I'm a mostly heterosexual woman in my mid-30s in a very vanilla relationship with my husband for the past 14 years. My husband is a great guy. We get along really well as do our families, which is so important to me. Our domestic lives and the day to day are comfortable, easy and we make a great team. We've had relationship issues all along, and we've never really resolved things in a way that makes me feel like he's taking my concerns seriously.

For years I've struggled with our sexual relationship. He takes and he does not give. He touches me in intimate areas in a way that feels like he's a teenager—hedonistically groping with no intention to give pleasure with his touch, and incapable of discerning the difference when I call him out on it. He does not make eye contact during sex, and indeed feels like he is not at all present. He insists on wearing a condom because he doesn't like sex to be messy. He won't put his hands or mouth anywhere. Intercourse lasts about 5 minutes and after he comes he apologizes and asks where my toys are. Not for us to play together, but for me to go off and satisfy myself, by myself. He makes me feel like a blow up doll. He doesn't like to talk about sex. He refuses to engage in any entendres, saying that that kind of talk is "rude."

He is not GGG (not even one G) and whenever I've begged him to be even just a little bit GGG, such as going down on me, he is really not into it and so I cut it short, feeling like I've violated the campsite rule and asked too much of him. Tired of this one way street for so many years, I stopped having sex with him.

About six years ago, I did what you've suggested to so many of your readers: do what I gotta do to stay married and stay sane. I had an affair. Followed by a string of affairs—some FWBs, some casual, some long term.

I've been seeing someone on and off for the last three years. What started out as a casual thing ended up catching feelings in a big way. Naturally the sex is mind-blowingly good and he's GGG as fuck. He makes me feel like giving me pleasure is his favorite thing in the world. We talk about everything and our views align on so many things. We've talked about starting our lives over together. But this man has a family with young kids and to top it all off they've moved to the other side of the world. He's in no position to begin again with me, and there's no viable future together in the short or medium term, but we can't stay away from each other. He has jealousy and paranoia issues which sometimes flare up (not completely unwarranted as we did start out as an affair), and he's not great at self-moderating those feelings, sometimes at great cost to our relationship.

Last year my husband and I separated for some months and we saw a counselor but never got around to talking about the sex. He begged me to come back, and when I did, the counseling stopped. All the old issues have crept back in and I'm left wondering whether I've made a huge mistake.

So now I'm back in my sexless marriage, having a sexless long distance affair. I feel stuck. Where to from here?

Wanting It Forever Eventually

Your husband, the sexual basket case who wears a condom to prevent your pussy from getting his dick dirty, and your lover, the sexual superstar whose poorly self-moderated "jealousy and paranoia issues" will only get worse if he abandons his family so you two can start your lives over together, are not the only two men on the planet. You mentioned friends with benefits—friends, plural. I would suggest you give your longterm affair partner a call and tell him it's over, WIFE, and give some of your old FWBs a call and tell them your benefits are once again available.

Then drag your husband back to counseling and insist on talking about your sex issues—you didn't get around to it last time because you didn't bring it up—not with the goal of fixing them. Your husband sounds hopelessly broken. No, the goal here is to obtain your husband's permission to do what you're already doing. Your marriage is not about a sexual connection and never has been—and your husband knows it. Your marriage is about comfort, ease, and team, right? Celebrate what works and then tell your husband, with your counselor's assistance, that you wanna keep the team together but on one condition. (If keeping this team together is what you really wanna do, WIFE. I'd pull the plug if I were you.) You can both fuck other people—he has your permission to get his dick-dirtying needs met elsewhere and you require his permission to dirty other dicks. And, again, it's not a negotiation: openness is a condition for you to stay in this marriage.

And if you find yourself tempted to run back to/run off with your current long-distance lover, WIFE, please look up at the red flag he's waving over his head. Jealousy/control and paranoia issues rarely improve with the passage of time—and I'm concerned that you're already making excuses for a guy whose issues (repeat after me: they're his issues) have already made you a few kinds of miserable. You say his jealous/paranoid outbursts are "not completely unwarranted as we did start out as an affair." Nope. All humans experience jealousy. Insecurity is fine and human and understandable and, given the circumstances, a need for some reassurance is also fine and human and understandable.

But when jealousy and insecurity are expressed in "flare ups," which sounds to me like a face-saving gloss on "explosive rage," it's not about jealousy or insecurity. It's about power and control—and it usually ends in abuse, emotional and sometimes physical. Stop offering excuses to him and making excuses for him. There are other GGG guys out there that you'll click with, I promise.