A woman seeks advice after discovering her husband secretly wears her underwear. Photo / Getty Images
Rachel Johnson advises a woman who is grappling with her husband’s secret penchant for borrowing her knickers and stockings
Dear Rachel
I recently noticed that several pairs of my quite expensive underwear have gone missing. They were not in the laundry basket, my knicker drawer or left in the washing machine. I mentioned it to a friend who asked if any male friends or workmen had been in the house recently, suggesting that some men get a kick from stealing intimate items of clothing. I decided to lay a trap, so I bought a similar pair and left them strategically placed in the laundry basket.
My detective work was almost immediately successful but, unfortunately, it highlighted the culprit as my husband. I searched the house to no avail but eventually found a hoard of more than twenty pairs in a box in the shed – together with some stockings and tights, highlighting that this has obviously been going on for many years. Without going into any unnecessary detail, I can say that he has definitely been wearing/using them!
Naturally, I am somewhat upset and more than a little perturbed by this discovery. We have been married for 24 years and are truly best friends. We have two grown-up children with their own families and, although intimacy did dry up some years ago, we enjoyed a regular sex life both before and after getting married. My husband never mentioned or showed any fetish for underwear so I am wondering how and why this compulsion developed.
To be frank, I am more upset by the subterfuge and lack of honesty than I am by any sexual gratification he gains from his habit. Had he told me of his interests, I would gladly have helped him enjoy whatever it is he gets from my underwear. But, as you can imagine, it’s a difficult thing to discuss, even with someone I thought I knew so well.
Do you think it is best if I just let him continue with his obsession or is it worth risking challenging him and maybe using the experience to rekindle his interest in sex with me – rather than just my underwear?
– Anon
Dear Anon,
Thank you for your interesting letter with its wealth of telling detail, all of which I have kept in. I’m assuming you are in your 60s or so (you have grandchildren) so might I start by applauding your maintenance of such high standards when it comes to underclothes – as many of my readers will reel at the revelation that you invest in “pairs” of expensive underwear.
As my own tastes trend to the sporty, I don’t know whether “pairs” means “bra and pantie sets” – or just merely saucy knickers. But the fact remains that your husband has a penchant for pinching them and prancing around in them, presumably to indulge his own autoerotic fantasies. Put simply, he fancies himself in your scanties.
Also, he does this furtively behind your back, which is surely an added part of the kick (for him, not you, I must emphasise). As fetishes go, I think this one is fairly common. If you think about it, nobody bats an eyelid when a woman goes to a Black Tie do in a tux, or wears brogues, or sleeps in a pair of boxers. Yet when a man wants to express his, er, feminine side and perhaps browses the Debenhams’ Autumn Nights or Winter Luxe ranges for some lacy teddies (occasionally ordering a delivery for his private collection), it’s a Secret Kink. Or not so secret.
I’ve just been told about one otherwise unexceptional English couple where the groom, on his wedding night, produced two sheer filmy negligées. “For me?” the bride said, blushing. “And one for me,” the groom replied. The union lasted six months.
There is a double standard, sort of, in that women have much more latitude than men in what their sartorial choices can be. Is it any surprise then, that some men find it titillating to dress up as a 70s lingerie catalogue model in secret? Not particularly – except, of course, when it’s your husband, who has always seemed like a common-or-garden normie, which brings us to the question at hand.
If you love him and aren’t repulsed by the idea of him in a “crotchless lace bodysuit” for example (a big if) then why don’t you buy him some expensive underwear just for him, so he doesn’t have to steal and soil yours and hide them in his dank man-shed? Array them on his side of the king size Sleepeezee just before he comes up the wooden stairs to Bedfordshire.
When his gaze falls on them, he will know you know and you can take it from there.
Dear Rachel,
My wife who has turned 60 has lost all interest in sex. I’m one year older but still have a strong sex drive. This is like a huge wedge between us as I still want her, but she treats me like a leper. It is now beginning to affect my mental health as I do not want to live the rest of my life without sex. I can see no way that she will change, she won’t even speak about it when I try to. What advice can you give?
Thanks,
– John
Dear John,
This is a letter of condolence, but also of comfort. Most of the letters I get are from men in long-term relationships whose wife has shut up shop. Here’s the reality: you can’t badger and bully your wife into sex. In this country, the wife has ownership of her own body, not you – there is no such thing as conjugal rights. You can only try to seduce her, and that is no guarantee of success, especially as she treats you like a leper – which sounds deeply unpleasant for you, and unkind from her.
In France, and other Catholic countries, the big deal is marriage and maintaining the family (i.e. not divorcing), so couples deal with this by staying married and having discreet affairs. Think of, er, our own King. If the Prince of Wales can have a mistress, for want of a more modern term, why can’t you?
Indeed in Brussels, where I have lived, the high-street dry-cleaners was called Cinq à Sec, a pun on “cinq à sept” – the two violet hours between the office and domestic grind that it was understood husbands (and wives, one hopes) could devote to passion. The other day I heard of a couple who keep one week a year sacred for extra-curricular trysts – the couple can meet and sleep with as many third parties as they can cram in during the week. At the end of the week, they meet for a pre-arranged lunch in a restaurant. If one of them doesn’t show up, they both know the marriage is over.
But back to you. You’re 61 and still have a tiger in your tank. Your wife won’t discuss the situation. You’re both stuck. She’s happy and you’re not. You have to accept the consequences of your actions, but I would remind you that while vita is brevis, marriage is longa. Very longa.
Your only option, it seems to me, is to go your separate ways with impunity when it comes to sex. When you come to a fork in the road, as the great sage Yogi Berra said, take it!
"I do feel kind of stuck. And I feel like a lot of people feel that way."