‘Your husband has a psychological disorder and may be a wife batterer’

DEAR EPPY,

I have a very serious problem.  I’m in a long-distance relationship with my husband.  My husband and I promised each other not to lie, no matter what it is.  He has always been straightforward.  While abroad, he constantly asks me if I see other people that I might be interested in, even in a sexual way.   I have always told him no.  I told him that I have dreams of having sex with other women and he is okay with this.

My husband asked me if I fantasize about having sex with other men while we were having Internet sex.  I said “No.”  He didn’t believe me.  He was persistent until he threatened me.  Eventually, I told him “Yes.”  I told him all about my fantasies.  

I told him the following: I fantasize about different men and women in which I assume the role of controlling them.  I tell them what to do to me and I fulfill my fantasies (I have about 20-25 persons on different occasions, not all at once).

Now that he knows, he is so upset.  He calls me all kinds of nasty names.  Now, he’s telling me I have cheated and betrayed him and his trust.  He thinks some of my fantasies have been acted out with some of the people I mentioned in my fantasies.  He says I have lied to him. He couldn’t understand why I couldn’t have him in my fantasy instead of having sex with so many other people.

Now, he wants to end our relationship because he says he can’t trust me anymore.  Especially, since we are so far apart.  According to him, God knows what I have done.  He says I should have prevented these fantasies and talked to him about them before things got out of hand.  He thinks I’m promiscuous in fantasy and in reality.

He says he is unable to have any form of Skype sex with me because he’s not inclined to do so.  What am I to do?  Please help me soon because he says there’s something wrong with me psychologically.

WIFE FOR YEARS

DEAR WIFE FOR YEARS, 

Your letter to me is a very interesting one.  It is actually telling me and my readers that your husband thinks that you have betrayed him, that you’re promiscuous, and that you have a psychological problem because of your rich fantasy life, which is “supposedly a manifestation” of a psychological disorder.  

Here’s the twist.  I think you are in great psychological health and that it is your husband with a psychological disorder and may be a wife batterer.  I am actually thanking the heavens that you wrote me so I can help you free yourself from an abusive husband. 

In your defense, having a rich sexual fantasy is normal for women.  In the article entitled “Sexual Fantasies and Sexual Satisfaction: An Empirical Analysis of Erotic Thought,” published in the Journal of Sex Research, the authors Davidson and Hoffman discovered in their research that women benefit from fantasy during sexual intercourse with their partners.  Apparently, a rich sexual fantasy helps women achieve orgasm no matter what their present sexual life is.  You have to understand that because you have no actual sexual contact with your husband, it becomes more necessary for you to enrich your fantasy world.  Fantasy is a way of coping when a need is not met.

What is not normal is a man asking his wife what her thoughts are while having sex with him, then faulting her for whatever is in her mind.  Your husband is insecure and abusive.  He has the need to control his wife in order for him to keep her where he pleases.  Your husband implies that whatever it is you fantasize about is what you will do.  Yet in the article, “Cognitions, thoughts, private events, etc., are never initiating causes of behavior:  Reply to…,” by Stephen Flora and Jane Kestner, it is clear that the authors think that our thoughts do not necessarily make us do what we fantasize about.  

Even if you are married, your husband has no right prying into your private thoughts.  Your own mother shouldn’t force you to tell her what your thoughts are.  These thoughts are yours and yours alone.  If thoughts were made invisible and you are the only one who can see them, then that means our thoughts were meant for us to keep to protect us from the world.  

In the past, I mentioned that there are men who will ask their wives to strip so they can inspect their vagina to see if they have been touched by others.  There are also women who demand from their husbands to show their scrotum in the belief that by doing so, the woman can tell if her husband had sex.  This practice is abusive in the same way that forcing a partner to expose his or her thoughts is abusive.

The other forms of abuse done to you by your husband are: making threats, constantly suspecting that you want to have sex with others, calling you names, and falsely accusing you of something you have not done.  If your husband thinks that leaving you is beneficial for him, he is wrong.  It benefits you more if you leave him because chances are, you might already be a battered wife without even knowing it.                                EPPY

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E-mail eppygochangco@gmail.com.