Questioning a partner’s decision

I’m struggling with a question of how much explanation/information to expect when it comes to people’s personal boundaries — particularly boundaries related to sex. The “what to do when a request is ignored” post made me think about my own situation and I am wondering what you all would do if you were me...

The long and short of it, for those who may not be familiar with my other posts over the last 8 months or so....

1. Laptop and I explored a “more than friends” physical relationship last January. It wasn’t well-defined. It seemed to be like FWB to me, but as it was ending he said he hadn’t thought of it that way and had just thought it was early and up in the air as to where it might go. It ended because during our STI risk chat he said he wanted to limit sexual contact with me (no oral, no PIV) because he wanted to pursue a relationship with another woman who was trying to limit *her* STI risk and considered me to be a higher potential risk than his other current sexual partners. I didn’t feel comfortable with that line of decision-making and told him I thought we should just go back to being platonic friends. I did suggest a one-time-only fuck since he wasn’t actually together with her yet and he seemed interested in that but then we decided to skip it.

2. Since then, he and the other girl broke up, I got pregnant, miscarried....a lot has happened. But in the last couple months we have started exploring a FWB kink-exploration type relationship.

3. A few weeks ago, I asked on here for advice about how to end things with an online guy I was flirting with. Things didn’t go well, in part because he kept asking me to justify why I didn’t want to keep talking with him and got upset when he felt my reasons were not justifiable.


So those are the Recent Events. Here we go to the present situation.

When Laptop and I were having our “we are bad at reading each other so let’s be super direct about what we want out of the decision to become physically intimate again” talk, he said he did not necessarily foresee intercourse as part of our dynamic. This seemed fine to me, but I started getting self-conscious about it later.

“Why doesn’t he want to have sex with me? Does he not find me attractive? Then why be intimate with me at all? Is it because my nether regions are unattractive? Then why does he want to go down on me?He didn’t want to have sex last time and it turned out that it wasn’t so much about his preference as much as someone else’s....is that happening again? But it’s different this time....last time oral was also off the table because of this other woman’s STI risk assessment.....so something has definitely changed. But what? Is he more afraid of getting me pregnant now? But he knows that my pregnancy likely occurred from activities other than intercourse.....”

It goes on and on like that. I believe, in my conscience, that he owes me no justification. He has said no and no is a complete sentence. My therapist said, with all our background, that I have a right to be curious and to ask him for more information about what his thoughts and feelings are about sex with me. But especially with “Recent Event #3,” I feel very strongly that it is not right for me to pry into his choices about what he does with his body.

One night when we were texting and there was a good opening, though, I explained my insecurity about it and asked him if he could tell me more about his reasons for not wanting PIV with me. He said he would “prefer to leave it at ‘that’s not something I am interested in doing right now’ but that if want to dig deeper [he supposes I am] entitled....but it is a bigger conversation and one that [he] would prefer to have in person.”

I feel conflicted though. I don’t feel comfortable asking him for more info when he has said that he would prefer to keep that private. I feel as though I have two competing paradigms in my head:

A. He has told me what he is interested in doing with me and that’s the end of the story. His reasons are his own business. He owes me no further explanation and it is inappropriate of me to ask for him to justify his choice about how he shares his body with me.

B. He may *owe* me no further explanation, but it is okay for me to acknowledge that if I am to continue to be in this situation with him, I *need* an explanation in order to feel secure about what is going on. Therefore it is up to me to ask for what I need and, gracefully bow out of this situation if he is uncomfortable sharing his reasons with me.

I think what is really making me anxious right now is the fact that he said he would rather not dig deeper into his reasons. That makes me feel like his reason must be that there is something distasteful about me that he doesn’t want to share with me because he’s afraid I will be offended or hurt.

