Can this marriage be saved?

So much here to unpack

TMW,

So lets start from the beginning of your post. Your husband has gone back and forth like a yo yo on this. First he was OK, then not OK, the he can handle it. Really.??? All that shows is he is totally confused.
So here you have a guy who now wants to do it for himself, which you believe like you believe the moon is made of swiss cheese. Now, not one person here has a clue, nor do you, what will happen when as you say the hypothetical becomes a reality, you might want to read a thread by a poster named SURFERJEN, whose husband told her he was fine with it, and if you want to you can read my original post and history.

So lets start with the premise he his OK and wants to do it, which I am not convinced of and do not believe you are either. If he is like most men, he is looking at the excitement of physical intimacy, i.e.SEX ( males #1 need), and is most likely thinking one iota of falling in love or developing very strong emotions for anyone but you. But unless you are one of the few who believe men and womens brains function identically, you will read and understand that women very rarely sustain sexual relationships with a person without developing strong emotional bonds. So, the big question is how do you handle that one.????

Now the talk about growing old together. Wonderful, you love bombed him on vacation and now you are hearing a lot of what you want to hear. So I hope you are reading and understand that you are embarking on a journey that has the ability to end your marriage. And no one here knows nor do you the answer to that one.

I'd ask your husband a few question because what kills many relationships, even in non monogamy of any form, is broken agreements or boundaries. So far this hypothetical consists of if you each have sex with someone else, but how is this husband of yours, who has no waffled back and forth, likely to react when
(1) you want to progress from dating and sex to overnight stays.
(2) then to week ends away from him
(3) then to having your boyfriend over to your house while he is there
(4) to watching you get ready to go have sex with another man while he is struggling to connect.
(50 to you telling him that you will be spending 50% of your time with your boyfriend

Will all these things or any of them happen. Who knows, but quite likely some of them will on your end. Now, unfortunately, there are some here whose position will be that you state what you need, and then its entirely his responsibility to adjust, meditate, see a thera[pist, read books, but accept what you change the rules to after you decide what initially the agreements are. The point being, the more emotionally involved you get with someone, the less willing you will be to not have what you want. I hope you are thinking about all of this, as well as what are you going to do if he says after the hypothetical turns to reality that he is not happy and wants it to stop.???

Non-monogamous relationship, while different that monogamous ones in practice, are destroyed by broken trust, broken boundaries unless you decide anything goes, and a constant moving of the goalposts until one partner is way out of the comfort or acceptable zone.

The other piece of this is that it appears, and I may have misunderstood so I apologize, that you basically already had a guy you were interested in but who rejected the idea hooking up with you because he was not interested in poly. Now you claim that had no influence at all but i hope you have told your husband the truth about this other man, because it sounds like if he jumped at your offer, you would have been already ready to have sex with him./

My suggestion to you is that you take your hubby to a swingers club, and i will tell you why. If he is not comfortable and cannot deal with you in the same location, knowing you are having sex with another man at a place where he will also have the opportunity, then how do you really think he is going to react when he is watching the kids and you go out all dolled up right in front of him while he sits there at home.

I am giving you this advice as someone who like you, was the initiator of the opening the marriage talk. And while I did fuck up and cross a few boundaries once, I did not every two months tell my husband that I needed to expand and change the rules. He made it very clear that if I wanted to stay married as my primary and overriding goal, that there were certain things, not sex acts, that he would accept and that he would not accept. Any relationship I developed, and I had sex with over 30 men in two years, some multiple times, were measured by that when they started to want more than I was willing to give they were jettisoned. So set your goal and stick to it even if it is painful.

And lastly, you can read or talk to as many people as you want to, but understand as a female you are going to get many more opportunities to become intimate with other men than your husband will in all probability. If you doubt that both of you go out to bars or clubs or anywhere you want to and you both tell everyone who approaches you that you are married but in an open relationship and see how many men give a shit versus what the women tell your husband. Him "starting" first does not mean a damm thing unless you want to gauge your reaction, but thats not a good thougt process IF you are doing it so that when you are with someone else you are justified because he went first regardless of his feelings.

I think most responsible people will tell you the following
(1) opening a relationship is doomed unless both partners work at it and are for the most part on the same page and resolve conflict by compromise.
(2) there is totally honest communication
(3) there is a plan discussed for the things that can go wrong
(4) swinging is easier than poly because if the boudraies are kept, there are no third or more persons deepest emotions involved.

Again, no one here can navigate this journey for you, so I'd make sure you really have some deep thought with yourself as to how committed you are to make preserving your marriage the top priority versus meeting you non monogamy needs because unless you fall into blissful luck you will face some kind of decision on those issues if you make this discussion a reality.

Wow, sexyserb! I don't know how I missed this response, but now that I've read it, I need a drink and a pan of brownies! (But mostly the drink!)

I definitely appreciate your straight talk! If I'm honest, nothing you said here rings terribly off base and nothing you've said here is something I hadn't thought of, at least momentarily. I don't know that I've dwelled much on most of it though, so I'm grateful to have this here in black and white to read and re-read until I've processed this all as much as a person really can without actually just jumping in to the pool and sinking or swimming, so to speak.

I just posted an update -- we're now officially on this road, for better or for worse. I truly hope it's for better.

P.S. Your signature says you're back to being mono to preserve your marriage. Did you post about that decision here -- and if so, how do I find that? I'd love to hear more about why.
 
Another update

(Note: Somehow I missed the last two responses until just now, so forgive me for not replying!)

