polywollydoodle
New member
Hi. New here and new to poly. Sort of. I’ve been deeply happily married to my wife for 20 years.
Our first decade together she was constantly jealous and mistrusting of me, making sure I was never attracted to other women, though I never gave her any reason to. If you had asked me if I thought monogamy was natural, I would have said not at all. But I have always been in love with her and never considered even flirting with anyone else.
Then, after ten years together, she discovered ENM/polyamory while having a powerful sexual awakening. She is the last woman you would’ve expected to want an open marriage, but her sudden growth was powerful. It was exciting, but she also put tremendous pressure on me to open and at a pace I was very uncomfortable with and scared by. I begged her to slow down and be so careful with our precious marriage. And, afraid of being left behind, I insisted she not do anything until I did.
Frustrated with me, she encouraged me to use Tinder. I quickly met someone to date casually and my wife was off like a race horse, the next day going out with a guy she had waiting, and taking off their clothes in his car.
My shock at how quickly she moved and how pent-up her need for this was, in retrospect, painful to me. But what guy would complain about the gift of his wife setting them both free like that? I thought I’d won the lottery.
But it brought up pain from before and during our marriage. Regardless, we plunged ahead, not knowing what we were doing, really. She slept with a lot of guys. I saw the one woman regularly until she lost interest. Still, the experiences and sex with her, and at home with my wife, had been exhilarating. I felt so alive. But the best thing about it all was the honesty and discovery we’d found in each other through being open. We had never been so truthful, even with ourselves before.
Then, without even looking, I met someone. We both fell hard and had a passionate, deeply-felt affair, until she suddenly ghosted me without explanation. I was devastated, and the whole open marriage ride came crashing down on me. I didn’t handle it well and, weighed by other very hard things at the time (work, financial troubles, parenting our kids) I had a breakdown and fell into a real depression.
This wreaked havoc on my marriage for several months, and reverberated for years afterward. I handled my reaction to everything badly and traumatized my wife for a long time. She’s still not over it.
But we got through it. We moved across the country to a dream house, and had the third child we always wanted. We were mostly happily monogamous again for the next ten years while we repaired our relationship, though she did most of the work.
Despite everything, I always wanted to open again, but my wife adamantly did not. She said she’d gotten carried away and it nearly destroyed our marriage. I would never trade my wife for anything in the world. She is the reason for my life. So I accepted closing. But you can’t unknow the things you’ve learn. We stuffed the lid back over Pandora’s box, but inside myself, it was, if not a lie, a game of knowing denial. What I missed most was not the sexual freedom, it was the honesty.
My wife even reverted back to old monogamous jealousies, always asking if she was the only one I was attracted to. I would nod and say yes, both of us knowing it was a ridiculous lie. Believe it or not, though, my wife is the most emotionally intelligent person I’ve ever met. And I know she has just been trying to keep our love alive and marriage together.
Then about four months ago, seemingly out of nowhere, she started having a second sexual awakening. She’s back! I couldn’t believe it. She wanted to see other people again, this time with all we had learned about each other and communicating, older and wiser. This time I wanted to be more mature and loving and calm about it. I said she was free again, and I would let things happen organically for me.
Of course, because she’s a woman, she found someone immediately. She started seeing him regularly. I was so turned on and happy for her. Our honesty and sex life came roaring back to life again. It was a second chance. I swore I wouldn’t look this gift horse in the mouth and do anything to fuck it up.
But I’ve hit a big wall. We said we’d be more careful and slow. But my wife evidently has a hard time doing just that. Within six weeks, she said she was in love and talking about this brand-new relationship as long term. She's eager for us to meet.
This time I have handled it much better. I’ve been genuinely happy for her. I understand that we all have feelings and love, and that’s the point of all of this. But her NRE has become a ride that I am hanging onto. There has been so much for me to process and adjust to. Despite my head being fine with it all, my heart started hurting. I’ve never experienced the love of my life falling in love with another man. It’s gone from mild jealousy to real pain.
Once again, I asked her to slow down. She says she didn’t mean to fall in love, and she can’t help her feelings. She’s avoided the idea of slowing down. She just wants us to work through my feelings without making her feel put in a cage, or hurting her boyfriend of three months. She often puts his feelings and experiences on par with mine. And talks about the future in terms of years without asking me if I am ok being connected to this stranger for the rest of my life.
