Sex has been difficult since wife had affair

You must both be completely honest about what you do and don’t enjoy in bed, says Suzi Godson.

Q. Since my wife had an affair, we have found sex difficult. When I found out about her fling, she explained that it was because our sex life had become boring.

She wants me to be more assertive and to “spice things up”, but it feels unnatural to have to start behaving differently in bed. Can we get through this?

A. I’m not sure. Data from the most recent American General Social Survey showed that more than half of men and women who engage in infidelity end up divorcing.

However, it is also true that infidelity can be a turning point if it forces partners to acknowledge what went wrong with their relationship.

When an affair becomes a catalyst for more honest communication, it can rekindle the sexual flame, but for that to happen, you must both be completely honest about what you do and don’t enjoy in bed.

If, for example, it is not in your nature to be assertive, there is no point in your wife demanding that of you.

You could, however, invert that request and satisfy her need for adventure by trying other things instead.

Sex is meant to be a mutually rewarding experience, and although you and your wife have chosen to stay together, you don’t seem to have discussed anything other than perceived problems in your past sexual relationship.

You haven’t explored why your sex life fell off a cliff, or questioned whether that had anything to do with your wife’s affair.

Instead, you seem to have buried your head and your feelings stoically in the sand while trying to accommodate demands for what sounds suspiciously like a sexual performance.

Trying to be someone you are not, by doing something that doesn’t feel right, will of course feel unnatural.

Sexual desire is an urge and instinct, but it is also an emotion and a cognitive decision.

You clearly don’t want to lose your wife, but walking on eggshells won’t achieve anything.

It is naive to think that you can create a better future without serious reflection on the past, so if you want more than coexistence, you have to take a risk and work out what went wrong.

Only you and your wife know what those problems might have been, but the usual culprits are lack of communication, loss of trust, anger, infidelity, feeling taken for granted, substance abuse, financial difficulties, unemployment, illness — basically anything that puts additional pressure on the relationship.

The issues that you have identified — being bored and not making any effort with each other in bed — are rarely to do with the act of sex in itself.

More commonly, they are a manifestation of feelings of apathy and antipathy that are felt, but often not expressed, within the marriage.

All couples deal with ups and downs, but the problems arise when they can’t talk about them.

It takes time to rebuild a marriage after an affair, but if you are both committed, you have an opportunity to develop a more mature relationship based on realistic expectations, intimate understanding and genuine care for each other.

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