"You just want your cake and eat it too?"

K

kevinjoseph

New member
Hi all!
I am new here, and new to learning about poly.

My wife and I have been married 15 years. We have had our ups and downs. I have always found it difficult to hold back my attraction and desire for other relationships.

I have cheated twice (the 2nd just happened). We are trying to salvage our marriage and keep our life together. I do love her. I just want to have sex with other people. When I say that out loud, it sounds like I am a scumbag. We come from families (and a culture) of monogamy. I cheated because I never would of imagined saying to my wife, "So, our you ok if I hookup with other people?"

Anyways, I realize we need to build up trust. and work on understanding my wants/needs.

So my main question:

What is the response to "You just want your cake and eat it too?"
 
I would say that if you want to stop cheating? Be more up front.

Tell you her you love her.
Tell her you want to stop cheating on your marriage agreements.
You want to start speaking honestly. And the honest truth is that you want to date/share sex with other people.

If she does not want that for her relationships, you understand.

So instead or renegotiating marriage agreements, you both work on disbanding them and breaking up. Then you can be free TO (stop cheating on agreements and poly date honestly instead). And she can be free FROM (any more cheating/anything poly that she does not want.)

I think trust begins by being truthful.

So however it turns out in the end... speak your truth. Lean into it, and sort out what needs sorting.

GL!

Galagirl
 
My response would be:

You are not a piece of cake to me. You are a person that I love and I want to share my life with.

When I have confronted myself and thought about my terrible behaviour of cheating on you, I have realised that one thing I desire is the option of having sex or romantic connections with more than one person at a time.

I would like to know whether this is negotiable with you.

It is something I...

- definitely need, or
- maybe need. I am not yet sure. (Pick one)

I have not been honest with you or myself in the past, and I want to be better.

Are you willing to discuss this with me?
 
Am I understanding this correctly? It sounds like she found out you were cheating and is now being told you will continue to cheat on her but you would like her to agree with that.

Do her feelings matter to you at all? She's probably in a lot of pain right now.
 
kevinjoseph said:
I have cheated twice (the 2nd just happened).
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I'll accept that only if "just happened" means "recently happened". If you mean "Oops, I tripped and had an affair without meaning to", then I'm going to call bullshit.


kevinjoseph said:
So my main question:

What is the response to "You just want your cake and eat it too?"
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My answer? "Yes, sounds good, doesn't it?" The difference is that I can say it to partners who can happily say it back. In your case phrasing a response to a hypothetical question sounds like the least of your problems. Do you have any reason to believe your wife would be interested in an open or polyam relationship?
 
Having a cake and eating it too for me also means that you want to have other relationships but you’re not ok with her having them. I don’t think you guys have come to this point yet, but you should be ready to accept that.

Are you ready for her having other relationships?

I absolutely LOVED fuchka’s reply. It’s honest. Honesty is always the best route to take. Being honest doesn’t mean you have answers. “I don’t know” is extremely honest too.

Search deep down inside, what do you REALLY want to tell her? What soothes your mind the moment you put it in words? That’s the best response.
 
Marvelgirl said:
Am I understanding this correctly? It sounds like she found out you were cheating and is now being told you will continue to cheat on her but you would like her to agree with that.

Do her feelings matter to you at all? She's probably in a lot of pain right now.
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yes, we are both in a lot of pain. We both see therapists now. I am trying to understand myself and what my needs are. I don't think we will agree on opening up anytime soon. The trust needs to be regained. But I find myself explaining WHY I may of cheated with the understanding that maybe I just want to have relationships with other people too.

I think it is extremely difficult distinguishing between understanding my past choices, and "justifying" my past actions....
 
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Emm said:
I'll accept that only if "just happened" means "recently happened".
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I see the difference. Yes, I mean "recently happened". lol. no it was not an accident. I went through major efforts hiding this from my wife.

Emm said:
Do you have any reason to believe your wife would be interested in an open or polyam relationship?
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yes, she has been open to at least learning about it. I am on my 2nd book. She has said "Maybe I should read that too".

The first problem is building trust. The second problem is talking about what happened in the context of "I just want to have sex with others." as I said above I think it is extremely difficult distinguishing between understanding and "justifying"....

How do I establish that I am not a sleazeball for wanting to have sex with others?
 
kevinjoseph said:
How do I establish that I am not a sleazeball for wanting to have sex with others?
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By "establish," what do you mean?

If you're on your second book about poly, you must know you aren't alone in wanting to have sex, or even romantic relationships with others. Read around here, read posts from longtime members. We aren't flakes, we are mature adults who take our partners' needs as seriously as our own.

It wasn't ethical to cheat. But our society encourages cheating over being in open negotiated relationships. Many women would rather date a cheating man than a poly man. That's just too weird to them, seems icky. But of course, it's all what you're used to.

