myelsewhere
New member
My husband Beck and I have been together for over five years, married for three of those. We have always, even when dating, discussed involving other people in our sex life. Other than one experience years ago with a threesome, nothing ever came of it. Last year, "other people" (generally speaking) became a frequent topic of pillow talk. I finally told Beck we needed to talk about it outside the bedroom, and he agreed. This was around last October.
At the time, we both really only discussed/were interested in doing things as a couple, with other couples or single males or females. Finally, in January, we met up with another bisexual-female/straight-male couple for a "soft swap." It was fun, a great first experience. We weren't 100% on the personality chemistry with both of them, though, so we didn't see them again.
In the meantime, Beck and I started discussing the idea of having sex one-on-one with others (i.e., without having each other present). We talked about it quite extensively, and I thought we were on the same page about it. I should have realized we were not because Beck had this idea that we would find some couple we would both have mutual perfect chemistry/attraction with, and we would have our first "full swap" experience together. I expressed my doubts about this happening. I thought it was clear that it was a "it would be nice, but not likely" thing. I now realize that losing our "poly virginity," for lack of a better term, together was hugely important to Beck, and I totally screwed that up.
When Beck went away on a month-long business trip in early April, I starting talking to a guy, Jace, who was in one of my classes at school. I asked if he wanted to hang out, and mentioned that I was in an open relationship. He expressed mild shock at the possibility, but was okay with the idea. We hung out a few times. We ended up having sex one night.
During Beck's trip, he was only able to call infrequently, and we only had very short, practical conversations. I mentioned that I was "hanging out" with Jace, figuring that, based on our previous discussions, Beck would get what I meant. I felt kind of bad about having fun with someone while he was stuck in a crappy place, so I was not as explicit about things as I should have been. We also had not discussed how much information we wanted to share about our individual encounters.
While Beck was gone, I saw Jace very regularly. I was open to the thought of having threesomes with him and Beck, but the idea of having other partners became less interesting. It was then that I began to realize that these feelings I was having about other people were more about connections and emotional intimacy than just sex (although I'm game for "just sex" in the right context, as well).
When Beck came back, he asked if I'd had sex with Jace. I told him yes. Beck seemed fine, even talked about meeting him and about the possibility of threesomes. They never met, though, partly because Jace was out of town. Then, before Jace got back, Beck had a total breakdown about the whole situation. He decided that I had gone against our rules, because I hadn't asked him if I could have sex with Jace before it happened. My point of view was that we had already agreed that having sex with other people was okay. In fact, I had even given him condoms before he left for his trip. Clearly, in hindsight, we were not on the same page.
About a month of hell ensued, during which Beck decided that I had cheated on him and he was going to leave me. I was flabbergasted. To make a long story less long, we went to counseling, and have been working through things ever since. The idea/practice of open relationships was put on hold very temporarily, but never abandoned, and frequently discussed as part of the whole process. I stopped seeing/talking to Jace completely, and asked for Beck's forgiveness. He's still working on that part.
In June, I started hanging out with a lesbian female acquaintance, Marina, whom I've known for about a year. She works at a coffee place I frequent. We have had an obvious chemistry/connection, but had never hung out until June, outside of her breaks at work. We went out platonically a couple of times. Then we finally admitted to each other that we were feeling something more.
I explained the situation to her-- my open relationship with Beck, and the thing with Jace. She was amazingly understanding, supportive, and willing to "deal" with all of that in order to be able to see me. I told her I had to ask Beck about seeing her as more than a friend, but I wanted them to meet first. They met one night at our house, when we had a bunch of people over for drinks in the back yard. She beat me to the punch, and asked him (in a private conversation) if he was okay with us seeing each other. He respected the request/conversation a lot (I was later told) and was impressed that she had the nerve to ask him, given everything that had been going on. He said yes, and gave us his blessing.
(Holy crap, this is a long story.)
Since then, Marina and I have been seeing one another very regularly. We took the physical relationship very slowly, but it has been wonderful. (There is lots of NRE, which kinda sucks, because I'm trying to stay on the logical side of things.) We have a great emotional/spiritual/intellectual and physical connection. I have come to realize even more that my idea of an ideal open relationship definitely falls within the polyamory realm, not just swinging.
Beck has been very supportive, although I can tell it's hard for him sometimes. It's challenging for me to keep the balance between the three of us, given that I very much want to give the relationship with Marina its fair chance, but I also know that Beck is my primary, and healing our relationship is most important.
