Is My Husband Wearing Panties a Dealbreaker?

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A reader wrote me while she was folding laundry: “He just told me he likes wearing panties. Is this the end of us?” I told her what I’ll tell you—not unless you decide it is. If you’re standing where she was, take a breath; a surprise isn’t a verdict, and you’re allowed to take your time before you answer.

The Question Under the Question

“Is it a dealbreaker?” usually hides smaller, scarier questions: Is he hiding something? Does this mean he doesn’t find me attractive? Who is the man I thought I knew? For many men, wearing panties is about comfort and feeling softer—not about you, and not a verdict on his love for you. Insight: a dealbreaker is something you can’t live with after you understand it, not something that startles you before you do.

Give yourself the chance to understand it first.

Five Questions Before You Decide

Whatever you end up deciding, these help you decide from steadiness rather than shock.

1. Ask What It Means to Him

“What do you feel when you wear them?” Curiosity gets you real answers, and it keeps you the one steering the conversation. If you want the bigger picture first, here’s why husbands often feel drawn to this.

2. Separate the Secret from the Thing

“I mind that it was hidden more than I mind the panties.” Those are two different conversations, and naming that can lower the temperature fast—this one walks through how to raise it kindly.

3. Name Your Own Line

“Here’s what I’m comfortable with, and here’s what I’m not.” Write it down for yourself first; knowing your line is what lets you stay calm instead of reactive.

4. Try a Small, Reversible Trial

“Let’s try one quiet weekend—no promises, and we both get a veto.” A small step lets you learn how it actually feels, rather than how you fear it will.

5. Let “No” Be a Real Answer

“This isn’t something I want in our marriage, and I still love you—let’s talk about what happens next.” You can say that with kindness and still mean it; a “no” you chose is far better for both of you than a “yes” you swallowed.

Your Answer Is Allowed to Be Yours

For me, a small playful shift turned into something that brought us closer—but I’d never tell you that has to be your ending. If you do decide you’re curious, here’s how to ask him to try them without embarrassing him. You can take this at your own pace—start with one honest question. What would help you feel steadier right now? Share below. For a head start, grab my free Top 10 Trust-Building Tips for Couples—it’s yours the moment you subscribe.

Male Chastity Rules for Marriage: What Couples Actually Agree On

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Our first chastity “rules” fit on the back of a grocery receipt. One Sunday over coffee I slid it across the table and said, “Three things—read them, and tell me which one you’d change.” He changed one, I changed another, and the key went back on my nightstand that night. If you’re wondering what rules are actually normal in a chastity marriage—or whether you need any at all—this is your chance to write ones that fit your life and keep you steady in the lead.

The Rule That Surprised Us Both

The rule that mattered most had nothing to do with the lock. It was one short sentence: “Either of us can pause—no explanation.” I assumed it would be his safety valve; it turned out I used it too, on a week when I was exhausted and didn’t trust myself to lead well. Insight: the best rules protect the two of you first and the routine second—and that’s exactly what makes your lead feel calm instead of strained.

Start there before anything else.

Write Your Five Starter Rules

Whether you end up with three rules or thirty—or decide this isn’t for your marriage after all—the same few questions are worth talking through. If you’re brand new, my complete guide to male chastity in marriage covers the basics first.

1. Decide Who Holds the Key

“The key stays with me, and we talk together before anything changes.” Saying it out loud makes your role clear—and it’s always by agreement, never by surprise.

2. Agree How Unlocking Works

“Unlocking happens when we both feel it’s right—not on a timer, and not because it’s requested.” You’re the one who sets the rhythm, and he knows he can count on it.

3. Name a Pause Word

“If you say ‘pause,’ we stop and talk—no questions, no sulking.” It gives him permission to be honest, which is what lets you lead without second-guessing.

4. Put Comfort and Health First

“If anything hurts, feels numb, or looks irritated, it comes off and you tell me right away.” That isn’t breaking a rule—it is the rule, and it shows him his well-being matters more than any streak.

5. Hold a Weekly Check-In

“Sunday coffee: what felt good, what felt like too much, what should we change?” Rules that never get revisited quietly turn into resentment, and a five-minute chat keeps yours alive. When life gets busy, here’s how I stay consistent.

Rules That Free You Up

Once ours were written down, I stopped renegotiating every evening—and that calm is the biggest payoff I’ve felt. You can do this too—start with one rule this week, and let the rest grow from there; the same approach works for bedroom rules in general. Which rule would you write first? Share below. For a head start, grab my free Top 10 Trust-Building Tips for Couples—it’s yours the moment you subscribe.

