Rappler’s Life and Style section runs an advice column by couple Jeremy Baer and clinical psychologist Dr. Margarita Holmes.

Jeremy has a master’s degree in law from Oxford University. A banker of 37 years who worked in three continents, he has been training with Dr. Holmes for the last 10 years as co-lecturer and, occasionally, as co-therapist, especially with clients whose financial concerns intrude into their daily lives

Together, they have written two books: Love Triangles: Understanding the Macho-Mistress Mentality and Imported Love: Filipino-Foreign Liaisons.

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Dear Dr. Holmes and Mr. Baer,

My husband is into “golden rain.” He did not tell me this when we were engaged, and I only found out during our honeymoon five years ago. At first, I was horrified and wanted to leave him. He cried and begged me to stay. He said he only tried it because he read about it, and now that he had, he would never ask me to be a part of it again.

But that is not what happened. After that first time, it would happen once a month, then twice a month. Now it happens every time we have sex. I hate it. I want to leave him, but I love him. Every time I bring up
the topic of leaving, he cries.

Please tell me what to do.

Respectfully,

Aida
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Dear Aida,

Thank you for your message.

Golden rain, more commonly known as golden showers or watersports and more formally as urolagnia or urophilia, is a well known sexual disorder or kink. It is important to recognize that kinks are merely less common sexual practices and thus not necessarily pathological at all, except if they impair the daily lives of those involved.

There is nothing wrong therefore with golden showers if both parties consent; a problem arises only if one does not consent.

Your situation, Aida, is problematic because you object to this practice. Your husband (let’s call him Tom) not only hid his predilection from you before marriage but despite promising to stop he has actually simply overridden your objections to his behavior to the point that it has become part of his, and therefore your, sexual routine against your will.

You quite reasonably voiced your concerns when first faced with this issue. You threatened to leave him whereupon Tom cried and begged you to stay. You did and despite his complete and utter failure to honor his promise, to the extent of transforming a one off experiment into an integral part of your sexual lives, you have still stayed because “I love him.”

You have effectively enabled his behavior by objecting but not acting and he has taken advantage of this by totally ignoring your objections, confident that you will not carry out your threat to leave.

What options do you have, short of actually packing your bags? Well, you do not specify what is actually involved in Tom’s kink. Does he urinate in front of you, or on you, or in your mouth? Depending on the answer, there may be room for you to negotiate a less objectionable form of his kink that perhaps you can live with. Alternatively, perhaps you can persuade him to forgo his kink sometimes and build that up until he stops altogether.

Based on your history with Tom, it seems improbable that you will be able to change his behavior without leaving him. Of course leaving does not have to be irrevocable, but just enough to show him that there are limits to your tolerance of his failure to honor and respect your distaste for golden showers.

Ultimately you need to weigh your love for Tom against your dislike for his kink.

All the best,

JAF Baer

Dear Aida:

Thank you very much for your letter.

Mr. Baer, thank you very much also, for explaining the effects of Tom’s urolagnia, from how this affects Aida’s sexual enjoyment to how it could affect her trust and comfort in their relationship. Because you’re right: urolagnia/piss play/kinky wee is not terrible in and of itself. In fact, it can even be fun and, for others, very sexy.

However, in your case, Aida, urolagnia is neither fun or sexy. That is perfectly understandable. In fact, the very circumstances Tom introduced you to it – and on your honeymoon, no less! – would be enough to make many women hate the practice.

But there is another possible reason you cannot enjoy urolagnia. It is that you cannot ignore how each act of (supposed) love, is actually a lie that Tom has told and keeps on telling.

Women who love their husbands, like you do, can usually get into what their husbands like after their initial shock. BUT that happens only if their husbands keep their promises. Tom did the exact opposite.

He promised you that he would never ask me to be a part of it again, and yet he has. There used to be times Tom made love the way you preferred, likely giving you a sense of safety and of feeling, “at last! This is the man I married. Not the stranger who shocked me on my honeymoon.” But these times became fewer and fewer, and now they no longer happen at all.

Some therapists might suggest you try and accommodate Tom’s fetish. After all, marriage is not only about sex. And sex doesn’t usually happen each of the 24 hours in a day, or even every day (or week, or month).

I strongly disagree. It is not just about sex; I would even go further and say it is not even only about your relationship. It is about how vulnerable you can allow yourself to be in your marriage; it is also about how much trust, joy, and carefree-ness you want between you and the person you had hoped would be one of the most important in your life.

Dearest Aida, if I felt you could be happy if I shared some suggestions to make you believe in your marriage more, I would. Definitely there are some ways a marriage can be happy even if there is a fetish one spouse has that the other doesn’t enjoy.

However, I will wait for you to write again if that is what you want. But please don’t write to us unless you feel that is what you need most, ok? And you need it not just for your sex lives, but for your entire marriage. Because you feel Tom loves you as much as you do him. He can show this by stepping up to the plate. He can show this by doing more than cry the next time you say you want to leave.

I hope we hear from you again, dearest Aida, because that means your marriage is worth fighting for, because Tom, at last, is willing to put his money (and his tears) where his mouth is.

All the best,

MG Holmes

– Rappler.com

Please send any comments, questions, or requests for advice to twopronged@rappler.com.