Last weekend, I gently told her over and over that I needed her to slow down. She agreed and said that we needed to talk about what that meant but couldn’t have that conversation for a few days.
Then, the next day, on Monday morning, I went to our shared private office and walked in on the two of them. The boyfriend, who I hadn’t met, was just pulling up his pants. I went into a panic of betrayal and left. The rest of the day my wife was apologizing, saying she was going to tell me after, and didn’t think it would be a problem, because he’d stopped by our office in previous days to fuck her and I’d been ok with it. (She’d told me after the fact then, too, so what choice did I have?) I said, You call this slowing down? And she insisted that she didn’t think it counted, because it was so brief, and that she can’t read my mind.
So look, I don’t want to control my wife’s feelings or her sex life. It’s exciting and beautiful and arousing to me and I love hearing about it. But the last few days and weeks I have felt betrayed and triggered like never before and am now in full blown fight or flight, trauma response.
I don’t want to close up again, but my wife is so resistant to even pausing for a month (that it’s too late for that and would hurt her and her boyfriend) and holds over me that she will feel repressed with me, because what moves her and attracts her to me the most is when I allow her this freedom. She’s not insensitive to me. She’s been crying with me and is in pain that I’m in pain. She told me over and over that she would never leave me, while I sobbed.
She says we might not be able to handle all this. I think we can, and that the light at the end of this tunnel will be brighter than any other. But I feel stuck and in terrible pain. She says this is what I wanted and I said but it’s not how I wanted it. I know life is never how we expect it to be. But I am utterly unprepared to face so quickly a mourning for the marriage we’ve had and for who my girl has been to me for twenty years. I know those things are normal and I can embrace them and celebrate the new normal as even better and more alive than the old normal. But the speed feels like when the doors dropped on Normandy beach and the guns opened fire. The price for freedom?
I’ve reached out to a therapist who does somatic and Eastern-based relationship therapy, and I’m optimistic that I can clear out the old trauma that this is obviously bringing up. I want my wife to experience love, just as I would expect the same gift from her in return. I want to be able to not only endure her feelings, but love them all, and without the crutch of trying to balance it out by finding another woman for myself.
But her NRE is out of control, and plowing through my intense pain is only making it worse.
Any thoughts?
Our first decade together she was constantly jealous and mistrusting of me, making sure I was never attracted to other women, though I never gave her any reason to. If you had asked me if I thought monogamy was natural, I would have said not at all. But I have always been in love with her and never considered even flirting with anyone else.
Then, after ten years together, she discovered ENM/polyamory while having a powerful sexual awakening. She is the last woman you would’ve expected to want an open marriage, but her sudden growth was powerful. It was exciting, but she also put tremendous pressure on me to open and at a pace I was very uncomfortable with and scared by. I begged her to slow down and be so careful with our precious marriage. And, afraid of being left behind, I insisted she not do anything until I did.
Frustrated with me, she encouraged me to use Tinder. I quickly met someone to date casually and my wife was off like a race horse, the next day going out with a guy she had waiting, and taking off their clothes in his car.
My shock at how quickly she moved and how pent-up her need for this was, in retrospect, painful to me. But what guy would complain about the gift of his wife setting them both free like that? I thought I’d won the lottery.
But it brought up pain from before and during our marriage. Regardless, we plunged ahead, not knowing what we were doing, really. She slept with a lot of guys. I saw the one woman regularly until she lost interest. Still, the experiences and sex with her, and at home with my wife, had been exhilarating. I felt so alive. But the best thing about it all was the honesty and discovery we’d found in each other through being open. We had never been so truthful, even with ourselves before.
Then, without even looking, I met someone. We both fell hard and had a passionate, deeply-felt affair, until she suddenly ghosted me without explanation. I was devastated, and the whole open marriage ride came crashing down on me. I didn’t handle it well and, weighed by other very hard things at the time (work, financial troubles, parenting our kids) I had a breakdown and fell into a real depression.
This wreaked havoc on my marriage for several months, and reverberated for years afterward. I handled my reaction to everything badly and traumatized my wife for a long time. She’s still not over it.
But we got through it. We moved across the country to a dream house, and had the third child we always wanted. We were mostly happily monogamous again for the next ten years while we repaired our relationship, though she did most of the work.
