Affair, even with wife’s approval, is still risky

My wife of 10 years and I married in our early 20s, quickly had two children, so never really focused on our relationship.

Two years ago, she started medication for depression and bipolar disorder. We have zero intimacy. I had patience. But now, she says she’s not interested in being intimate and it makes her sick.

I urged her to talk to both her psychiatrist and family doctor, and she has. Her resolution is that she’s done for good.

She’s urged me to take on extramarital activities to get the satisfaction I need. I don’t want to do this because I love her, in sickness and in health. She keeps urging me to have affairs (she’s not having one and it’s not just a way for her to make herself feel better). When I brought up seeing a professional woman for this, she said she’d rather I find a regular woman for this arrangement.

I’m not comfortable with any of it, but am starting to have fantasies. I’d rather have the relations with a stranger and not someone who could possibly cause complications to my home life.

I’m a very sexual person, which my wife knows. She’s likely trying to make me feel better, but it makes me feel worse. I’ve suggested counselling or visits to the doctor together, but get rebuffed. What do I do? Wife-Approved Affair

Hold back your fantasies (except for self-pleasure) and do serious questioning:

Is she capable of not knowing and not caring whom you’re intimate with, how often, where, etc.?

Are you capable of a double life — because regular sex with someone else is another relationship, not a prescription.

Talk to a counsellor on your own about this decision.

Explain to your wife that if she refuses to discuss her plan for you with her doctor or a therapist, then she’s putting in motion new circumstances that can change your mutual home life together, dramatically.

My girlfriend wants to take in a roommate. He’s a guy my age who she’s known for some years (not a previous boyfriend).

She says they were talking and he told her he’s been laid off and can’t afford his apartment. She started thinking about having him rent a room in her place as she could use the extra cash.

We’ve been dating for six months in a steadily growing relationship that we both say we hope has a future (we’re both mid-30s, both divorced).

We live and work across the city from each other, so end up sleeping together at my place for a weekend, sometimes at hers.

Start a discussion on how your girlfriend could solve her cash problems without taking on a male roommate

What bothers me is that this guy, whom I’ve never met, will be in the next bedroom to us when I stay at her place. What bothers me more is that I had no idea she had this idea in mind and so when she told me about it, I went pretty cold.

Was I wrong to say I didn’t like the plan? After all, I can’t be angry at her trying to solve her financial need. Uncertain Reaction

Your reaction was normal. The plan brings a stranger into the next room — requiring conscious care about making noise in bed, walking to the bathroom undressed, being freely affectionate in her apartment.

And perhaps, a touch of jealousy that there’s another guy living there.

Communication is key, here. Open discussion on other ways she can solve her cash problem. Tell her the relationship’s too important to you to risk it, unwittingly.