I have fallen out of love with my wife and have told her that I find other women exciting. I know my wife is a good woman and can’t live without her but I also don’t feel like being close to her. What should I do?
The falling-out-of-love story is as old as time. People often treat love like a trinket or a new gadget they have acquired. Initially, it consumes and occupies you like few other things ever will. However, after a while, it begins to feel burdensome and bothersome if you’re not experiencing the same excitement as you did initially. How does one prevent this? One may reconsider looking at love as a decision and commitment towards ongoing care. When navigating a complex emotional landscape or walking the treacherous terrain of life's many judgments and inflection points, love can be a calming force. Love also serves as a powerful corrective force when balance is lacking with a partner. Love is work, love is labour, and it is the necessary cement in which the bricks of faith may be laid. That is how decent lives are built and led—lives with dignity, sociability, and cultural synthesis. You may no doubt find other women exciting sexually or even romantically, but bear in mind the time you have already invested in your pre-existing relationship with your wife. When incompatibilities come to a head, annulments are common, but you must ask yourself if this ‘good woman’ you describe is good enough for you to grow old with and build many of your life’s central memories with, or if the thrill-seeker in you is keen on chasing what else is out there. Sometimes, it is hard to imagine a universally palatable solution.
I went to Cambodia for a holiday and ended up sleeping with my best friend who came on the trip. The challenge is I am also going through a divorce and have been lonely. I’ve also once slept with my husband’s best friend in the past. I want companionship but feel immoral. What should I do?
Should this narrative be catalogued among fleeting travel romances or regarded as a consequence of intoxicated misjudgments? Could your loneliness and yearning for male companionship have played a role in what you now perceive as a complication? When a man and a woman engage in a sexual encounter, it’s not unusual for expectations of a blossoming romance, a commitment, or continued sexual activity to arise. Given that you’ve mentioned a prior experience of sleeping with a friend of your husband, it might be worthwhile to explore, perhaps a therapist’s guidance, the underlying reasons for your attraction to other men despite choosing marriage. Is there a possibility that the friendship with this friend, with whom you had a sexual encounter, might take a turn towards awkwardness and discomfort? The moral framework you adhere to should be one you can easily stand by; otherwise, expressing commitment to a code becomes meaningless. If satisfying your carnal needs is the code that holds significance for you, then you’ve acted per your needs. However, it appears that you’re grappling with a sense of unease. Do you appreciate the structure of a committed relationship, or do you prefer the freedom of being unattached? The decision is yours.
(Dr Aman Rajan Bhonsle, Ph.D, is a consulting relationship counsellor and youth mentor)
