The XX Factor

How Do You Maintain Desire in a Long-Term Relationship? Try a Threesome.

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Earlier this week we asked you, readers, to write in telling us how you maintain desire in a long-term relationship. We wanted solutions you may have found to the problem of monogamy, experiments that have failed, and perhaps a defense of sexual fidelity itself. Many of you responded, and over the past few days we’ve published those responses. Here’s the last one.

From: Keith

My wife and I have been together for more than 12 years, 8+ married.  I am in my mid-fifties, she is in her mid-forties. We have very different needs, I am fine with 2 or 3 times a week, she would like it at least once a day.

Periodically, we would have fights related to how often we were having sex. About 2 years ago I started suggesting that maybe we should try a threesome and add another gentleman to spice up the relationship. It took almost a year and some serious discussion between the two of us before she would agree. We met and “interviewed” a gentleman and started having threesomes about once a month.

What started out as an experiment with threesomes morphed into a situation where she meets him by herself once a week for sex. This has been going on for about a year with no negative repercussions to our relationship.

She never meets him without confirming their meetings with me. We have frequent conversations about the health of our relationship in general and she keeps a close watch on me to be sure this is not impacting me.

This situation has eliminated any fights about sex and we are both “getting” what we need. Some would say we are putting blinders on, but we do not consider this to be an affair. Everything is in the open and fully approved and discussed by both of us. The other gentleman is also very attuned to anything that may be causing problems within our marriage and would break off this arrangement if he thought he was having a negative impact on our marriage.

We both love each other very much and have no desire to end our marriage. However, we do recognize that there are different needs that often wreck other marriages and we are not willing to give up our marriage to conform to societal norms by limiting sex to the two of us. She is not “whoring” around but even the variety of one additional partner has made a difference in our relationship.

Many women that my wife has discussed this with have commented that they wish they could have similar arrangements with their husbands but it is totally out of the question in their relationships and they would never even bring it up.

Previously in this series: How Do You Maintain Desire in a Long-Term Relationship? Go Crazy Before Committing.

How Do You Maintain Desire in a Long-Term Relationship? Costumes.

How Do You Maintain Desire in a Long-Term Relationship? Date Outside the Marriage.

How Do You Maintain Desire in a Long-Term Relationship? Group Sex.