The Weekend My Sister Stayed

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My sister came for four days in March, which is the longest anyone has stayed in our house since we started doing any of this, and I learned something I hadn’t expected about how much of it is invisible.

I had been quietly dreading it for a fortnight.

What I Was Actually Worried About

Not discovery, when I examined it properly. Nothing about our arrangement is visible to a guest — there is no equipment on display, no odd routine, nothing to find unless you go through drawers.

What I was worried about was that I’d have to stop being the person I am with him, for four days, in front of someone who has known me since I was six.

That turned out to be the real thing, and it wasn’t about secrecy. It was about whether the version of me who decides things is a performance I put on in private, or just me now.

Insight: I’d assumed I’d need to switch it off in company, and discovered there wasn’t a switch. The confidence had stopped being a bedroom thing some time earlier without my noticing.

What She Actually Saw

She commented on it, on the second evening, while we were washing up.

Not on anything private — she said Michael seemed “attentive,” and that we seemed “sorted.” And then, after a pause, that I seemed more definite than I used to be. She meant it kindly, and she meant it about how I ordered in a restaurant and how I handled a call about our eldest, not about anything else at all.

I thought about that for a long time afterwards. The thing I’d been anxious about hiding was, from the outside, just me being more decisive. There was nothing to conceal, because the visible part isn’t the arrangement — it’s what the arrangement has done to how I carry myself.

The Practical Bit

For completeness, because I know it’s the part people want: we changed almost nothing. Anything that needed putting away went into one boring drawer before she arrived. We had our conversations in the car. We paused nothing, and nobody noticed anything.

The one thing I’d do differently is that I spent the fortnight beforehand rehearsing explanations I never needed. That was pure waste, and it made me tense for a week for no reason.

What I Took From It

If you’re dreading a long stay — a parent, a sibling, adult children home for a fortnight — I’d gently suggest examining what you’re actually dreading. Mine wasn’t exposure. It was the possibility that I’d been playing a character and would have to drop it.

I hadn’t been. That was worth four uncomfortable days to find out.

What did you learn from a long visit? Share below. For a head start, grab my free Top 10 Trust-Building Tips for Couples—it’s yours the moment you subscribe.

What if I’m not in the mood to lead?

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Then don’t. Leading isn’t a mood you have to manufacture, and pretending is worse than pausing — he can always tell.

Every letter reaches me personally, usually over tea before anyone else is up—thank you for sending yours. If there’s something you’d like to ask, the Contact page is open, and your privacy is a given.

What if I’m not in the mood to lead?

This is the letter I most wish someone had written for me three years ago, because I spent an embarrassing amount of time treating my own flat weeks as a problem with me.

Everything I read assumed a woman who wanted to be in charge and needed permission or technique. Nothing addressed the far more ordinary situation: liking the arrangement in general, and on a given Tuesday having no appetite for deciding anything at all. My libido is medicated and unreliable at the best of times, so “not in the mood” is a regular visitor in this house rather than an occasional one.

What I got wrong was treating it as something to push through. Insight: Leading is a role, not a mood — which means it can be set down for a week without being resigned from. The couples who struggle are the ones who conflate “I don’t feel like it tonight” with “maybe this isn’t me.”

Here’s what I’d tell my earlier self.

1. Say It Out Loud

“I’m not up to deciding anything this week.” Plain, unapologetic, no diagnosis attached. He will cope with this far better than with a week of you being subtly absent.

2. Separate Tired From Finished

Ask yourself honestly: is this a flat week, or have I stopped wanting this? Both are legitimate. They need completely different responses, and only one of them needs a real conversation.

3. Let the Structure Carry It

This is what the rules are for. If you agreed something on Sunday, it doesn’t need renewing on Wednesday. Past-you already decided — present-you can coast on it.

4. Shrink It, Don’t Stop It

One sentence at breakfast is still leading. “Same as last week” takes no energy at all and keeps the thread intact through a flat fortnight.

5. Don’t Perform Enthusiasm

He can tell. Manufactured interest reads as duty, and duty is precisely what neither of you wants this to become. Honest flatness is better than convincing pretence.

Mine come and go, and the arrangement has survived all of them — mostly because I eventually stopped treating each one as evidence about who I really am. If yours has gone quiet for longer than a flat week, that may be a different thing worth looking at. How do you handle the flat weeks? Share below. For a head start, grab my free Top 10 Trust-Building Tips for Couples—it’s yours the moment you subscribe.

