We get a lot of feedback here at TMC, and a lot of it is from people living in sexless marriages. The reasons for this are as varied as there are people but a lot of what we hear are comments like;

-          She/he didn’t find me attractive anymore

-          After the baby came the passion just…died

-          After working hard all day then coming home to the kids who has the energy?

-          Our sex life got boring, I want something more.

At TMC we’ve often wondered what the party who chooses to stop having sex thinks is going to happen. Do they think their spouse has a switch they can flip which will stop them from wanting sex and intimacy? Do they think that their spouse just accept that the person who vowed to love and keep them no longer seems to want to do either of those things. And most baffling of all, do they think that their spouse won’t go find it somewhere else?

Sexless Marriage Is Surprisingly Common

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And other fables of how marriages end.

Does anyone find it interesting that the English language has a word for a woman who has a relationship with a married man, mistress, but we don’t have a word for a man involved with a married woman?

Oh, sure, we refer to men as lovers or paramours, but they don’t seem to hold the same hated (or heated) weight of the mistress.

L’affair scandalous.

TMC recently had a chance to chime on the subject of what to do when you believe life can not go on unless you confront the woman you know (or think you know) is the other woman in your marriage. You have to love the Huffington Post’s Advice Section. Not a day goes by where we here at TMC don’t learn something from their writers.

We hear stories all of the time about a private investigator this and a secret email account hacked that, and we wonder:

Did you spend this much time focusing on the signs your marriage was sputtering? If the answer is no, then what do you expect to find out by confronting a third-party. They can no more give you closure than they can offer insight into your spouse’s behavior.

Why? Easy. Your spouse is not ‘your spouse’ when they are with their lover. They are their best selves in many ways. They are chivalrous, they are in need of affection, they are content to listen to this woman, and they are considerate lovers.

And why are these men so different? Oh, the anecdotes we could tell, but we’ll stick to the easy ones:

Your husband doesn’t pay bills with this woman and he doesn’t raise her kids and he doesn’t spend more than a few hours a week with her. She is everything you are not, simply because he doesn’t have to actually connect with her fully if he doesn’t want to.

And him? Well, he’s everything he believes he’s been holding back on being because there is no one there to remind him to empty the garbage.

But, dear reader, let’s go back to calling the other woman. What will you say and why? Is it to protect her from possible lies or is it to get her to see your side. Truthfully, we almost want to believe that if she saw your side, she wouldn’t be having sex with your husband in the first place.

Is it for closure? Closure comes from within.

Tell your husband you know about his affair. Decide if you can stay with him if he even can own up to the issue and work on his role in your marriage’s demise, then look at yourself and ask if you played any role in your marriage faltering. Once you have that answer, ask yourself if you want to stay.

Read “Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay” and then dig deep.

Getting over an affair takes a lot of work on both sides. Ideals have been shattered, trust has been broken, love may have eroded. Or perhaps not. Perhaps you’ll be one of those couples who become stronger. And it is true that many people can move on as a couple.

But whatever the decisions are…the answer doesn’t lie within another person, it lies within yourself and your ability to forgive your spouse, and, if need be, yourself.

It is 2am….I lie in bed alone.

My wife is asleep downstairs on the couch.

This is where my marriage is…a non-affectionate, emotional prison of the mind! My mate, the mother of my children, has told me that while she loves me, she is not in love with me anymore. So many people say I should leave.

Hiding In Plain Sight – Part 1

I am an affectionate, loving man. This sleeping alone shit bothers the fuck out of me and I tell her so but our conversations leave me feeling as if I she doesn’t want to hear what I think or feel about her – and in reality, all I want is to sleep with her, to be held, kissed. The things that one should expect in a marriage, some love and affection. No amount of talking worked so I decided I could get what I needed and wanted outside of my marriage. I was sure there were other people going through the same thing I was….Doing the right thing that felt so wrong! Trying to keep the family unit together to give our children a healthy foundation to succeed from.

After talking to my wife I came to the conclusion that she was not interested in dealing with the reality of not wanting to sleep with her husband anymore. Like her brother’s wife a decade before, she has chosen the couch over her man. Oh, she started off with a multiple reasons why she needed to sleep downstairs on the couch. She wanted to watch the news, she needed to wash her hair and on and on. I just stopped asking, because when I did bring it up I was made to feel I was an annoyance. The second conclusion brought quickly to my attention was she subscribed to the ancient BS practice of ‘I don’t really want to know the truth!’ The vows we took meant till death do us part. If I wanted sex, I wasn’t getting it from her but she didn’t want me to get it from anyone else.

Well, you know what? FUCK THOSE VOWS…FUCK THE RULES…FUCK HER!!!! I was going to go get mine. I am good at pleasing women, I am good at sex. I love women. And in reality, I longed to be wanted again.

