Opening Our Dyad to a Triad

[Spork]

The last year for me has been about really doing tons of self-work and coming to healthier places. Having the right places to facilitate that, such as this forum, and my BDSM community (we have a bunch of discussion groups, and I usually attend 4 or more every month, it's like group therapy) has been critical and valuable beyond words.

What you are feeling about getting frank answers...it's awesome, isn't it? I'm still reeling with happiness over finding people to talk to who won't sugar coat things unnecessarily, and will be real with me, but also actually would like to see me succeed and be happy. It's a point that my Zen brought up in a group he accompanied me to, when speaking to a newcomer..."everyone here wants to see you succeed." By and large, it'll still be up to you to make that happen, but feeling supported and encouraged in that way is a big deal.

I sympathize with you on having the libido loss. As I've said, that happened to me and I spent years struggling with it. The big difference is, I don't think I ever would have gotten any better in my marriage, because my marriage had tons of problems and was only getting worse. But trying to set those factors aside and see if there were others...yeah, there definitely were.

- The hormones, birth control, and stress. Physiological stuff.
- While I was married, I wasn't interested in others either...yet once I had the freedom to explore with others, it definitely threw open the floodgates of desire.
- In my marriage, I felt inadequate, guilty, and like my sexuality was part of a necessary process to maintain my husband's needs. When you load your sexuality down with baggage of this kind...it can definitely end up shutting it down.

This is why I think, if you relax, accept yourself...be ok with what you want and need...let him explore with others, and consider yourself free to do so as well IF YOU WANT TO...just take a more calm and happy approach, maybe your libido will heal. It's like, you can't look at it as work. As part of your routine like doing the dishes. It's got to be like doing something indulgent for yourself, like going on vacation, sitting on a patio by the ocean eating chocolate. If the act of intercourse does not make you feel that way right now, give yourself permission to be ok with that. Shed the guilt. Relax. You're fine. Be open to whatever gifts the universe might bring. If one day you are in the world and you feel a spark for another person...you can explore that if and when it comes, assuming you and Mr. Pants are able to agree that this is ok. Perhaps slowly untying the cargo straps and taking the baggage off of your sexuality, letting it breathe and straighten and heal and be beautiful and yours again, is what is needful?

Obviously making sure that you are healthy is a good thing. But maybe instead of "seeking a solution to the sex problem" it should be about just...making sure that you are healthy and well?

The wonderful thing here is that I sense an open-mindedness in you and yours, that I think will really help you navigate to happy places a lot more easily than many people would be able to. You've got good energy. I can tell.

 

[JaneQSmythe]

In those cases, gf and I have worked out that we can hold each other while I masturbate. I can touch her body, just not her breasts or genitals. This helps me get off more quickly and better than I would just masturbating on my own. Sometimes she even fingers me to "help me out" as long as I understand she's not in the mood to be touched in her erotic areas herself.

Would that work for you two? I learned it from a married female friend who had worked it out with her husband, that she would hold him when he jerked off, when she wasn't in the mood. It's nicer sometimes than going off alone to take care of oneself, imo.

FWIW - I second this as a workable compromise at times. Dude is often horny in the morning and I rarely am. When I am not horny I DO NOT like to have my genitals touched (breasts are fine) and I do not want to touch someone else's. So will cuddle him with my naked self and he can take care of his own genitals. Very occasionally this will lead to me getting turned on myself...but he knows, from experience, that if he pushes it then it shuts right down.

 

[FieryFlames]

Whew! I am sooooooooo behind on posts. I was out of town from July 1-6 for Vegas with Nukes (OMG so fun!), so I have a bit of catching up to do, clearly...

Oh, so you suffer from anxiety disorder? Are you receiving treatment for that?
...
And she loves that I am poly and usually have a bf for vigorous sex. It takes the pressure off her to "perform," and can actually make her desire me more than if she felt responsible to satisfy me.

I have not seen a professional for diagnosis. I suspect that I am suffering from anxiety and mild depression, and have been for quote some time. C-PTSD has also come up recently, but again - nothing professionally diagnosed. I know self-diagnosis can be controversial, so let me just put it out there that I think I would benefit from seeing a professional, but I'm not ready to do that right now and I'm seeking out things that I can do for myself in the meantime.