I can think of lots of perfectly acceptable reasons why he wouldn’t want to have PIV with me. Like maybe he was freaked out by my pregnancy and feels like avoiding intercourse is at least doing his due diligence with regard to avoiding another accidental pregnancy. (Even though I am pretty sure I didn’t get pregnant from intercourse, I think it is reasonable to be appropriately cautious about PIV since that act is the typical way of getting pregnant.) Or maybe he knows that he is more likely to develop feelings if he has intercourse and he wants to keep things light and casual between us. If those were the reasons, I would be fine if he just *told* me that. But this not knowing what is going through his head but knowing that it IS something he doesn’t want to tell me is driving me kind of batty with insecurity and self-doubting.

So what should I do? Should I bring it up again the next time we see each other in person? Should I try to just let it go for a few months, hope I get past it and and broach the topic later if it is still bothering me? Should I suck it up and recognize that he’s already said he doesn’t really want to go into detail and I should accept that answer and decide if I can live with it — and if I cannot then I need to end it with him?
 
Sure, he is under no obligation to tell you anything.

Perhaps he simply doesn't have PIV sex with FWB/play partners, deeming it "too intimate", or perhaps he thinks that act should be reserved for your actual "partners" (Glasses and Ponytail). Perhaps he is concerned about pregnancy as you say. Maybe he has a history of ED during intercourse and is self-conscious or embarrassed to talk about it. Who knows - there could be endless reasons that have nothing whatsoever with you being unattractive to him. After all, he *is* willing to engage sexually with you which seems to indicate there's physical attraction.

That said, I too would be uncomfortable and insecure with the current level of disclosure, given your "back and forth" history with this guy - and especially since you're starting to engage in a power exchange/kink dynamic with him; a dynamic that usually requires an even greater degree of trust and openness between partners.

HE may be under no obligation to go into his reasons in detail... but likewise, YOU are under no obligation to continue an intimate relationship with someone who chooses not to be completely forthright with you about something so important. To me, it reads as passive-aggressive game-playing... all this "if YOU want to *dig deeper*" he "supposes you are entitled"...

IMO, who wouldn't want to know why a close friend and play partner would choose to forgo something that's generally considered a pleasurable and intimate act? If it's NOT pleasurable for HIM, why not just tell you that and ease your mind.
 
I don't think you should compare yourself to online guy. He was trying to manipulate you. You just seem to want to know why.

I think it is reasonable for you to want to know why. I think it would help you to deal with it if you knew why. I have a sneaking suspicion that lunabunny may have hit on the reason. Either pregnancy risk or ED. Heck, pregnancy risk would cause ED in me...lol.

Bottom line is it's bothering you. I wouldn't ignore that. Sure he has his right to privacy, but this affects you. It's not like you are asking him why he doesn't do PIV with someone else. I would just try to be as non-confrontational as possible.
 
He has the right to keep that information to himself and to refuse to "dig deeper," but you have the right to want to know and to ask. You aren't pushing him or trying to force him to answer, you're just asking.

Unfortunately, if he continues to refuse to answer, you can't make him. All you can do at that point is decide whether you're okay with keeping the connection despite the lack of information, and despite how unhappy and insecure it seems to be causing you to feel.

You care about Laptop, but do you want to be in a more-than-friends situation with someone whose actions and words cause you to question and doubt yourself?
 
Hi MsEmotional,

My vote is for you to go ahead and ask him. Sure he says he's reluctant to talk about it, but he also says he's *willing* to talk about it. From what you've said at least in this thread, it sounds like all the maybe's and what-if's are driving you mildly crazy. Personally, I'd rather risk being hurt or offended than I would have to keep guessing. But that's me, you have to make your own call based on your own best judgment, of course.

Sincerely,
Kevin T.
 
If it were me, I would want to know.

True, if he doesn't want to tell you then he doesn't have to.

To me, this feels like a consent/continued consent sort of issue. I'm not precisely sure whether you personally do want to have PIV intercourse with him, or whether just knowing that he doesn't want to with you but not understanding why is driving the rumination. I do agree, though, that since he gave you a reason before but the reason (the girlfriend) is no longer in the picture, it seems like that was just an excuse and the reason he's now reluctant to share may have been the real reason all along.

