SEX TIPS BLOG

Faking it in bed (for years). Crazy debt. Childhood abuse. Meet women who told their husbands these truths to save their marriages. Is it time to tell your secret?

Your husband knows you better than anyone. He knows what you look like naked, and without makeup, and first thing in the morning. He knows that you snore like a linebacker and what you really think about your friends’ parenting skills. But does he need to know everything? Of course not! Harmless secrets — say, that you didn’t love your engagement ring as much as you pretended you did — are no biggie. It’s the deeper ones, often about touchy topics like money and sex, that could be harming your relationship in ways you never guessed. In order to stay happy, experts say you’ve got to tell him if…

1…you’ve got money issues.
A few years ago Tara, 40, took out several loans without her husband Chris’s knowledge to make some purchases for her pet-grooming business. It started out small — a doggie mural here, a new dryer there — but soon she was in debt for a whopping $47,000. “I got a post office box in another town just for bills,” she says. “I would throw them away there because I was so afraid Chris would find out.” But when he came to her to talk about refinancing their home, she knew it was time to fess up: “He yelled for nearly two hours, but then he said, ‘Why didn’t you come to me for help before it got so bad?’” It may appear that the issue here is only money, but it’s also about trust, says consumer finance expert Dayana Yochim, author of The Motley Fool’s Guide to Couples & Cash. “We yell about dollar amounts, but often we’re thinking, I don’t trust you — to handle our money well, provide for me, or forgive my mistakes,” she says. A big reason couples don’t trust each other? They don’t talk! “Before this happened, we didn’t communicate at all — we bickered and blamed,” Tara says. “But now we discuss issues and delegate tasks. I worked hard to repay the money but harder to earn back Chris’s trust.” A new survey found that more than 25 percent of respondents had hidden purchases from their partners — but the same sort of trust issues may also be involved if you’re secretly stashing money, not blowing it. Samantha*,28, has not one, not two, but three secret savings accounts. That money is almost like an escape hatch that protects her from having to feel fully committed to the marriage, Yochim says. But to make a marriage work, you’ve got to be all in — not straddling the fence. “Coming clean about this will be an opportunity for Samantha to show that she’s committed, and also to address whatever issues led her to believe she might need that in-case-we-break-up-fund in the first place,” she says.

2…there’s a chance your relationship is in trouble.
Five years into her marriage, Nina*, 37, started feeling restless. She still loved her husband, but being a full-time wife and mother had started to feel monotonous. So when a friend told her about ashleymadison.com, a site for men and women looking for affairs, the idea of posting a profile was thrilling. She signed up “just for fun,” but the messages started pouring in. The attention felt good, and two months later, flirty emails she’d been exchanging with one guy turned into cyber-sex, then a real-life affair. It went on for eight months before she broke it off — and guilt began to eat away at her. “I started seeing a therapist, who convinced me to tell my husband because she was sure he could sense something,” Nina says. “I was so scared he would blow up and leave, but when I finally told him, there were just tears.” Many people who cheat feel, at least at first, like they had good reason, says Jennine Estes, a marriage and family therapist in San Diego. But you can never assume your partner knows that you’re feeling ignored, unloved, or not desired. “His devastation brought home how deeply I wounded him,” Nina says. After spending a few nights apart, they decided they wanted to work on their marriage — and that’s when the couple finally began to communicate. “We never really addressed our frustrations with each other before this happened,” Nina says. “But once we started talking, we were able to open up about our unhappiness and resolve it.” The key, Estes says, is to bring up scary feelings like boredom or resentment before any true damage is done, or anyone steps out. “If you ever think your marriage may be in danger, speak up quickly, no matter how much it hurts.”

