Permission Needed?

Do I need my wife’s permission to go to a strip club or get a massage? I told my wife, W, before we got married that I was very committed to her. But I was not sure I could commit to not going to strip clubs. She said, “No one said you have to. Just don’t let it get out of hand.” We don’t discuss it much. But it’s understood that I go to strip clubs and she is well aware that I get massages regularly. Although, I’ve never told her I get happy endings. At any rate for years, we have been happily married with the understanding that this area of my life is something she accepts but doesn’t want to hear about.

Enter the pandemic. We agreed at the beginning of this that going to strip clubs is off the table for now. And, I have to say while I love strip clubs, they are filthy and I don’t need anyone else to tell me not to go to strip clubs right now. The one time I had to go to the ER it was with an abscess and I know for a fact that the bacteria was from a strip club. The bar tender there had the same abscess. Maybe I don’t know it for a fact. But it seems highly likely.

But until recently, when the state has been open, I have had permission to get massages. And I have gone to some where the massage therapist gets naked and jerks me off at the end. But recently with cases going back up W has indicated that she does not want me getting massages. Do I need her permission?

I know one answer that many people would offer is, “yes”. Those people would say that if my wife doesn’t want me to do something I should not do it. Of course others would call me a pussy or say that I was pussy whipped. Some people would say, my wife doesn’t get to make decisions for me. I should make my own decisions. I want autonomy and freedom. But if I’m going to do something my wife doesn’t want me to do is it better to tell her and fight if need be? Or is it better to do it discretely and preserve the peace?

It isn’t possible for a husband and wife to always agree. Therefore, there must be either fighting, lying or resentment (my therapist introduced a fourth category of compromise). And divorce rates and anecdotal stories of unhappy marriage show that marriage is a fertile garden for all three (I’m not sure about the fourth). Perhaps it is all the manure that life sprinkles on us that makes it so easy for fights to sprout like weeds all throughout a marriage, resentment to rise like ivy around the relationship’s foundation and lies to dance around like timid rabbits that try to avoid predators but chomp away at all the vegetables.

A respectful conversation is supposed to be the gardener who keeps the ivy trimmed, the weeds in check and the rabbits at bay. But what if the gardener drops dead of a heart attack in the blistering sun and no agreement can be reached even if everyone listens carefully to the other? What if the compromise my therapist says I should search for is nowhere to be found? If I think I should be able to go to get massages, W does not think I should be able to get massages, we discuss it and we still disagree, can I go? Of course I am able. May I go? I do not have her permission. Should I go? Do I need my wife’s permission?

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