Question: Is the kink type relationship that you're thinking of pursuing one that involves a power exchange?

Either way, while he isn't obligated to share if he doesn't want to, you can't really opt into a situation that you don't fully understand. He could at the very least ease your mind by confirming that not being interested in PIV is something about him, not about you. If, however, it is about you, you have a right not to participate in anything with him without knowing precisely what that is. It's not really continued consent if you're in the dark about the pieces of the relationship that directly affect you. Especially since his story sort of changed - you don't have to be okay with half explanations/half truths, etc. It isn't fair to you.

I ask about power exchange because that necessitates an enormous amount of trust, no matter which side of it you're on, and how can you have that or build that if you can't trust him to be honest with you?

I would advise asking him. If you're comfortable with being that vulnerable, you can even directly say that his unexplained aversion to PIV with you is making you question your own body, your attractiveness to him, etc. and whether he can at least assure you that it isn't that.

At the end of the day if the situation is causing you to feel bad about yourself sexually then is it really worth it?
 
The kink dynamic that we have going is not a power exchange dynamic. His relationships with his other partners seem really vanilla (from what I understand) and so he is very inexperienced with any sort of kink. Basically he said he saw FWB with me as an opportunity to explore the kinkier aspects of his interests. What we have going on is more of “experimentation” on his part — he is interested in exploring kink and I am happy to help him learn.

I have actually thought, on occasion, that maybe he thinks of this as more of a “kink lab” — that the reason he doesn’t want to have sex is that he doesn’t even have a strong sexual interest in me — he just wants to learn how to tie knots and give spankings and he assumes he needs to give me something in return and so he is offering oral and manual sex. I would (mostly) be fine with that as a reasonable explanation and would likely be willing to continue in the teaching vein. But if that’s the case, I want to know — and I would want to focus on doing just that. I feel like if he wants to just learn how to tie someone up, I can teach him that without muddling it up with kisses and orgasms.
 
I see. If you think the "kink lab" situation is the case I don't see the harm in clarifying. Especially since you're open to continue being a teacher even if feelings of attraction aren't there. It would be a good thing for you both to agree on what kind of relationship is actually forming, I think, rather than confusion and/or speculation.
 
Update

Aaaaaarrgfhhhh!

It’s the same fucking thing. Just a different partner. What is UP with Laptop’s partners thinking I’m some sort of STI generation machine?

He told me the truth. He was reluctant to do it but I explained that “not knowing but knowing he didn’t want to tell me” was driving me bonkers and was just as likely to be hurtful as not knowing at all.

Basically, when he told his FWB (Giraffe) that intimacy was blossoming between us, she said that him having an additional partner would mean that she would need to rethink her comfort level with having sex with him. I asked why Giraffe hadn’t had an issue when he was dating the other girl 8 months ago (the one who told him she wouldn’t get involved with him because he was starting to get involved with me — I don’t remember what nickname I gave her back then...let’s call her Banana) and he said that Giraffe had expressed some anxiety about it back then, but that because things never actually became intimate/physical with Banana before they broke up, it never actually became an issue. So basically, as far as I can piece it together, back in January Giraffe and Banana both expressed discomfort with the idea of him getting sexually involved with anyone else. Giraffe was really only worried about PIV, but was worried about it with regard to both Laptop’s possible relationships with both me and Banana. Banana wasn’t worried about Giraffe because Giraffe has no other partners besides her (monogamous) husband, but was worried about both PIV and oral with me. Laptop never told me about the stuff with Giraffe because it was kind of a moot point because I had already ended things because of the restrictions from Banana.

Aaaaaggghhh!

So I thanked him for telling me the truth and putting my mind at ease about my other insecurities. And I tried to keep my cool. But frankly, I am shocked that this is happening AGAIN. I’m kind of like WTF? So I asked him....