Despite everything, I always wanted to open again, but my wife adamantly did not. She said she’d gotten carried away and it nearly destroyed our marriage. I would never trade my wife for anything in the world. She is the reason for my life. So I accepted closing. But you can’t unknow the things you’ve learn. We stuffed the lid back over Pandora’s box, but inside myself, it was, if not a lie, a game of knowing denial. What I missed most was not the sexual freedom, it was the honesty.
My wife even reverted back to old monogamous jealousies, always asking if she was the only one I was attracted to. I would nod and say yes, both of us knowing it was a ridiculous lie. Believe it or not, though, my wife is the most emotionally intelligent person I’ve ever met. And I know she has just been trying to keep our love alive and marriage together.
Then about four months ago, seemingly out of nowhere, she started having a second sexual awakening. She’s back! I couldn’t believe it. She wanted to see other people again, this time with all we had learned about each other and communicating, older and wiser. This time I wanted to be more mature and loving and calm about it. I said she was free again, and I would let things happen organically for me.
Of course, because she’s a woman, she found someone immediately. She started seeing him regularly. I was so turned on and happy for her. Our honesty and sex life came roaring back to life again. It was a second chance. I swore I wouldn’t look this gift horse in the mouth and do anything to fuck it up.
But I’ve hit a big wall. We said we’d be more careful and slow. But my wife evidently has a hard time doing just that. Within six weeks, she said she was in love and talking about this brand-new relationship as long term. She's eager for us to meet.
This time I have handled it much better. I’ve been genuinely happy for her. I understand that we all have feelings and love, and that’s the point of all of this. But her NRE has become a ride that I am hanging onto. There has been so much for me to process and adjust to. Despite my head being fine with it all, my heart started hurting. I’ve never experienced the love of my life falling in love with another man. It’s gone from mild jealousy to real pain.
Once again, I asked her to slow down. She says she didn’t mean to fall in love, and she can’t help her feelings. She’s avoided the idea of slowing down. She just wants us to work through my feelings without making her feel put in a cage, or hurting her boyfriend of three months. She often puts his feelings and experiences on par with mine. And talks about the future in terms of years without asking me if I am ok being connected to this stranger for the rest of my life.
Last weekend, I gently told her over and over that I needed her to slow down. She agreed and said that we needed to talk about what that meant but couldn’t have that conversation for a few days.
Then, the next day, on Monday morning, I went to our shared private office and walked in on the two of them. The boyfriend, who I hadn’t met, was just pulling up his pants. I went into a panic of betrayal and left. The rest of the day my wife was apologizing, saying she was going to tell me after, and didn’t think it would be a problem, because he’d stopped by our office in previous days to fuck her and I’d been ok with it. (She’d told me after the fact then, too, so what choice did I have?) I said, You call this slowing down? And she insisted that she didn’t think it counted, because it was so brief, and that she can’t read my mind.
So look, I don’t want to control my wife’s feelings or her sex life. It’s exciting and beautiful and arousing to me and I love hearing about it. But the last few days and weeks I have felt betrayed and triggered like never before and am now in full blown fight or flight, trauma response.
I don’t want to close up again, but my wife is so resistant to even pausing for a month (that it’s too late for that and would hurt her and her boyfriend) and holds over me that she will feel repressed with me, because what moves her and attracts her to me the most is when I allow her this freedom. She’s not insensitive to me. She’s been crying with me and is in pain that I’m in pain. She told me over and over that she would never leave me, while I sobbed.
She says we might not be able to handle all this. I think we can, and that the light at the end of this tunnel will be brighter than any other. But I feel stuck and in terrible pain. She says this is what I wanted and I said but it’s not how I wanted it. I know life is never how we expect it to be. But I am utterly unprepared to face so quickly a mourning for the marriage we’ve had and for who my girl has been to me for twenty years. I know those things are normal and I can embrace them and celebrate the new normal as even better and more alive than the old normal. But the speed feels like when the doors dropped on Normandy beach and the guns opened fire. The price for freedom?
I’ve reached out to a therapist who does somatic and Eastern-based relationship therapy, and I’m optimistic that I can clear out the old trauma that this is obviously bringing up. I want my wife to experience love, just as I would expect the same gift from her in return. I want to be able to not only endure her feelings, but love them all, and without the crutch of trying to balance it out by finding another woman for myself.
But her NRE is out of control, and plowing through my intense pain is only making it worse.
Any thoughts?
Last edited:
