One Night, My Wife Started Digging Into My Past Sexual History. Then Her Demeanor Shifted.

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How to Do It is Slate’s sex advice column. Have a question? Send it to Jessica and Rich here. It’s anonymous!

Dear How to Do It, 

I’ve been with my wonderful wife for nine years. We are both in our mid-30s, and I love her and am attracted to her probably more than I ever have been. But lately, it seems that she doesn’t believe that.

It all started one night, while we were out on a date night.

She asked me about some of the hookups I’d been with before her. She already knows all of my sexual and dating history, and I know hers, but I made a joke that time had made her forget. So we talked through some of those stories, and I shared. She commented that some of these were much more adventurous than what we usually get up to. That was just the start of it.

Now, when I compliment her during sex or flirt with her in some way, she has more than once said something along the lines of, “Oh, you have to say that” or “Stop lying to me.” I always push back heavily in the moment, because it’s not true. She’s expressed insecurities about my being friends with women at my job, even though I’ve been at this job and had these friends for years, so this feels out of left field. During sex, she’s doing things she’s never really done, like insisting very strongly on lights off or keeping her clothes on (totally fine by me—I just noticed the difference). Her general attitude lately is just one of insecurity when it comes to sex and our relationship. We’ve never been this way. I suspect she’s probably going through some midlife crisis of sorts, and it hurts me to see her experiencing it. She’s so talented, funny, hot, and one of the best people I’ve ever met. I want her to feel that way too. I have half a mind to tell her to go out and experience someone hitting on her to show her she’s still got it (joking). How can I help her see herself in a positive light again, though?

—What Changed? (he/him)

Rich Juzwiak: So I feel a bit bad about making an example out of the wife because she’s obviously going through something, but this is a classic example of why you should not—and this is something I repeat a lot in the column—ask questions that you don’t want answers to. I think a conversation about your partner’s sexual history, unless it’s purely for the sake of information or a potential turn-on, should basically be avoided. If you know you’re the kind of person who’s going to get upset or could get jealous after hearing that kind of thing (and obviously you don’t have a crystal ball and can’t tell the future), I would say avoid that conversation because look what happened—potentially. We think that this is the cause and effect.

Jessica Stoya: The moment when she asked, and he joked because he knew she already knew the historical information, makes me really strongly inclined to think this is probably actually something like a midlife crisis. By that point, it had already started. This information had already been given to her earlier in their relationship. It hadn’t affected her this way previously. Then she circled back and asked for it again.

You know when you have a pimple that’s happening because something got lodged in the pore, and then it starts feeling and looking weird, and then one day, there’s the little pus nubbin on top you can squeeze? This moment, when she asked for that information again, that’s when she squeezed the pus. But the pore was in there, being angry long before it turned red and came to a head.

Rich: Right, and yet there was no relief. That’s the difference. It only caused more pain here.

Jessica: Yes. She shouldn’t have squeezed, but she was motivated to squeeze a subject that hadn’t bothered her before. So that’s the big sort of question to try to get to the bottom of. What has her feeling this twisted up and consternated about? So much so that she then did this thing she probably knew she shouldn’t do to herself.

Rich: It probably came from a place of insecurity or something already. There’s this weird human tendency where sometimes we seek out the thing that’s already causing harm or pain, or that we have some kind of bad feelings about, maybe in a way to be like, “No, no, it’s fine. I can triumph over this. I feel bad about his sexual history, and he’ll tell me about it again, and I’ll be able to work through it in that moment.” Then it just backfires. That might be what happened.

Jessica: I think that tendency is there because there’s a whole lot of stuff in life where, by far, the healthiest option is to go, “OK, we’re going to confront this.” Right? I’m going to walk up to the fence around this roof and look over and start dealing with my fear of heights. I’m going to broach the potentially difficult conversation and find out the facts rather than keep stressing over these increasingly implausible fears.

She’s a mid-30s woman. One thought that comes to mind: Is anyone in her friend group, siblings or cousins going through a divorce where everything seemed great and then, all of a sudden, it was revealed that the husband was really unsatisfied and having an affair?

Rich: Yeah, is there some external factor here? Does she feel some pressure to check in on things, or has she been thrown in some way that’s making her doubt her reality?

Jessica: Or also, as women, many of us spend our whole lives hearing people tell us to appreciate the street harassment we receive because in a few short years, creepy old men won’t be interested in terrorizing you, and you’ll miss the attention.

Rich: Tragedy.

Jessica: But the mid-30s are one of those ages where things start to shift—one of the “magic” expiration dates. In your 30s, and then especially as you’re approaching 40 and, from what I hear, onward, it’s just a daily onslaught of this narrative that somehow you’re still hot, but it’s not going to last. In your 30s, it can feel like you’re walking through the CVS trying to find a face moisturizer, and they’re like, “Have this one for aged people who are approaching 35.”
So maybe those larger anxieties about aging as a woman have unsettled the confidence he’s describing his wife as having displayed for her whole life.

