#2 “I’ll never say never”
Does he have a fantasy that you could never imagine yourself doing?
Despite how against it you might feel, you may want to be careful with the language you use, steering clear of the word "never".
When a man offers up some sort of sexual fantasy (from a dress up to anal to involving someone else), the use of the word "never" puts him in a quandary.
By telling him never, you are essentially saying to him "You will have to be with another woman if you ever want to experience that".
Is that something you want to be emphatically communicating?
I know what you're thinking. "But Mark, I would never have a threesome. Why is it wrong to say so?".
What's important to understand is, men often bring up fantasies not because they actually want to do them, but because they are testing to see whether if they did they couldn't with you. They are testing to see how trapped they are if they are literally choosing to never experience those fantasies by staying with you.
It's male instinct to want to break out of traps, so why verbally put him in one every time he brings up a fantasy?
When you give an answer with softer language, "I wouldn't totally rule it out, but we'd have to have a lot of talking and it would be quite a way off in the future", he doesn't feel like he's choosing to lose out on that fantasy forever by staying with you. It's virtually a no, but without all the trappings that come with saying "no" outright.
The amusing part is, he usually then forgets about the whole idea.
If he's really serious, he'll persist, and you can cross that bridge as a couple if you come to it. Counseling and good communication can happen if he's really passionate about making a fantasy you're uncomfortable with a reality.
For the most part though, men don't actually want to live out these fantasies for real. They just like feeling safe in the fact that maybe, one day, you would be the woman with whom they could.