When The Man Discovers His Wife's Secret Sexy Past

Okay, if you're a frequent listener of the Dad Starting Over podcast and you find yourself saying, "Yeah, that sounds like me," well, you don't need another podcast episode. What you need is support. The Help for Men Brotherhood is where men go when they're done pretending that they got it all handled. You know, your dead bedrooms, your divorce, your loneliness, your rebuilding life. We have private forums, frequent live Zoom meetings, one-on-one coaching, courses, all my books at no additional charge. And yes, we get together in person. Real men and real conversations. So stop doing this alone and join the Help for Men Brotherhood today at help4men.com/join. I look forward to seeing you in the next member meeting. Thanks to the wonderful world of the forever internet, some of us are learning some things about our romantic partner that we wish we didn't know about. If you don't know, I do what we call one-on-one coaching with men from all over the world. Most of those men come to me because they are having relationship problems. For most of those men, the relationship problems all revolve around activity in the bedroom, if you know what I mean. They ain't getting any. So why would they come to me with that information? Because I wrote a book years ago, and that book was called The Dead Bedroom Fix, and it was all about my thoughts on the whole world of long-term monogamy, marriage, and how to keep things sexy. So men read the book and they want to kick things up a notch and talk to yours truly one-on-one. By the way, if you want to do this, you can go to dadstartingover.com/coaching. If pricing seems a little bit too high for you, you can join our members club, pay a small monthly fee, and get coaching for a lot less. Sales pitch over. So anyway, for a lot of these men, they are in relationships with women that they just love to death. And these men work really, really hard at the office, at the job site and at home, all in an effort to be the best husband that they can possibly be. Unfortunately for these men, the activity in the bedroom is not what they thought it was supposed to be. They were under the impression that because of, at least in part, a lot of this, uh, domestic provider type stuff that they do for the wife and for the family, that that would in turn result in more sexy time for him. And If he's like a lot of men, he learns that the two worlds really don't have anything to do with the other. He could do all the chores in the world. He could make all the money in the world at his job. But if something is not clicking sexy-wise between he and his wife, things aren't happening in the bedroom, at least not to the degree that he likes. So what a lot of these men will tell me is, we do it maybe like twice a month and it's, you know, Lights have to be off. Position-wise, it's one position. No one's allowed to make any noise. If they hear a kid or somebody else, you know, somewhere in the home, that session over. Dirty talk is not allowed. Anything that veers towards any kind of kinky, sexy, risqué type behavior, forget it. No. For some men, it's oral sex is not allowed. All kinds of stuff that people in healthy sexual relationships sit back and listen to and go, oh geez, that's weird, but that's normal for a lot of people out there. And unfortunately, thanks to the internet, these men either do some snooping or they happen upon some information that shows this man that his wife, Miss Boring in the Sack but otherwise a perfect wife for him, had a secret sexy past. Maybe he found some website where she blogged about her escapades. I've heard that one. Maybe he found a literal paper journal where she wrote all about her awesome summer in Brazil. I've heard that one. Maybe he was on Reddit and he was going through and looking at some adult entertainment, if you know what I mean, and he saw pictures and videos of a woman that looked really familiar, and that woman was doing some really crazy things. And he looks closer and closer and keeps clicking and says, "No way, that can't be her." And sure enough, that's wifey from a short 10 years ago. Oh boy. In all these instances, the wifey is either writing or physically doing things with other human beings that she refuses to do with her now awesome provider, sweet domestic husband. And he feels cheated. He feels destroyed by this information. What a lot of these men do is they will approach their wife with the information that they found. Maybe not the best idea in the world, but hey, cat's out of the bag. He's really, really frustrated. He's super angry. He's sad. He's all these negative emotions all rolled into one. And he goes to the wife and said, "Look what I've seen. What the hell?" And what a lot of the wives do in this situation is say, number one, You're kind of an asshole for snooping through my things or going on the internet and trying to find information about me or whatever. And so she'll try to flip it and say, you're bad for seeing this stuff. It's none of your damn business. And then she will follow up with, I can see you're upset because I used to do those things with others, but that was then. This is now. Back then I was experimental. Often she will say, I felt pressured to do those things. As a young stupid girl. I have matured since then and I realize I don't feel like doing those things anymore. It's not you, it's me. The woman will say, I don't care who it is you put in front of me, I'm not gonna wanna do those things that I did in the past with anybody. So you, husband, are just gonna have to come to terms with that. It's my body, it's my mind, it's my choice who I want to do, if I want to do all those things again. And guess what? I don't. I haven't done those things in years, so you're just gonna have to drop it. Does this point to the insecurity in the man? Does this point to a fundamental disconnect between the mind of a woman and the mind of a man? Does this point to some red flag behavior? Was this man in fact settled for? Now, a lot of women hear me say the thing about being settled for, and they'll kind of roll their eyes and say, what's so wrong with that? Doesn't everybody, quote, settle for everyone? Yeah, in a way, I guess technically we do. There's no such thing as the perfect partner. So we, you know, we weigh the pros and cons and we say, well, this guy, you know, may not be the tallest man in the world, and I typically like tall men. He has these 12 other awesome qualities and I love him to death and we click at every other level, so he can be my husband. That happens quite often. Same for men on the other side. You know, she's maybe 20 pounds overweight, but I love her personality. I love everything else about her. 