Confessions: I am broken after I overheard my wife tell her friends that my manhood is small

Dear Coleen,

I’m writing this letter with tears in my eyes. I’m about to celebrate 30 years of marriage and my wife and I have three grown-up kids and the two boys still live with us at home. Last week, my wife and I were at an event with some of her friends and ended up going back to one of their houses for another drink. When it was time to go home, we called a taxi and I waited by the door for it while she carried on talking to her friends in the kitchen.

One of them asked her if she could go back and do one thing in life that she’s missed over the past 30 years, what would it be?

My wife replied: “Another night with John.” I was totally shocked – John was her ex-boyfriend who she lost her virginity with. I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me and had to hold back the tears. None of them saw me standing by the door.

Then one of her friends asked why this was as she has such a good husband and my wife said: “But he lacks in the trouser department and John was a lot bigger and better in bed.” Then she went on to talk about the other four men she’d slept with who were all bigger than me.

I was devastated, not least because she’d always said she’d only slept with one other man before me. At that point, one of her friends saw me and insisted my wife hadn’t meant anything by what she’d said and that she was just drunk. My wife doesn’t know I heard any of this, although she knows something is wrong. I keep replaying it in my head and can’t sleep. How can I handle this? I’m thinking of walking away.

Coleen says

First of all, you have tell her what you overheard and explain how much it has hurt you, and that you don’t know how you can come back from it. I’m sure she’ll feel terrible because she probably was drunk and people do say things when they’re drunk that they’d never say sober.

But whatever she’s comparing you to, the fact is that your marriage has lasted 30 years. If these other guys were so wonderful, why did she choose you and stay with you for all this time? They are exes for a reason.

Whatever her reasons were for saying what she did, you can’t move forward unless you talk about it. She needs to know how hurt you are and you need to give her the chance to explain and apologise for hurting and embarrassing you.

This could obviously affect your confidence in bed and if you feel you can’t move on sexually, then it would be worth seeing a psychosexual counsellor. But I think you should work hard at not throwing away 30 good years for a drunken off-the-cuff remark.

Don’t let your ego and pride kick away everything you’ve built up.