Me: Why didn’t you tell me this? Back in January I told you that you never needed to justify not having sex with someone...

Laptop: Exactly, and I don’t think I do.

Me:...and then a few days later I told you that you made the right decision in telling me because I would have been really hurt if I had found out later. And you said you were glad that I agreed that honesty was best. So this time, you knew that I would be hurt and you decided not to tell me. Why?

Laptop: All I remember from the first time is that it was bad. No good came out of telling you and you were hurt and I felt awful and I didn’t want that to happen again. And I felt like my choices were personal to my other relationships and you didn’t need to know them and us go through all that again. I remember later you saying that you thought it was for the best but all it felt like to me was that it was all bad.

??????

Am I crazy here? I feel like I must be dreaming. Yes, he has a right to make decisions based on his own relationships and priorities. But when he KNOWS that I would be hurt by his priorities, why get involved with me at all? Last time this happened he made a big deal out of the fact that he understood why I ended things and he was really grateful that I wanted to stay friends. So why doesn’t he fucking value our friendship enough to just NOT get involved with me when he knows that it would upset his other partner? And that, in a domino effect, it would also upset me?

He has had SO MANY opportunities to just back out of this. When I asked him if he wanted to make out, he could have just said, “I’m not sure if that would be the best thing for my relationship with Giraffe.” When we texted the next day and he asked me what I wanted and I said I wanted to add a physical element to our friendship, he could have just told me then that he was interested in being physical with me but that Giraffe wasn’t comfortable and he wanted to maintain his relationship with her and thought we should stay platonic. When we had our “define the relationship” chat and he told me he didn’t foresee our relationship necessarily involving PIV, he could have been honest with me then and said it was because of a promise he had made to Giraffe that he wouldn’t be sexual with anyone new. When I told him I was feeling insecure and wasn’t sure if it was because he didn’t seem all that “into” me the way that other sexual partners are, he could have just taken the opportunity to let me end things for my own reasons and not even had to tell me about the situation with Giraffe.

Why didn’t he do any of that? The more I think about it, the more ticked off I get. I get it that hindsight is 20/20 and that he was afraid I would be upset. But if his priority is maintaining an existing relationship... why not just prioritize that relationship? In the time after the Banana situation and when we became physical again, we had a very nice platonic friendship. If that’s all he wanted why didn’t he just fucking keep it that way?
 
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Sorry he's acting like that. I think if I were in your shoes I would stop having romantic relations with him. I'm not sure if I would still want to be his friend. You'll have to decide based on how hurt you are by his behavior.
 
Am I crazy here? I feel like I must be dreaming

I don't think you are crazy. I think since you already knew that you have difficulty reading each other/communicating well from the time with Banana? Could have spared yourself the new weird by leaving it platonic and not trying again with him.

So what should I do? Should I bring it up again the next time we see each other in person? Should I try to just let it go for a few months, hope I get past it and and broach the topic later if it is still bothering me? Should I suck it up and recognize that he’s already said he doesn’t really want to go into detail and I should accept that answer and decide if I can live with it — and if I cannot then I need to end it with him?

Why get yourself into things that already bother you from the start? That could be your signal NOT to get into them deeper. Rather than get into them hoping it goes away later. :(

You needed more information than you were getting to proceed WITHOUT doubts and insecurities. It's ok if he doesn't want to say more. But then that's not meeting your information needs so you can proceed in good faith and without doubts/insecurities niggling at you. Things don't line up. So you could have decided not go there and leave it staying platonic.

I think you could learn to not pursue when things do not line up. When you see that your communication styles are not meshing well with a potential? Be more proactive/preventative in the approach rather than floating along or reactive. Save yourself the twirly whirly weird.

I get it that hindsight is 20/20 and that he was afraid I would be upset. But if his priority is maintaining an existing relationship... why not just prioritize that relationship?

Because that might NOT be his highest priority.

