I always suspected that I was attracted to women more than to men, but I liked my husband, and we’ve been good companions for the past 20 years. It hurt him deeply, however, that I wasn’t interested in him sexually and finally, when he pressured me to tell him what was wrong, I told him I thought I might be gay. Now he feels I lied to him, that our marriage has been meaningless, and he wants a divorce. Our life together is over and I feel totally to blame, like I’ve let down my husband and betrayed our marriage. What can I say to make amends?

There’s one important step people sometimes forget to take before making amends– asking yourself what you’ve done wrong.

Obviously, your husband is hurt and he thinks you’re to blame, but, as we’ve said many times, that’s the whole point of marriage—having someone to blame. Real sin requires knowing that you have something to hide, and that doesn’t seem to be the case.

With only 3 shopping days left until Yom Kippur, you might wish to remind yourself that the Day of Atonement, when Jews make a special effort to examine our sins, begins with a thrice-repeated statement claiming that no one should ever be responsible for vows they can’t keep.

In other words, life is often impossible and it’s not rationalizing to say you can’t be responsible for what you don’t control– it’s Old Testament.

So look what you’ve done with your (newly coined) homosexual feelings. You haven’t been unfaithful, or blamed your lack of attraction to your husband on his being fat. If you kept a secret from him, it was because you also kept it from yourself, and in spite of your uneasiness, you forged a 20 year relationship. That’s a major accomplishment for both of you.

So don’t let your sexual identity shock shake your confidence; you’ve taken a step forward that allows you to be more self-accepting and spontaneous. While it damages your husband’s matrimonial ideal, it shouldn’t diminish your pride in what both of you have done with the marriage so far, or your hope in what it might become in the future, if your husband calms down.

After all, this doesn’t need to be the end of your relationship; you maybe not have been a great sexual partner, but you’ve always been a great partner, and there’s no reason not to continue to be great friends.

STATEMENT:
“I wish our sexual chemistry and my sexual identity were less complicated, but I feel my husband and I have been good partners, not because of my lying, but in spite of it. I wish it didn’t hurt to face these sexual realities but I’m glad we did and think we can be better friends now that I no longer have to hide who I am.”

I would like to stay off pain pills and I attend AA meetings regularly, but I get the pills from an old friend of mine who also goes to the meetings. She’s been sick with HIV and needs all the support she can get, so we wind up hanging out and then getting high. I wish my husband gave me a little more credit for trying to stay clean, even if I haven’t been successful. It’s hard to say “no” to spending time with a dying friend.

Forget for a moment why other people think it’s bad for you to take pain pills; instead, do your own assessment, not just for whether the pills are bad, but for whether or not amends are in order.

Obviously, the good side is that they make you feel better and you enjoy passing time with a sick friend. Then again, pain pills have a magical ability to kill pain while also causing a ton of it.

Start with a checklist of possible negatives, so you won’t miss the big picture. Include the weekly cost and whether the pills interfere with your ability to work, either directly or by risking a positive drug screen. Ask friends and family whether they see a negative effect on your behavior, and ask yourself whether your focus on feeling better has pushed aside other priorities, like being a good friend or parent.

Finally, assess your friendship with this friend in the same way. Ask yourself whether this is a friend who, in addition to being fun to hang out with, is someone you can count on. Look carefully at whether the feel-good focus of the friendship excludes the more important priorities above.

You need to find your own reasons for being sober, and the strongest reasons will come, not from your need to please your husband or meeting-mates, but from your sense of what it takes to be a good person. As the AA saying goes, you are the reason for your own sobriety. If you’ve used drugs a long time, however, you tend to be super-aware of how other people feel about you and relatively insensitive to your own standards. Those standards give you the reasons to stay clean.

Remember, however, that standards aren’t the same as sentiments. You may feel like a good woman for supporting a sick friend—a nice sentiment—while failing to meet important commitments to manage your health, work, family and other friendships.

Be careful not to bullshit yourself, or your good deeds will, surprise, get you little appreciation or, more importantly, little self-respect. If keeping your friend company keeps you from doing the right thing, then, like the pills themselves, you’re causing more pain than you’re preventing.

