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I love my wife. In fact, you could say my wife is my best friend. I married her in ’98, but we’ve been together since ’94, and in all that time we have not had one major squabble or argument. Oh sure, we’ve had our moments, but nothing even close to those screaming verbal assaults you see in movies or on Jerry Springer, where fists are thrown, dishes end up smashed on the walls and someone (usually whomever happens to be shirtless at the time) ends up being escorted from the house in handcuffs. Nope, for all intents and purposes it’s been a pretty peaceful scene around our household.

Sure, she might give me the evil eye and that Marge Simpson grumble when I leave my boxers lying on the floor, mere inches from the laundry receptacle. Or when she comes home to find a sink still occupied by yesterday’s dishes and me with my feet up on the coffee table watching TV—but that’s beside the point. We hang out together all the time and that’s fine by us.

But I also suffer from a chronic disease, something that all healthy, red-blooded men suffer from. A disease so deeply entrenched in our cultural and biological psyches that to overcome its effects is all but impossible. The gnarled fingers of this sickness have grown like determined tree roots into the murky depths of our collective unconscious and are clasped tightly around our very souls, poisoning our minds, torturing our thoughts, tormenting our every waking moment. And there is no known cure. What is it, you ask? What is this horrible thing?

Quite simply it is the all-consuming desire to go out and have sex with other women. Lots of ‘em. Christ had his cross; I have my libido.

Now wait—before you go off and start spouting self-deluding romantic bullcrap like “You don’t really love your wife if you want to sleep with other women!” and so forth, hear me out.

There is a basic truth of the human condition that most of us won’t admit to or like to believe exists. If you are a man involved in a serious relationship with someone you truly love and respect, you will still frequently entertain the notion of having sex with someone who is not that person. Period. If you deny it, you are a liar.

For a long time I thought these desires made me a bad person and a crappy husband. I thought: How deep can my feelings really run when I’m thinking about a torrid tryst with the checkout girl or that babe who just walked by wearing the tanktop and spandex shorts, the one with a body so hot it pains me to even gaze upon it? How can I have any type of meaningful or lasting relationship with my wife when my penis wants to be anywhere but safely tucked away in my pants?

But fantasies come and go and there is a big difference between having one and actually acting it out. Once I realized that it was okay and normal to have these thoughts and that hey, my wife was having them too (and yes, so is yours), I didn’t feel so bad. In fact it feels good knowing that I can be as naughty as I want to be within the safe confines of my imagination.

Monogamy is not a natural state for human beings. It is a choice and it is a discipline. It is based on friendship, love and genuine respect for another person. We deny our natural urge to satisfy the lower, more primal instincts of our nature (which is simply to hump everyone and everything) out of respect and consideration for our loved one, which in turn strengthens and honors our sense of commitment to them. And men and women with character and a highly developed ethical sense don’t have a lot of trouble doing it.

Some would say that this kind of open communication would encourage adultery, but it actually has the opposite effect. Couples who can admit that beneath the surface we are all sexual beings, with all sorts of fantasies and fetishes that demand expression in thought or action, often have healthier sex lives than couples who live in denial. Women can forbid their men from going to stripclubs, bachelor parties, watching pornography or enjoying the sights of the local mall or beach in an attempt to isolate his desire for her and her alone, but this will never—in 100% of the cases—ever work.

Let me try to make it easier to understand. To men, sex is a release in much the same way as scratching relieves an itch. When we get hungry we want to eat, and if Jenny next door has steak on the grill we will drool and wish we were eating at Jenny’s. But we know that in reality we would be better off eating at home, where we know the food won’t make us feel ill or send us running for the bathroom (or the free clinic). If we always had a full belly, then we might not…well, actually that steak would still smell pretty damn good. Sorry, thought I was going somewhere with that one.

And men aren’t the only ones who walk around in a pornoscape of endless intimate encounters with strangers. Women are also wondering what a torrid afternoon with Brad, George, or Denzel would be like, or even how a sex sandwich with one of your Friday night drinking buddies might taste. It’s just that somehow men have been saddled with the shorter leash and the tighter muzzle when it comes to talking about it, especially when it comes to admitting it to our wives or loved ones.

So women, your man is having thoughts about other women all the time, and it does nothing to cheapen or otherwise demean your relationship. Don’t make him throw away his porno collection; watch it with him. Don’t pretend he isn’t looking at other women every time he gets the chance; he is, but that’s all it is—just looking. It doesn’t mean you aren’t beautiful and it doesn’t mean you aren’t sexy and it doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you. You just aren’t as beautiful or as sexy as that woman. Just kidding. It is nothing more than a natural response, like the way we collapse to our knees when kicked in the scrote.

Men, stop doing the head-spin when an attractive woman walks by. If you are with the woman you love and respect, then respect her. Treat her as the focus of your attention—even if in your mind you are ripping off that other woman’s panties with your teeth while pounding your chest like the lean, mean sex-machine you are.

Just make sure to call out the right name the next time things get heated up and you’ll be fine.