First time having them meet: Nervous/Happy

Openbiman

New member
So, after months of careful leading up to it and even some recent weeks of rough patches (really, mostly, rough-feeling patches on my part), my wife and my current most-serious outside partner ("The Boyfriend") are going to meet this coming week, if schedules hold up as planned. She and I will drive about midway to him and the three of us will have dinner together at a private, low-key restaurant he and I have been to before when we've met in that town.

I'm much more "nervous" about it than either of them are, though I suspect my wife might get more nervous the day of/as we're driving out there--that tends to be her pattern, like many people.

It's something she and I had said we'd want to do from the time we first opened up our marriage some few years ago: that if an outside partner became more than a fuckbuddy and became emotionally significant to me--and hence to us--we'd want to have them feel at least casually comfortable with each other, and meet every now and again. (Distance and schedules in this particular case will make that harder.) We've already done the exchange of names and basic emergency contact information some weeks ago for safety's sake and to build toward this in-person meeting.

I'm...excited? Amused? Nervous? Happy? I think they'll get along just fine; they actually have--no surprise--a lot in common that obviously attracts me to them both. Of course, they're both somewhat introverted at times, so I expect that I'll be babbling a bit, which will amuse my wife, particularly. He hasn't necessarily seen that side of me yet (the nervous-so-fill-up-the-space-with-talk side), but he knows it's there.

I'm 95% certain it will go well. And we've taken care to establish some basic ground rules for everyone's comfort--but, yeah: never done this before. Kinda don't know what to expect. :)

Any funny stories about those first meetings from the more experienced masses out there?
 
I don't have any funny stories (my boys knew each other for years before I met Dude). But I read your post and am excited for you - seems like it has such potential to go very well...Good Luck!
 
No funny stories here, either. My guys met each other for the first time after me and Mark had been together for half a year. I was very nervous before it and so were the guys. It all went perfectly well, they got along instantly and we had a nice time together. All subsequent meetings have been smooth as well, and we are now in the process of moving in together all three :)

Wish you luck!
 
Thanks to you both! Still looking forward to it--it'll be a few more days, and I'll try to report back, hopefully with good feelings all around.

My wife and I are joking about it today, while also acknowledging some potential awkwardness and nerves that could come into play on the day of. But even on that side of things, we both realized we were much more nervous this weekend about going to a dinner party where where were going to see some old (former?) friends from whom we've become somewhat estranged for no reason we've ever been able to fathom, then we are about having her meet "The Boyfriend."

(And that dinner party actually went well....so maybe we're on a roll....)

On the sweet side, and very perceptively, she offered, today: "Listen, when we all meet, don't worry about who hugs whom first: I'm just going to go hug him first, OK?" Yes, very much okay. :)

On the funny side, shortly thereafter, she added: "Oh, and of course dinner for everyone is on you."
 
Quick update, with longer one to follow (if anyone's interested..... :) )

It went really, really, well. Beyond what I had hoped for, actually, in terms of genuine warmth and connection.
 
Quick update, with longer one to follow (if anyone's interested..... :) )

It went really, really, well. Beyond what I had hoped for, actually, in terms of genuine warmth and connection.

*JaneQ raises hand* -- I'm interested :D

Glad it went so well!

PS. I'm also curious as to what "some basic ground rules for everyone's comfort" were that you mentioned in the first post.
 
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That's great! I met my boyfriend's wife when she picked me up at the airport. We went lunch then home to surprise him! I stayed at their house for four days; he slept in the guest room with me. She was incredibly gracious and we got along great! So yes, definitely possible. Glad it went well for you and yours. Looking forward to hearing more about your story!
 
Quick update, with longer one to follow (if anyone's interested..... :) )

It went really, really, well. Beyond what I had hoped for, actually, in terms of genuine warmth and connection.

Yet another interested here! Love to read happy stories! :)
 
How truly great to be "in" a place where people are genuinely happy to hear something like "My wife met my boyfriend and it went really well!" rather than call out the Beat the Freaks Squad. :) Thanks, all--truly.