I hate the whole concept because it’s so predicated on this idea of the Abercrombie and Fitch salesperson archetype. But in your 30s, there often are physical changes that mean that, in good lighting, looking in your bathroom mirror, you think, “Oh yeah, I’m not that archetype of what’s constantly discussed as the ideal anymore.” Straight men tend to miss these changes, which is part of why it’s so stupid that we act like they’re relevant in terms of sexual attractiveness. For the vast majority of straight men, it just goes right over their head. Then there’s that tiny vocal majority who just completely distort reality. But women almost always notice these changes in ourselves.

Rich: Negativity bias is a huge force. It’s way easier to remember the bad stuff. You get one negative review, and that stays with you for life in a career where you’ve been celebrated by the world. Musicians and actors talk about this. That’s the large-scale example.

Jessica: You see one edit of a movie that’s not done yet where they left in a shot where the lighting is really awful. Nobody even has to say anything, and you’re like, “I should wear a mask over my entire head for the rest of my life so as not to traumatize children and songbirds.”
It’s maybe worth trying to think: Is there anything going on socially? Or did she very subtly mention a crow’s foot or a change that might help him understand the lead-up? But if that’s the case, maybe his compliments aren’t helping.

Rich: Confidence can be bolstered and also diminished by outside forces, but it is, to sound cliché, something you have to find inside of yourself. So, I don’t know what he can do other than be supportive. He’s not going to undo this. She’s going to have to make it happen. And actually, his impulse to have her go out and get hit on is possibly somewhere along the lines of something that needs to happen if there is to be any external help here. It’s got to be a part of self-discovery or just a thing that she experiences herself. He’s not going to make this happen. I don’t know that getting hit on is the magic answer, but I just mean to say that I think it has to be beyond him. It has to be something she feels like she’s experiencing on her own.

Jessica: Regarding how to help, a really big factor there, which is going to be hard for him to judge even as the spouse, is how bad the situation is at this point. Because if it’s a blip, getting hit on or someone casually pointing out, “Did you notice that person flirting with you?” or “Go get your hair done,” can absolutely pull people out of it. But if it’s really intense and is tied to a whole bunch of stuff, then if she goes five minutes without being hit on, that’s more evidence that she’s not hot anymore. When someone does hit on her, she will, similarly to when her spouse compliments her, find reasons to go, “Oh, well, he just wanted this,” or, “He was just trying to…” No haircut will ever be right.

Rich: The answer to all of this is that you can’t solely rely on outside sources, really. They can make you feel good in the moment, but it’s a losing battle to get your self-esteem entirely from outside. But that’s a journey.

Hopefully, something like this would inspire her to see things a different way or to understand that his sexual history isn’t a referendum on their current sexual activity because it is what it is, and it is enjoyable in itself. Also, you might do something with someone that makes sense with them, and it doesn’t make sense to do it with somebody else. You find your groove with somebody else, and maybe from the outside, it looks less exciting, but that’s not your experience. But how do you instill this?

Jessica: I wonder what the majority of the compliments and positive reinforcement that he was giving her were sort of about. Because when the focus is on “You’re so hot, you’re so beautiful,” that’s subtly encouraging a worldview where that’s the thing that you’re appreciated for. Giving specific compliments on the talents, the sense of humor, why she’s one of the best people he’s ever met, etc., can help. Even though it’s still totally possible to dismiss or minimize specific things, they’re more tangible in a way. So rather than saying, “You’re so talented, you’re one of the best people I’ve ever met,” when you walk past her doing a thing that she is talented at, point out a detail of it. So she can’t dismiss him by saying, “Oh, well, you have to say that.”

Rich: I think context matters too, because what he wrote was, “Now, when I compliment her during sex or flirt with her in some way…” So if he’s only saving the compliments for sex, definitely break out of that because that can seem very transactional.

I do think ultimately that this is her journey, and a conversation about where this might be coming from, or saying, “I’ve noticed this stuff, and what do you think is up with that?” or, “After we had that conversation about my sexual history, things seem to shift,” could be useful depending on how much she wants to engage. But I think she pulls herself out of this. I don’t think he does.

Jessica: I absolutely agree that she pulls herself out of this. When pointing out the timing of the conversation and then the changes in how she receives compliments about her physical appearance and approaches sex, if she is in a tailspin about having hit an expiration date and being about to lose her spouse, you want to be really careful to avoid adding, “And now you’re being emotional and needy.”

So I would suggest a lot of caution if he’s not able to think back to a couple of months before that initial conversation where things started to turn, and go, “Oh right, Marjorie’s divorce.”

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