Okay, here goes . . .I have been married for just under five years now and have realized that I might have made a mistake. I have known my husband since high school, where we were best friends. We lost touch for a while in college, and then became close again as nearing graduation. He has always been my closest friend and the one there for me when the 1073rd guy dumped me or slept around on me. I went through a particularly nasty break-up about five months before we got engaged. I think he was rebound man.

I would issue a lengthy disclaimer about never having been married myself and not wanting to judge what makes a happy union, blah blah blah fishcakes, but instead I’ll just advise you based on what I’d do in your situation, and hope you’ll find it helpful.

I suspect you’ve written to me to postpone the inevitable, but — as I imagine you already know — you’ve got to tell him the truth. I don’t know how you’ve gone on five years in this manner, frankly, but you have the right to a “complete” marriage with a partner you desire, and he has the right to know the truth. It will hurt him to hear it, and it will kill you to say it, but you’ve got to air it out, and you’ve absolutely got to do it before any children enter the picture.

The two of you may talk it over and decide to stay together. Maybe it’s a situation you can both live with; maybe you have a strong enough bond as best friends that you can make a go of it without the sex, or maybe you’ll decide to have the kids and forego the sex thereafter. People do. But I think you both deserve better, from each other and from the institution of marriage. You may have “settled for” your husband when you married him, but that doesn’t mean you have to keep doing it.

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