Savage Love Letter of the Day: Cheating on My Husband Was Great for Our Marriage

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This letter originally published on Oct 2, 2013.

I'm a straight woman who has been married for 10 years. We've been in a rut, emotionally and sexually, for a few years. My closest girlfriends think we're bored. Neither of us has done anything to harm or sabotage our marriage. We are very good together, and the love we have for one another is huge. I have plenty of male friends, but there is one that I've been getting to know—a colleague—and he is a stellar human being. We really connect. He kissed me a few weeks ago. I liked it. I like him. The impact on my marriage has been strangely great. I disclosed everything to my husband. He said, "I couldn't get in the way of your happiness. Is this something you need to explore?" This is the nonthreatened response of someone who truly loves me. We're communicating better now, our sex life is off the freakin' chain, and it is evident that we're committed to working through things as a couple. So why can't I stop thinking of my colleague? I think of him all day long. I think of him when I'm making love to my husband. I don't plan on seeing him anymore. He is a distraction to my marriage. But what on earth do you do to get someone out of your head? Wanting It Forever

If you feel like spending time with your colleague is a genuine threat to your marriage, and if protecting your marriage from genuine threats is a priority (and it should be), then keep doing what you're doing: Keep fucking your husband, keep avoiding your colleague, keep feeling your feelings (because what other choice do you have?), and with enough time and fucking and feeling, your crush on your colleague should wither away.

But that said...

So far, it would appear that this affair—this emotional affair—has had a positive impact on your marriage. Far from threatening your marriage, your feelings for your colleague dislodged something that reinvigorated your marriage. (You're out of that rut now, right?) So if your colleague knew you were married and didn't ask you to leave your husband, and if your husband didn't threaten to divorce you, but asked if this—meaning something more than friendship with this colleague—was "something you need to explore," you might be able to have a relationship with your colleague without having to end your marriage. Love isn't always a zero-sum game.

Listen to my podcast, the Savage Lovecast, at www.savagelovecast.com Impeach the motherfucker already! Get your ITMFA buttons, t-shirts, hats and lapel pins and coffee mugs at www.ITMFA.org! Tickets to HUMP 2018 are on sale now! Get them here!