Right then I realized  that I would do one thing from now on: I would not lie to any woman who wanted to become intimately involved with me. I would tell her my story, explain my situation at home and let her decide if  I was the right man for her needs.

My mother told me the smartest man gets caught, only a dumb woman gets caught cheating! I wasn’t going to make the same mistake most men make. I was not going to lie to women. (UNCAP THIS SENTENCE).  By choosing to be honest I knew I was eliminating the possibilities of meeting a lot of women but I looked at the adventure I was about to embark on as a game. The game I was about to play I had to win. (this is contradictory)To get the affection and sex I craved, I had to establish the rules of engagement, the rules of the game. I was not going to lie, I was not going to intentionally hurt anyone, I was NOT going to concentrate on deception. My method of getting what I wanted was going to be straightforward, direct, and willing to do anything to please the women I was with.  I decided to pursue sex as an art. I was going to use the rules of ‘Hide in Plain Sight’…knowing my wife would unintentionally do her part to conceal my behavior from herself!

I’d continue to do my household duties…be home for my 10 year old when he came home from school, feed him, help him with his homework, etc. When my wife came home from work I would stay around until our son went to bed, then I would leave the house to do my thing. At first my wife would ask where was I going and I told her what she wanted to hear…and I left…not returning till hours later if not the morning. I didn’t give a fuck if she caught me, as a matter of fact I really didn’t try hard to hide it. I created an online Facebook group of my ex-lovers and girlfriends and connected with similar people who were open about their sexuality as well as having fucked up mates and spouses (this contradicts a tone of love/affection)!

I started offering my sex skill set as a product…a sort of Pussy Whisperer(?!?!)…where women could tell me the truth…tell me the type of sex they really wanted and needed. I would give them what they asked for….as much as they needed…As long as they wanted. My set of rules included complete transparency to my lovers. I let them know I was married and why I do what I do. I gave them the choice to engage in a sex-based adult friendship. I let them know they were not going to be a booty call but I was going to get deeply into them. I wanted to go out with them and really be a friend with great benefits. The best benefit was I could be the man they wanted their lovers to be. Initially I was shocked how easy it was for women to be open to getting with me. What I found out was most people do what I am doing and have been doing it for many years! No one person can be everything to anyone and shouldn’t be! Everybody gets tired of compromising sooner or later. If you divide what you need among those who want to deal with those parts of you…you never have anyone person reacting to you like you are asking for too much. I met a lot of great women who were wives, girlfriends, ex-girlfriends who wanted what I had to offer. I didn’t have to lie.

And now? Now I hide in plain sight and share my story with The Modern Cheater because I know there are a lot of people who don’t realize that stories like this are happing every day.

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Before we were even close to launching The Modern Cheater we did a ton of research? Were there any sites like TMC? Was anyone tacking the issues we planned to dive head first into? The answer was yes and no. We found an article here and there similar to what we planned to do but what we found overwhelmingly was content by those who’d been cheated on. And a lot of it was bitter and angry. We know how that feels. Being cheated on is not fun, but, as the man said there are two sides to every story and Rufus’s story bring that home in a big way.

As ever, if you can’t be faithful, be careful.

TMC.

Let me just get the obvious out in the open: TMC loves the Yankees. We bleed blue and white and we would never, ever do anything to jinx our beloved New York team, especially not during Spring training. No way, no how.

But this story is too deliciously appropriate not to share with you. You know how we always hear people say they can get over sex, but not an emotional affair?

Well, our man Brian Cashman highlights the extreme case of what can go wrong with you bring sex and crazy together. Now, we’re not clinicians, so we don’t know if anyone is medically not sane, but this story is crazy so that’s how we’re going to use the word today.

Now, you’ve got to read this whole story to believe it, but let’s just say that:

Brian Cashman allegedly had an affair;

The woman he allegedly cheated with either stalked him or didn’t;

Cashman’s wife moved out;

Mrs. Cashman will probably live very well after the settlement is done.

Mr. Cashman really has no one to blame but himself.

Sidebar: We use ‘allegedly’ because we learned a lot from Star Jones over the years. Thank you, Star.

Apparently, someone could have used some TLC, we mean, TMC advice, but since he didn’t ask, we’re going to just remind all of you that:

We don’t make judgments here;

We want you to be safe and by safe we mean: Use protection; keep your head on straight; don’t let your lower half dictate the terms of the rest of your body.

Be careful who you invite into your bed and more importantly, your life. That sweet, endearing person who makes you feel like a rock star might just be your downfall.

Don’t say we didn’t try to warn you.

Friends, you know the drill: If you can’t be faithful, be careful.