His main priority might be "not making waves" -- esp if he's conflict avoidant. Or something else. Don't guess what his priorities are. Focus on YOU and YOUR priorities. Maybe one of your new priorities is to skip weirdness like this as much as possible?

Why didn’t he do any of that?

Nobody knows but him. You could make yourself batty going in circles guessing.

Instead, you could change YOUR way of going so YOU are looking out for this now that you've been burned twice.

He has had SO MANY opportunities to just back out of this.

So did you.

When I asked him if he wanted to make out...

The answer was yes. He wanted to make out.

...he could have just said, “I’m not sure if that would be the best thing for my relationship with Giraffe.”

That is an answer to a question you did not actually ask him. You did not ask "If we go ahead and make out or share sex... how would that affect your relationship with your other partners?"

He might not be thinking on that level. You seem to assume people will automatically connect the dots and bring things up themselves. If this matters to you... YOU could bring it up to protect yourself more. I think you could start asking the relevant questions explicitly instead of counting on the other person to bring it up. Not all hinges have good hinge skills.

Could start saying "Do you have any agreements with other partners that could affect me if we get more deeply involved?"

And even a more direct "Do any of your partners have a problem with you making out/sharing sex with me?"

when it gets to that place in the relationship.

The potential could still waffle around hemming and hawing about it or even outright lie to you.

But you at least are being more direct and proactive from your end to skip/reduce weirdness where possible than before.

That would be my suggestion.

Galagirl
 
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Well I was way off. Is he just hooking up with partners who are not really into poly? I couldn't have a partner who tried to control my relationships by claiming to be concerned about STI like that. Laptop sounds like the type who tries to avoid any confrontation. You are not crazy to be angry that he wouldn't share that. That sucks that he would leave that dangling like that.
 
Is he just hooking up with partners who are not really into poly? I couldn't have a partner who tried to control my relationships by claiming to be concerned about STI like that.

MsEmotional, this topic (highlighted) came up in a thread someone else posted here not so long ago about his wife's (ostensible) fear of catching something if he engaged in kissing his other partner, and I questioned the meta's motives then, just as Vinsanity did in your situation, above. Eventually, that poster did confront his wife and she admitted not wanting him to get too intimate with others out of insecurity/fear of losing him, and the STI thing was more or less a ruse.

i.e. It's possible that Laptop's partners/love interests may not be all the way on board with polyamory, at least as far as he's concerned, and are using "fear of STIs" as a way of controlling or limiting his sexual conduct with others. He may believe that their claims are the real reason... or not. Perhaps he "knows" deep down that something else is at the heart of their concerns, but as GalaGirl said, his priority may lie with his "primary" relationship/s or he may simply be conflict avoidant.

Not saying I'm right, but just food for thought. Laptop and you never quite seem to be on the same page, and for that reason I'd probably be tempted to put this one in the "too hard basket".
 
i.e. It's possible that Laptop's partners/love interests may not be all the way on board with polyamory, at least as far as he's concerned, and are using "fear of STIs" as a way of controlling or limiting his sexual conduct with others. He may believe that their claims are the real reason... or not. Perhaps he "knows" deep down that something else is at the heart of their concerns, but as GalaGirl said, his priority may lie with his "primary" relationship/s or he may simply be conflict avoidant.

Part of me also feels like it is too big of a coincidence that this happened twice — with different partners — in the span of eight months. Like, perhaps Giraffe saw that the ultimatum that Banana gave him *worked* and decided to try it for herself — either because she wanted to get him to limit his other relationships without having to examine her own insecurities or because she wanted to test his investment in their relationship against what he had with Banana or what he had with me....I don’t know. It just seems particularly odd that this is such a common tactic amongst people who claim to be rather experienced with poly.

Not saying I'm right, but just food for thought. Laptop and you never quite seem to be on the same page, and for that reason I'd probably be tempted to put this one in the "too hard basket".

