How can I trust again?
Lunshbox and Imajica,
I wonder how things are going for you, too, for informational and strictly selfish reasons. My wife (of less than two years) and I have been going through a struggle for most of our marriage about her feeling a need to be polyamorous, and me being scared and outwardly resistant to her having a physical relationship with anyone other than me. I love her and want her to be happy, but the thought of her being polyamorous leads me to feeling unsafe, taken advantage of, and that I should run away from this marriage and never look back.
Prior to getting married, she spoke of wanting to eventually have sex with someone other than me. I told her how uncomfortable I was with that idea, but to express my commitment to her, I gave her basic guidelines of how I thought I could eventually be comfortable with the idea.
First off, was for us to build a safe and secure relationship between the two of us and the understanding that this could be expected to take years. I told her I imagined such a time being when we were both committing ourselves at least nearly equally to our relationship, household, and family. At that time, I was the sole income earner and she was an unemployed student. I made attempts to explain that if she were to have another relationship right then, that I would feel used and abused, as I worked 40+ hours at a job I strongly disliked to support both of us, while she got to take advantage of the support and security I provided to pursue sexual and emotional adventures outside of our relationship.
Internally, I felt that if she had time for other lovers, why couldn't she be using that time to get a job, and work at a job, so I would not have to work so much?
Another guideline I gave that I thought (and still think) might help me feel safer with the idea of her being with another guy physically, is if we started out by experimenting with someone else together. But she has no interest in women sexually. Been there, done that, doesn't want to go back there. Even though I'm not attracted to guys, I said I'd be interested in trying the idea of the two of us sharing a guy. She said she had no interest in doing this, either.
I have tried to explain that such a situation might (I emphasized might) help me feel safer with the idea of her being with a guy without me. She continued to give excuses, such as, she wouldn't be interested in any guy unless she felt a strong attraction to him. The couple of guys that she mentioned, I had absolutely no interest in, mainly because she had had past sexual encounters with them. My biggest stipulation was that the guy had to be someone new to each of us, so that she and I would be equals going into the encounter.
So, we got married. Then, a few months later, she met someone. She told me he was just a friend and, as a way to help me be comfortable with her hanging out with him after school, while I'm at work, and on weekends, reassured me she had no interest in him beyond friendship, and that he felt the same towards her. Oh, then he was giving her foot massages, and sucking her toes, because he had a foot fetish that his wife didn't satisfy.
But my wife and he were still "just friends," and all my wife was getting out of this was awesome foot rubs for her sore feet.
Then a month or so down the road, she told me they were making out and giving each other hand sex. I flipped. She says that she thought I'd be okay with those things, because several months back, before getting married, along with the above guidelines, I said that at the moment all I could ever possibly imagine being comfortable with was her making out and mutual manual stimulation.
I thought I'd made it clear back then that I wasn't currently comfortable with that, but that was the point I imagined I could actually get to, if we did the work together to build a strong enough bond with one another.
So, after several tumultuous months of me suffering in agony, and making it clear how uncomfortable, used, and tossed aside I was feeling, she and he finally broke off acting like more than friends. They still fence together and go to lunch and work on projects together. My wife still wishes I could be okay with her continuing a physical relationship with him. But I can't imagine when I'll ever be okay with it, especially him. Trust is a big problem for me.
She eventually admitted trying to press him into having sex with her, and him refusing, because he knew I wouldn't be okay with it. From what she had told him, I was okay with the rest. When I told him I wasn't, he felt they were already too "in love" with each other to break up on my accord.
My issues:
How can I ever trust her with someone else if she can't/won't stay within the guidelines of what I say I'm comfortable with?
Being in a polyamorous relationship requires lots of open communication. She had trouble both talking about her feelings and listening to mine. How can polyamory ever work for us until she can stand to hear my feelings without taking them personally? By the way, I am careful to use "I feel X when I experience Y" statements, and have read books and taken non-violent communication workshops, and even taken a class all about being effectively assertive.
My wife was abused sexually for years of her childhood and early teen years, so there are remnants of such treatment that make it difficult for her to deal with her own feelings, and especially the feelings with others. But I'm hard pressed to see how focusing on a relationship outside of ours (other than the relationship she has with herself) is going help improve her being able to empathize with my feelings.
We are both now unemployed students. I lost my job when I entered nursing school. I will graduate as an RN in the spring of 2013. Until then, we are living on credit. I'm scared that either a) she's going to decide to have another relationship without my blessing, and I'm going to have to end our marriage, or b) she's going to leave me because she wants to pursue another relationship, and knows I'm just not going to be okay with it.
The longer we go on, the deeper I get into debt, and the more I feel I have to lose. I know money is petty, but I don't want to deal with the issue of being an extra $20-30K in debt and having to spend additional years paying that off alone because she gave up.
Okay, this post is going on way too long. There are just so many details and so much complexity.
But just a couple more things...
So, yes, I could be pursuing an outside relationship for myself, but I can't imagine having the time for that for years to come, until I'm out of school and have earned my Master's degree. She, on the other hand, can snap her fingers and have guys lined up to hop in bed with her. I feel this part of the situation is unresolvably inequitable, at least for the foreseeable future.
Maybe I'd be a bit more open to "sharing" her if I were feeling anywhere near being sexually satisfied. Her "friend" denied her sex, which she says has never happened before. After having had sex with 200+ guys, that rejection came as a total shock to her. And now, her sexual desire, at least with me, has gone from a 9 to maybe a 1. I've never said so out loud, but in my mind, it is hard for me to not deny that if she hadn't tried to go there with him, she wouldn't have been denied, and she wouldn't have felt rejected, and we'd be having sex several days a week still. But that's something I know just isn't right to say, and not even very right to be thinking.
Our current lack of a sex life surely doesn't lead me to feel like I can ever be comfortable with her having sex with someone else. Maybe if it was the other way around, and she were sexually insatiable, and I was a once-a-month person, I'd give her my blessing to get satisfaction elsewhere. But I'm here, I'm available, and I'm a good (if not great) lover. She used to say I was the best lover she'd had, and the only guy that could bring to orgasm almost every time. She didn't even think she could get there prior to me.
Arrgghhh!! And ahhhhh! It's been quite a relief getting all this out. I hope no one minds my hijacking this thread, but I had no idea all this would be coming out when I began replying to this thread.
Thanks for listening,
Jason