3…you’re unhappy in bed.
Faking an orgasm is something many women will admit to one another in the cone of silence, but telling their man is a different story. “There are a lot of women who aren’t having orgasms, but they won’t admit it because they think something’s wrong with them or because they don’t want to hurt their husband’s feelings,” says couples therapist Karen Gail Lewis, Ed.D., author of Why Don’t You Understand? Lewis has helped dozens of couples through tough sex stuff, but the case that stands out for her is one in which the wife had been faking it with her husband for the entire 17 years they’d been married. Though the woman, let’s call her Sally, was able to climax on her own, sex with her husband was unfulfilling and left her feeling frustrated and helpless. Instead of risking a painful conversation, Sally kept it to herself and put on a show. “She never really enjoyed sex with him, so faking it seemed like the best way to get it over with,” says Lewis. But ignoring your own sexual needs can lead to major resentment, so Lewis encouraged Sally to tell the truth. She admitted her deception to her husband during a session one day, and instead of being defensive or blaming, he turned to Sally and said, “How sad. It’s sad for both of us that you didn’t feel comfortable talking to me about this.” It was like 17 years of tension had melted away — and although it took time and work, the couple made it through. They’re not just squeaking by, either. Lewis says they started introducing new techniques into their sex life and now report that they’re both, honestly, satisfied.

4…something’s up with your health.
Like many new moms, Janet, 39, struggled to make peace with her post-baby body. “I was frustrated that my figure wasn’t bouncing back like I had hoped it would,” she says. Just five weeks after giving birth, she hit the gym, and when she stepped on the scale in the locker room, she was shocked. “I knew I had gained a lot, but I’m only 5-foot-3, and when I saw the number 174, I went crazy,” she says. She threw up her food that afternoon and continued to purge secretly for the next year. Then one day, while on her knees in a McDonald’s bathroom, Janet looked over at her 18-month-old daughter. “It struck me that she was becoming more aware of her surroundings, and I didn’t want her to develop my problem,” she says. A few days later, Janet had her first meeting with an eating-disorder specialist — but she still didn’t tell her husband until weeks later, when she discovered she was pregnant with their second child. “I knew I had to tell him, so wrote him an email in order to allow him to process it in his own time,” she says.

While your body is always your own, you have to understand that once you’re married, your health affects everyone in your family, Estes says. And they have a right to know where you stand, not only for their own protection but so they can help you. Janet’s husband was 100 percent supportive. “He stopped mentioning weight in any capacity, threw out the scales in the house, and started complimenting me more,” she says. “Before opening up to him, I thought I needed to handle everything on my own, but now I see him as my teammate.”

5…you’ve had a traumatic past.
Tough events that take place during childhood, college — whenever — don’t just affect us right when they happen. The aftershocks of horrible experiences, especially if they’re sexual in nature, nearly always influence the way we are in our relationships, Estes says. As a kid, Veronica, 45, was repeatedly molested by a male relative who had convinced her she’d get in trouble if she told. For 23 years, she confided in no one, not even her husband. “I guess I always thought my husband would ultimately disappoint me in some way like my relative had,” she says. “My husband couldn’t understand why I was so distant, and I didn’t trust him enough to explain.” The turning point came during a private therapy session in which Veronica spoke for the first time about her abuse. It left her feeling so empowered that she told her husband the very next day. “At that moment, I felt my soul lift up. Now, knowing that I have his support no matter what has changed the landscape of my life and our relationship, even just in little ways, like finally letting myself enjoy cuddling with him,” she says.

Often, what makes a person hold on to their secrets is fear. “People who hide information from their mates do it because they think they’ll be judged or deemed less lovable,” Estes says. “But keeping things hidden is stressful and can wind up creating distance between you, because you’re guarded or on edge. As scary as it is, if you open up and expose your scars, you could see major benefits.”

*NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED.

5 THINGS YOU NEVER HAVE TO SPILL
Don’t be honest to a fault, ladies.
That you look forward to his boys’ weekends. One man’s golf widow is another man’s free woman.
The gory specifics of your yeast infection/UTI/other down-there problem. He’s on a need-to-know basis.
That your parents tried to talk you out of marrying him. With cash bribes. (True staffer story.)
That sometimes you ask him to handle the kids so you can go to an “important meeting” with your facialist.
A friend’s secret. If she wanted him to know, she would have told him!