And yes. Definitely done. I am just sad because the last time this happened we were able to go back to a friendship and I am feeling like that won’t be possible this time.
 
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... He said he would “prefer to leave it at ‘that’s not something I am interested in doing right now’ but that if want to dig deeper [he supposes I am] entitled....but it is a bigger conversation and one that [he] would prefer to have in person.” ...


I have read the rest of the thread and realize this is a moot point now but, as most people who replied came down on the "ask" side, I just wanted to throw in that not everyone would have pursued it.

If the outcome, no PIV, was fine with me then I would have dropped the line of inquiry right there. If it was something that wouldn't bother me to know then it wouldn't bother me to NOT know. If it was something that WOULD bother me to know, then, unless it directly affects me (sexual health wise or legal issues), he can keep it to himself. My informational needs are minimal, I don't need to be putting stuff in my head that just upsets me unless there is a good reason why I NEED to know. (i.e. if you are a Trump supporter, don't tell me, because then we can't be friends).

Then again, I would probably be the one saying "no PIV" - as I have in the past. When we were with Lotus, I had a sexual thing with her husband TT - but spelled out ahead of time that I was not interested in interacting with his penis. I told MrClean: "I want to make out with you and get all hot and bothered, but we are not going to be having sex." His reply: "Wow, that was direct...OK." If either had pressed me for more info than I wanted to give, then I would just have stopped things right there.
 
I can think of lots of perfectly acceptable reasons why he wouldn’t want to have PIV with me.

It ended because during our STI risk chat he said he wanted to limit sexual contact with me (no oral, no PIV) because he wanted to pursue a relationship with another woman who was trying to limit *her* STI risk and considered me to be a higher potential risk than his other current sexual partners.

I would just go with the reason he gave you.
 
I would just go with the reason he gave you.

Was it naive of me to have thought he would have told me?

That’s the thing that is plaguing me now — was I supposed to have assumed that that’s ALWAYS going to be the one and only reason he would turn down PIV? When he told me that he didn’t want to go into it and I accepted that, did he think I was essentially winking and saying, “ok, I know the reason but I don’t want you to confirm it so I will go along with this...?”
 
Better too much communication than not enough communication.
 
Was it naive of me to have thought he would have told me?

He clearly doesn't view you as a safe recipient of bad news, which is most likely a mix of his own internal conflict avoidance habits, and something about how you deal with bad news.

Do you feel like you have learned from your repeated issues with this particular association?
 
He clearly doesn't view you as a safe recipient of bad news, which is most likely a mix of his own internal conflict avoidance habits, and something about how you deal with bad news.

Do you feel like you have learned from your repeated issues with this particular association?

We texted yesterday. He asked if I wanted to talk about it more and I told him we didn’t need to re-hash it all. That I understood what happened and I was just sad that it felt like the last time this happened we were able to go back to friendship and this time it felt like we couldn’t continue to be friends. I think he was surprised to hear that and so I explained that I understand that he is sorry that he hurt me but that I also don’t get the sense that he believes he could have done things differently — which makes me doubt his judgement and feel like continuing to be friends is setting myself up to be hurt again. We seemed in agreement that our styles are not compatible and so we parted ways.

It seemed relatively amicable, but also really....final. I am super sad. He’s pretty much the only friend I have hung out with regularly for the last year, and I had had higher hopes for where our friendship might lead. The last time we got together we were talking about other activities (non-sexual) we might do together and I was excited about that and hopeful about our friendship extending past talking about polyamory and relationships.

I have never ended a friendship like this before and it feels really crushing. Part of me feels like I am being too dramatic — that I should just go back to being friends with him and put up my emotional guards a bit. But another part of me feels like for whatever reason I am just too invested in him to be able to have good boundaries if we were to go back to just being friends. It sucks because I feel like it’s my fault. It’s not necessarily that he treats me poorly — so much as it is that he just doesn’t recognize how I want to be treated by him.
 
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