OldSchoolG
New member
Hello all,
I am new to this forum - brand new. I am also new to polyamory, in fact I am not really there (yet) but am in a confusing situation that the good members of this forum can perhaps help me with:
I am a mid 40s straight man, married with children for 14 years. I love my wife very much and we are compatible in many ways, but unfortunately the sex has been very infrequent and boring. Basically she is pretty vanilla, full of anxiety, somewhat prudish and has a low sex drive, but I am the complete opposite and have been subduing a lot of my needs and impulses all this time. Recently I have become better at expressing my needs again (I had given up before after trying numerous times to change things) and the sex is getting better, but I still know that there are parts of my sexuality (the closet sex-freak who wants to experiment, have rough sex, get into BDSM and experiment with men) that she will never be able to fulfill, and I can't imagine going the rest of my life with her as my only sexual partner. At my initiation we have recently talked about opening up our marriage, but she was VERY against that. I am not so into casual sex and neither is she - if we did open up, we both realized it would be with people who we would truly care about, which is obviously threatening to our marriage, although I do not feel that way, because:
At the same time, in something that has allowed me to better understand about my own sexual/emotional needs, I have this year been having an emotional affair with a friend whom I have known for sometime, who is also married with children (and to make things more confusing our children are also friends with each other). We are not lovers, but we text and talk all the time and share a deep, caring connection and have used the L word. We trust each other deeply - we have basically become best friends - and I have shared a lot with her, which has actually allowed me to feel more love and connection with my wife and improve our relationship in turn (this is why I don't feel my marriage would be threatened if we cared for other people). My wife knows her and knows we are close friends, and is threatened by that, but doesn't know exactly how deep it is. My friend and I have both tried to help each other with our marriages with some success, even though we are intensely attracted to each other. My friend, who is very poly-oriented but has been in a very traditional marriage, is having a extremely rocky time with her husband and, like me, wants to open it up but her husband is resistant and she keeps saying she wants out. In the meantime she has recently had a few extra-marital sexual flings, which made me intensely jealous, which was interesting for me to deal with.
My friend and I have resisted becoming lovers and we decided instead to try and get our spouses into polyamory but it doesn't seem to be happening. I have had a sexual/spiritual awakening (which was brewing for some time before all this) and want to transition into poly-exploration, and also have my friend become my girlfriend, but given the resistance of my wife to this idea in the abstract, any version of this seems unlikely. My friend would very much like the same to happen to her marriage as well, and for me to be her boyfriend, but this also seems unlikely and if not, she will probably stay in the marriage but continue to have flings and conceal them from her husband, or eventually get a divorce and be free.
It seems I am faced with the choice of: continuing to suppress my sexual and poly-needs, have affairs and conceal them, or get a divorce, but it seems selfish to divorce because of that when things are mostly good, and the first two options seem awful. I want openness and honesty in my life in all areas and don't want to be an old man regretting not living life to the fullest. Any advice?
I am new to this forum - brand new. I am also new to polyamory, in fact I am not really there (yet) but am in a confusing situation that the good members of this forum can perhaps help me with:
I am a mid 40s straight man, married with children for 14 years. I love my wife very much and we are compatible in many ways, but unfortunately the sex has been very infrequent and boring. Basically she is pretty vanilla, full of anxiety, somewhat prudish and has a low sex drive, but I am the complete opposite and have been subduing a lot of my needs and impulses all this time. Recently I have become better at expressing my needs again (I had given up before after trying numerous times to change things) and the sex is getting better, but I still know that there are parts of my sexuality (the closet sex-freak who wants to experiment, have rough sex, get into BDSM and experiment with men) that she will never be able to fulfill, and I can't imagine going the rest of my life with her as my only sexual partner. At my initiation we have recently talked about opening up our marriage, but she was VERY against that. I am not so into casual sex and neither is she - if we did open up, we both realized it would be with people who we would truly care about, which is obviously threatening to our marriage, although I do not feel that way, because:
At the same time, in something that has allowed me to better understand about my own sexual/emotional needs, I have this year been having an emotional affair with a friend whom I have known for sometime, who is also married with children (and to make things more confusing our children are also friends with each other). We are not lovers, but we text and talk all the time and share a deep, caring connection and have used the L word. We trust each other deeply - we have basically become best friends - and I have shared a lot with her, which has actually allowed me to feel more love and connection with my wife and improve our relationship in turn (this is why I don't feel my marriage would be threatened if we cared for other people). My wife knows her and knows we are close friends, and is threatened by that, but doesn't know exactly how deep it is. My friend and I have both tried to help each other with our marriages with some success, even though we are intensely attracted to each other. My friend, who is very poly-oriented but has been in a very traditional marriage, is having a extremely rocky time with her husband and, like me, wants to open it up but her husband is resistant and she keeps saying she wants out. In the meantime she has recently had a few extra-marital sexual flings, which made me intensely jealous, which was interesting for me to deal with.
My friend and I have resisted becoming lovers and we decided instead to try and get our spouses into polyamory but it doesn't seem to be happening. I have had a sexual/spiritual awakening (which was brewing for some time before all this) and want to transition into poly-exploration, and also have my friend become my girlfriend, but given the resistance of my wife to this idea in the abstract, any version of this seems unlikely. My friend would very much like the same to happen to her marriage as well, and for me to be her boyfriend, but this also seems unlikely and if not, she will probably stay in the marriage but continue to have flings and conceal them from her husband, or eventually get a divorce and be free.
It seems I am faced with the choice of: continuing to suppress my sexual and poly-needs, have affairs and conceal them, or get a divorce, but it seems selfish to divorce because of that when things are mostly good, and the first two options seem awful. I want openness and honesty in my life in all areas and don't want to be an old man regretting not living life to the fullest. Any advice?