My wife doesn’t stop me from doing anything I want. If I want to go out tonight and boink a high school tart to a weak-kneed state, I’m welcome. If getting slobbery drunk and streaking naked down the streets of Sheffield is to my liking, more power to me. Gambling away the house on high-stakes poker isn’t even out of the question.

In fact, my wife doesn’t stop me from doing anything at all.

That’s not to say that some actions might not come with some consequences.

I’m highly annoyed when I hear people talking about getting married and not being “allowed” to do anything; it’s like they are subjecting themselves to another parental figure who is there setting rules and boundaries and limits, and, “mommy said I’m not supposed to.” I think the ones that take this attitude with their marriage end up in a very bad place after awhile, because their entire premise for not doing something is because their spouse won’t let them and they feel trapped.

Instead, I’d highly recommend taking the attitude of entering into a contractual agreement with your spouse. When I married Yolanda, I essentially said to her, “I agree to enter into a mutual agreement with you, the conditions being that we agree to look after each other, do things that will be for the good of each other, and to not do things that will go beyond the comfort levels of each of us, so much as we both agree on things.”

I once heard this described as, “pissing within the litterbox”. Basically, each of us has an emotional litterbox. People, such as our spouses, can do things that annoy or hurt us within a certain limit — the edges of the box, or the “safe” area — and although it annoys us, it isn’t a big enough deal to raise a fuss about. But other things are outside this area and raise the ire of the person you’re taking a leak on. As a married couple, you have to know where the other person’s litterbox is.

This is different for every couple, I think, and if you’re stupid and think that some sort of “global waste dump” applies to everyone, you’re going to end up in a shitload of trouble. Maybe for you, a threesome with your wife’s sister wouldn’t be a deal-breaker, whereas your best friend’s wife would nail his nuts to a running chainsaw. You won’t know unless you talk to her and figure out where her lines stand on those sorts of things (and if it isn’t, lucky you, but I wouldn’t automatically assume it). So, communication is essential to knowing what things would really annoy your other half.

The other thing I fail to see couples do on a regular basis is evaluation. One should always say to themselves, “If I do this action, will it annoy or hurt them? If so, is it worth it? What will ultimately be the price that will be paid in the long run?” If you know anything at all, you know that hurts extend much longer than anything else in a relationship. So many times I see people acting on the impulse and not using their head to evaluate their action, firing from the hip and then trying to make up for it after. Guess what, people? It’s easier if you don’t fucking do it in the first place!

This is one of the reasons (among several) why I don’t go out and plow some random chick breathless, even if I thought I could get away with it. There are two main truths dealing with this scenario and ANY scenario where you’re stepping outside of the litter box of your mate:

First Truth: You will always be caught. Always. No exceptions. You will be caught outright, you will be caught subtlety, or you will be caught emotionally. You might get walked in on, you might have some secret communications found out, or you’ll get such a guilty conscience that it will taint you forever. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about doing something outside the comfort zone of your spouse, it’s that you never get away with it.

Second Truth: It’s not worth it. Imagine you go out and find this amazing person and you have mindblowing sex with them. I mean, crawling-up-the-walls-whimpering sex. Toes-permanently-curled and eyeballs-changing-color sex. The sort of sex that would make you gladly shave off your skin with a rusty cheese grater to get. I assure you, by the time you get found out, end up going through either a) the long, drawn-out emotional process of anger, betrayal, guilt, apology, compensation, therapy, retribution, etc and then years of trying to earn trust back, if ever, or b) through the process of having your ass dumped so hard it makes your balls crack and the impending breakup, divorce, splitting of property, legal hassles, emotional trauma, blah blah blah — that awesome sex was just negated a billion times over.

Folks, sex that would compensate for that sort of hassle would, frankly, kill you. That’s the sort of orgasm you’d only get once, because your chest would have to explode and shower little gibbets of flesh over a four-county area. It doesn’t happen, ever. You will always, always end up with a negative number on the balance sheet, and not just a little negative, A LOT negative.

This is why I don’t cheat or do other things outside of my wife’s sandbox. This is also why I make a sincere attempt to evaluate everything I do in respect to my wife. Granted, I don’t always judge her reaction appropriately and we end up discussing it, sometimes at length. I’m not perfect, and I’ll never claim to be. Some things are pretty straightforward; other things are more subjective and subtle, and I’m bound to miss a few on occasion. But if I know ahead of time that it isn’t going to be worth my time, I’ll just avoid it for the above reasons — I’m not going to end up ahead.

My wife doesn’t stop me from doing any of these actions; rather, I limit myself from doing them because I know it is in my best interest. I don’t know about you, but being an independent adult, I very much prefer limiting myself than being limited by someone else. Sure, I realize this might be hard for some of you, because it also means that when you screw up, you’re responsible for it, you twit. There’s a lot of people out there nowadays that have big responsibility issues and refuse to act like they’re in control of their own faculties, instead choosing to blame someone else in the wake of their idiocy. You are a Dumbass — Deal with It.

In the end, my wife and I have a great system that works wonders for the both of us. I feel like I’m in control, she feels like she is control, we don’t have trust issues, we keep our communication going so we know where each of us stands at any one point (and if that position has changed), and we both end up with a mutually-beneficial relationship that we enjoy so much we’d rather not be without the other.

As with all advice and suggestions, caveat emptor, but good luck nonetheless.