STATEMENT:
I feel good when I can help out an appreciative pal and share some good times, but if I want to keep my relationships with people who really care about me, I need to put commitments ahead of good feelings.

I love how open-hearted and caring my girlfriend is, but I wish she’d be a little bit more selective with who she cares for. Specifically, she’s still in close contact with her ex-boyfriend, his friends, and even his family. I know she’s not interested in him anymore—he has a wife—but they have a large enough presence in her life that I’m jealous, just, well, creeped out. For example, this past winter we had to go to her ex’s parents’ anniversary dinner, which was limited to close family and us. What were we doing there besides feeling awkward (or really, was that just me)? I love this woman and want to marry her, but I don’t want to inherit her ex and his clan as in-laws. My goal is to get her to put up some fences in her personal life.

Remember Dr. Lastname’s first theory of relationships: your partner is who s/he is, and you are who you are. Then add up the pros and cons of partnership while not letting false hopes elbow reality aside.

Plug your situation into that model, and you get your goal. Don’t try to get your socially over-connected girlfriend to put up fences. Instead, figure out whether her style is likely to work for you.

Social butterflies are often very interesting people. Friendship is their art, and it can be fun being married to one. You meet lots of people who would otherwise have never entered your life, get lots of interesting invitations, and actually expand your circle of friends.

Decide from the beginning, however, whether you like most of the people and social adventures that she connects with, or not. Of course, you also need to know whether your girlfriend keeps her priorities, and boyfriends, straight.

Unless you’re Virginia Woolf’s remarkably tolerant husband, Leonard, you don’t want her sleeping around. So check out her track record for commitment, availability, financial responsibility, and the rest of the basic partnership job description.

Also, check out your own track record for sharing your significant other with the world. Regardless of how fascinating she is and how easy-going you’d like to be, you may not be good at sharing. Don’t fall for her and then try to change her, especially since she’s going to be spending her time trying to change you.

Don’t be distracted by the social thing, love, jealousy, or any of that feelings slurry. If her references don’t check out with your basic job description for a partner, drop her or you’ll be sorry. This isn’t emotional, this is math. Even if the facts are crunched in your favor, be prepared to share, or move on.

STATEMENT:
Assuming that she meets your partnership criteria and that you like most of her friends and exes, and their exes, etc, here’s a statement to help you address your joint social priorities. “I need to know that you’re committed to our spending time alone and with my (much smaller) social and family circle, and that parenting comes first, if we decide to have kids. I retain the right to opt out of some social events. Otherwise, I enjoy your style and look forward to sharing in your rich social life.”

I love my wife, and I have since we met in college. She’s also been very devoted to me, supporting my fledgling career as an artist and even taking a part-time job as my manager (on top of her full-time job, which supports us both). The problem is that, as much as I love her and as much as I’ve tried to ignore my feelings for other men, I’m pretty sure I’m actually gay. To admit that I’m gay would mean divorcing her, which would not only break her heart when all she’s ever done is sacrifice everything for me, but throw every aspect of my life, personally and professionally, into chaos. I don’t want to hurt her or lose her, and, well, I don’t want to go on welfare. My goal is to be true to both of us.

When you identify as gay, it’s not clear whether you mean the identity, or the actual sex act. “I’ve got to be myself” means, yes, you’ve got to be who you are, but no, you don’t have to have sex, unless you want to.

In other words, if having sex is not more important to you than holding onto a relationship that is otherwise meaningful and important, you don’t have to do it. It’s really that simple. You can be gay, and proud, and also proud of not having sex except when you want to, and not hurting someone you care about.

Now that you know you can control your sexual urges, you’re ready to be a priest, or a not-so-young husband (or wife) whose partner can’t respond. It’s part of being a grown-up. One of the extremely un-fun parts, but a part nonetheless.

If you stick with your wife because she’s a good provider, supporter, and business manager, your relationship sounds somewhat one-way, and that’s not good for either one of you.

You need to love as well as be loved, and know that you can love. Otherwise, your secret identify will not be that you’re gay, but that you’re a user. There’s a reason users don’t get pride parades.

On the other hand, if your wife and you are good friends and have built a life together with shared family and invested energy that would be destroyed by breaking up, then you’ve got to ask yourself whether gay love, sex, lifestyle, etc., are worth more.

