Janro
New member
Hi!
I'm an asexual (sex-favorable or sex-indifferent mostly) pan-romantic non-monogamous cis-woman in my mid-thirties. Being somewhat socially awkward I haven't been in that many relationships, and thus far all have been pretty monogamish, and I strongly believe that openly and honestly communicating your needs and wants and listening to and respecting your partners' is essential for any type of a relationship really. I have a lot of friends representing all kinds of sexual orientations and gender identities, and ENM is quite common in my friend circles, and I've devoured tons of material online and talked to a lot of people, but don’t really have personal experience in a working non-monogamous relationship.
I am currently living with my boyfriend (cis-het-male, also in his mid-thirties). We've been together for about four years now. He comes from a much more strict and mono background than me, and was married for over 10 years (divorced now) before we started dating. When we started dating we discussed different relationship models and ways of living, and I told him that if he wanted other relationships or connections or encounters with other people, I'd be supportive of that, and only asked that he'd be honest and open about if he felt like he wanted to pursue that. He was enthusiastic, as that was something he'd felt he'd have wanted to do within his marriage, but hadn't felt that he could express those feelings and desires to his wife.
A year into our relationship I found out that he had had multiple sexual relations, many fluid-bonded, and two slightly longer ongoing relationships without me knowing anything about them during the previous six months, and all of those women thinking I knew about them and was okay with the relations. I confronted him about them, mostly wondering why he hadn't told me, as we'd had a lot of conversations about me being okay and supportive about those kinds of things if I was kept in the know. I think he was quite surprised about my reaction, and said he hadn't really believed that I'd be okay and accepting with him wanting to have the sexual relations with all those people and him being polyamorous, and hadn't dared to tell me because of that. I did feel betrayed and sad and cheated on, as I felt that trust and our agreement of honesty and respect had been severely violated. I was also very worried about the fluid-bonded sex he'd had with multiple people, though he'd taken STD tests regularly and had discussed the issues with his partners beforehand.
Nevertheless we decided to work through the issues to try to re-establish trust, and talked more clearly about boundaries and expectations, and agreed more solidly on how we wanted to conduct our relationship: honest open communication, relations and relationships with other people are welcome as long as everyone is kept informed and things are done in an ethical consensual way. He also said he'd break off the non-consensual relationships he had at the time, and I was glad, as keeping them on caused a lot of anxiety in me and had me spiraling into a nasty mental place when I didn't know what I could believe and reliving the moments he'd lied to me or woven stories about being somewhere when in fact he was seeing one of his relations.
After the discovery our relationship got a lot better, we enjoyed each other's company and got to know each other on a deeper level and connected more.
Fast-forward half a year: I find out he's again, (still?) having sexual relations without telling me about them. Mostly new people but one of them was one of the relationships he'd had previously that he'd said he'd ended. We go through the discussions about honesty and respect and consent again, and he swears I'm the most important person in his life and that he wants to try to fix things. So that is what we try, only to have the same things happen again in six months. At that point I was pretty much a wreck and a mess.
Then covid happened, and we pretty much spent the year 2020 with only each other, and committed to seeing to the end of the year what we'd make out of our relationship. We dug through all that had happened, practiced a lot of self-awareness and compassion, and had a lot of meaningful conversations about who we were and what we wanted from life and our relationships. I felt that our connection to each other got better and better, and that we finally started to heal from the trauma of infidelity and found mutual respect and empathy and team spirit. We sort of stopped having sex altogether at this point, which isn't a huge deal for me as an ace, though I do like the feeling of being desired, and miss that. We've also talked about this and he said that for some reason he just doesn't want to have sex with me and I haven't pressured him on the matter. Due to it we'd agreed to hold off having sex with other people and sleeping next to other people until we'd resolved some more of our issues. Anyways, the end of the year came and went and we were in a place where we wanted to commit to supporting each other and working together rather than against each other.
