Do Men Know the Desires of their Partners?

In olden times men usually had the upper hand in a relationship, or they thought so. Any relationship, with very few exceptions, is driven by both participants and although in some cultures and religions men are expected to choose the woman, in 21st century, gentlemen, it is time we state the obvious — a woman chooses who she goes to bed with, not vice versa. A woman chooses her partner, the future father of her children and hence, wars have been fought over women, and yet she chooses the one she feels is right for her. Every man is afraid of losing his partner — it’s a matter of dignity and also of emotional ties.

A common assumption amongst men is that they know all about their partners. But do they really? Sharing a bed with someone does not make them your partner. It is sharing the thoughts and emotions that make a relationship functional. To get a deeper insight on this matter, we interviewed four women — we asked them one simple question:

“What don’t men know about their wives?”

S. has been in a relationship for two and a half years. She told me how open she was with her man. They had been friends long before they started a relationship.

S: We talk about everything, me and my partner we share everything, we are swingers. Therefore, we share our sexuality with each other and with other people. We have talked about all our fantasies and we made some of them come true. For the rest we just haven’t had the right time to make them real.

T has been married for three years. Her response was similar:

T: I would say we have a very high level of intimacy. We talk about everything, we share everything, the fantasies we have. We try to be very honest even if we think the other person doesn’t want to hear it. We share our sincere opinions. We are life partners and every topic, everything that happens, no matter good or bad, we talk about it, discuss it and manage it together. We shared every detail back in the first year we were together. Well, life becomes a little boring with the same person, so, of course, some things changed during the second, third, and fourth year of our marriage. The important things that define my sexual interests or outline which direction the relationship will go, are and will be surely known to him. I also fantasize about having sex with many people or having sex with many men at the same time… things like that. One thing, he probably doesn’t know about, is something we haven’t discussed recently, but I have been thinking about for a while now — I want to try bondage and SM. It’s something we discussed some time ago, but I don’t think he expects it from me. However, I want that, that is something I fantasize about — me being submissive and he being a dominant, but I think we’ll get to in the next few years.

F. has been married for four years. This is what she shares:

F: I have a good relationship with my man. He is a good man. I love him. I just don’t share my fantasies with him. I tried once at the beginning of our relationship, but I felt he was uncomfortable with what I was saying, so I never tried to bring up the subject again. I know having a satisfying sex life is important and we do have a good one. Sometimes, it is frustrating not to be able to discuss my sexual thoughts with him. It’s a shame. I know we would really enjoy acting on some of my fantasies. And I’d rather talks to him about it then fantasize about the man who sells me meat and imagine him doing this stuff for me! My partner is a good man. He is not that open-minded, and with time I became like him.

On asking the question what puts her off talking to him, she said:

F: I am scared to bring up this subject in front of him. I don’t want to frighten him. We have a good life. I don’t want to mess that up.

M. has been married for twenty years. This is her response:

M: I have a normal relationship, we have children we have a home and a life together. As far as the question “What doesn’t he know about me?” goes, I would say a lot. You see, we drifted apart in our lives. We are together most of the time, but our minds are not connected. Sex became a routine task. I felt I needed a change, but couldn’t ask or talk to him — he is not the type of man who would ask me about my fantasies or tell me his, so I looked somewhere else. If my husband knew my secrets, he would kill himself!” she said laughing.

I wanted to know the secret she hides from him. After all, isn’t that the purpose of this article? To find out all those deep secrets these women hide?

So, she started explaining:

M: After twenty years of marriage, it felt tough to break the cycle by changing anything in the relationship. It felt unnecessary, too. For a while, I just got used to our life. I felt our sex life was quite common and just okay! I believe my husband feels the same. I’m not sure. We don’t talk about it.

And then she told me her secret, about her twenty-five-year-old lover who she has been with for a year now.

M: I met him at my workplace. He was young for me, I never thought anything could happen between us, but it did. He was the one who perused me, but being sexually frustrated I didn’t hold back and I let him charm me. I don’t want to ruin my marriage and I didn’t mean for this to happen, but it did, and to be honest, I am happy it happened. For a very long time I hadn’t been sexually satisfied. In a way, I suppose this whole sneaking around, meeting in secret and not telling anyone is a big turn on for both of us!

After conducting the interviews, I could see the difference in these relationships. Two of the girls were open and honest with their partners. It made sense since two of the couples were in the swinger scene themselves. Being swingers means that these couples talk all about their sexual desires, share all their fantasies, and have the guts to actually act on them.

“We both fantasies about orgies. We did have an orgy with ten people, more girls than men — quite a mix on a tiny bed. I think that was the craziest thing we’ve done. Otherwise, we’ll be tuck in a somewhat conservative relationship. We meet other couples and we sometimes change the couples or the partners. Still, we don’t do things like that very often, and that orgy with ten people was extreme.”

It got me wondering… with such an open relationship, where both partners are frank and honest about their desires, what could be the one thing that cannot be discusses or even mentioned.

“Probably in the future this type of open relationship with respect and a shared direction will be realistic for us and I think it would work. However, I’m terrified of bringing this up in our relationship because I’m scared of ruining it. The way we have it right now is beautiful. I don’t want to spoil something that’s already working well. I think we are both heading in that direction. We need to talk about how we want to do things so that nobody feels like they make our lives worse or feels left behind. I don’t want to sit at home on Friday nights, while he goes out partying and is with a different woman. We do have an open relationship, but we are not quite there yet. I’m terrified of scratching the surface of this topic in our partnership and I don’t think he realizes that I would be open for it.”

What a twist! In a relationship built on honesty and understanding, we still find the female hesitating to fully open her heart to her partner.

What all these women share, in my opinion, is genuine care for their relationships. Whether hiding their feelings or sharing them, women would do it all to keep the partnership functional.