A man’s detailed account of his wife’s refusal to grant him the “pleasure of marital relations” went viral, thanks to his annoyed spouse’s plaintive plea to the denizens of Reddit.
I wrote about the “Conjugal Sexcel Spreadsheet” at Washington Free Beacon, and I have been astounded at the private messages I’ve received from men about this story.
First, some of the details:
A Reddit user named throwwwwaway29 over-shared the spreadsheet with the universe on Friday and it was quickly picked up by various websites over the weekend.
*Here’s how she presented it under the headline “My husband [M26] sent a rude, argumentative email as I [F26] was on the way to the airport for a 10-day work trip. Now he has cut contact.” in the “Relationships” section of Reddit:
Yesterday morning, while in a taxi on the way to the airport, Husband sends a message to my work email which is connected to my phone. He’s never done this, we always communicate in person or by text. I open it up, and it’s a sarcastic diatribe basically saying he won’t miss me for the 10 days I’m gone.
Attached is a SPREADSHEET of all the times he has tried to initiate sex since June 1st, with a column for my “excuses”, using verbatim quotes of why I didn’t feel like having sex at that very moment. According to his ‘document’, we’ve only had sex 3 times in the last 7 weeks, out of 27 “attempts” on his part.
Here is the accompanying spreadsheet he put together:
I opined in my post that as disturbing the single-minded, OCD nature of the spreadsheet was, the woman seems to be escaping any criticism for sharing this personal issue on Reddit for literally the entire world to see.
But, what astounded me most is the response from many of my male friends. Apparently, this has touched a very raw nerve:
- “Your new article is hitting very close to home! I have a spread sheet!”
- “One of my favorites is “I just washed my face & put stuff on.” (Face cream) with women in their late 40’s/early 50’s get the hot flashes which, oddly, gives them cold hands as they go through menopause. It’s brutal.”
- “No sex while kids in the house is one of my friends big problems. He has 3 girls oldest is 12.”
- “Whatever happened to hot sex in the bathroom stall when you are married? Now if there aren’t at least 800 thread count sheets it’s a turn off.”
- “This guy with the spreadsheet is genius!!!”
- “He’s getting more in the past 3 months than I got all of last year!”
- “Tell him I’d really appreciate an Ap for my iPhone – that would make keeping track of this a whole lot easier… with a pull down menu for frequently used excuses…..Opening up the laptop in bed to update the spreadsheet is just bad form…”
This all reminds me of my favorite scene from one of my favorite movies about modern relationships, Annie Hall:
So what do you think? Is this spreadsheet thing really the best way to go to solve a problem that is, apparently, all too common in today’s American bedroom?
Or do you think that maybe, just maybe, these two need to go out on a date, put the laptops away and have an adult conversation?