People want to have sex with many other people. They also sometimes prefer one on one. A lot of it depends on hormones, which happen to fire on us whether we want them to or not. It's just a fact of life. Until recently we have dealt with this by being serial monogamists. Or by staying with one person forever, and more often than not, be kind of miserable and have meh sex or no sex at all.

Men have dealt with this for 5 millennia by declaring they can have multiple wives and concubines, but women could only have one husband. This was written about in the Bible many times, going as far back as the creation myth.

Modern polyamory is woman led. Women are claiming rights they had back in prehistory, where they could also have multiple partners.

So think long and hard. Your wife may be fucking other guys before you find another gf. All she has to do is go into a bar alone on any night. Or join a dating app or two.
 
kevinjoseph said:
... What is the response to "You just want your cake and eat it too?"
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That is a common criticism that may or may not be valid depending on the situation. It's valid in a married relationship because in that case the marriage is the "cake" and the eating it part is cheating on it ( the marriage itself ). Permission of the husband or wife isn't relevant because in legal marriages there's a third party ( the state ) and often a fourth party ( the church ) that doesn't provide permission, and which in most jurisdictions defines a sexual relationship outside marriage as adultery, which is grounds for divorce. This is the problem with legal marriages that by statute and definition do not facilitate marriage between multiple spouses.

If you want to avoid the hypocrisy of that situation, either keep it in your pants or get a divorce. Note however that getting a divorce doesn't have to be the end of the world, but a new beginning and an opportunity for further fulfilment for both partners. It just depends on how it's looked at and worked out. This can be very challenging in situations where alternative relationships aren't well understood and accepted. But it's not impossible. Honesty, communication, respect, a positive attitude, and a genuine love for one another makes all the difference in breaking or making it.
 
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I've never liked the aphorism. Like "gilding the lily" or "the exception proves the rule," it's based on error.

To make more sense in modern English, it should be more like "you want to eat your cake & still have your cake."

But apply THAT as a criticism of polyamory, & it fails, because it's clearly based on the mistaken notion that something is in tight supply & must be rationed with great care rather than squandered all over the place.

In any case, I certainly disagree, from years of experience: it's not at all impossible to have a great home life AND a great social life. For more specifics, my having multiple sex partners did not in the least make me desire my wife less, & in fact I'd say it made her look better. ;)

People will say what they want. There are those who'll tell you that you're going to roast in Hell because of your affairs -- there's no way to argue against nonsense.
________________

kevinjoseph, at best you've got an uphill battle. Polyamory REQUIRES constant communicatuion, polyamory REQUIRES absolute honesty, polyamory REQUIRES unflinching introspection.

To this point, you have totally sucked at ALL of those precepts.

You have likely spent much of your life ducking behind having "accidents," & might even be able to pull off a great display of "remorse" with all sorts of self-deprecation & tears.

At this point, it is up to YOU -- as in YOU ALONE -- to choose to get rid of that nonsense. That's going to take LOTS of work with a therapist to root out the "security" you feel from indulging in those bad habits. We're talking individual therapy AND group work, hours a week, for at least a few years.

Most people wouldn't be up to embarking on such a path, & I wouldn't fault you for honestly admitting it's too damned much work.

And though your wife has been hurt by your actions, there is inarguably something about your dynamic that is going to resist change. Since your spouse is hanging in there, it's likely she is somehow enabling your fallacious thinking; if so, then changing your failed strategies is certainly going to be more difficult, likely impossible.

Are you both ready to give up the marriage in order to have a chance at learning to be a better person? If not, then make peace with what you've got right now: you'll probably "stay on the wagon" for years at a time, then run off chasing hoochie until you get busted & can go through your grand apology & acts of contrition.
 
Thank you all for your thoughtful replies.

Ravenscroft,
When I joined the forum and posted my question, I was hoping to get ideas on how to have this conversation. Specifically, how to have the conversation when the common questions come up. I was not looking for a lecture on how I suck at life. :( So before I go back to accepting my monogomous marriage with my tail between my legs, or before I get a divorce, break up our family (2 kids), and say goodbye to someone I love ... let me try to understand and learn from others:

Ravenscroft said:
...get rid of that nonsense. That's going to take LOTS of work with a therapist to root out the "security" you feel from indulging in those bad habits.
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what nonsense? that I struggle with denying my sexual attraction to anyone other then my wife?

what bad habits? that I had two affairs not knowing that polyamory was even an option?

Ravenscroft said:
And though your wife has been hurt by your actions, there is inarguably something about your dynamic that is going to resist change. Since your spouse is hanging in there, it's likely she is somehow enabling your fallacious thinking; if so, then changing your failed strategies is certainly going to be more difficult, likely impossible.
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How do you think she enabled my thinking? I genuinely want to learn how someone "enables fallacious thinking". She is hanging in there because she loves me. She wants to be with me. She wants me to be happy too. She understands how this could happen. We both agree that we do NOT have a failed marriage. We have a failure in trust because I lied to her. She was the one who brought up the fact that some people are "polyamorous". She is offering to read the books too.