Putting sex aside, ask yourself how much of you you’re hiding by hiding this part of your identity from your wife. Most coupled people need to self-edit—not hide, just edit—even with their closest relationships (particularly with their closest relationships).

You don’t want to push your partner to hear and respond to what they don’t really want to deal with. On the other hand, if being gay is part of your everyday thoughts, feelings, and humor, then hiding it makes your relationship false, and does a disservice to her as well as keeping you from being who you really are.

In which case, you need to share your secret identity (without, hopefully, the complications of sexual infidelity) and see whether she can accept you while you try to figure out whether the new relationship will work.

You’ll be gay in theory, just not in practice, which’ll have to be enough if you also want to stay married.

STATEMENT:
If you happen to choose this option, here’s a statement. “I think I’m gay and need to be more open about that side of my personality. No, I don’t think I need to have gay sex or a gay lover, at least not yet. What I do need is to be more open about my real thoughts and feelings. I don’t fault myself for not having told you earlier, because I didn’t know myself. Meanwhile, if you’re willing, I’d like us to continue as partners and see if this can work.”

I’m what we in the gay community call a bear (burly and bearded). My ideal physical type, however, is the exact opposite, twinks (young, skinny man-boys), which I know isn’t exactly rare for anyone, gay or straight. My boyfriend, on the other hand, looks way more like me than my physical ideal; instead of looking lean and barely legal, he just looks like a suburban dad. Either way, I fell for him and what we have is really great, but I still feel guilty when I find myself checking out younger/leaner guys, which basically happens whenever I leave the house. I love my boyfriend, but I can’t stop my infatuation with other bodies. My goal is to get twinks out of my head before I do something stupid, like not keeping it in my pants.

Trying to change your sex fantasies is like trying not to be gay; it won’t work, you’ll think you’re out of control, and then you’ll act out of control.

Not only is trying to change your fantasies dangerous, but trying to satisfy them usually makes it impossible to have a stable relationship. Sad news, but at least Bill Clinton feels your pain.

The fact that we have persistent, driving sexual urges of any kind is necessary for the preservation of the species, but it usually causes more unhappiness than joy. Yes, there are couples who are very hot for one another and are also long-term, stable friends, but it’s rare (and often fictional). For most of us, life gets in the way, even if the relationship starts out with lots of hot sex.

“Life” includes aging, stress, diabetes, balding, kids, and the powerful odds that, with time, something or other will bump your sex drive or your partner’s into something less than compatibility. It’s what you do with incompatibility, rather than the presence of sexual compatibility, that’s the measure of a good relationship.

If you have imagination and ambition, you’ll have lots of yearnings that you can’t satisfy except by doing things that are bad for you. If you are indeed a wise man who is ready to withstand the pain of unsatisfiable urges, then don’t worry; even as those urges get worse, you’ll be prepared.

You’ve obviously learned from experience that a good partnership/friendship is hard to find, and that making the right body type your first priority is stupid and makes it all but impossible to find the right person. Otherwise, you would want some twinkerbell to be your one true lust.

So, for the sake of your long term goals and making the best of what you’ve got, celebrate your ability to tolerate frustration; grin and bear it, as it were. At least don’t shit in the woods.

STATEMENT:
“I wish I wasn’t twink-obsessed, but I know what’s good for me, and I’m proud of looking for and staying with the right person, particularly since I had to screen out some strong urges. I’m not ashamed of them. They are what they are. I’m proud that I can tolerate frustrating them for the sake of something more important than raw sexual pleasure.”

My West Virginian grandmother used to tell me that I was built like a horse on its hind legs, which is to say, I am a white girl with an African booty. I clearly have a sense of humor about it—I led the charge with J. Lo jokes back in the day—but I’m always worried when I meet guys that they’re after me for the fetish, not my personality, because believe me, I’ve been burned enough times by men who couldn’t see beyond my butt to the personal attached to it. I have girlfriends who are Asian who have the same problem, but none of us know what to do to avoid jerks. My goal is to find out if a guy actually likes me, instead of just what’s behind me.

If you’re attractive, you get dates, but then you’ve got to be a rough, tough screener of stallion-flesh, or you’ll wind up heart-burned by spending too much time with guys who fail to connect.

