Dear Tell All: I'm in trouble with my girlfriend, and I don't think I deserve it.
We've been together three years, and our relationship was solid until recently. We didn't live in the same place, but we spent almost all our nights together in my apartment.
Our sexual relationship was extremely good in the early days but cooled off after the first couple of years. It wasn't a huge problem -- we still had sex regularly -- but I found it more and more difficult to get properly excited. Some nights it was hard to...well, it wasn't hard at all, if you know what I mean.
So here's where the trouble started. To make sure things went okay in such situations, I started fantasizing about other women at key moments. Sometimes it was movie stars, but more often it was this really attractive woman who works in my office -- let's call her Marla. She and her boyfriend have socialized with my girlfriend and me a few times, and I admit that I like looking at her. But that's not the worst thing in the world, is it?
When necessary, I began constructing elaborate fantasies about Marla when having sex with my girlfriend. I concede that I wasn't exactly "in the moment" with my girlfriend at such times, but I do think my secret fantasies helped make our sex go well, for both me and her.
You probably see where this is headed. I got so used to fantasizing about Marla that I became careless. During a moment of passion, the name "Marla" -- which I'd been repeating in various arousing ways in my head -- slipped out of my mouth. My girlfriend immediately pulled away from me and called me a "pig."
She assumed I was having an affair with Marla, but I explained that I simply fantasized about her sometimes. Well, that got me nowhere. She called me a "pig" again and hasn't been to my place since. She says it disgusts her that I'm "with" another woman while making love to her.
To me, her response is overblown. I haven't committed the crime of the century, have I?
Sinning Only in My Head
Dear Sinning: Pig.
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