BY NATASIA LANGFELDER
Lesbian.com
Dear Femme,
First of all I want to say that I’m not a lesbian, I’m Pansexual.I hope you will still answer my question. I’ve been with my husband for over five years now, married for three. We are both in our 30s. I thought that we have always been open and honest with each other. I thought that we had a great sex life. We have toyed with the idea of a threesome with another woman. It never really worked out though. We didn’t find another bisexual girl who we clicked with. I hope that’s enough background for you to understand my problem.
My problem is that my husband has a paid Ashley Madison account. My friend and I were playing around and entering emails of all the men we knew into one of those search engines for it. She put in my husband’s email address and it popped up. I confronted him about it and he said that he was using it to find a third for us. I asked him why he would keep it a secret instead of having us out up a profile together. He didn’t have an answer but he said that he didn’t meet anyone off it and that if someone had messaged him he would have told me. I’m shocked and I don’t know what to do. I thought we were open and honest and he went behind my back! Right now we pretending it never happened. But I can’t bring myself to be intimate with him. What should I do? I just want my life to go back to normal.
Sad in Seattle
Dear Sis,
Of course I take questions from pansexuals! lesbian.com is inclusive of the entire queer community. Now! Onto your real problems.
I am so so sorry to hear about your husbands actions. For those of you who have been on vacation for the last few weeks, Ashley Madison is a website for married people (mostly men) who are looking to have discreet affairs. The massive leak of Ashley Madison users information was a huge violation of privacy and could change the way we use the internet. I would definitely caution people to avoid using sites that will match email accounts to Ashley Madison accounts to check up on relatives and parents.
Back to Sis- You are allowed to feel confused and hurt and sad and mad. Feel your feelings right now, as deeply as you can. Your life isn’t going to go back to the way it was before your husband violated your trust. However, I do believe that you and your husband can take steps to rebuild your relationship. You can start by accepting the way you feel and embracing it so that you can eventually let it go. Pretending that everything is fine is just going to create an emotional bottleneck that will cause your relationship to implode.
Sit your husband down, tell him that you can’t ignore the problem. Find a queer friendly, sex positive couples therapist in your area. Work together to find the time in your schedules to go and the funds to pay for it. Tell your husband you love him and you need him to be 100% committed to fixing the damage to your relationship- that means being totally honest and transparent with you.
Also, maybe try to take a step back and work through why he signed up for Ashley Madison. Was he feeling insecure in your relationship? Was he feeling out of control at work? While we all have to take responsibility for our actions, we don’t exist in a vacuum and there are so many nuanced reasons for the actions that we take and the roads we pursue in life. As long as your husband works hard to regain your trust, and you keep an open mind, I see no reason why you can’t work through this. However, if your husband keeps his walls up and refuses to see a therapist with you, you need to consider your next steps. Staying with a dishonest partner can wreck havoc on your psyche. Put your happiness first and trust your instincts.
Good luck, Sis! Let us know how it works out.
Xoxo
The Femme
Have a question for me? Email me at askafemme@yahoo.com