'Let's make her my wife.' That happens. But I have yet to find a man who is okay knowing that his wife was a certain way sexually with somebody else but not with him. Even your most egalitarian, progressive type of man will say, 'Yeah, that rubs me a little bit of the wrong way, but I'll, I'll learn to get over it.' Why does that rub him the wrong way? What is it about a woman's sexual past that makes him feel so insecure and sometimes downright angry? Well, you can look at it from like an evolutionary psychology perspective. Males, basically any species, our goal is to have intercourse with the females in our species, assuming we're heterosexual, and we want to do so as with as little cost as possible. And the cost doesn't necessarily monetarily, like handing money over. That's part of it, sure. But also the cost to our time. Do we have to devote a lot emotionally? Do we have to be super vulnerable and open? Do we have to provide money-wise, time-wise, resource-wise in order to get the mate, so to speak, and get our needs met, as we often say? If we discover that we have to do, let's say, 12 things in order to get the mate and get our needs met, but this guy over here has to do, let's say, 3 things or 1 thing to get the same needs met, he is the winner. As simplistic and shallow as that may seem, it would seem that within the human male species, it would seem that's a very deeply embedded thought pattern. Or behavioral pattern within us, which is, this man got what I always wanted, but he didn't have to do much for it. Therefore, that makes me feel worse or less than him. As silly as that may sound to some of you out there, that's a very real thing. You know, I've had men who have told me, I was there for all of this terrible stuff that happened to my wife. I was there. I had one guy who told me that, um, He was there for his wife's double mastectomy, and he helped nurse her back to health as she came close to dying of cancer. And he basically provided for the family as his wife was unable to work. He was there for her as her best friend and her husband for life. Yet there was always one little sexual act that she wouldn't do. She would not ever perform oral for him. She said it was disgusting, off the table. I don't like it. I don't want to do it. And he learned to resign himself to, oh well, that's just something my wife doesn't do. As much as that sucks, no pun intended, I gotta live with it. There's so much— there's so many other positive, awesome things, you know, on the, on the buffet of things that make my wife an awesome human being. That's one little thing, although, you know, a pretty awesome thing that from what I can tell a lot of other men get but I don't. Hey, but whatever. And then he discovers via a— I think it was a LiveJournal website or something— that his wife not only did that with others, but gladly did that with others repeatedly for a period of years. There was a chapter in this woman's life where that was a very integral part of who she was as a sexual human being. And then, as far as this guy can tell, ever since she said "I do" to him, She took it off the table, off the menu. And he, as horrible as that may sound to some of you out there, this is a very real thought pattern for a lot of men. He said, well, let me look at all the ways in which I earned that act from her. And he started rattling it off. You know, helped her out with her illness. I was there when she almost died. I picked up the slack for all these things, and yet she couldn't reciprocate with a particular act. That she knows that he really wants because he's been a begging little puppy dog asking for this treat from her for years and years, which may be, by the way, part of the problem. So you can see the dilemma. Yes, it's an act. It's a physical act with her body. If she doesn't want to do it, then yeah, you don't have to do it. Nobody wants you ladies to do anything that you don't want to do. There's a special word for that. We're not going to go there. We don't want to introduce that world into our world of marriage. But you have to empathize with the man who has, um, a wiring in his brain that says, we want particular acts, and we would love to have those particular acts with the one we love more than anything in the world. And A lot of those acts that I hear from men that they desire are not outlandish. They're not some porn thing. They're pretty genuine, normal sexual behavior between two loving people. And number one, when you request said act from your partner and they say no, that's rejection. And that really, really hurts. But society's done a pretty good job of telling men, it's okay, dude, it happens. Rejection happens. It could be a variety of reasons. The more you push, for that act, the shittier of a human being you are. So we back off and we say, okay, it is what it is, I resign myself to it. But to hear that others received said act, and those others were men that didn't have to provide nearly as much upfront cost— resources, time, money, emotionality, love, commitment— and those guys got what you wanted so much and they provided so little, that's an extra stab with a knife in the gut. So ladies, you have to empathize with that. There has to be a portion of you that gets it, right? Well, from what I've seen, because I've created little videos about this in the past, um, no, a lot of ladies don't get that. That's a very fundamental disconnect that I see as far as sexuality is concerned between men in women. To flip the genders, I've seen this point made by a lot of men. Let's say, ladies, that you met the love of your life. He's your husband, father to your children. But damn it, this guy just would never do anything really romantic with you. Get you flowers? No. Buy you gifts? Leave little love notes like some of your ex-boyfriends might have done? No. But he's loving in other ways. He doesn't do the little stereotypical romantic things, but he shows his love and appreciation in other things, such as really hard work. Maybe he will verbally say to you, "I really appreciate you and love you, and I think you're an amazing woman." But he doesn't do the flowers, and he doesn't do the little spontaneous gifts, and he doesn't do the notes, and he doesn't, you know, take you away for any trips or anything like that. He's a very kind of, kind of a serious, stoic guy. But he checks a lot of other boxes. And then let's say you bump into like an ex-girlfriend of his or something at the store, somebody you've known from the past. You're on good terms. And the woman says to you, how's Bob doing, by the way? My ex-boyfriend, your current husband. And you say, Bob's doing great. He's got a promotion at work and all this other stuff. And the lady says, you know, I'm just curious, is he still that romantic sweetheart that he was, you know, years ago when I was with him? I mean, this guy would give me flowers every single day. And he would always leave me little love notes and things. And I thought, whoever this guy is going to have as a future wife is just going to be so happy to have somebody like that, because that is so rare. Does he still do that? Wouldn't you, wife, just be heartbroken to hear that your current husband used to be Mr. Loverboy in the past, used to be super romantic, had a softer side to him? Wouldn't your first reaction be, why doesn't he want to be that guy with me? But he would with her, this gal that he was with for like a year. I've been with him for 30 years and I've never seen that side of him. I can see how that would be heartbreaking to women. Similar thing with us men and some of the sexual stuff. So guys and gals, tell me what you think. Are us men way off base here? Do we just need to suck it up? Are we just being insecure little man babies? Or can you see our point?