When We Were Both Ill

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We both got the same thing in February and were properly flattened for the better part of a week — the kind of illness where you negotiate about who has the energy to make toast.

And I discovered that I had absolutely no idea what our arrangement was supposed to do when neither of us could function.

The Thing Nobody Plans For

We’d agreed rules for all sorts of situations. Travel. Busy weeks. What happens if something feels wrong. Not one of them covered “both of you are ill and neither can be bothered to have a conversation about it.”

So it just drifted for four days, which was fine, except that on day three he asked — through a blocked nose and clearly feeling dreadful — whether he should still be waiting for me on something.

Insight: When you’re the one who decides, your silence still functions as an instruction. He wasn’t asking me to make a decision. He was asking whether an old one still stood, because it had never been cancelled.

That’s the bit worth planning for: not the illness, but the fact that nothing switches itself off.

What We Do Now

We have a sentence. It is not romantic and it does not need to be: “We’re off until I say.”

It covers illness, it covers a death in the family, it covers a week where everything has gone wrong at once. It takes two seconds, it removes every open question, and it means neither of us is quietly wondering while feeling awful.

The important half is “until I say” rather than “for now” — it makes clear that starting again is my job, not something he has to raise when he’s well enough to feel awkward about raising it.

On Devices Specifically

One practical note, because it matters more than the emotional side here.

If he’s wearing something and gets genuinely unwell — fever, dehydration, anything involving swelling, or medication that changes things — take it off. Not as a kindness. As basic sense. Bodies behave differently when they’re fighting something, and a fit that was comfortable last week may not be this week.

We took his off on the first evening without discussing it, which was the one thing I got right that week. If something looks or feels wrong afterwards and doesn’t settle, see a doctor — they will have seen considerably stranger things than this.

The Small Good Part

What I remember from that week isn’t the illness. It’s him, on the third evening, bringing me a glass of water and a paracetamol and going straight back to bed without a word.

We’d spent years building something elaborate about attention, and the week it all switched off he was more attentive than ever. I don’t think that’s an argument against the arrangement. I think the arrangement had been practising him at noticing, and the noticing didn’t need the arrangement to keep working.

What’s your version of the off switch? Share below. For a head start, grab my free Top 10 Trust-Building Tips for Couples—it’s yours the moment you subscribe.

He asked for a break. Should I worry?

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Almost certainly not. Asking for a pause is usually a sign he trusts you enough to say something — the worrying version is the man who stops wanting it and doesn’t mention it.

I read every letter myself, usually over tea before the house wakes up—thank you for trusting me with this one. If something’s sitting heavy with you, the Contact page is always open.

He asked for a break. Should I worry?

I remember the cold drop when Michael asked. He was careful about it — clearly rehearsed, much like the first conversation years earlier — and my immediate reading was that he’d gone off the whole thing and was letting me down gently.

He hadn’t. He was exhausted, six weeks into a horrible project at work, and he wanted one thing in his life that required nothing of him. That was all it was. Insight: A request to pause is usually about capacity, not desire — and the fact that he asked rather than quietly disengaging is the reassuring part, not the worrying one. Men who’ve genuinely lost interest tend to go vague, not direct.

Here’s how I’d handle it.

1. Say Yes First, Ask Second

“Of course.” Before anything else. Whatever you go on to discuss, he needs to know the answer wasn’t conditional on his explanation being good enough.

2. Then Find Out Which Kind It Is

“Is it this, or is it everything at the moment?” Tired is different from finished, and they need completely different responses from you.

3. Put an End on It

“Let’s leave it until the project’s done and talk then.” An open-ended pause drifts into a quiet ending. A dated one is a pause.

4. Don’t Withdraw Everything Else

This is the one I got wrong. I stepped back from all of it — the small deliberate things too — and he read that as sulking. Pause the practice, keep the attention.

5. Resist Reading It As a Verdict

Your instinct will be to hear “I don’t want this any more,” and possibly “I don’t want you.” That’s almost never what was said. Ask him directly if you need to hear it, but don’t supply the answer yourself.

Ours lasted five weeks and came back better — shorter, less often, more deliberate. If the enthusiasm has drifted the other way and you’re the keener one, that’s a different conversation, and worth having early. What did yours turn out to be about? Share below. For a head start, grab my free Top 10 Trust-Building Tips for Couples—it’s yours the moment you subscribe.

The Night I Forgot

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I forgot. Completely, unglamorously forgot — four days past when I’d said, and it only surfaced because he asked, carefully, whether I’d changed my mind about something.

