My Husband Thinks About Other Women During Sex

What’s your favorite sexual fantasy? A threesome? Rough sex? A romp with your coworker?

This week, a reader wonders whether her husband fantasizing about other women while shaking the sheets with her is normal.

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We asked sexuality experts about how to handle your partner’s disclosure that he has fantasies — and ways you might use them to amp up your sex play.

Is it normal for my husband to want to fantasize about other women while we are having sex?

Fantasizing about others during sex is common, especially in long-term relationships, according to certified sex therapist Nan Wise.

In the Mood

For AARP’s In the Mood column, writer Ellen Uzelac will ask experts your most pressing 50+ sex and relationship questions. Uzelac is the former West Coast bureau chief for The Baltimore Sun. She writes frequently on sex, relationships, travel and lifestyle issues.

Do you have a question? Email us at sexafter50@aarp.org

For many folks, a sexual fantasy is often needed to get to a certain level of arousal and, even, climax, says certified sex therapist Sari Cooper, cofounder of the Erotic Intimacy Academy and founder of Center for Love and Sex in New York City. And frequently, she notes, a partner’s fantasy predates the relationship — like the first Playboy centerfold they saw when they were 11 years old or that iconic poster of Farrah Fawcett in a red swimsuit. 

Use it as an opportunity to communicate both of your fantasies. First consider that it took a certain amount of vulnerability and trust on your husband’s part to talk about his fantasy with you, says Allison Kent, a licensed clinical social worker who focuses on relationships and sex.

This might be a good moment to be vulnerable, too, and share your fantasies, says Wise. “When you’re truly able to talk about sex and share your fantasies, it opens up a whole other level of sexual potential.”

It can be liberating for both of you, she adds. “There’s freedom you feel in being your fully expressed sexual self,” says Wise, author of Why Good Sex Matters.

Cooper says sharing fantasies can also amp up your erotic and sexual energy. And, she adds, it may surprise couples — even those who have been together for many years — that the fantasies they’ve kept private are, in fact, the same ones their partner indulges in.