Dear Jana,
Does my new wife think watching porn and masturbating is the same as cheating? You can’t be serious! Is this how women think today? Or is she being too precious? A man cannot live! How can I make him see reason?
Johnny.
Oh Johnny,
That’s quite a dilemma! But here’s the thing: she’s wrong. Gosh, we all feel the need from time to time. If that’s the worst thing you do, then I think you’re fine. I wouldn’t try to reason with him, I just wouldn’t tell him when you pleasure yourself or watch porn. It’s that simple. We don’t have to tell our partners everything. Just make sure to clear your search history.
At the end of the day, a porno can’t hug you afterwards, or tell you that you look sexy in that outfit. And no one has left their partner to watch porn all day (well, other than porn addicts, but that’s another story). So it’s not cheating, for God’s sake. Just keep your habits to yourself, like the rest of us do.
Dear Jana,
So the other night I had to finish this last-minute report for work, and since I had left my laptop at home, I asked to borrow my boyfriend’s. When he got up to make us dinner, I decided to see if his laptop was connected to his Instagram and it was, so I checked his DMs (you would too!) and discovered all these messages he had sent to the models he was following.
Mail+ columnist Jana Hocking gives her signature sassy advice to Australians who need help with their love life, or lack thereof.
He said things like “I want to fuck you” and “I could give you an orgasm in less than a minute.” (For the record, no, he couldn’t.) Now I don’t know what to do. I feel like it’s a trap, even if these women didn’t respond to him. Are all men this creepy? I feel like he’s crossed a line, but I also don’t want to confront him because he’ll know I checked his Instagram.. How do I approach this?
Angela.
Oh Angela,
It’s a risky game to check a partner’s Instagram direct messages. You’re guaranteed to never like what you find, so don’t worry about letting your curiosity get the better of you. Saying that, I probably couldn’t help it either.
So yeah, it turns out your boyfriend is a creep! He’s not really a cheater, just a creep. Although I think he would jump at the chance to sleep with one of these Insta beauties if he had the chance. So instead of bringing it up, why not just leave it? Seeing messages like that (ignored messages too!) would just make me nauseous. You should really focus on his unsolicited rude messages to strangers instead of what he might think of you snooping around his laptop..
And to answer your other question, no, not all guys are creepy; Unfortunately, you just found one of them. So thank your lucky stars that you found out before you got married and had kids with him (because trust me, there are a lot of creepy married men in my DMs, many with their wives in their profile picture…)
Just get out of the relationship and immerse yourself in someone else – problem solved!
Side note: why is it always the men who aren’t gods in the bedroom who seem to brag about it?
Jana helps a reader whose new girlfriend considers pornography cheating and delivers bad news to a young woman desperate for her divorced father’s much younger partner.
Dear Jana,
I’m in a pretty complicated situation and I could use your advice. My dad started dating someone I went to high school with and I can’t get over how unsettling that feels. She is 25 years his junior and I can’t help but wonder if her intentions are completely genuine.
My dad spent his entire life building his woodworking business from scratch and his girlfriend is a single mother of three. I’m worried that you may end up taking on a lot more responsibility than you realize if this relationship becomes serious. And it seems to be going in that direction.
Honestly, I think this might just be a rebound after my mom left him last year, but it’s hard to sit back and watch what feels like a midlife crisis. Her ex isn’t trustworthy at all, so I suspect she sees my dad as her ticket to stability..
The tricky part is that I don’t want to embarrass my dad or damage our relationship by confronting him about this. How can I gently help him come to his senses before it’s too late?
Anonymous.
Anonymous,
I hate to say it, but I think you should let it happen. At the end of the day, your dad is a grown man and can make his own (horny) decisions.
Is it a rebound? Very likely. It’s a story as old as time where the man replaces his ex-wife with a younger model *sigh* but maybe it’s a mistake he simply has to make on his own.
If you try to intervene, you’ll upset everyone. And if he’s a stubborn bastard like most of the older gentlemen I know, he’ll probably stay with her longer just to make his point.
So let him have his fun in the sun and then all you can do is be there for him when everything goes bad. And if not… well, you’re going to have an interesting Christmas. Maybe just give her a knowing ‘I’m after you’ look the next time you see her. But let’s not limit ourselves to Jerry Springer.
I appreciate that your dad has worked hard to build his business and his bank account, but it’s his money to spend however he wants. At least he’s not sending it to a fake girlfriend abroad, which happens more than you think.
Let Papa Bear figure it out himself; They usually do. Maybe just slip some condoms into your nightstand. It sounds very… fertile.