I might be falling in love with my husband’s identical twin brother.
My husband and I have been in a traditional monogamous cishet straight marriage for twelve years. It wasn’t until the last few years that I started catching feelings for my brother-in-law, who is also married. I first started to notice my BIL in a way that surprised me when we went on a family vacation together. He’s just so empathetic, compassionate, and articulate. He also has the same body my husband does (obviously), although my BIL is little fitter. What is really hard to understand is that my feelings for my husband haven’t changed. Do I love them both? Is that possible? Our sex life isn’t suffering. I’ve never been someone who can have orgasms without a vibrator assist, and I’m fine with that. Sometimes though, I find myself thinking about my BIL and feel extremely turned on.
I feel extremely guilty about this because acting on it would mean betraying everyone I love. Sometimes it’s extremely overwhelming. I find myself watching my BIL and wondering if he feels the same way about me. I think he might — to a degree — but I know neither of us would want to jeopardize our marriages and I would never ask my BIL to jeopardize his relationship with his brother. I also love my sister-in-law very much. But I can’t help but wonder that in some weird parallel universe maybe I was meant to be with my BIL. I can’t tell anyone about this and I’m desperate to hear what you think. Could I have chosen the wrong twin? I am afraid the only way forward is to just keep quietly loving my BIL and never say anything
Crumbling Rapidly Under Stupid Heartache
It’s certainly possible to love more than one romantic partner at a time — please see the hundreds of columns I’ve written over the years about polyamory — but it’s not always possible for a particular individual to have more than one romantic partner at a time.
Like, say, a person in a traditional monogamous cishet straight marriage. Even if a person — say, a wife — in marriage like that could get permission to date and/or fuck other people, CRUSH, she probably wouldn’t get the okay to date and/or fuck her husband’s identical twin brother.
You know what else is possible? It’s possible for a cishet, married monogamously married person to have one of those run-of-the-mill, all-consuming, life-affirming, harmless crushes on someone they’re not married to. (It’s impossible to have a crush on someone you are married to.) When a married person has one of those run-of-the-mill, etc., crushes on someone who isn’t their spouse, CRUSH, it’s not a sign — it’s not a sign all by itself — that there’s something wrong with their marriage. Happily married people are attracted to other people, have crushes on other people, and  sometimes even fantasize about alternative timelines where they’re married to the person they’re crushing on — that friendly coworker, that hot barista, that unattainable movie star — instead of the person waiting for them at home.
But when the object of a crush is someone explosively inappropriate… so explosive that the disclosure or discovery of the crush would have a blast radius so wide nothing for miles could possibly survive… that crush can best be understood as a kind of death wish. In other words, CRUSH: sometimes a crush is just a crush and sometimes a crush is a manifestation of a subconscious desire to blow it all up.
What can be done about a death-wish crush? Nothing. All you can do — if you don’t wanna blow it all up — is wait it out, CRUSH, same as you would one of those harmless crushes. It might take a few weeks or months… or it might take the rest of your life… but crushes, death-wish or otherwise, don’t last forever.
P.S. I can see two silver linings in this death-wish crush of yours, CRUSH, given your particular and highly unique circumstances. First, if your husband ever finds out you have a crush on his brother — and here’s hoping he never does — it’s not like you have a crush on his physical opposite. Unlike a woman with brown hair and small breasts who realizes her husband is crushing on a blond with big tits, your husband won’t have to worry that he isn’t your type. And if like all married people you sometimes fantasize about other people when you’re having sex with your spouse, CRUSH, you won’t have to close your eyes to picture your crush instead of your husband. You won’t even have to squint.
P.P.S. No more family vacations.
Read the rest of this week's column here! And on this week's Lovecast: We open with a somewhat disturbing call from a woman whose white boyfriend visits “wack shacks” when he travels. He hires Asian sex workers to submit to race play and degradation. She approves of him indulging his various kinks outside of their relationship, but this?
Our guest is the fiery, foul-mouthed, anti-cheating avenger Tracy Schorn a.k.a Chump Lady. The hideous experience with her ex-husband set her on a crusade against deceit. She and Dan spar over cheating, and divorce. A rival neologist, she calls Dan’s word “tolyamory” “Orwellian dipshitery.” Dan has finally met his match, and the polite but spirited debate calls for a big ole bowl of popcorn. LISTEN HERE!
