Hi.

Basically, my wife and I have very different feelings on sex and intimacy. She really likes physical contact (hugging, cuddling, basically that) with people in general, and she feels like sex is basically a good thing, but doesn't attach any special feeling to it that makes monogamy important to her, and has fantasies involving other people (not specific other people, just involving other people in our sex life).

By contrast, there's me. Intellectually I agree with her, to an extent. I feel like the widespread use of birth-control and protective devices makes it perfectly okay for people to have all the sex they want that is only about sex, and by extension, that the major push behind monogamous relationships is getting outdated (not that they're bad, just that they may be needlessly restrictive). However, on an emotional level, I very much don't feel that way. I feel like it's stupid of me, but the thought of her doing anything more than hugging any of her friends makes me jealous and upset. Thinking about her sexual past upsets me more often than not (I don't spend much time thinking about it, but the subject came up recently). And, while I find fantasies of involving other people in our sex life appealing sometimes, the prospect of anyone else actually having sex with her now I find very, very upsetting. Like, I push down my upset at the idea of her having had sex with other people (because that's life, and there's no avoiding it after the fact), but if she had sex with someone else now, even if I'd okayed it, I don't think I'd be able to sleep in the same bed with her for quite a while.

I'm also a little disappointed that she doesn't feel like it's at all special. Because I really do.

She's known how I feel about these things (in her words, that I'm prudish about it) for a long time, since before we got married, and she's said that she's willing to default to my feelings on the issues because that's what's required to be in a relationship with me, and she says she doesn't really mind being monogamous, even if it's not her natural inclination. She's even defaulted to my feelings on non-sexual touching, even though that is fairly important to her, because it's more important to her not to cause me the upset that it does (and have to deal with me being upset). She does feel like she does most or all of the compromising in our relationship, but agrees that it seems necessary, because neither of us can find any real compromise that wouldn't be very upsetting to me.

The thing is, I agree that it's really unfair. I hate that she has to give up her positions on things, when I'm not giving up anything to meet her in the middle of make up for it at all. Additionally, I wonder how long she can really be happy with me while acting in a way that isn't really natural to her. But I experience really intense emotions in general, and I feel very strongly about these things, even though my feelings on them aren't in line with my intellectual thoughts on the subject. I really don't think I would be able to be with her if we adopted her feelings as the standard.

Note that I don't have much suspicion that she would cheat on me in order to have other people in her sex life. She holds the idea of being faithful to me as way too important for that. I just feel like it's wrong for me to need her to bend to my feelings when I can't bend to hers.

Sometimes, I wonder if the only real solution is to just make myself feel the way that she does. Break down the parts of me that disagree with those feelings, replace them with feelings I think are more acceptable. Only, 1. I've done something like that before, trying to directly mold my feelings, and...basically, that didn't end well. And, 2. I'm scared that, if I was successful, I would become a huge jerk, stop loving my wife, stop caring about my family, something like that.

So, what do you guys think?
(Sorry it came out so long).