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By Jennifer Witt, October 17, 2011 6:00 am

From the moment I laid eyes on him, I knew I had to have him. I figured he had to have a girlfriend. But he asked me out, and I didn’t even think about my boyfriend back home, 700 miles away.

The reasons I cheated were many. Distance, lack of sexual satisfaction, pre-existing lack of trust, excitement, a fear of being alone, and an inability to end a relationship all contributed to my indiscretion. I also fell in love with the other guy. Not that it makes what I did any better.

For a while, it was perfect. In the Big City, I had a smart, successful, connected, sexy Dream Guy parading me around like a trophy. And back home, I had my boring but safe boyfriend (just in case it didn’t work out with Dream Guy).

My tryst lasted two intense months, with another weekend rendezvous three months later. Yet, we lived hundreds of miles apart, so the end was expected, natural, and painless. Or so it seemed.

Back home, I still fantasized about Dream Guy. I was also constantly wracked with guilt. Not a single day went by that I didn’t consider confessing. I never did, though, because I couldn’t face the pain it would have caused my boyfriend.

A year later, I moved back to the Big City, this time permanently. And I couldn’t wait to see Dream Guy again. My boyfriend wasn’t able to join me immediately, so I had several months to rekindle my romance with Dream Guy and break it off with my boyfriend. Dream Guy and I ended up working in the same office, and it didn’t take long for us to pick back up where we left off.

Except this time, he had a girlfriend. I was still tormented by guilt and started second-guessing myself. Was it really worth going through this again if we were not going to work out? One mistake I could rationalize, but two? Dream Guy began to get frustrated with my indecisiveness, and every time we’d start to get physical, I’d freak out and change my mind. I was asking him to put his relationship on the line by seeing me behind his girlfriend’s back, but I’d never go all the way or break it off with my boyfriend and commit to him.

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By Jennifer Witt, August 22, 2011 6:00 am

Time magazine recently published two articles discussing new studies regarding sexual satisfaction, marriage and infidelity. While Time played up the “groundbreaking” nature of the results, I was not surprised. Shortly after my wedding, I came to the conclusion that sex is probably the most important aspect of marriage.

That revelation wasn’t the result of any sexual dysfunction in my relationship, but simply the result of adjusting to being married and to the expectations we all subconsciously harbor about marital bliss and the reality of being committed to someone ’til death do us part.

When I woke up one day to find the new marriage smell worn off, I emerged from the newlywed cocoon so many of us get wrapped up in during the early days of forever. I found my way back to hobbies my husband doesn’t have an interest in and to the uncoupled friends I unintentionally overlooked, because inviting them out always seemed like making them the third wheel. I watched chick flicks by myself and ran errands without him. I started shopping with my mom again.

I wasn’t sad or mad or glad. I just rediscovered the fact that there is a world outside our coupledom that is fun and fulfilling. My emotional and intellectual needs could be met without him being the source of all my contentment.

But after all my girls’ nights out and mother-daughter adventures, I still had one need that could only be met at home, within my marriage: S-E-X.

Hitting me rather abruptly, I realized that out of all the relationship needs, sex is the only one that cannot be met by anyone else other than your spouse. At least not in a socially acceptable context, unless you are polyamorous (which is arguably not socially acceptable, but that’s beside the point).

Continue reading 'Sex Is The Most Important Part Of A Marriage'»

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By Jennifer Witt, February 7, 2011 6:00 am

Image by Gael Conrad via Corbis.com

My husband is sleeping with his secretary.

Not only do I not care, I actually encourage it.

No, we’re not swingers, or in a dysfunctional marriage. We work together… and I’m his secretary!

The first question I’m asked when people find out that my husband and I own a business together–and that I technically work for him–is, “How do you do it?

The answer I give is the expected mix of joke and half-truth: “Not easily!”

We started working together by accident. My involvement at the outset was more or less that of a doting girlfriend with lots of spare time. We fought frequently in the first couple months, actually, because he seemed to be working all of the time. One night, during an argument, he told me, “I don’t even start working until after 5:00 because I’m in the office all day!” To which I snapped back, “You barely have any work in there in the first place! How in the world do you have so much office work to do?”

Three months after he started the business, I had taken a few days off due to minor surgery and decided to go in to work with him just to get out of the house. One day in his office was all I needed to see that he did have enough work to require help.

Due to my flexible work schedule, I kept helping out in his office when I could. After a couple months of that, I could barely keep up with both jobs, and things weren’t going well at my “real job.” We discussed it and thought it would be worth a try having me come on full-time. That was May 2008. He proposed in June, we were married in August, and I’m still working full-time in the office. The business continued to grow exponentially, and we now employ four full-time guys in addition to ourselves.

So, how do we do it?  To be completely honest, I’m not 100% sure. We’ve had times where I thought it would be the end of our marriage. The issues that play out in any typical marriage are present both at work and at home, and are only amplified by the stress of running the business and managing employees. Staying on the same page is hard. Defining roles is even harder. Despite our early success handling the business as co-owners, over the longer term, that was not working out. Continue reading 'Working For Your Husband Is Tricky Business'»