Dear Coleen
My husband and I have been together for nine years and went through a rocky patch recently after he admitted to becoming “over-friendly” with a girl he works with.
He came clean, which I guess is something, and told me he thought it was down to his low self-esteem and feeling we’d grown apart.
Apparently, this girl made the moves and he was flattered, but he stopped it before anything physical happened.
I was devastated at first – I never imagined he’d do anything like this.
However, I believed he was genuine about making our marriage work and that he was sorry and heartbroken about nearly wrecking everything.
It was a wake-up call for me, as I think I took our relationship for granted, and I’ve been making a lot more effort, and we’ve also been talking more.
It’s revived our sex life, too, in that I want him more than ever, but he sometimes rejects me, saying it’s too much, which makes me paranoid.
The other day, I opened the door to him wearing only underwear and heels and he just looked horrified.
Am I coming on too strong and can we get over this?
Coleen says
I think wanting more physical intimacy is a common reaction when your relationship is threatened.
You need to feel that he wants you and he loves you.
However, it could be making him feel guilty because he’s aware that you’re doing it because he got too close to another woman.
Yes, I think you can get over it, but it’s about talking, talking, talking.
It needs to be an ongoing conversation about why your marriage is vulnerable and how you can make it stronger.
You don’t have to put on a show for him – he should be the one making the effort for you.
I feel you’re trying to outdo the other woman instead of thinking, “I don’t deserve how he treated me”.
You seem to be taking a lot of blame for this, too.
Yes, you have to look at yourself to see where you went wrong, but he could have explained what was missing in your relationship before seeking it from someone else.
Getting your marriage back on track is a work in progress and it takes time.
You can’t just fix it with sex, but you can repair the damage by talking.