Dear Melissa: Ask your burning relationship questions now

My wife kissed one of her female friends on a night out and said something inside of her just felt “right”. I feel betrayed, but she said she feels awakened. can you help?

Melissa Ferrari offers expert relationship advice to two readers every week. Picture: iStock

Feeling betrayed after his wife kissed a woman, a man has shared his heartbreak after his wife described the experience as a sexual “awakening”. Relationship expert Melissa Ferrari believes there may be a path forward.

Scroll down to send in your questions.

DEAR MELISSA

My wife told me she thinks she might actually be lesbian and that she always felt like something was off every time we slept together. She said she kissed one of her female friends on a night out and something inside of her just felt “right”. I feel betrayed, but she said she feels awakened. I can’t sleep, I haven’t gone to work … what do I even do?

MELISSA’S RESPONSE

You feel betrayed because you have been betrayed and on top of that you are dealing with a genuine threat to your relationship as your wife considers exploring this side of her sexuality.

While for her she has woken a passion that is filling her with curiosity to pursue, which can feel exhilarating, for you what you are experiencing is trauma, leaving you in a very difficult position and your relationship very much under threat.

Such feelings are akin to a form of PTSD and can be debilitating without getting support for your mental health and if you have not done so you should seek out a therapist to help you emotionally process what has happened.

This is not a criticism of your wife; we cannot control how we feel, and this side of her sexuality may well have been something she has wanted to explore for most of her adult life.

What’s important for you though is to let her know how her actions have made you feel and how difficult it is for you to cope with – she needs to understand that there is more than how she feels that is involved here.

Going to therapy with your partner can help to make navigating tricky relationship decisions easier. Picture: iStock

For you there are more decisions to make, and these are not easy to deal with.

If your wife chooses to explore that side of her sexuality, then as a couple you need to determine what that would like that to look like and come to an agreement on it.

So, you need to ask yourself, are you happy with and open relationship? Do you want to participate in her exploration? Would you also be free to explore your own sexuality with someone else?

If that is not something either of you are comfortable with and want to continue as a couple, then you need to set boundaries around what is and is not acceptable – keeping in mind the potential resentment that may follow if your wife cannot explore this new found desire.

Ultimately the best decision you may both make is to take time apart from each other, this would help protect you from further hurt and trauma, while allowing your wife to explore sexually what she needs to explore.

Either way you should not do this alone and get help from a therapist, initially for yourself to help you deal with this trauma and then as a couple to help you navigate what is a very difficult and complex situation that you have both found yourself in.

DEAR MELISSA

I have been married to my second wife for a few years, and she is my best mate. The intimacy is nothing like my first wife, and she is very inexperienced, not aware of how good it can be. How do I raise this issue?

MELISSA’S RESPONSE

My most important piece of advice for you is to tread sensitively around the topic. In my practice discussions around sex can become very uncomfortable, particularly if one partner is keen to explore areas of sex that the other has no interest in performing.

Also, you should be very careful around making comparisons to your sex life with a previous partner in any conversations, it has the potential to cause resentment, long lasting damage and even become dire to your relationship.

What you need to keep in mind is that love making is a shared experience, something that you co-create together with both partners needing to be considered and sensitive around each other’s vulnerabilities.

Rather than a direct conversation around you being unhappy with the sex, perhaps a better place to start is to suggest some games that you can play in the bedroom that you both agree that you may enjoy.

Getting on the same page when it comes to intimacy is essential to ensuring a relationship survives. Picture: iStock.

This can then become something that you both create and evolve physically together, rather than it being you telling her the things you would enjoy – remember because it makes you feel good does not mean that it will make her feel the same pleasure.

If you do have a conversation around sex, keep in mind that your partner needs to feel secure, this means you reassuring her, being gentle with your words, letting her know that you love her and want to be with her for the rest of your life.

Make sure she is an equal partner in the conversation. Listen to how she feels and keep an eye on how she is responding. If you see she is uncomfortable or becoming emotional then you need to let the topic go and reassure her of your love.

Sex can be a complex issue in a relationship as there may be a deeper reason that there are some things that one partner does not want to do which may be linked to a previous negative experience.

If a more direct conversation is important to you, then I suggest that is best done with the help of an experienced couples therapist that you are both comfortable with – allowing you to explore the topic in an emotionally safe environment.

Melissa Ferrari responds to two submissions from our readers per week. Picture: Kirsten Flavell

Melissa is one of Australia’s most sought-after relationship therapists with over 25 years’ experience in couples counselling and individual psychotherapy. Specialising in the Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy (PACT), Melissa provides intensive sessions with practical, personalised feedback, through which she helps individuals and couples to make savvy relationship choices.

Originally published as Dear Melissa: Ask your burning relationship questions now