If you’re sweet, passive, and overly concerned about feelings, guys with needy sex drives will chew you to pieces because sex-drives notoriously trump decency and common sense. Guys don’t want to be jerks, but the little head doesn’t care how you feel or what will happen next, and he rules supreme.

So your goal isn’t to find someone who really, really likes you for who you are. It’s to fend off the many applicants who don’t and can’t so that you’ve got room on your dance card if and when the real thing arrives.

If you’re already the horse here, then you need to become a dick whisperer. Learn to read the little head’s mind.

Don’t equate niceness with friendliness. When interviewing job applicants, don’t worry about whether they will feel rejected; your priority is to find the best qualified without worrying about whether or not they can protect themselves. Screening dates has a similar protocol.

Act professionally, and move on as quickly as possible to rule out the unqualified. Screen out those with credit card debt, drug use, a bad history of relationships and/or work, or big differences in what you want out of life. They need not apply, they don’t need a hug.

If you decide to date, don’t get distracted by cute and charming. Once you charm one another, you’ll forget your job, which is to screen. You don’t have to charm; trust your booty to take care of that problem.

If someone really checks out as a good guy (after the detectives and your little-mind reading skills have verified his story), and you think the chemistry has real potential, despite (or because of) his being butt-struck, then go slow.

Sooner or later, reality will set in and you’ll both get a chance to see if you can work together/he is truly ready for this jelly.

STATEMENT:
“It takes a tough girl to screen horny guys because the work is rough and dangerous. My goal isn’t to make others happy or generate positive chemistry. If I can keep my focus on finding out facts and making good choices, regardless of my own urges and sensitivity and the charm or guilt-trips being thrown at me, I should be proud.”

My husband and I divorced two years ago after twenty-five years of marriage. Believe it or not, the divorce was amicable; I’ve never been truly happy in my marriage, and the second our youngest left for college, I told him I felt trapped and finally needed a chance to find myself. See, my husband was the first and only man I ever dated after a very sheltered, lonely childhood, and I’m haunted by the feeling that my life is missing something because there’s so much about life I feel like I’ve missed out on. Now that I’m on my own and have a chance to find my bliss—to be in a true, loving relationship—I wonder if my unhappiness from my husband stems from the fact that I might actually be happier with women. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s not something I ever even had the chance to consider before, and all I do know for sure is that life with my husband, especially sexually, was never really gratifying. My goal is to find someone, anyone, whom I truly connect with before it’s too late.

It’s nice if finding and making the right sexual connection gives you a greater feeling of connection to life and relationships in general, a realization of who you are, an acceptance of your place in the universe, etc., etc., whatever. That’s what certain of the early 20th century novelists were trying to argue, and maybe the whole sexual liberation movement of the 60s and 70s was driven by that hope.

In reality, however, sexual identity is just one factor in what makes human connections meaningful, and you can’t be sure that your feeling of disconnectedness is a matter of sexual identity or, in a broader sense, that it’s within your control.

If it isn’t, your goal of finding a better connection can become self-destructive, because then you believe that you’ve failed to find meaning in your life, which is worse than the pain of feeling lonely and disconnected.

So here is what no one has been telling you about the birds and the bees: no one is guaranteed a connection. Sometimes people feel disconnected because of their personalities: think Aspergers, cowboys, sea-captains, Richard Nixon.

Sometimes you never have the opportunity to find people who are on your wavelength. Life can be lonely and sometimes there’s no solution, and some solutions are worse than the problem.

It’s no coincidence that a major source of connectedness is shitty-but-intense relationships. Yes, it’s easy to feel connected if your lover is dramatic and sexual. That’s the kind of person who will ramp up the volume whenever things get boring and insist on a big fat fight so you can have a teary, sexy make-up.

You may have seen such a person on TV, on, say, Maury, or in reality, ruining the life of a friend; great sex, total misery, good for reality TV and, later, a gold mine for clinicians like me, who enjoy hearing about the drama and feeding off it without having to live it.

So your goal isn’t to connect, but to try to connect if you can, and if you can do it in a way that’s consistent with your values.