In the interests of both brevity and general privacy, I'll try to be succinct without seeming coy.

Firs up, those "ground rules for mutual comfort" I mentioned. They were basic and simple and and general, and hashed out very casually and organically among the three of us (me as intermediator in both sets of conversations) over some weeks, maybe even months, once it became clear that this meeting was moving from a "It'd be nice to do that some day" to a true "Hey, let's get that on the schedule." I've had success before by addressing potentially fraught situations, personal or professional, by leading myself and others through simple visioning statements, so we just went with the approach of: "I'd feel that such an evening had gone well if X or Y happened." and "I'd feel bad or uncomfortable if A or B happened." We went through a few rounds of those, laced with humor as much as possible, and ended up with:

1) Neutral ground in every sense--mid way/equal travel for both us as a couple and him as a solo driver; and while it was a place he and I had been once before, it had no significant emotional history for anyone. (Wasn't our first date, etc.)

2) Meet somewhere else, quickly, privately, before the restaurant, to do the first, potentially awkward hellos. None of us wanted to do those in a (potentially) busy restaurant lobby, in front of the hostess waiting to be taken to our table. He actually suggested this, which was wise. He wanted us to be able to say hello to each other and do basic chit chat without having to worry about/dive into the distraction of sitting down, ordering, etc. So we ended up meeting in a nearby parking lot, doing introductions there in private (paradoxically, since we were out in the open--thankfully it was good weather) and then all driving in our car together to eat. By the time he got in the car, it was already feeling a little easy and natural, as that initial awkward moment was over.

(And it wasn't awkward at all. It was sweet in both directions. As we walked up to him and drew within earshot, I introduced her to him, and he held out his hand for her to shake. At first I thought that might seem formal/cold, but he was smiling and very warm about it. They both did the "I've heard a lot of good things about you" exchange, at which point she said, "Which means I think I can give you a hug if you're okay with that?" "I'd love it." and they did, and I went all....AWWWWW and glurgy and warm inside. She told me later she'd planned to hug him first to put him at ease, and was at first a little thrown by the handshake, but then really appreciate that he wasn't presuming anything about her physical comfort around him at that moment. They're both incredibly considerate people, obviously....)

3) It wasn't an "interview" in any sense. None of us wanted him to feel like he was being evaluated, or that the state of my ongoing relationship with him was being determined in some way by whatever happened at this meeting. (Within reason, of course: if he'd suddenly revealed him self to be a total asshole....)

4) We agreed, loosely, to an "end time"--based on all of our schedules and when we'd like to get home and to give the evening a context whether it was going well or poorly. At the end, I think we all wished it could have gone on a bit longer, but all were also very glad to be aware that we were feeling that way.

5) PDA all around was going to be kept to a very bare minimum, but not artificially so: I helped her off/on with her coat as I often do, didn't stop my self from stroking her back as I passed by her chair as I generally do, didn't stop myself from giving him a kiss on the check when we tightly hugged hello and goodbye. Nobody did any flirting or one-upping or inside-joking--as we had all agreed that would be potentially very bitter tasting. (And, obviously, talk about, or references or innuendos to, sexual activities of any of us was right off the table.)

6) As much as possible, they agreed to talk to each other, not to each other through me. This was not at all an issue as it turned out, but I'm glad we had flagged it: they're both somewhat introverted, and I'm...not. So it could have happened for a million different reasons. But as it turned out, there were times where I sort of had to "fight" to get a word in edgewise, which I loved.

7) A little bit of "common cause" between them making fun of any of my quirks as they naturally might arise was fine, but too much would have made me uncomfortable. They kept it just right.

