Sex File: My wife talks about our sex life to her girlfriends 

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My wife recently went away on a girls' weekend and admitted that she and her friends had talked about their sex lives. As we have good, regular sex, she thinks that I should be flattered, but I can't help feeling a slight sense of betrayal. Am I being oversensitive?

I can understand why you might be sensitive about your wife sharing details of your sex life with her girlfriends. Even though she insists that she bigged you up, knowing that your sexual prowess is being discussed behind your back feels uncomfortable. However, when friends spend a weekend away together, intimate disclosures are almost an inevitability, and it would be naive to think otherwise.

You are clearly a very private person, and you could, of course, ask your wife to limit her sexual disclosures. You can't put the cat back into the bag now, though, and realistically you can't police her conversations either. However hard you find it, you probably need to accept that people - the ones we love and the ones we dislike - make the most compelling topics of conversation, and that's not going to change any time soon. In fact, research by Dr Nicholas Emler from the University of Surrey suggests that about 80% of human conversations involve talking about, criticising or evaluating other people.

Although many women find it very difficult to talk about sex with their partners, they are surprisingly good at talking about it with each other. 

For your wife and her girlfriends, talking about sex and relationships is a form of bonding. It also provides them with a useful benchmark for what constitutes a normal sex life after years of marriage. That is important because there are so many misconceptions about sex, particularly regarding sexual frequency. If your wife's conversations with her friends confirm that you are having as much - if not more - enjoyable sex as her peers, then that is very reassuring for her. 

You may be afraid that your wife and her friends have talked in more graphic detail, and discussed and compared your physical attributes, but the reality is probably much more mundane. Female conversations about sex might refer to frequency, libido or biological change, but they are much more likely to prioritise emotional issues in their relationships.

Eva Lefkowitz of the University of Connecticut suggests that the mismatch in the way that men and women talk about sex helps to explain why marital communication around the topic can sometimes be so difficult. Bearing that in mind, what would happen if you took a leaf out of your wife's book and, instead of feeling betrayed by her disclosures, talked about your sexual desires and insecurities with her? You might discover that one of the reasons she talks to her girlfriends about sex is because it is easier than talking to you. Exploring the conversations she had with her girlfriends in more depth would be a good place to start, and although it might take you out of your comfort zone initially, being open in this way would eventually increase your sexual confidence.

It would improve your sex life together too - there is a wealth of research showing that couples who feel comfortable talking about sex with each other have better sexual relationships. You may even find that if you are more open with her about your sensitivities, she may be a little more discreet too.

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