Dear How to Do It,

Six months ago, my wife told me she got a promotion at work. Our family has been enjoying the extra financial security and I thought life was pretty rosy. Then I found out how she’s actually been making more money.

In reality, she’s been making customized porn videos through an OnlyFans account. I feel like she’s been cheating on me. My wife says it’s just a job and that I’m being stupid and possessive. Is it so wrong of me not to want strangers getting off to the woman I’m married to and the mother of my kids?

—OnlyFans Outrage

Dear OnlyFans Outrage,

You boil this down to not wanting strangers getting off to your wife, but there’s more to this situation than just that. First, there is the fact that she lied about the source of her income boost. Then, there is the question of her responsibility to you/your arrangement (which sounds monogamous). And then there’s the fact of others getting to partake in that which you believe you have the sole claim.

So I believe the situation is more fraught than your ultimate question suggests. Your wife may have had her reasons for lying about her “promotion,” but it ultimately cast a cloud over the situation. She did it wrong. I don’t know why she thought that she could do something as public as OnlyFans, lie about it, and not get caught, but … she got caught. And it only took a few months. Big mistake. But she’s still your wife, and if she’s going to continue to be so, it’s a mistake that warrants forgiving. You should talk to her about why she felt the need to hide this information. The reasons may have nothing to do with you or they may reflect certain feelings she has about your social and/or sexual dynamic. It could be a fertile area of exploration and learning—a great thing to come from a not-great situation.

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Does what she’s doing constitute cheating? I can see how you’d feel that way. In a monogamous arrangement, a reasonable expectation would be that your partner is not engaging in sex work of any kind. In order for the situation to remain ethical, the responsibility would be for the interested party to discuss such a vocation with their partner. Your wife did not do that. She may have plausible deniability by claiming that since doing OnlyFans wasn’t explicitly verboten, she’s not doing anything that is actually wrong. This would be very selective reasoning if there were no prior cause to assume she was interested in this kind of work. In relationships, much goes unsaid for the sake of efficiency. You don’t sit your partner down to explain why you think they shouldn’t become a drug mule because you assume they won’t have any interest in doing so. It’s up to them to bring new prospects forward as you aren’t a mind-reader.

Is it so wrong that you don’t want strangers to be getting off to your wife? I can see both sides here. It’s your wife’s body to do what she wants with, but you also get to choose what kind of partner you want to be with. In this economy, it might be worth getting used to your wife’s new line of work, if you can devise a set of guidelines that could make it more comfortable (or at least not excruciating) for you. But with work in porn can come negative effects like ostracization and strangers feeling a sense of ownership over the body they have consumed with their eyes and thoughts. It’s reasonable for you to have trepidation. It is unreasonable of your wife to get involved in this business without discussing it with you. You should at least determine what you will do if she refuses to give up her OnlyFans. Can you find a way to hang in there?

—Rich

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I recently underwent an IVF cycle after an infertility diagnosis. It was a horrible experience: The daily injections made me nauseous and extremely swollen, I had to wake up at 6 a.m. to do transvaginal sonograms and blood tests every morning before going to work for two weeks, and the surgery left me in so much pain that I still have difficulty sitting and standing. I have sacrificed so much, and, because of the medicine and surgery, I also cannot have sex for over a month. My problem is that, for the last five days, ever since I came home from surgery, my husband has watched porn for 2-to-3 hours at a time every night. I am so hurt and so angry about this. It feels like he’s rubbing this in my face, and it makes me feel so sad and worthless. What should I do?

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