Doctor's Advice: My husband got her pregnant

Q I am female in my 30s, and have been married for 14 years. Unfortunately, my husband recently had an affair and got a friend of his pregnant.

He told me about it, and I decided to stay with him. I told him that I would try to make the marriage work, but that he must stop having a close relationship with this other woman.

However, he has to take care of his child. This makes him involved in the mother's life. So every day, he wants to know how she is doing, whether she has reached work OK, whether she has returned home safely, and many other things pertaining to her daily life.

I don't know how to deal with all this. We have talked about it, but he just said he is doing his best in a difficult situation. Please advise.

A I am very sorry to hear about this. Unfortunately, it is the sort of thing that frequently happens when men stray from their marriage. It most cases it has not occurred to them that a simple act of adultery may cause an outside child!

This is understandably a very difficult situation for you. And I must accept that it is quite difficult for your husband as well. He now finds himself with two women who both need help, and a young child as well.

But I do not think that the way he is approaching this problem is right. When you said that you would stay with him and try to make the marriage work, he really should have given up all contact with this other woman - except to send her enough money for the support of the child.

Instead, it sounds like he is contacting her several times every day, presumably by phone or text. And he seems to be constantly enquiring how she is - which is a very different thing from taking an interest in the welfare of his child!

This is not very thoughtful or sensible behaviour on his part because it is very unfair to you.

Nevertheless, I feel that you should make one more effort to save the marriage by offering that you both see a marital counsellor. Half a dozen sessions with a good counsellor or therapist might help the two of you to avoid a complete break-up.

I expect that the counsellor will say that he must stop seeing this other woman, and stop contacting her several times a day. If he is not willing to do this, then I feel you should seriously consider divorce, or at least separation. No wife should be expected to share her husband with someone else.

Q I am taking Viagra, but a friend has told me that it could make you deaf.

Is that true, Doctor?

A Recent research has shown that men who are taking Viagra do indeed seem to be more liable to developing sudden and severe deafness in one ear.

I must stress that this is a very rare occurrence. But any man who experiences sudden hearing loss after taking Viagra should stop taking it immediately and consult a doctor. The same is true of the other two erection-inducing drugs.

Q I am writing to you in response to an answer you gave in the Outlook Magazine to a woman who often suffered from cystitis after sex.

Many years ago, I used to have the same problem. It was debilitating, and would leave me in tears. After a while, I didn't want to have sex any more because I began to associate it with pain and not pleasure.

Then my mother, sent me a book called 'You Don't Have to Live With Cystitis', written by Dr Miriam Stoppard. Her book explained that during sex it is easy for germs to get pushed up into the female urethra by extensive foreplay, or by thrusting.

The doctor had come up with a solution, which was:

To drink a glass of water before having sex;

Urinate shortly after sex and ensure that you get out all of the urine;

Wash the area with soap and water soon after sex.

So I started practising what was suggested and since then I have not suffered from cystitis! So I hope you will share this information with your readers.

A Certainly! Thousands of women get cystitis - particularly after sex. The advice you have given in your email is excellent, and I hope that a lot of female readers will follow it. The main reason why it works is that it enables a woman to flush any germs out of her urinary tract after sexual intercourse.

Unfortunately, Dr Stoppard's book appears to be out of print, but there are other valuable volumes on cystitis by Angela Kilmartin. And sufferers can get a lot of useful information from her website, which is www.angelakilmartin.com.

QI am a 40 year-old man and I still have sex twice for the day, most days of the week. Will this harm my health at all, Doctor?

A No, it will not hurt you at all. This is an unusually high frequency of sexual activity for a man of 40. But it just indicates that you are highly sexed, and presumably also pretty fit.

Q My husband says that if I let his best friend sleep with us and let them both have sex with me, that it would give me enormous pleasure.

But is this really true, Doctor?

A Some men like to fantasise about threesomes. They tend to assume that the woman would obtain great pleasure by having intercourse with two men.

However in reality, that is not often the case. Women do not usually derive vast satisfaction from having one man after another. In fact, sometimes they get become very upset at being treated as a sort of sex object by two men.

In addition, all sorts of emotional problems can arise from 'sharing' a woman, and I do not advise you to agree to this practice.

Q Doctor, my boyfriend claims that if a woman gives a man oral sex, that is good for her teeth. Is this true?

A No. A few years ago in the United States, there was a brief flurry of interest in a theory that seminal fluid was good for dental hygiene. But this all turned out to be not be true, so ignore your boyfriend.

Q My mother, who has long passed menopause, has suddenly started buying tampons again. Is this ok, Doctor?

A No! It strongly suggests that she is experiencing post-menopausal bleeding.

This can be a symptom of a serious illness, including cancer of the womb. So get her to see a doctor right away for a full internal examination.

Send questions to editor@gleanerjm.com and read more Doctor's Advice in The Saturday Gleaner.

My husband got her pregnant ...