So, one month after starting these discussions, it seems we are actually on this road -- no ifs, ands or buts about it.

Last night, my husband went solo to a party that we were supposed to go to together because our son got sick at the last minute. And he ended up meeting a woman there who interested him. They exchanged phone numbers and this morning, he took her out on a brunch date.

Soooooo....here we are.

And I am processing, processing, processing.

I can't really tell you how I feel, except that it's the most bizarre thing watching your husband leave the house for a date while you're cleaning up the breakfast dishes and tending to your sick son. I have been walking around in a bit of a fog ever since.

I *think* I feel a little bit of jealousy, mixed with curiosity about this woman, mixed with a little bit of anxiety/insecurity, mixed with a little bit of resentment that I was up all night with a puking kid while he was out having fun and home all morning/afternoon caring for our children while he was out enjoying a lovely meal with a woman who interests him. But then I also feel happy for him that he was out enjoying himself -- we've never been the kind of couple that had to do everything together, and we both appreciate and respect the other's downtime/solo time, no matter what the other is doing, so I guess I now just have to add "dating" to the list of things he might be doing while I'm home with our kids. I knew intellectually that this would feel weird, but I didn't know emotionally *how* exactly that weirdness would feel. Does that make sense? I'm all over the place.

Also, he looked super handsome when he left the house and there was this part of me that also hoped she appreciated him and liked him, and that the date wasn't a bust. Isn't that so WEIRD? Like, I felt protective over his feelings, in the same way I did when he was unemployed briefly at the beginning of our marriage and kept applying for jobs I KNOW he could totally do, but kept getting rejections. I think each "no" hurt me more than it hurt him. I couldn't understand how everyone didn't see how amazing and valuable he was! I definitely felt some of that going on today, even as I kept checking the time thinking, "he's STILL out?! Damn!"
Like I said -- weird.

I also feel a bit blue for me that I opened up this conversation and started us down this road and somehow, he's had a date, while I haven't. I know it's not a competition, but it does seem rather ironic, in a cosmically, comically cruel kind of way, like something someone would use as an example of "how you know God has a sense of humor." LIFE, I swear!

I read the last couple posts to this thread just before sitting down to write this, and boy was there a lot to take in!! He and I will have to talk later about his date and our feelings -- after the kids go to bed. But in the meantime, I think I'm mainly just hoping we, individually, and as a couple, have the mettle to survive this -- and maybe evolve and become even better, as the last poster said.

I definitely still want to have a boyfriend or special friend or whatever you want to call it at some point. But more than anything else, I hope we haven't opened Pandora's box. Above all else, I want my marriage to be good, healthy and whole -- "for as long as we both shall live." And I'll keep coming here for support and advice to help me do all I can to make sure that happens.

Thanks for all your insights!

So my husband went out on a date with a woman he met at a party. He actually met three women, and texted back and forth with all three, but only ended up going out with one. He seemed very interested in her, but -- she is looking for a boyfriend all her own, and a relationship that could turn into traditional marriage -- so she politely declined to go out again.
He then turned to the next woman he sorta liked and they had about two days of flirty, getting-to-know-you texting, but once he told her he was married and trying out polyamory, she ended things FAST.

Weirdly, I actually felt bad for him and wished there was something I could do to help him. At the same time, I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a small sense of relief. This thing is so complicated!!

So now we are both in a place where we're still interested in trying this new way of living and loving, but neither of us has a willing partner. So I guess we'll just take our time and when it happens, it happens.

In the meantime, the idea of him being interested in another woman and possibly going out on dates with new women has pumped up the heat in our sex life tremendously! We always had sex, but now we have S-E-X!! And I am so hot for him! I came home one night and did a strip tease/lap dance for him in the middle of our kitchen. Another day, I initiated a quickie while our children were just downstairs watching TV! This is new territory for us since settling into "old-and-married-ville" many years ago. It's like the dates and texting reminded me that he is a catch. I always knew it intellectually, but now my loins seem to have caught up to my brain again. :)

If this is how things are going to be with polyamory, I am ALL for it!

P.S. The friend of mine I was interested in has become quite a turn-off, pursuing me in the most base way for sex only, which I have been clear with him that I am not at all interested in being someone's fuck buddy. It's weird: When we were teetering right on the edge of cheating, he was sweet and attentive and wanted to talk/text all the time. When I told him I had opened things up with my husband, but needed time to make sure things were OK in my marriage before doing anything with him, he has been treating me like a sex object. And not in a flattering way. SO, SO odd. Like I said, this thing is complicated.
 
Complicated, indeed! I hope you and your husband both find someone who is compatible with your ethics, situation, and needs.
 
When we were teetering right on the edge of cheating, he was sweet and attentive and wanted to talk/text all the time. When I told him I had opened things up with my husband, but needed time to make sure things were OK in my marriage before doing anything with him, he has been treating me like a sex object. And not in a flattering way. SO, SO odd. Like I said, this thing is complicated.

I'd say it's not complicated so much as poly is a new concept for most people. Everyone understands cheating (or thinks they do) and everyone understands sex-only liaisons. Multiple above board romantic relationships seem to mystify just about everyone who hasn't had some exposure to the idea - and that's still almost everyone. So it's not really odd that your friend would have careened from one relationship type to another since those were the only two options he really knows about and is comfortable with.
 
That makes total sense. I hadn't thought of it that way. I still am bummed about it. But at least now I'm not quite as baffled. Thanks, Karen!
 
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