I've found that since we put the issue of our libido difference out in the open and we made some changes to how we interacted with each other, I've felt substantially better overall, specifically as it relates to sex. We aren't having sex very often, but when we do it's a close connection and immensely satisfying because we're both wanting to be together that way (rather than me trying to force it for myself). I'm hoping that as our triad develops, I'll continue to feel better and more relaxed because it becomes more solidified in my mind that the pressure is off because PIP has another sexual outlet. Nukes's libido more closely matches PIP's (from what she has said, and she also indicated that she needs a sexual outlet), so when things start really rolling for them I'm hoping we will all find a nice equilibrium.

This is why I think, if you relax, accept yourself...be ok with what you want and need...let him explore with others, and consider yourself free to do so as well IF YOU WANT TO...just take a more calm and happy approach, maybe your libido will heal.
...
Obviously making sure that you are healthy is a good thing. But maybe instead of "seeking a solution to the sex problem" it should be about just...making sure that you are healthy and well?

Accepting myself has been the major stumbling block for me thus far, and I think since the beginning of the year I've made a lot of progress in becoming more comfortable with myself. But you're right - we've treated my libido like a problem that needs a solution by way of "correcting" it. We did make adjustments to our behavior to account for it, but there's always a kind of underlying motive to find out what will "fix" my libido so that those adjustments may no longer be necessary.

When I got back home from Vegas yesterday, Mr. Pants and I did talk a bit about this, as he had reflected on us and himself while I was away. Looking back, the libido thing has been an issue that extends farther than the past year. He suggested that perhaps what I perceive as a moderate "default" libido at the beginning of our relationship was actually a heightened libido due to NRE, and perhaps my current libido is truly my normal. I started taking the Pill about 4 months after we started dating, shortly after we really ramped up the sexual activity. For a while it didn't make a difference but as soon as a year after beginning the Pill (maybe sooner) my libido had completely tanked. I have gotten some back after stopping the Pill, and he suggested that maybe my current libido is actually my normal.

The only thing that makes me wonder if it is, is that in high school I regularly masturbated once every day or two. Usually with urgency. So my libido now, where I can go several days without so much as a faint tingle, still seems low to me. Mr. Pants thoughtfully suggested that maybe our relationship offers emotional intimacy that satisfies me in that way (I recall someone, was it you, who suggested that maybe cuddling is our sex? Same idea, I think). To elaborate: I didn't need the physical release that sex offers so much as the emotional release I get from the way we trust and love each other, so my libido decreased as the non-sexual touching and intimacy grew. This is one of those times that I feel like my asexuality muddies the waters enough that it's hard to tell what's actually going on. This theory makes some sense to me, though.

Whatever the case, the point he made is that perhaps we should approach this as simply a difference in libido and accept it as it is, rather than worrying about "fixing" it. Of course, I'm still worried that something might be medically wrong (can't help but worry) but if nothing seems off, then I might be able to allow myself to stop looking for something that might not be there. The doctors I've spoken to don't seem to think there's anything medically wrong... but then again, none of them are really willing to look. I mention libido and they shrug and say it happens sometimes. Sooooo not the response that puts me at ease. In any case, as I said in response to Magdlyn, I hope that once the sexual aspect of our triad gets rolling, everyone will reach an equilibrium where we're all satisfied.

(Side note: I'm really enjoying talking with everyone here, as it's producing even more conversations in our relationship than we usually come up with on our own... and we've been told more than once that we share too much with each other and that no normal couple talks that much or that intimately/frankly, lol! )

FWIW - I second this as a workable compromise at times. Dude is often horny in the morning and I rarely am. When I am not horny I DO NOT like to have my genitals touched (breasts are fine) and I do not want to touch someone else's. So will cuddle him with my naked self and he can take care of his own genitals. Very occasionally this will lead to me getting turned on myself...but he knows, from experience, that if he pushes it then it shuts right down.

This sounds almost exactly how I feel, except that when I'm not horny I don't want my breasts touched, either. We have talked about trying this, and we're both willing, so we'll see how that goes whenever it comes up. It helps hearing that this seems to work for not only one, but two people here. Thanks!