Someone please give me a more optimistic view...
 
Raven, you're an extremist. I do not think it will take "hours a week for at least a few years", to change a cheating mindset to a polyamorist one. And even if it does, so what?

I speak from personal experience. I didn't cheat, but I did get intense crushes all through the 30 years of my monogamous marriage. After my husband and I tried polyamory, and kind of failed, I did do therapy, 2 hours a week for a year (one of individual, one of couple therapy), then one hour a week for another year, and one hour a month for a 3rd year, individual therapy. It wasn't to explore my poly nature as much as just for personal growth, empowerment as a woman, knowing more about what my choices were other than being the "little woman," how to escape my outgrown and useless patriarchal conditioning.

And the therapy didn't seem like a burden. It was kind of wonderful, if hard work. It was worth every bit of time and money spent! I grew so much stronger and more authentic. My female therapist was fantastic. Like a fairy godmother, helping me find myself, a true gift. My husband and I eventually realised we'd grown apart and split amicably and entered a new and more appropriate relationship as friends and co-parents, and we both got new life partners who suit us better as who we've grown to be.
 
Magdlyn said:
Raven, you're an extremist. I do not think it will take "hours a week for at least a few years", to change a cheating mindset to a polyamorist one. And even if it does, so what?

I speak from personal experience. I didn't cheat, but I did get intense crushes all through the 30 years of my monogamous marriage. After my husband and I tried polyamory, and kind of failed, I did do therapy, 2 hours a week for a year (one of individual, one of couple therapy), then one hour a week for another year, and one hour a month for a 3rd year, individual therapy. It wasn't to explore my poly nature as much as just for personal growth, empowerment as a woman, knowing more about what my choices were other than being the "little woman," how to escape my outgrown and useless patriarchal conditioning.

And the therapy didn't seem like a burden. It was kind of wonderful, if hard work. It was worth every bit of time and money spent! I grew so much stronger and more authentic. My female therapist was fantastic. Like a fairy godmother, helping me find myself, a true gift. My husband and I eventually realised we'd grown apart and split amicably and entered a new and more appropriate relationship as friends and co-parents, and we both got new life partners who suit us better as who we've grown to be.
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Interesting. Thanks for sharing this. I think I have the whole thing down conceptually, and I've always been poly, but I don't have a lot of experience with multiple simultaneous partners. I've always found myself in long term relationships where there's rarely more than the two of us. However I don't considers these as "failures" either. The way I look at being poly, it's not really something you can fail at any more than you can fail at being human. Maybe you're being a little too hard on yourself there.
 
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Hello kevinjoseph,

What's the point of having a perfectly good cake if you can't eat it? ;) All this talk of cake is making me hungry. :D

Joking aside, nonmonogamy is very human. An excellent book on the subject is, "Sex at Dawn: how we mate, why we stray, and what it means for modern relationships," by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá.

Sincerely,
Kevin T.
 
kdt26417 said:
Hello kevinjoseph,

What's the point of having a perfectly good cake if you can't eat it? ;) All this talk of cake is making me hungry. :D

Joking aside, nonmonogamy is very human. An excellent book on the subject is, "Sex at Dawn: how we mate, why we stray, and what it means for modern relationships," by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá.

Sincerely,
Kevin T.
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Thanks Kevin. I added it to my reading list!
 
It sounds like you want to work on yourself.

The first problem is building trust.
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It sounds like you are working on that with wife. Both are in therapy, both are avoiding leaping into poly and jumping the gun on that. At this time, only poly reading to learn about that as a possible option in future rather than cheating on agreements.

Both of you sound like you are talking more authentically and honestly with each other even if hard to do. Hopefully it gets easier in time.

The second problem is talking about what happened in the context of "I just want to have sex with others." as I said above I think it is extremely difficult distinguishing between understanding and "justifying"....
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What makes it hard for you?

Do you get defensive when talking about why things happened the way they did in therapy?

You are not able to say "What I wanted was X. How I went about it was wrong. Cheating is wrong and I'm not making excuses for that behavior. I am trying to figure out how to arrive at X in more ethical ways."

Something else?

How do I establish that I am not a sleazeball for wanting to have sex with others?
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Who is calling you a sleazeball?

You are calling yourself names?

Wife?

Someone else?

Galagirl
 
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GalaGirl said:
"....I am trying to figure out how to arrive at X in more ethical ways."

Who is calling you a sleazeball?
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Good questions GagaGirl,
We come from conservative families. Both of our parents have long "successful" marriages. We are catholic. I realized this week that 2 of the 10 Commandments forbid what I did. (oh wait, maybe I said "Oh god" during sex, make that 3 broken commandments... lol)

So, everything in our/my culture is telling me that it is wrong to ask for what I want.
 
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