{"id":81650,"date":"2025-08-14T07:41:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T07:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/81650\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T07:41:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T07:41:14","slug":"my-wife-always-used-her-condition-to-get-out-of-sex-well-now-i-know-the-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/81650\/","title":{"rendered":"My wife always used her “condition” to get out of sex. Well, now I know the truth."},"content":{"rendered":"

How to Do It is Slate\u2019s sex advice column.\u00a0Have a question?\u00a0Send it to Jessica and Rich here<\/a>.\u00a0It\u2019s anonymous!<\/p>\n

Dear How to Do It,<\/p>\n

My wife and I have been married for 14 years.\u00a0When we first got together, she said she had a certain condition, but was in remission at the time.<\/p>\n

She suffered from inflammatory bowel syndrome.\u00a0Over the years, she has had periodic flare-ups during which we abstained from sexual activity.\u00a0However, last week, I learned that all these years she has feigned having the illness to have an excuse to avoid sex with me.<\/p>\n

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I\u2019m on a Leave of Absence from Work for a Very Personal Reason. I Think My Company is About to Use it Against Me.
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The proof came when I arrived home from work early and found that she had been eating tortilla chips with hot salsa (she had previously claimed to be unable to eat anything spicy due to her \u201cillness\u201d).\u00a0When I demanded to know why she had lied to me all this time, her excuse was that she thought it was the only way I would respect her wishes if she wasn\u2019t feeling up to having sex. It really hurts to think that she would feel the need to stage this elaborate ruse because she automatically didn\u2019t think I\u2019d respect her right not to have sex if she didn\u2019t want to.\u00a0Now I don\u2019t know whether I even want to continue being married to her.\u00a0Is it possible to get over this sort of deception?<\/p>\n

\u2014Upset Over a (Fake) Upset Stomach<\/p>\n

Dear Upset Over a (Fake) Upset Stomach,<\/p>\n

Ah, yes, the old reveal-via-salsa. It\u2019s practically a plot device at this point. Look, the fact of your wife\u2019s deception is understandably upsetting, but I don\u2019t think you\u2019re going to get anywhere without empathy. You need to invest in the why. Why did your wife feel that she needed an excuse to get out of sex with you? Is she generally indirect and non-confrontational? Is there anything you\u2019ve done or in your general tone that could have informed her wariness of giving it to you straight? Did something in her past, perhaps another partner, make her hesitant to turn anyone down for sex?<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Jessica Stoya
\n I Asked My Sister to Stop Bringing So Many Men Home. Uh, That Did Not Go Well.
\n Read More\n <\/p>\n

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Don\u2019t take this so personally. Use it as an opportunity to investigate and get to know your wife on a deeper level. Look beyond the principle of her deception to the root causes. You can immediately tell her that she doesn\u2019t need to invent excuses to refuse sex\u2014she can turn you down at any time, and that\u2019s OK (which absolutely should be the truth, by the way). It seems unlikely that she would devise such a ruse for sport. Involve yourself in the reasons behind it.<\/p>\n

\u2014Rich<\/p>\n

More Advice From Slate<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a 30-year-old woman, and I\u2019ve always been overweight. I\u2019ve also always had an enjoyable sex drive, and things like antidepressants, breakups, grief, trauma, work stress, and even 2020-2021 pandemic times never really put a dent in it. Alone or partnered, I had sex a minimum of four times a week\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n

The latest sex, parenting, and money advice from our columnists delivered to your inbox three times a week.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How to Do It is Slate\u2019s sex advice column.\u00a0Have a question?\u00a0Send it to Jessica and Rich here.\u00a0It\u2019s anonymous!…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[3005,97,14110,37512,6843],"class_list":{"0":"post-81650","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-advice","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-sex","11":"tag-single-q","12":"tag-slate-plus"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}