Reader Mail Week, Day 1: Maurice on Infidelity.

Ahoy!  It's Reader Mail Week, which...well, you're pretty bright--I don't think I have to explain it to you.

First off, is this response from Maurice in which I asked readers where they were lately on the topic of infidelity: 

Infidelity?

Even the word sounds, I don't know, like it has to be spoken by someone in his/her 80s with a rasp and a heaping helping of holy indignation in his/her voice.
We called it a marriage, even without the ceremony, cake and small appliance gifts. It went over 25 years.

If she had cheated? I would have been majorly pissed, not because she cheated, but because she told me over and over again and in many different words and ways over the course of 25 years that cheating is the black side of a black-and-white situation — the purely wrong side. That such a thing was unforgivable. That it would be a betrayal of her, of her love, her dedication and commitment. Et cetera, et cetera. I didn't agree, but (for once) was smart enough not to say it.

I would have stayed with her. To me, sex with another person — "infidelity" — is not the end of a relationship. It is sex with another person. The reasons behind it are the key. Did she cheat because she was bored? Looking for an adventure? Because she saw an incredibly hot guy, had an opportunity and went for it? Or was it because she resented me in every conceivable way? Despised the way I thought? Hated the sound of my voice?

Oops. Okay, I sort of take it back. Towards the end, her cheating would have been a demonstration that she wanted out, or wanted me out. But early on, when we were solid and also young and horny? Her cheating would have just been sex with another person. It's sort of like when I went on motorcycle trips with the guys. Those were not demonstrations that I didn't want to be with her, just that I liked being with the guys sometimes, too. You know, not mutually exclusive.

I think too many people still think sex = love, that they're mutually inclusive (is that even a term?). I'm one of those guys who thinks love = love, and that sex should be a part of it, but that there can be sex without love and, unfortunately, love without sex.

Okay. Today? If my present partner banged someone else, I'd need to know why. Was it a caprice, or was it a sign of something deeper and more ominous? And if it turned out it was just a walk on the wild side and that she still loved me and only me and wanted our relationship to continue and grow, well, then, she's going to have to tell me everything. Slowly. And don't leave anything out ...

*****

So there you go.  Feel free to chime in as well.

In other business, if you can use the word "business" regarding a blog that generates a three figure annual income:

--There is a new "Refer a friend" button on the IBWMW Facebook page. Feel free to make use of it.

--IBWMW was named one of the Top 14 Sex Blogs and Websites to Follow in 2014 by A Good Woman's Dirty Mind. If you are practice infidelity in your sex blog reading choices (how could you?), pop on over.

--I have still not discovered what I meant when I emailed myself this now-mysterious note: "vaginal decor."

I most decidedly did not mean this, sent in by Janet, in which an Australian artist makes a statement about informed parenting (???) by knitting a long scarf-ish thing from yarn that she stuck up her wang. Besides the parenting statement (again, I say "?????"), she is also trying to show that one not feel "fear and revulsion" about the vulva.  Which, perhaps, is best not mended by pulling out seemingly endless mystery steins of yard from where none should live, but perhaps that is just my fear and revulsion talking.



xoxoxo
jill

Coming tomorrow:  Reader needs your advice regarding the marital bed...

(photo: Lady Cheeky, another of the 14 Sex Blogs to Follow. If you're gonna cheat on me with another blog, choose her.  Totally hot.)