Since the "explosion," as it were, Beck has messed around with one girl (no sex, just playing), and decided he's not into the random hook-up thing, or even hooking up for the sake of hooking up. Sex for him has always been a very intimate, important thing in relationships. He has had some challenges finding (quality) women around here who are open to being involved with him in an open relationship. He's not interested in long-distance or online stuff, so that limits the pool, as well. He finally met a woman nearby and has had a couple of dates with her. It's slow going, but they seem to have a decent connection. I don't ask too much, and I also think he doesn't want to share too much.
We had another setback this week, when he told me that he had been seething over a conversation we had almost a month ago, in which Jace got brought up in pillow talk. (We were drunk; I don't remember who started it.) The next day, I followed up with him by email (which is how we address subjects with each other we know are going to be touchy). I was confused by him talking about that, even during sex. I thought maybe he wanted to have a threesome to put some of his feelings/fears to rest on that subject. He responded by questioning my motives for the whole polyamory thing, and whether or not I understood how badly the breach of fidelity hurt him.
The next day, I was in a car accident and wasn't on email much to respond. He never brought it back up, so I (wrongly) assumed it was past. This week, he finally told me (after we had a confrontation in Home Depot over paint, which we recognized was a sign of larger things wrong and had a discussion later) that this whole time, he has been feeling like he did right after the initial incident happened.
He said he feels like he hates me sometimes. (That's hard to hear.) But he wants me to be happy, and he wants us to stay together. He also wants to keep pursuing the open relationship idea. It's something he wants to do. But he feels like polyamory has been tainted for him because of what happened early on. I think it's hard for him to see me happy with Marina when things aren't going as well for him. Even though he acknowledges it's unrealistic, part of him feels like our relationships should be more "equal." I think that's because he leans more towards the conservative side of swinging than polyamory.
Also, to add another complicating factor to the mess, he told me he still feels like he wants us to have sex together with another female (someone not Marina-- after all, she is gay) or a couple, because that is all he wanted all along.
I'm confused about my feelings on this. I'm happy with Marina. I don't know how she would react to the idea of me having a threesome or foursome with others.
Also, I'm afraid that this suggestion is an unrealistic Band-Aid for Beck's feelings about polyamory, and will only make things worse when he doesn't feel the way he thinks he will after it's been said and done.
If you've made it reading this far, you are a saint. I'm leaving out some less relevant details that I can add in replies, but to do so now would make a two-page initial post. I think I needed to write this out, mostly to vent, but also because I really need an outsider's perspective on it. It's hard being new to this, and being in a crappy, non-supportive geographical location, and not having anyone to really talk to about it besides the people with whom I'm in relationships.
At the time, we both really only discussed/were interested in doing things as a couple, with other couples or single males or females. Finally, in January, we met up with another bisexual-female/straight-male couple for a "soft swap." It was fun, a great first experience. We weren't 100% on the personality chemistry with both of them, though, so we didn't see them again.
In the meantime, Beck and I started discussing the idea of having sex one-on-one with others (i.e., without having each other present). We talked about it quite extensively, and I thought we were on the same page about it. I should have realized we were not because Beck had this idea that we would find some couple we would both have mutual perfect chemistry/attraction with, and we would have our first "full swap" experience together. I expressed my doubts about this happening. I thought it was clear that it was a "it would be nice, but not likely" thing. I now realize that losing our "poly virginity," for lack of a better term, together was hugely important to Beck, and I totally screwed that up.
When Beck went away on a month-long business trip in early April, I starting talking to a guy, Jace, who was in one of my classes at school. I asked if he wanted to hang out, and mentioned that I was in an open relationship. He expressed mild shock at the possibility, but was okay with the idea. We hung out a few times. We ended up having sex one night.
During Beck's trip, he was only able to call infrequently, and we only had very short, practical conversations. I mentioned that I was "hanging out" with Jace, figuring that, based on our previous discussions, Beck would get what I meant. I felt kind of bad about having fun with someone while he was stuck in a crappy place, so I was not as explicit about things as I should have been. We also had not discussed how much information we wanted to share about our individual encounters.
While Beck was gone, I saw Jace very regularly. I was open to the thought of having threesomes with him and Beck, but the idea of having other partners became less interesting. It was then that I began to realize that these feelings I was having about other people were more about connections and emotional intimacy than just sex (although I'm game for "just sex" in the right context, as well).
When Beck came back, he asked if I'd had sex with Jace. I told him yes. Beck seemed fine, even talked about meeting him and about the possibility of threesomes. They never met, though, partly because Jace was out of town. Then, before Jace got back, Beck had a total breakdown about the whole situation. He decided that I had gone against our rules, because I hadn't asked him if I could have sex with Jace before it happened. My point of view was that we had already agreed that having sex with other people was okay. In fact, I had even given him condoms before he left for his trip. Clearly, in hindsight, we were not on the same page.
