‘Help! My wife is fantasizing about other men’

DEAR EPPY,

I’ve been married for 20 years now and have children.  My wife and I have an active sex life even in our late 40s. There was even a time when my wife joked to me that the first time we had sex, she was ready to die. 

But I have noticed lately while we have sex that she utters names of other people.  I was disturbed about it, but I just kept it a secret while I researched about fantasies of women while having sex.  I came across your reply to one of the wives who wrote you about her fantasies. There I learned that women indeed fantasize about other men during sex.

What disturbed me was that the name she blurted out was that of her former suitor, our childhood friend, a kumpare, and our neighbor.  But this man is already married to our childhood friend who also happens to be our neighbor. 

I can sense that it is my wife who is aggressive connecting with this man.  I believe that he was just riding along but did not take her seriously.  I could feel some vibrations on several occasions and on several days, I felt that she was obsessed with him and had even wished he could be her husband. 

I feel betrayed. I think she has an emotional love affair with this man. I fear that she will eventually offer sex to him and consider this as a dream come true. I confronted her about this fear, but she was defensive. This is often the cause of our quarrels. My trust for her has diminished.  I feel insulted as a man loyal to her, but I also feel betrayed.

What should I do, Eppy?  Shall I leave it that way?  Will I let her go?

BROKEN-HEARTED HUSBAND

DEAR BROKEN-HEARTED HUSBAND,

You seem to fear rejection and abandonment.  With what I’ve read so far, there is no betrayal yet on your wife’s part.  Be careful with your fears because they can control you and put you in a situation where your fears can become reality.  Your fears can actually manipulate your environment (reality) into mimicking your subjective reality. 

Your subjective reality is your internal world. In your internal world are all the film clips of your life, from the day you were born till the present.  Imagine about a billion film clips or more running through your head every day.  Your mind uses these film clips to address every situation in your life.  For example, when you were young, you might have put your finger on a hot stove. You experienced pain as you touched it. Now, every time you see a stove, you avoid touching it because in your head is a film clip of the experience of touching a stove and the only response is to avoid it. 

Now, let’s go back to your wife.  In the past, you might have had an experience where someone rejected someone else or betrayed someone else.  The film clip in your head could be you being abandoned by your yaya because she found a husband.  It could be that your father was a loyal man and caught your mother playing around with another man. 

In the present, you have a wife who is comfortably interacting with a childhood friend.  Unfortunately, she has unmet needs.  On top of that, you do not consciously see that you are not fulfilling these needs.  The result is the film clips in your head are telling you that your wife is playing around with your friend/neighbor and you haven’t done anything for you to deserve such a treatment from her.  The film clips in your inner world will also tell you that a loyal man will have an unfaithful wife. In your mind, you have the following conditions: You are loyal like your father, women are unfaithful, and husbands suffer the betrayal of wives.

Take all these into consideration and you have a drama of betrayal, with you as the victim of the betrayal. 

You said your wife said she was “now ready to die” because she had already experienced sex.  This says so much about your wife’s way of thinking.  Even if it is just a joke to her, it still implies that she gives pleasure a lot of weight.  Pleasure does not mean only sex.  It means she enjoys spontaneity, laughter, light feelings, and anything that will make her feel good.  Have you given her all these lately?

Her joking around with your friend/neighbor might be her way of experiencing these pleasurable experiences.  Is it a fault that your wife has needs?  If you did not try to fulfill these needs with her, then she would look for it somewhere else. 

My advice?  Don’t give your wife ideas.  She might not even know what you are talking about.  Instead, do your best to know what your wife’s needs are and fulfill them.  Talk to her and know her more and allow her to know you more.  Pointing fingers and accusing her of something without concrete proof will only lead to conflicts that might not be resolved.  If you continue to do that, she will resent you and maybe hate you.  Then as you have planted the seed in her mind, she will realize that you are right.  She will now compare you to her friend and realize that he is a better man than you are.  Then this will confirm the film clips in your head.                             EPPY

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E-mail eppygochangco@gmail.com.