Dear Prudence,
My best friend, Adeline, has been married for eight years. Several weeks ago, she confided in me that she’s deeply unhappy in her marriage, for several reasons, one of them being an unsatisfying sex life. She then told me her solution, which left me floored.
She essentially bullied her husband into allowing her to sleep with other men. I asked her to elaborate on why she thinks that’s going to help, and she said that she doesn’t think he’ll ever have the capacity to “fix” the other areas that she’s unhappy with (which are legitimate frustrations), but if she can at least get satisfied sexually, she’ll be able to overlook those other issues; she doesn’t see divorce as an option because they have two children, and it would financially be very difficult.
She said her husband agreed to this by stating he just doesn’t want to know about it. However, I’m also pretty close with her husband—not close enough that he would confide in me, but close enough to know his personality, and that there’s no way he’s actually okay with this arrangement, and he’s most likely just going along with it because he’s very much a pushover and wants to try to save their marriage. This belief was reinforced recently when I stopped by their house to pick up Adeline to go out to dinner. I went inside to say hello to the kids and hang out while Adeline finished getting ready. As Adeline was about to come downstairs, I overheard her husband make a sarcastic comment about how she got so dressed up to impress another man.
To be clear, I have nothing against non-monogamous relationships in which all parties involved are fully consenting and comfortable. This is not a moral judgment against the practice itself. But I absolutely cannot support this rationale that Adeline basically gets a free pass to cheat on her husband under the guise of “saving their marriage,” and I really don’t want to discuss it with her when she tries to bring it up. She texted me the other day about how she was potentially meeting up with a guy she knows from work, and I ignored it. Her husband, while he has several flaws, is not at all a bad person, and would never hurt Adeline like that, so it’s a bit upsetting to see that she’s just so willing to force this upon him. At the same time though, I hate to see her unhappy in general, and I want to be supportive and help her understand that she’s not a failure of a human because she can’t just make herself be satisfied with the status quo that she has (her words). How do I walk this line?
—Supportive-Ish Friend