Sunday, December 03, 2006

Asking about DADT

Catching up on past comments, the Drunken Housewife offers up a doozy of a comment that I just can't resist responding to:
Is there any way at all you can negotiate a "don't ask, don't tell" policy in your marriage? (I have DADT about meat in my marriage, which is a little weird. My husband does not share my strong, religious and ethical beliefs, and after conflict and tears over this in the early years, we developed our DADT policy, under which we live happily most of the time)

Let me get this straight (no pun intended). Are you suggesting that I attempt to negotiate with my wife on whether it would be okay with her for me to engage in sexual activity with someone other than her as long as I did not tell her about it?

During the late summer, prior to starting this blog, this was something I had contemplated. I've read about such arrangments on the PA Forum website.

And I stumbled across an article from New York magazine that describes some of the arrangements that couples have. Actually, I found that article after having read the so-called iVillage Love Council's hyperventillations in response to the article.

I suspect that such a proposal would send my wife into an apoplectic episode. However, if I decided at some point that I can't live with the current situation any longer, then I might not have much else to lose.

Along those lines, my followup questions to the Drunken Housewife would be:

  • Did I understand your suggestion correctly?

  • Do you know of anyone personally who has negotiated such an arrangement successfuly (with regards to carnal knowledge, not carniverous activity)? If so, what was that negotiation process like?

  • Having been an attorney in a prior era of your life, have you tried envisioning the formal language of such an agreement (health risk mitigation, discretionary requirements, budgets, timing, etc.)?

blog comments powered by Disqus