My Husband Came Home From a Work Trip With an Unwelcome Development. Now We’re Living a Nightmare.

How to Do It I’m not sure I buy his explanation. Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by 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 Jessica and Rich here. It’s anonymous! Dear How to Do It, My husband travels a lot for his job, and last week, I discovered he had crabs. It’s been a nightmare with that disgusting cream, but the worst thing is I know he must have cheated on me. He swears up and down that he didn’t; he insists he must have picked them up from one of the beds he slept in on the road. Honestly, I’m contemplating divorce. Is what he claims happened actually possible? —Purgatory Dear Purgatory, The Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic, and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) all agree that while pubic lice (otherwise known as crabs) are usually transmitted through sexual contact, they can be, albeit more rarely, transmitted through non-sexual contact and via bedsheets, towels, and other personal items. Each of these pages also states that you can’t get sick from crabs. Meaning, they’re not like certain kinds of ticks, mosquitoes, or fleas that can transmit potentially dangerous illnesses. So I think it’s important to really sit with two questions: Why are you so alarmed and disgusted, and why do you feel so certain that your husband cheated and is lying to you about it? If you’ve got an aversion to small creepy-crawlies, or are inherently put off by the texture or scent of the cream used to eradicate the particular type of critter you/your husband ended up temporarily hosting, know that these are eminently common reactions (and that I empathize strongly with both). If there’s anything else fueling your feelings of repugnance, you want to know what that is and understand it so it’s not clouding your thinking when you move to the second question: Where is your confidence in this conclusion of infidelity coming from? A certainty in the stereotype that “men cheat” may be inaccurate and unfair to your husband. But perhaps there are other behaviors you’ve picked up on before this infestation that are forming the basis of your assumption, and if so, working through those with logic and critical thinking is crucial to your contemplation of divorce. If there’s been a growing disconnect in your relationship, you might be looking at a curveball—maybe he didn’t cheat, and there’s still something significant in your relationship that needs to be addressed for it to survive. Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don’t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication. Dear How to Do It, I’m a 58-year-old man, and I am fortunate enough to have a great relationship with my 32-year-old girlfriend. We have a healthy sexual appetite, and I’m average-sized. My girlfriend gets extremely wet during sex, to the point that I feel her gushing during intercourse. While this is highly complimentary of the way her body responds, many times I lose friction and, with it, the erection. Sometimes she even mentions that during the latter stages of sex, she feels so wet that she “can barely feel” me, even when I’m pretty hard or even close to ejaculating. Many times this is not a problem, and we both reach orgasm, but other times, it feels like I’m swimming inside her. This hasn’t happened to me before, and she tells me it’s new to her too, that she hasn’t gotten this wet in the past. Is this normal? She really turns me on, and I get good-quality erections, but I hate it when I can’t last as long as we’d like. Anything that can be done? Shorten foreplay and penetrate early? Am I fretting about something stupid? I know I’m not 28 anymore, but in my previous relationship, not too long ago, I felt friction throughout. —Too Much of a Good Thing? Dear Too Much of a Good Thing, Pull out when things get too slippery, wipe the excess lubrication off of her labia and your penis, and go back to your rhythm. You’ll want to be cautious of using materials that are abrasive on her inner labia and the head of your penis, and very low-quality tissues can (as one handkerchief-loving commenter pointed out the last time we handled a question about remarkably wet vaginas) crumble, so either use a soft fabric, a soft yet sturdy disposable tissue, or your hand and then wipe your hand on something. Old t-shirts work well for this, as do old washcloths. Depending on the sensibilities of the people involved, you can also smear what’s on your hand onto your thigh or flank, or hers, or the pillowcase or sheets. Opting for positions that squeeze her legs together can also increase friction, but when you’re at the point of multiple instances of gushing during penetration, that may not be sufficient. Share Your Story With How to Do It! Readers often have great suggestions for our letter writers, occasionally disagree with a point