About a month of hell ensued, during which Beck decided that I had cheated on him and he was going to leave me. I was flabbergasted. To make a long story less long, we went to counseling, and have been working through things ever since. The idea/practice of open relationships was put on hold very temporarily, but never abandoned, and frequently discussed as part of the whole process. I stopped seeing/talking to Jace completely, and asked for Beck's forgiveness. He's still working on that part.
In June, I started hanging out with a lesbian female acquaintance, Marina, whom I've known for about a year. She works at a coffee place I frequent. We have had an obvious chemistry/connection, but had never hung out until June, outside of her breaks at work. We went out platonically a couple of times. Then we finally admitted to each other that we were feeling something more.
I explained the situation to her-- my open relationship with Beck, and the thing with Jace. She was amazingly understanding, supportive, and willing to "deal" with all of that in order to be able to see me. I told her I had to ask Beck about seeing her as more than a friend, but I wanted them to meet first. They met one night at our house, when we had a bunch of people over for drinks in the back yard. She beat me to the punch, and asked him (in a private conversation) if he was okay with us seeing each other. He respected the request/conversation a lot (I was later told) and was impressed that she had the nerve to ask him, given everything that had been going on. He said yes, and gave us his blessing.
(Holy crap, this is a long story.)
Since then, Marina and I have been seeing one another very regularly. We took the physical relationship very slowly, but it has been wonderful. (There is lots of NRE, which kinda sucks, because I'm trying to stay on the logical side of things.) We have a great emotional/spiritual/intellectual and physical connection. I have come to realize even more that my idea of an ideal open relationship definitely falls within the polyamory realm, not just swinging.
Beck has been very supportive, although I can tell it's hard for him sometimes. It's challenging for me to keep the balance between the three of us, given that I very much want to give the relationship with Marina its fair chance, but I also know that Beck is my primary, and healing our relationship is most important.
Since the "explosion," as it were, Beck has messed around with one girl (no sex, just playing), and decided he's not into the random hook-up thing, or even hooking up for the sake of hooking up. Sex for him has always been a very intimate, important thing in relationships. He has had some challenges finding (quality) women around here who are open to being involved with him in an open relationship. He's not interested in long-distance or online stuff, so that limits the pool, as well. He finally met a woman nearby and has had a couple of dates with her. It's slow going, but they seem to have a decent connection. I don't ask too much, and I also think he doesn't want to share too much.
We had another setback this week, when he told me that he had been seething over a conversation we had almost a month ago, in which Jace got brought up in pillow talk. (We were drunk; I don't remember who started it.) The next day, I followed up with him by email (which is how we address subjects with each other we know are going to be touchy). I was confused by him talking about that, even during sex. I thought maybe he wanted to have a threesome to put some of his feelings/fears to rest on that subject. He responded by questioning my motives for the whole polyamory thing, and whether or not I understood how badly the breach of fidelity hurt him.
The next day, I was in a car accident and wasn't on email much to respond. He never brought it back up, so I (wrongly) assumed it was past. This week, he finally told me (after we had a confrontation in Home Depot over paint, which we recognized was a sign of larger things wrong and had a discussion later) that this whole time, he has been feeling like he did right after the initial incident happened.
He said he feels like he hates me sometimes. (That's hard to hear.) But he wants me to be happy, and he wants us to stay together. He also wants to keep pursuing the open relationship idea. It's something he wants to do. But he feels like polyamory has been tainted for him because of what happened early on. I think it's hard for him to see me happy with Marina when things aren't going as well for him. Even though he acknowledges it's unrealistic, part of him feels like our relationships should be more "equal." I think that's because he leans more towards the conservative side of swinging than polyamory.
Also, to add another complicating factor to the mess, he told me he still feels like he wants us to have sex together with another female (someone not Marina-- after all, she is gay) or a couple, because that is all he wanted all along.
I'm confused about my feelings on this. I'm happy with Marina. I don't know how she would react to the idea of me having a threesome or foursome with others.
Also, I'm afraid that this suggestion is an unrealistic Band-Aid for Beck's feelings about polyamory, and will only make things worse when he doesn't feel the way he thinks he will after it's been said and done.
If you've made it reading this far, you are a saint. I'm leaving out some less relevant details that I can add in replies, but to do so now would make a two-page initial post. I think I needed to write this out, mostly to vent, but also because I really need an outsider's perspective on it. It's hard being new to this, and being in a crappy, non-supportive geographical location, and not having anyone to really talk to about it besides the people with whom I'm in relationships.
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I too am stuck in a place where there is not much support, the deep South. This forum provides a great deal of support for me. 