Look around for someone or something to connect with, but be warned that, if it hasn’t happened by now, it may not be meant to. You may have the wrong kind of personality; or, unless you’re careful, the connectedness you find may be bad for your health.

It’s not all bad news though; if you don’t find what you’re looking for (and I’m not saying you won’t—I don’t know you—I’m just worried by the fact that, if connection hasn’t happened after all these years, it may not happen at all), the lack of connection doesn’t make life meaningless. That notion, again, is romantic bullshit. It’s more important to have relationships that can grow over the years and that share life events and are honest, without necessarily becoming intense or sexual.

If you’ve raised children who know you love them, and shared parenting and life’s problems with a husband over many years without killing one another, you’ve accomplished two of life’s biggest achievements and made the world a better place, even if your feelings didn’t go ting-a-ling.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement to protect you from making too big a deal, or too personal an issue, of your connectedness. “I’d like to find someone or something that grabs me more than what I’ve found so far, so I’ve done everything I can to give myself a better opportunity. But I also value what I’ve done—being a good, caring mother and wife—and nothing can take that away. And if I don’t find what I’m looking for, I can take pride in knowing that I’ve been brave, taken risks, and pushed myself as far as possible without losing my commitment to being a good parent, doing good work, and being a good friend.

My wife and I have been together for a long time—I don’t want to get into numbers—but it’s only been fairly recently that she’s completely lost interest in intimacy, and while I know that’s what happens with age and such, this whole change has made me feel not just frustrated, but a bit emasculated. I’m not saying that I’m as eager as I used to be, but she really seems completely turned-off by me physically at this point, doesn’t even want to be close, and even though she doesn’t seem angry at me in any other way and assures me she’s just urgeless, nothing can convince me that something isn’t wrong. Either way, the whole deal leaves me feeling irritated and patronized. My goal is to figure out a way to get my wife to respect me again.

Even if your wife doesn’t respect you—and there’s no reason to think she doesn’t—there’s nothing you can do to change her feelings except make them worse by attacking her for not having her old sex drive. At that point, you’ll certainly never get laid.

Don’t make the mistake of equating sexual attractiveness with self-worth. Obviously, that’s the way our nervous systems are wired, and the media take full advantage of that wiring to sell products (feeling attractive feels good!). Unfortunately, like most things that make you feel good, it’s not terribly good for you.

So it’s not surprising the media perpetuate another stupid notion; that a strong sex drive is a normal part of being a healthy, attractive person. Bullshit. Sex drives vary tremendously, and without notice—even for the outrageously attractive.

Some people have lots and some little; the less sex drive you have, the smarter/more logic-based your decisions about people and relationships, so obviously there are advantages both ways.

And here’s one of the saddest things: even if you find a partner whose sex drive is very compatible with yours, there’s no guarantee it will stay that way or that, if yours or hers drops off, that doctors or healthy living will fix it. If anything, it’s more like the opposite.

You’re almost guaranteed that, sooner or later, things will change for her and/or you and not at the same time. You’re fucked…and not. Really, all the books and articles on sexual therapy and the availability of sexual therapists should shout out the truth: there’s seldom a cure.

Now that you’re properly bummed, let’s get to the good part. Your sexual incompatibility is not personal and, if you can keep yourself from making it so, you can make things better.

No, you can’t expect your wife to enjoy herself the way she used to (unless you and she get lucky and her sex drive, for whatever reason, comes back) and, if your pleasure depends on hers, too bad.

If she can give you pleasure without being excited herself, however, and you have the time and a positive relationship, you should be able to negotiate yourself into some fun you both can feel good about (or at least less frustrated).

It’s not that she doesn’t value you enough to have sex, but she may value you enough to agree to compassion sex, which, while not ideal, is better than no sex at all.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a proposition that protects you both from any implication of failure. “We’ve been lucky to have a wonderful sex life and it’s happened, in part, because we both enjoy sex. But it’s also happened because we’re good friends and we like to give one another pleasure, so, even though your urges have disappeared, we may still be able to have some sexual fun. How about I do more of the shopping, so you have less to worry about, and then we can take a little time to relax in bed and I can try to give you a little pleasure to match the great sexual pleasure that you give me? I continue to find you attractive. I want to find some other way to give you pleasure. Think about what I can do to make this work for us.”