I Opened My Marriage So My Wife Could Have Someone, Er, Thicker. Well, I Found Someone Else, Too.

How to Do It Hello, hot bartender. Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by MangoStar_Studio/iStock/Getty Images Plus. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. How to Do It is Slate’s sex advice column. Have a question? Send it to Stoya and Rich here. It’s anonymous! Dear How to Do It, My wife and I have been together for seven years. At the beginning of our relationship she told me that she was a “size queen” and that I, although average length, had a “pencil dick.” After some heart-to-heart discussion about this problem and if our relationship could continue, we decided she would use toys/dildos to satisfy her need for size. Everything was fine (I think?) until earlier this year when she told me the toys and dildos weren’t cutting it and needed the real thing and wanted to open up our marriage for this. Of course I was very disappointed and maybe a little heartbroken but agreed on the condition that I could also go outside the marriage. She agreed, probably thinking the chances of me finding someone was slim to none. Well, I did. And now my wife is pissed. Sitting at a neighborhood bar and somewhat depressed while my wife was out on one of her hookups, the female bartender (Ariel) noticed my ring and started asking questions: Why was I there, by myself, and not with my wife? It all came out. The size of my penis, how I couldn’t satisfy my wife, and this is why she wasn’t with me that night as she was out with a bigger guy, and, although I was free to have my own hookups, I wasn’t having much luck. She said that was interesting and let me know that due to a birth defect, if you can call it that, her vaginal opening was partially closed and she needed to have surgery as a young teen to “open it up” so she could use tampons but the scar tissue makes it painful to have sex with a penis of a normal-sized girth. She has a wife and is also in an open marriage. She offered to have sex with me if I was as small as I said I was. I agreed. Long story short it went great so on my wife’s nights out, I have been meeting her. My wife at first seemed happy for me but it now sounds like the guys she is meeting aren’t living up to what she expects, and I think she is a little jealous of my success. Last night, after we came home—she was with another (disappointing?) hookup and I was with Ariel—she said she wanted me to stop seeing her and find somebody else. She wouldn’t give me a reason why. There is no romantic attachment between me and Ariel as we are both married, and I told her I needed a better reason than “just because I said so.” I told her I would stop seeing Ariel if we closed up the marriage and go back to the way it was. She said that doesn’t take care of her needs if we did that, and will not agree to it. I told her I would continue to see Ariel on the nights she is out like we have been doing recently. Our sex life between the two of us has been like it was before, so neither of us seeing other people has affected that to any degree. Am I being unfair not wanting to break it off with Ariel? And do you agree that I am getting screwed by what my wife now wants? I love her to death but, I don’t know how to make our marriage work without ending up in a divorce with the choice I am being forced to make. —Good for the Goose But Too Good for the Gander Dear Good for the Goose But Too Good for the Gander, I agree with you that “because I said so,” is not particularly motivating. It is often the attitude of tyrants, not negotiators. In this case, though, you can infer a few things from your wife’s reaction. You’re too close to Ariel for her comfort. Maybe she is having a hard time believing that you have no romantic interest in someone that you are seeing so often, or she’s afraid that if this continues going the way that it has been, these feelings will develop. She probably feels insecure about the whole thing, and maybe she’s having a hard time verbalizing this because she realizes that her doing is what led you here. Maybe she feels like a hypocrite. That doesn’t mean that she shouldn’t explain herself, but if you want to speak to be heard, and more importantly, really hear her, you might offer her a bit of patience and the opportunity to examine this further instead of snapping into defensive mode. I think that you should revisit this by asking her what the problem is and, if she still can’t answer, float the possibilities I’ve outlined above or others that you may think of. Generally with open relationships, moving at the pace of the most sensitive party is going to yield the most mutually satisfying outcome. Sometimes that means making difficult concessions. Still, this situation is a bit more complicated than a stereotypical one in which one partner wants the open relationship more than the other. I think your wife should at least attempt to negotiate here, but I’m not surprised that she isn’t trying. You came to this arrangement via her sharp, unkind criticism of your body—if I’m reading your letter right, “pencil dick” is her phrase. When she announced her desire to open the relationship, you were heartbroken. I don’t think she’s been adequately sensitive to you, so her lack of compassion/enthusiasm/compersion regarding your partner tracks. Is she like this in other contexts or just sex? You love her to death and you have an active sex life with her, which is great, but how is the relationship otherwise? You may have to decide if the relationship is worth more than holding onto a FWB that you really click with sexually. It seems like you’re already pointed in the direction of staying with your bartender friend. I think that’s telling and listening to your gut may be the move. But do attempt clarity with your wife first, just so you understand the choice you’re making can protect yourself from future regrets. —Rich More Advice From Slate Sometimes after an orgasm, usually if it is during the day, I have what I can only call a fugue state. I’m conscious but have what seems like a very long, sometimes hours, déjà vu. I have been to a neurologist who was no help and never heard of such a thing. But two of my siblings have the same thing happen occasionally. This has been going on for years. I am a man, and they are women, and we are all well into middle age if that makes a difference. Have you heard of this? Any idea what it could be? Advice Sex