Now, this spring, as restrictions are being loosened, we started seeing some friends again, and taking a peek at the world outside. I was feeling somewhat unsure, and feeling a little anxious about how things would go based on our past. My need for security and need to trust him was colliding with his dire need to explore and be free after being cooped up for a year and we got into a few heated arguments about it, and about other people, where quite unconstructively I'd be very suspicious of him, needing more information and confirmation, and him feeling I wasn't accepting him for who he was and trying to keep him from other people, and both of us feeling the other one's experience unfair. I sill wasn't feeling secure enough and ready for him to sleep next to other people or have sex with other people, though for all our time together I've repeatedly told him, that if those things are such that he really wants to do them, then it would be his decision and he would be free to do so, and that I would keep him informed on how it would make me feel, and if it would make me feel so bad that I couldn't handle it, then we'd discuss about our options and decide on a course of action.
A few weeks ago he met a woman. He told me about her and that he's a little into her and that he'd like to see if it could evolve into something. I was really glad that he talked to me about it, and felt okay about him seeing her and getting to know her and encouraged him to do so. So he schedules a date with her. A couple days before their date he and I discussed how we want to conduct the date and what kind of things I'd need to feel safe about it. During this discussion it becomes evident that we have had a different notion of the nature of the meeting. I had been under the impression that he'd want to get to know the woman, talk to her, you know the drill. He was under the impression that I knew that he was going to have sex with her, and had already talked protection and STD stuff with her and let her know that I'm okay with them having sex. At that moment I was not okay with it. I truly want to be, and I want him to lead a meaningful life, and don't want to be the reason he has to limit himself. Yet I need time to come to terms with this thing. He says I've been taking too long and that he doesn't have the patience to wait much longer, though he did agree that to actually make this new thing work then we'd need to start doing things ethically and with consent. So he talked with the woman and she agreed that it'd be okay to not have sex if it's not okay with me, and she, too, wants to form a respectful consenting relationship and do things "right".
So, they met last week, no sex, some talking and cuddling and kissing, and I find that great! I already felt safer than I'd felt in about three years. I felt like I was being listened to and that my worries and consent were taken into account and were respected, and I was trusted in the sense that I'm trying to come to terms with this and resolve my issues, and my boyfriend finally believes I want this to work.
(Continuing on a reply, as I'm being so long-winded, sorry! )
I'm an asexual (sex-favorable or sex-indifferent mostly) pan-romantic non-monogamous cis-woman in my mid-thirties. Being somewhat socially awkward I haven't been in that many relationships, and thus far all have been pretty monogamish, and I strongly believe that openly and honestly communicating your needs and wants and listening to and respecting your partners' is essential for any type of a relationship really. I have a lot of friends representing all kinds of sexual orientations and gender identities, and ENM is quite common in my friend circles, and I've devoured tons of material online and talked to a lot of people, but don’t really have personal experience in a working non-monogamous relationship.
I am currently living with my boyfriend (cis-het-male, also in his mid-thirties). We've been together for about four years now. He comes from a much more strict and mono background than me, and was married for over 10 years (divorced now) before we started dating. When we started dating we discussed different relationship models and ways of living, and I told him that if he wanted other relationships or connections or encounters with other people, I'd be supportive of that, and only asked that he'd be honest and open about if he felt like he wanted to pursue that. He was enthusiastic, as that was something he'd felt he'd have wanted to do within his marriage, but hadn't felt that he could express those feelings and desires to his wife.
A year into our relationship I found out that he had had multiple sexual relations, many fluid-bonded, and two slightly longer ongoing relationships without me knowing anything about them during the previous six months, and all of those women thinking I knew about them and was okay with the relations. I confronted him about them, mostly wondering why he hadn't told me, as we'd had a lot of conversations about me being okay and supportive about those kinds of things if I was kept in the know. I think he was quite surprised about my reaction, and said he hadn't really believed that I'd be okay and accepting with him wanting to have the sexual relations with all those people and him being polyamorous, and hadn't dared to tell me because of that. I did feel betrayed and sad and cheated on, as I felt that trust and our agreement of honesty and respect had been severely violated. I was also very worried about the fluid-bonded sex he'd had with multiple people, though he'd taken STD tests regularly and had discussed the issues with his partners beforehand.