our How to Do It writers make, or simply want to provide some additional advice. Each month, Jessica and Rich will be replying to some of these comments and suggestions from readers. Write to us! Dear How to Do It, My wife and I have experienced a mismatch in sexual desire for a while now. Hers has largely fallen off a cliff; mine is as high as ever. We are both 41, have three young children, and work full-time. I know there are natural ebbs (and flows). But sex doesn’t cross her mind until I bring it up, and then it’s an obligation. She says she’d be happy to have it a handful of times a year. She has trouble turning off mom-mode (and that’s why she’s an absolutely terrific mother). I am as committed to and supportive of her enjoyment of sex as possible, and she says as much—baths, toys, you name it. I have hoped that would increase her interest, but it hasn’t really worked. She says it’s made it more stressful, like a chore to perform. I understand her feelings, but she enjoys the sex more often than not when we actually have it. She mentioned talking to someone about this. I’m not entirely opposed to it, and she’s not entirely in favor of it. We communicate well and have never sought or needed counseling before. Outside of divorce or seeing other people, which aren’t options, I only see three positions a therapist could present: 1) my wife is right and I’m wrong and we’re having an appropriate amount of sex (around once a week); 2) I’m right and my wife is wrong, and she needs to be more interested in sex (she just isn’t and I’ve read your column enough and Come as You Are to understand that); or 3) we’re doomed to suffer this problem until one (or both) of us has a natural change in libido. I obviously don’t think the first and second options are correct. So we’re back to where we are now: She has sex she really isn’t interested in having some nights, and we spend many nights not having sex when I wish we were. I don’t see how a reasonable therapist could tell us anything other than “neither of you has a desire that is ‘wrong,’ but you have a mismatch.” I already know that, so what’s the point in talking with someone? —What’s the Point? Dear What’s the Point, You’re both right about your own preferences and boundaries, and you have a mismatch. There’s no “appropriate amount of sex,” and nobody needs to be more interested, or less interested, so much as the two of you need to find ways to cope with the mismatch. It’s very good that you recognize that your wife’s level of desire is what it is. Making assessments like the one you expect a therapist would make isn’t the end of what a therapist does, though, so much as it is the starting point in a process of understanding what’s happening and then doing their best to help the client or dyad. The value of couple counseling, sex therapy, or sex coaching is in helping you double-check the conclusions you’ve come to based on this column and Come as You Are (both useful resources, but sometimes nowhere near sufficient for finding and supporting change in an area that could be shifted) and helping the two of you move from feeling like you’re doomed to suffer from this dynamic to acceptance. These professionals offer an outside perspective and a wide skill set. In my own coaching work, when a client is part of a long-term relationship, for example, I’d look at things like why your wife has trouble shifting out of mom mode, and whether you’re actually pulling your weight in the childcare department (one frequent problem is that you may be doing half of the tasks but leaving her responsible for the vast majority of the mental labor of organization and delegation, which is the part that sucks up the most mental energy). Baths and toys increase your wife’s stress level, but she enjoys sex when the two of you do have it—why? What are the nuances of each of these types of experiences, and what might those details tell you about ways to support her potential for arousal? I’d also consider whether the sex your wife really isn’t interested in, though you describe her as having enjoyed it in the end, may be more complicated than that and be hindering her ability to feel desire in the deep ways that you seem to wish were happening. —Jessica More Advice From Slate My husband and I married young and have been together for 15 years. We have two small children together. I’ve never been intimate with another man. (He had one partner before me.) The sex has always been … fine. He is very into performing oral—although I think his enthusiasm outstrips his skill—but I prefer penetration or manual stimulation to get off. He’s average size and has never been a marathon man, but lately he’s had a hard time, well, getting hard, and if he does, he can only handle a minute or maybe two of intercourse before he comes, and then he’s done, whether I am or not. In contrast, as I’ve gotten older, my tastes have started to run less vanilla… Advice Sex