Why A Cuckold Marriage Won't Solve Your Relationship Problems
A lot of people are trying cuckolding ... but is it really a good idea for you?
getty With all the chatter about cuckolding and how it can be healthy, fun, and make your marriage better, it's important to keep in mind that this is necessarily not true for many married couples.
Cuckolding is a fetish that is male-driven. Wikipedia explains, "...In fetish usage a cuckold is complicit in his (or her) partner's sexual "infidelity"; the wife who enjoys cuckolding her husband is called a cuckoldress if the man is more submissive. Today’s version of cuckolding has taken on a wide variety of sexual meanings and practices."
I feel that pornography has pushed cuckolding in many expressions including "hotwifing", "cuckqueans", "submissive cuckolding", and "gay cuckold", which is confusing to some people.
As a counselor, I help married men who are struggling with a cuckold fetish or men who are in a cuckold marriage. For these men, it is not a part of their life that they feel they can share with their wife.
Some men have tried to get their wives involved and it has ended in disaster for them. It has not been a healthy experience for them nor has it made their marriage better. They seek out my help because they are wanting to stay married, be faithful but have a secret sexual fetish that they want to share with their spouse but don’t know how.
Some men have pushed their wives into having sex with other men and it has created resentment and complications in the marriage. A common question asked by some women is: "If you love me why would you want me to have sex with another man?"
Helping them understand the fetish and normalize aspects of it helps the couple explore ways to manage it and incorporate it into their sex lives through fantasy.
I work with the couple on how to better understand the fetish and ways to work it into their sex lives through fantasy rather than pathologize it and create shame around it.
Some of the ways couples can explore cuckolding are through fantasy like role-playing, using sex toys, as well as male chastity, and submission and domination, but it all stays between the two of them and does not involve another person.
With counseling, many couples do find a way to make it work and keep it in the fantasy realm in their relationship.
A few couples have explored it outside their marriage and brought a third person in, but that does take an enormous amount of trust between the couple with, open communication and the idea that if it does not work, then they can stop.
As with most sexual fetishes, the person that has the fetish is familiar with it — but it is not familiar to their spouse and it can feel completely crazy that their husband has these sexual desires.
Some men have had cuckold fantasies their entire adult life, struggling with how to have a relationship with another person that will understand them or partake in their fetish.
Imagine a couple who may be having issues in their marriage. They may read how cuckolding is healthy and fun and push their partner to try it out. But in that circumstance, the success rate is very low. That's because the marriage is already in trouble.
Any time a couple decides to open their marriage to another person or persons, it is important that the marriage is on a solid foundation and both people are mature and able to handle all the responsibility that may come with it.
An open marriage may be a moral issue for one person and not the other and to push a person into something they are not comfortable with can create resentment.
I am not saying that cuckolding doesn't work for some couples — because it does, but those couples go into it with honesty, trust and they are on the same page when it comes to the decision of a cuckold experience or lifestyle.
Unfortunately, the media jokes about the sexual fetish of cuckolding rather than providing honest information, and that does a disservice to people who struggle with this fetish in their marriage.
Dr. Dawn Michael is an international certified clinical sexologist and relationship expert. She is the co-owner of The Sexual Health and Wellness Center in Southern California. Her writing has appeared on Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Huffington Post, Fox News and NBC News. You can reach her at The Happy Spouse and follow her on Twitter.