[Two Pronged] BDSM-enjoying wife’s vanilla husband seeks advice on her third party

Rappler’s People section runs an advice column by couple Jeremy Baer and clinical psychologist Dr. Margarita Holmes.

Jeremy has a master’s degree in law from Oxford University. A banker of 37 years who worked in three continents, he has been training with Dr. Holmes for the last 10 years as co-lecturer and, occasionally, as co-therapist, especially with clients whose financial concerns intrude into their daily lives.

Together, they have written two books: Love Triangles: Understanding the Macho-Mistress Mentality and Imported Love: Filipino-Foreign Liaisons.

Translated from Filipino

Dear Dr Holmes and Mr Baer,

Happy weekend and God bless you both. Thank you for your time and whatever help you can provide, especially now that I feel my back is against the wall.

I wish to ask advice regarding my situation, as a man who has a wife. I am vanilla. But my wife has a BDSM partner online and they plan to meet soon.

My goal is to ensure my wife is happy, as she wishes but at the same time I do not want to be the cause of jealousy or negative emotion.

She also told me that she cannot get rid of her BDSM proclivities and that she will stop only when she herself has stopped living.

In your clinical experience, what is the best way to deal with this correctly, in a manner that is respectful of, and full of love for our relationship?

– John

Dear John,

Thank you for your message.

It is laudable that you should be so positively invested in your marriage and trying your utmost to find a solution to this conundrum. What is less clear is the extent to which your wife is equally committed, which is crucial to your joint futures.

You say that you are vanilla while she is into BDSM. You don’t want to be the cause of ‘jealousy or negative emotion’ but at the same time you feel that ‘your back is to the wall’. This seems to indicate a major contradiction: you think you should accommodate your wife but by doing so you are forced into a position that leaves you oppressed and uncomfortable.

A further complication is that the presenting problem concerns sex, a key area of marriage. It is therefore important that you give some consideration to why you feel this way before trying to find a solution to your situation.

Are you simply conflict avoidant, afraid of losing your wife, fearful of not meeting her expectations, some of these or is it something else? Clarity before engaging in important negotiations about the future of your marriage is crucial to the outcome, as is acknowledgment that both parties’ needs have to be identified and addressed.

As for the negotiations themselves, the gap between vanilla and BDSM may be minor or major. Is there room for compromise, meeting somewhere in the middle? If so, that is fine; if not, and yet there is a willingness to persevere, then you need to thrash out the basis of a marriage that caters to the proclivities of both parties.

The solution will require a clear understanding of each other’s needs (where they converge, where they diverge) and of how to manage the gap i.e. an arrangement that includes clear communication, true consent, boundaries and rules where appropriate.

There are many forms of open marriages and you both will need to be crystal clear on what you are signing up for and, equally importantly, what you are not.

Finally, negotiating between your own needs and those of your wife while trying to reconcile your limits and your desire to preserve your marriage is a task that might benefit from the assistance of a mental health professional, both to guide you and to mediate.

Best wishes

-JAF Baer

Dear John,

Thank you very much for your letter. Mr Baer touched on how you are both so different in terms of sexual desires. You are, after all, a man who is comfortable with only vanilla sex and your wife, a woman who needs BDSM in her sexual encounters.

However, while it is tempting to focus on how different vanilla sex is from BDSM, Mr Baer also put the problem in perspective: that your major conflict is not so much how diverse your sexual tastes are, but rather that you disagree with how open your relationship to others should be.

An open relationship is usually defined as one where there is a consensual arrangement where spouses agree to date, sleep with, or form romantic connections with others.

The operative word here is consensual, John. Having an open marriage means both your wife and you agree to a marriage where each of you accept that it is ok to have sex, and perhaps even form romantic connections, with others.

I get the feeling that you are not okay with your wife’s planning to meet a man in real life who also has BDSM desires, but whom she has only met online up to now.

Thus, this is not an open relationship because from the very start you are not ok with your wife having sex with someone else.

Even more difficult is achieving what you wish for — to find the “best way to deal with this correctly, in a manner that is respectful of, and full of love for our relationship”.

Even if you want to deal with your wife’s plan in a manner that is respectful and full of love for your relationship, your wife is not. While you might convince yourself for a while that all is well between you, in time you will realize that this belief is a blatant lie.

Unless you are a martyr, how can you continue to want a relationship where respect and love go only one way?

How do I know this? Your wife’s statement that “she will stop (enjoying BDSM with others) only when she herself has stopped living” is a pretty clear indication that she does not have the same level of commitment to keeping your marriage going.

Actually, her honesty is commendable. She is very clear that she feels very strongly that her joy in BDSM is an important part of being who she is. Thus her message to you is clear too: Given a choice between keeping the marriage by stopping her BDSM, she prefers to end the marriage because BDSM is something she cannot, or is not willing to, give up.

She is not leading you on, John. She is saying you can like it or lump it.

I, for one, truly hope you lump it, rather than convincing yourself that pretending to like it is the way you show love and respect for her.

All the best

– MG Holmes

– Rappler.com