for decades? My husband doesn’t value me. My husband doesn’t love me. He only cares if I spread my legs. Paradoxically, knowing my husband seeks sex outside the marriage and then comes home to me helps me understand that he really loves me. I know he values me for more than sex.

Could it be the counseling?

Sure it could. Maybe my husband’s more cheerful and affectionate behaviors are a result of our counselor helping him see how his lack of communication has created major problems between us. Maybe my own improved behaviors — my more natural and easy response to sex — have to do with the counselor pointing out that the stories I tell myself about my husband aren’t necessarily true.

The counselor is encouraging my husband to talk more, and me to talk less — not to rush in to fill the silence. It’s a hard assignment for both of us, but harder for my husband. It’s a pattern we fell into decades ago and will take dedication and persistence to break.

The counselor also recommended my husband read a book written by a man with Asperger’s about how he changed his behaviors to improve his marriage.

I wouldn’t be surprised if my husband has a mild form of Asperger’s, given a number of his personal traits, but the diagnosis is not important. What’s important is to recognize that people — even old married couples — can change.

So what happened at the tryst?

Hubs rented a room nearby, packed a small backpack, and left the apartment on his own. We’d talked a little about parameters that were acceptable to us both. We went over precautions for safe sex. I said I didn’t want him to spend the night with his paramour. I wanted him to come home and tell me what had gone on. I also wanted some idea when he would be returning. Check in at the motel was 1pm. He agreed to come home by 6, or call.

Once he left, I distracted myself by watching a movie. I didn’t feel much bothered. It’s true I felt some anxiety, but not a lot. My fear was that he would realize he was a homosexual and no longer wanted to be in our marriage. Even though I’d been ready to leave him just a few weeks before, this wasn’t an outcome I wanted. Still, I figured it would be better for us to find out now and act on that information than it would be to spend the rest of our days in some kind of delusion — with him feeling ineffably dissatisfied in a heterosexual relationship and me feeling inadequate and unloved.

When 6 o’clock came, and he didn’t call or come home, I started to worry. What if his hookup was a murderer? What if he was hurt or injured and no one knew to check his room? I didn’t know where he was, specifically, just the general neighborhood. I didn’t know if he had any emergency information on him, like my phone number. I paced around for a half hour. At 6:30, I called. He answered on the first ring, sounding subdued. He said he would be home shortly.

In the back of my mind, I hoped he would come home and say that he didn’t like the experience. That he’d realized in his heart of hearts that all he wanted was me. But that isn’t what happened.

When he arrived, he was borderline euphoric. It had been wonderful, he said. He’d felt a great burden lifted. He was glad to surrender, to play the passive partner. It was something he’d been thinking about for most of his life. Now his dream had been realized. I wondered if this meant he would no longer love me. When emotions settled and his vision was clear, would he still want to be in our marriage? I worried a little. But mostly, I felt relieved that we had finally crossed that bridge and he was home safe and sound.

I asked him details about the other man and the encounter. I didn’t love picturing them, but I still wanted to know. It was important for me to feel we were in this together. I didn’t want anything sneaky or deceptive going on.

He said he liked the fellow and their hookups might become regular. Meanwhile, he had another prospect lined up on a different app called Silver Daddies that was for older men. Both of us would prefer if he found one partner he wanted to stick with, for health and safety reasons. At least we think that’s what we prefer. We’re still figuring it out.

My feelings since that first night have been mostly positive. I see changes in our relationship that I wholeheartedly welcome. We talk much more about what we are thinking and feeling. We’re affectionate. We’re sexy. We continue to see the counselor (on Zoom) once a week.

Sometimes, I feel insecure, but not often, and it feels more titillating than threatening. I decided I wanted to impose a time limit on the experiment. “Let’s say that we’ll go on this way for six months, and then stop and re-evaluate,” I suggested. Hubs agreed to that time frame.

In the meantime, either one of us can call it off at any time. If I’m the one who wants to end it, then Hubs will have a choice to leave the trysting or leave the marriage. Cheating isn’t allowed.

Meanwhile, I’m planning a vacation with a girlfriend. Hubs suggests I might want to hook up with someone else while I’m away. I don’t think I will, but maybe…? I’ll keep you looped in.

What happened next? Read Chronicle of an Open Marriage #3. Find all of my stories about opening our marriage on the list below, or about sex in general on this one. Get an email whenever I publish. Let’s go!