Out of the blue, I don't know what to do.

This is going to be a long post, so thank you for reading to through it all. I’m sure I’ve left out some stuff, it’s been a wild 6 days. So please ask questions and I’ll try and fill in any gaps that I can. So long actually that it looks like I need to split it into two posts.

I guess I’ll just jump right into it. My(45M) wife(43F) of almost 19 years sat me down this past Saturday, reaffirmed her love for me hasn’t changed and that she feels that we’re solid. And then informed me that she’s grown strong feelings for someone else over the past 2 months. She stressed that nothing physical has happened between them, and in fact she only told the other person about her feelings the day before, to find out if they felt the same, which they stated that they did also have strong feelings for her.

Before I get into more details, I think it would be relevant to go into a bit more history.

We grew up in the church, we got married young and didn’t have sex until after we got married, and have been eachother’s only sexual partners.

We’ve both grown a lot as individuals and as a couple over the years, we broke away from the church, have since become atheists, and our world views have opened up quite a bit. We actually both have anger towards the church when we look back. She has more anger towards it than I do, as the restrictions and pressure and guilt placed on women is more significant. That continues to fuel a bit of rebellious thoughts/behaviour in her these days.

A few years ago she approached me with the idea of maybe getting into burlesque. I was a bit surprised at first, and wrestled with a few insecurities that had left some residual from the early churchgoing days of our marriage, but I was quite quickly able to come around to not only accepting it, but fully encouraging and supporting her in it any way I could. I go to all her shows, I give her advice on crafting parts of her wardrobes/costumes when she asks, I don’t get upset when she has dance classes 3, 4, 5 times a week at times when things are really busy. I’m genuinely happy for her, and that she’s found a great way to express herself, her sexuality, and freedom in that. Plus she’s turned out to be really, REALLY good at it.

Two months ago she got approached by one of the local organizers, asking her if she would like to join up with this sort of “super group” of performers she was assembling. Basically about 10 hand picked local performers who could learn a bunch of choriography and be able to perform in any number of local performances that may occur. She was thrilled, I was/am thrilled for her to be able to be a part of that!

One of the members, is someone she had interacted with in passing at shows, I’ve interacted with them as well. They are masc presenting trans man, assigned female at birth.

Over the last 2 months they’ve grown closer, talked more, including outside of class, and this is the person my wife has fallen for.

So there are layers of complexity here.

She feels very connected with them, saying things like, “maybe in another lifetime we were together”, or “in a different timeline maybe we got together”, things like that. Basically that she feels a real, and powerful draw to this person.

She never expected this to happen, she wasn’t searching for it, and equally as surprising to her is the fact that she finds herself suddenly emotionally, romantically, and sexually attached to a person with a different gender than she had ever even considered before.

So, as I said, she sat me down and told me about these strong feelings, emotional connection, sexual attraction, AND that she’s already shared all of that news with them first, the day before, and that they reciprocated.

She then wanted to immediately be transparent and not hide anything from me and to speak with me about it. She continued to stress that she did not want to cheat on me, and that nothing physical has happened.

But she then continued and brought up the question of opening up the marriage because she wants to explore an emotional, romanitc, and sexual relationship with this person.

She’s also not entirely sure if it’s just a “I’m really drawn to this specific person, regardless of their gender”, type of thing, or if the aspect of their gender also adds a lot of draw, as well as discovering that this may be a new part of herself that she wants to explore. She said that she doesn’t think this is an identity switch, but that this may be an additional part of her identity that she hadn’t realized until this basically “happened to her”.

I was able to be curious and inquisitive and we talked for a few hours probably as I was just trying to understand better, and process intellactually what was happening. I think I was in shock a bit as well.

Later that day she had a birthday party to attend to, and she was transparent that the other person was going to be there. I was fine with that, I trust her, especially since she came to me as soon as this became a real possibility.

While I was on my own I was able to start emotionally processing the shock, and I broke down and cried, sobbed, hyperventilated, perhaps minor panic attacks, multiple times. She didn’t get home until late and we didn’t talk about things any further that night, partially because it was late, and partially because she had a couple of drinks at the event. We both decided it was wise to wait until morning.

We talked more in the morning and I let her know just how hurt I felt, and shocked, and how my own insecurities are bubbling up. The usual thoughts like “I’m not enough”, “what did I do wrong”, all the usual things. Even though I intellectually know that we could’ve had the most perfect marriage and sex life and this exact scenario may still be happening. I’m monogamous to my core so I can’t actually understand it in a way of actually knowing. It feels like if someone had never ever stubbed their toe before, and their partner suddenly stubbed their toe and tried to describe what that is like for them. I can intellectually understand it but there’s no way I could fully know if unless I also experienced it myself. And I have no interest at all in being non-monogamous myself.