We hadn't fretted too much over the seating arrangement, but I did agree with her that if we were at a square table (as we ended up being), I'd sit on the side with her. She appreciated it, but didn't find it necessary. As it turned on the night of, when we first sat down, he and I naturally went to opposite sides of the table (I think he assume he'd be across from us) and she excused herself quickly to the bathroom. I put a bag she'd brought in her with in the seat next to him, thinking that had sorted itself out nicely. Then, of course, when she came back from the bathroom she promptly picked up the bag, moved it into the seat next to me, and sat down next to him flashing us both a smile. Later, she told me, "Oh, if you thought I was going to miss watching your face watch the two of us meet, you thought wrong." :)

Really, it was great. Good jokes, good conversations all around--we all are on the same page politically, and share many of the same cultural interests and tastes, with just enough differences, to make for lively conversations. We all do very different things but with lots of commonalities in our backgrounds, so it was a good flow-there was never a moment where I felt, "Shit. Now what do we talk about?" Even the age gap wasn't an issue, though I'm sure the waitress assumed he was our nephew or perhaps even son. In truth, the age issue has never been an issue for him, or for my wife--I'm the only one who occasionally "worries" about it, and that's generally in the context of "what would people think?" To which my wife has wisely replied: "Trust me, that's the least of what anyone who's going to have a problem with this is going to have a problem with..."

The only rough spot, for me, was seeing them both enjoying themselves, laughing, across from me and thinking "This is going to be so rare in my life to have them both together like this." And that's true, and likely to be true, for all sorts of reasons that are good reasons-- for all of us, for now. And it wasn't exactly sad, just wistful. Even wistful happy. But I felt it: none of us wants co-mingled lives. I just felt a little sense of being very, very happy in their mutual presence and knowing that it'll be....infrequent, at most.

That, and, I'll confess: it's tough to sit across from two people who turn you on to no end and know that A) you don't know when you're going to see one of them again, and it could be sometime, and you've really never seen him before without it also involving playtime; B) by the time you get home with the other one, sleep and work the next day will be beckoning. But that's an acceptable problem to have, I realize. :)

I haven't had a chance to full process it with him yet, but his messages later that night after we'd all gotten home affirmed he'd had a great time, was really glad we did it, and felt so warmly toward her. She found him "incredibly nice, and decent" (and "very, very cute!") and, though she had had no negative feelings toward him prior to meeting him, was now able to "ground" her positive impressions, formerly through me, in her own experience of him, to at least some small extent. As she said, "I'd now feel totally comfortable talking with him on the phone if one of us needed to call, or even if he was passing through town and wanted to get together with both of us or drop by the house" etc. We won't be inviting him over for Sunday dinner anytime soon, but what she described is exactly the kind of easy, casual trust/comfort I had hoped we could arrive at, or at least begin building.

So, so much for being brief. I could talk about these two wonderful people all day..... :)
 
I think Gralson and Auto met at our place. It was anticlimatic, I don't think there was any planning really. He was home, she wanted to hang out but I wanted to be with Gralson cuz he was working on the road and out of town a lot, so I asked them both if they'd mind both being here. Neither objected. I think we just sat around and bullshitted in the living room. I tried to remain "neutral" by not cuddling with either one of them, but that was challenging.

Since then, they've hung out both with me and without me. She came over for beers a couple times when I was out of town. They get along well because he's a pretty typical "guy" and she's kind of a guy too, in a lot of ways. Or rather, she grew up with all guy friends so she knows how to be "one of the guys."

Now. The time that Gralsen met Zoffee. Was that ever a disaster. For both being spouses with Auto and I, they're pretty much as polar opposite as people can get. The part that sticks out most is when Gralson was being a bit jerkish about music or something trivial like that, and Zoffee goes "Gralson! You're not the Alpha Male here." I had to stiffle a giggle because, well, yeah, he kinda was. Pack protocol dictates that the Alpha Male is the one acts like the Alpha Male and doesn't get beat up by the other contenders. Auto let Zoffee have it afterwards, for being a rude host. Needless to say, he hasn't been invited back. :p

Thank goodness I refuse to be held responsible for the actions of the company I keep. And also, that Auto understands men and realized that Gralson wasn't actually being a jerk, he was just being a typical Saskatchewan dude.
 
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