I hadn’t changed my mind. I’d had a fortnight of work deadlines and a boiler that needed replacing, and the whole thing had simply dropped out of my head. Which is not the sort of confession that appears in most writing about this, and I think that’s a problem.

What He Did With It

He waited four days.

That’s the part that stayed with me. Not that I forgot — that he sat with it for four days rather than mentioning it, because he’d decided that raising it would look like complaining. When he finally did, it came out as a question about whether something had changed, which is a very careful way of asking whether you still matter.

Insight: If the arrangement depends entirely on your attention, then your ordinary human lapses land on him as meaning. A distracted fortnight becomes, from where he’s standing, a possible verdict.

That’s worth knowing before it happens to you, because it will.

What I Should Have Built

My first instinct was guilt, which was useless to both of us. The more useful response, once I’d stopped apologising, was to notice that I’d built something with no tolerance for me being ordinary.

Everything ran on my remembering. There was no fallback, no agreed way for him to raise it, and — worse — an unspoken sense that him mentioning it would be a bit needy. I’d created that. Not deliberately, but I’d never said the opposite either, and silence does its own work.

We fixed it with two small things. He can ask, once, without it meaning anything: “Are we still on?” is now a completely neutral sentence in our house. And anything longer than a fortnight gets an actual date attached rather than living in my head.

Why This Is Worth Admitting

Almost everything written about this describes couples who are consistent. Devoted, attentive, never distracted by boilers.

I think that does real harm, because when you inevitably forget — and you will — the gap between the writing and your life reads as personal failure rather than as a Tuesday. It isn’t failure. It’s a fortnight where other things were louder.

The only genuine mistake I made was building something that couldn’t survive me being distracted, and then feeling terrible instead of fixing it.

If You’ve Forgotten Too

Say so plainly. “I completely forgot, and that’s not a message about you” is the whole repair, and it works better than an elaborate apology.

Then give him a sanctioned way to ask. The four days of silence did more damage than the forgetting, and the silence was the bit I could have prevented.

Have you had one of these? Share below — I suspect they’re far more common than the internet admits. For a head start, grab my free Top 10 Trust-Building Tips for Couples—it’s yours the moment you subscribe.

How do we manage this with kids at home?

/ Jennifer / Leave a comment

Ordinary discretion, not elaborate secrecy. If it requires a system to hide, the system will fail — and the effort is what children notice.

Every letter reaches me personally, usually with my morning tea before anyone else is up—thank you for sending yours. If something’s on your mind, the Contact page is always open, and what you send stays between us.

How do we manage this with kids at home?

We have children and we’ve done this for years, so I can tell you the honest version: it’s far less complicated than the worry about it. Almost everything I fretted over turned out to be invisible, and the one thing that nearly gave us away wasn’t any of the things I’d planned for.

It was the whispering. Not what we were saying — that we lowered our voices at all. Children have perfect radar for a conversation that stops when they walk in, and none at all for what the conversation was about. Insight: What gets noticed is the change in behaviour, not the thing itself. Act normally and the specifics never come up.

Here’s what actually matters.

1. Normal Volume, Normal Face

Don’t drop your voice or stop mid-sentence when someone comes in. Change the subject smoothly if you must — “anyway, did you sort the thing with the car?” — but don’t perform a secret.

2. One Place, Not Several

Anything that needs putting away has one home, and it’s somewhere boring. Scattered hiding is how things get found; a single dull drawer is how they don’t.

3. Move the Conversations

Ours happen in the car and on walks. Not because the house isn’t safe, but because a conversation that can’t be interrupted is a better conversation anyway.

4. Don’t Schedule Around Their Bedtime

Anything that depends on children being reliably asleep will fail at the worst moment. If it needs an empty house, use an empty house — a Saturday morning, a sleepover, a weekend away.

5. Decide What You’d Say

Agree one calm sentence in advance for the unlikely event. “That’s something between me and your dad” is complete, unembarrassed, and closes the subject. The point isn’t that you’ll need it. It’s that having it stops the low-level anxiety that makes people behave oddly.

Ours are older now and I’m fairly sure they’ve never had the faintest idea, which I put down to us being relaxed rather than careful. If the practical scheduling is the harder part in your house, planning around a busy life is its own skill. How do you handle it? Share below. For a head start, grab my free Top 10 Trust-Building Tips for Couples—it’s yours the moment you subscribe.