Nevertheless we decided to work through the issues to try to re-establish trust, and talked more clearly about boundaries and expectations, and agreed more solidly on how we wanted to conduct our relationship: honest open communication, relations and relationships with other people are welcome as long as everyone is kept informed and things are done in an ethical consensual way. He also said he'd break off the non-consensual relationships he had at the time, and I was glad, as keeping them on caused a lot of anxiety in me and had me spiraling into a nasty mental place when I didn't know what I could believe and reliving the moments he'd lied to me or woven stories about being somewhere when in fact he was seeing one of his relations.
After the discovery our relationship got a lot better, we enjoyed each other's company and got to know each other on a deeper level and connected more.
Fast-forward half a year: I find out he's again, (still?) having sexual relations without telling me about them. Mostly new people but one of them was one of the relationships he'd had previously that he'd said he'd ended. We go through the discussions about honesty and respect and consent again, and he swears I'm the most important person in his life and that he wants to try to fix things. So that is what we try, only to have the same things happen again in six months. At that point I was pretty much a wreck and a mess.
Then covid happened, and we pretty much spent the year 2020 with only each other, and committed to seeing to the end of the year what we'd make out of our relationship. We dug through all that had happened, practiced a lot of self-awareness and compassion, and had a lot of meaningful conversations about who we were and what we wanted from life and our relationships. I felt that our connection to each other got better and better, and that we finally started to heal from the trauma of infidelity and found mutual respect and empathy and team spirit. We sort of stopped having sex altogether at this point, which isn't a huge deal for me as an ace, though I do like the feeling of being desired, and miss that. We've also talked about this and he said that for some reason he just doesn't want to have sex with me and I haven't pressured him on the matter. Due to it we'd agreed to hold off having sex with other people and sleeping next to other people until we'd resolved some more of our issues. Anyways, the end of the year came and went and we were in a place where we wanted to commit to supporting each other and working together rather than against each other.
Now, this spring, as restrictions are being loosened, we started seeing some friends again, and taking a peek at the world outside. I was feeling somewhat unsure, and feeling a little anxious about how things would go based on our past. My need for security and need to trust him was colliding with his dire need to explore and be free after being cooped up for a year and we got into a few heated arguments about it, and about other people, where quite unconstructively I'd be very suspicious of him, needing more information and confirmation, and him feeling I wasn't accepting him for who he was and trying to keep him from other people, and both of us feeling the other one's experience unfair. I sill wasn't feeling secure enough and ready for him to sleep next to other people or have sex with other people, though for all our time together I've repeatedly told him, that if those things are such that he really wants to do them, then it would be his decision and he would be free to do so, and that I would keep him informed on how it would make me feel, and if it would make me feel so bad that I couldn't handle it, then we'd discuss about our options and decide on a course of action.
A few weeks ago he met a woman. He told me about her and that he's a little into her and that he'd like to see if it could evolve into something. I was really glad that he talked to me about it, and felt okay about him seeing her and getting to know her and encouraged him to do so. So he schedules a date with her. A couple days before their date he and I discussed how we want to conduct the date and what kind of things I'd need to feel safe about it. During this discussion it becomes evident that we have had a different notion of the nature of the meeting. I had been under the impression that he'd want to get to know the woman, talk to her, you know the drill. He was under the impression that I knew that he was going to have sex with her, and had already talked protection and STD stuff with her and let her know that I'm okay with them having sex. At that moment I was not okay with it. I truly want to be, and I want him to lead a meaningful life, and don't want to be the reason he has to limit himself. Yet I need time to come to terms with this thing. He says I've been taking too long and that he doesn't have the patience to wait much longer, though he did agree that to actually make this new thing work then we'd need to start doing things ethically and with consent. So he talked with the woman and she agreed that it'd be okay to not have sex if it's not okay with me, and she, too, wants to form a respectful consenting relationship and do things "right".
So, they met last week, no sex, some talking and cuddling and kissing, and I find that great! I already felt safer than I'd felt in about three years. I felt like I was being listened to and that my worries and consent were taken into account and were respected, and I was trusted in the sense that I'm trying to come to terms with this and resolve my issues, and my boyfriend finally believes I want this to work.
(Continuing on a reply, as I'm being so long-winded, sorry! )