By Dan Savage - Aug. 1, 2024

My partner and I have been together for nearly thirty years. He was never as into sex/romance/intimacy as much as I was, and things got worse after he had a malignant brain tumor removed six years ago. He is now cancer-free. However, he lost all interest in sexual and romantic activity after his tumor was discovered.

I told him I want to be able to satisfy my needs elsewhere on occasion, and he doesn't want me to. If he doesn’t want sex, that’s fine. But he shouldn't deny me the right to get my needs met. Am I wrong?

— Wants And Needs The Sex

Anyone who’s been reading my column for more than three months knows what I’m going to say in response to this question: Do what you need to do to stay married and sane.

But before you do that, press the issue with him again, WANTS. Either he’ll give you permission — tacitly or explicitly —  to discreetly seek sex elsewhere, or he won’t. In which case, see the above paragraph and pray you don’t get caught.

P.S. I’m going to re-up my call here for people who are getting very serious about someone to initiate a conversation about what you will do, as a couple, if after decades together one of you is done with sex and the other one isn’t.

________________

After over a decade of monogamy, my boyfriend and I started opening things up with threesomes. Our current ground rules are simple: We share a profile on one hookup app, and we only play together. It's been fun so far but some differences in style/approach are emerging.

He engages men directly and without checking with me first, and he's gotten into direct flirtations in our feed about him and the other guy. He tells me not to worry, it's just the initial flirtation, and he always plans to bring me in “at some point.” But I can't help feeling like a third wheel then.

He insinuates that I'm foreclosing things prematurely when I can’t see the information I want to see right away. Things are starting to accumulate and turn into resentments. How do we keep this fun?

— Communications Have Amplified Tensions

Asking your boyfriend to run a guy by you before swapping dick pics — if only to make sure this other guy is someone you also wanna fuck — is entirely reasonable. Your boyfriend shouldn’t be writing checks with his dick that your ass may not wanna cash. So long as he brings you in when the chats shift from flirtations to logistics, your boyfriend can tell himself he’s not violating the letter of your agreement. But if you’re reading chats where guys bail after your boyfriend attempts to “bring you in,” CHATS, or messages that make your boyfriend sound like he might be available solo, he’s definitely violating the spirit of your agreement. Your newly opened relationship isn’t going to be a happy one — or a lasting one — if your boyfriend’s online activities leave you feeling hurt and insecure. If he cares about your feelings, he needs to course correct.

That said, CHATS, it’s not uncommon for two people in a newly open relationship to experience this kind of conflict. Now that you two know you have different styles when it comes to making contacts online, you need to work out a compromise.

P.S. A quick message for CHAT’s boyfriend: If you invest a lot of time, energy and dick pics in a guy who isn’t interested in playing with you and your boyfriend, you may find yourself tempted to meet up with that guy solo. Creating temptation doesn’t mean succumbing to temptation, but if temptation is something you’ve had a hard time resisting in the past, you might wanna avoid flirting and stick to logistics.

Email your question for the column to [email protected] or record your question for the Savage Lovecast at savage.love/askdan. Podcasts, columns and more at Savage.Love. 

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