The Anniversary We Almost Got Wrong

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Our anniversary landed three weeks into the longest stretch we’d done, and I spent a fortnight quietly assuming that was a problem to be solved rather than something to talk about.

I had a whole plan. Unlock him the night before, restaurant, everything back to normal for the weekend, resume afterwards. Sensible. Considerate. I was rather pleased with myself.

What He Actually Said

I told him about a week out, expecting relief. What I got was a pause, and then: “Can I say something? I’d rather we didn’t.”

He explained it badly and I understood it slowly. The stretch was the thing he was proud of. Interrupting it for the occasion made the occasion feel like a reason to stop rather than something we were doing together. He wasn’t being stoic — he genuinely wanted the evening to happen inside what we were already doing, not instead of it.

Insight: I’d treated our arrangement as the obstacle and the anniversary as the real event, and he didn’t see it that way at all. Worth checking which of you thinks the practice is the interruption.

Ask before you plan around it. “What would you actually want?” took ten seconds and saved the evening.

What We Did Instead

We went to the restaurant. Nothing was unlocked. He was, by some distance, the most attentive dinner companion I’ve had in twenty years — and I spent the evening aware that he was aware, which turned out to be the whole point.

At one stage he said something about not being able to stop thinking about the drive home, and I remember thinking: this is better than the version I planned. My version had a nice dinner in it. His had an entire evening of something running underneath the dinner.

We marked it properly the following weekend, on a Sunday afternoon with no occasion attached to it at all, which was also better.

The Bit I Got Wrong

My instinct was to protect the anniversary from the arrangement. His was to let the arrangement make the anniversary better. Neither of us was wrong exactly, but I’d decided on his behalf and nearly executed it without asking.

That’s the failure mode worth naming. When you’re the one holding the key, you get used to making the calls — and “being considerate” can quietly become “deciding what he wants without checking.” Those look identical from the inside.

If Yours Is Coming Up

Ask him what he wants rather than arranging a kindness. He may want it paused. He may want it emphatically not paused. Either answer is more useful than your best guess, and the asking is a small thing that lands as a large one.

And whatever you decide — don’t stack it onto the day itself if the day is already busy. The Sunday afternoon was better than the anniversary. It usually is.

What did yours turn into? Share below. For a head start, grab my free Top 10 Trust-Building Tips for Couples—it’s yours the moment you subscribe.

What do I do when he travels for work?

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Decide before he goes, not from a hotel car park at eleven at night. Distance doesn’t break this — improvising does.

I read every letter myself, usually over tea before the house is up—thank you for sending this one. If you’d like to ask something, the Contact page is open, and your privacy is a given.

What do I do when he travels for work?

Michael had a stretch last year of three or four nights away most weeks, and we handled it badly for the first month. Not dramatically — we just stopped. Whatever we’d been doing paused when he left and restarted when he got back, and both ends of that felt awkward. The restart was worse than the pause.

What fixed it wasn’t a clever system. It was deciding in advance, on the Sunday, what the week looked like — so neither of us was making a judgement call at a distance while tired. Insight: The difficulty with travel isn’t the distance, it’s that decisions get made badly when you’re apart and out of rhythm. Move the deciding to before he leaves and most of the problem goes.

Here’s what works for us now.

1. Settle It Before He Packs

“So — what are we doing this week?” Five minutes on the Sunday. Decide whether it continues, pauses, or changes shape, and then don’t revisit it on Wednesday.

2. Give the Week a Shape

If it continues, say what that means: “Until Friday, then we’ll see.” An open-ended arrangement across a trip turns into a question he’ll keep asking, which is worse for both of you.

3. Keep One Small Contact Point

Not a performance — a line. “Thinking about Friday.” It maintains the thread without either of you having to be clever over text at the end of a long day.

4. Let Him Ask Once

Agree he can raise it once if something changes — a bad night, a change of plan. “If you need to, say so, and I won’t mind.” One sanctioned ask prevents a week of him wondering whether to.

5. Plan the Homecoming, Not the Airport

The mistake we made was treating his arrival as the moment. He’d been travelling nine hours and I’d had the kids all week. “Tomorrow, properly” is a much better sentence than an exhausted evening neither of you enjoys.

That travel stretch ended up being good for us in the end, mostly because it forced us to be deliberate about something we’d been doing on instinct. If your weeks apart have gone quiet in the same way, restarting is its own small skill. How do you handle the away weeks? Share below. For a head start, grab my free Top 10 Trust-Building Tips for Couples—it’s yours the moment you subscribe.