From the mailbag: Help! I Was Happy Being a Cuckold

Q: I’m in my 40s, and for my entire adult life, I’ve only been able to (and I only want to) be in relationships in which involves cuck.

I’ve found a lot of women who admit to cheating in prior relationships, and desire it to continue, especially with consent. The problem: So far, they have all fallen in love with others, and 100 percent of the time, they have left me for men who later dumped them. I’ve refused to take anyone back. So I move forward. Now the issue is my wife of five years is falling in love with her lover. I see it coming. We’ve talked and we both realize our marriage is coming to an end.

 The stigma is that it’s a fetish, but it’s not. It’s the type of love I find meaningful. I’ve learned years ago there exist hundreds of thousands of men like me (which was a shocking revelation), and millions of spouses cheat. Why is it harder to find full love this way, while dishonest, cheating couples appear to have a better chance at success not doing it the way I’m doing it? Should I just hide it again? Is it possible the lying is actually creating healthier situations? I know cheating ends many marriages. But there appear to be a lot that still make it after affairs. I don’t want to be alone. I feel like this lifestyle needs to come into the light more so it’s less of a taboo thing and more of an acceptable form of love.

A: You’ve been able to identify what you want out of a relationship, and while you’re entitled to have specific—even onerously specific—requirements of your ideal partner, I’m not sure that even with increased awareness and broad support for the practice of cuckolding that you would stop running into the same problem—namely, that a lot of the women you date don’t want exactly the same arrangement that you do, and that some of the women you’re so eager to cheat on you can’t necessarily perfectly control their emotional response to that increased sexual and romantic intimacy with other partners.

The key to your letter, I think, is in this sentence: “Why is it harder to find full love this way, while dishonest, cheating couples appear to have a better chance at success?” It’s because you’re not part of those “dishonest, cheating couples” and you don’t actually know what they feel like from the inside. They appear to be “more successful” than your marriage, which is currently ending, but you’re not in anyone else’s marriage, only your own. It’s hard for anyone to find full love. It’s more difficult when the kind of love you’re looking for involves frequent, sustained sexual relationships with other partners but not emotional involvement. That’s not to say what you’re looking for is impossible, merely challenging, and I don’t think you can force an outcome by becoming dishonest about what you want from a partner. All any of us can do is be honest about what we want and hope for the best.