I have nothing ethically against people who are poly, I just never thought this would be something I would have to work through in my own relationship.

When she say how hurt this made me, she took that as a “no” from me as far as being ok with them persuing a romantic/sexual relationship together. She totally understood. I stressed that this is still a huge shock and new and unexpected and that I’m hurting right now, and from the stuff both of us have read, decisions shouldn’t be made one way or another in this early stage with heightened emotions and confusion, but also that boundaries are a good thing to discuss to have in place during this interim time.

I told her that right now, I’m not going to say she can’t ever see or talk to this person, and definitely would never say she can’t continue being in the burlesque group that they’re in together, and that I know that this started as friendship with them, and if possible I don’t want them to lose out on a friendship. But for right now, I can’t handle/be ok with them getting romantically/sexually involved.

She took it fairly well and said she understood. But was really not looking forward to telling the other person about this, because from their perspective, they just got told by someone that they’ve had a crush on for a while but supressed “because she’s married”, that she actually also has a crush on them. She said she had kind of hoped that when she told them about her crush, they would just say “oh, no, I don’t feel the same way”, and then she would be able to just deal with her emotions on her own.

1/2

2/2 ...continued:

She saw them that next night before one of their dance practices, as well as after, they talked about it and what I had decided, and let them know it couldn’t happen. They were understandbly hurt, I can imagine their perspective. They had a crush on her for a while, keeping it to themselves because they’re married. And the what a f**kin dream come true that the person you’ve been crushing on comes out at tells you that they have a crush on you and wonder if you feel the same.

And then what a f**kin nightmare when the husband asks her to pull things way back to being just friends.

She wishes she could take it all back and wishes she hadn’t told anyone anything. I stressed that I think she made the right decision as this would bubble up eventually, one way or another.
After she had those talks with them and came home, she was devastated and heartbroken. She said before she was reluctant to call it “love”, but with how much calling things offf hurts her and how she felt while she was grieving that, that she thinks she does love them. And obviously those feelings don’t just go away because she called off any further pursuit of a romantic relationship with them. She’s still going to see them dancing sexy at class and shows, as well as them seeing her in the same light, and like I said I don’t want to restrict their friendship, I’ve already denied her/them of so much.

I feel like I’m putting her in a cage, and said as much, and she agreed that that is how it feels right now. She went on to say that maybe it’s more that we built a fence together that we’re in, but she wants to build a gate on the fence so she can go through that gate at times and come back.

I feel devastated, not only at what if feels like I’ve lost, the security I felt in our marriage, our connection, our uniqueness. But I also feel absolutely horrible that I’ve denied her of some potential real joy and excitement and exploring this new part of herself. And I also feel bad for them and the loss they must feel right now.

I already know that things are never going to go back to the way they were. There are needs/wants/desires that have come to light that are actual things that would be impossible for me to fullfill. The possible queer awakening, the type of relationship/closeness that biological females can provide each other(just a completely different kind of deep understanding of eachother, in a way that a man never really good) and especially when expanded into this romantic/sexual relationship the type of closeness and understanding that can provide. Again, this all makes me intellectually understand that this isn’t a “I’m not enough” situation, but it still really feels that way. Even if it’s in a way where there is no possible way that I could fill that void, that still very much feels like I’m not enough.

I don’t know what to do, I feel lost, devastated, and like I’m denying two people of something that could be truly special. I hate being the cause of so much pain to the one I love so much.

I don’t see any way forward where no one is upset or unhappy. The current choice I’ve made makes everyone upset and unhappy, including me. And I feel like it could still lead to the end of our relationship. If I say to go for it and explore this part of yourself, then she and they can be happy, though part of her would be sad because of how devastated I will be. But at least more people will be happy than in any other scenario.

Well, every other scenario except one. Our relationship ends completely. That would leave the two of us hurting for a single, concentraited time, but then she can go on and be happy with whatever new configuration of romantic relationships she would like.

I listened through the audiobook of Polysecure in the last 3 days. Mostly just to try and learn more, as well as to maybe try and understand her better. It’s a good book and has a lot of great insights on attachment styles and insecurities, lots of things that I think could be applicable for any person or any relationship. That said, it’s very much written aimed at people who are already poly and are looking to become more secure in their new configuration.

If anyone has any books they could recommend that may be helpful for my situation. I haven’t been able to find anything close. All I’ve found is stuff to help people transition from monogamy to polyamory, or how to work through when one partner asks to open up the marriage. But nothing about when one partner wants to open up the marriage, with a specific person in mind already that an emotional relationship had already started. And nothing really to basically help the monogamous partner figure out even if being ok with the other partner being poly is something they actually may not ever be able to be ok with. Preferably audio books because I have pretty bad ADHD which makes it difficult for me to focus on reading anything, let alot reading while my mind is racing a mile a minute thinking about all of this.

Once again, thank you for reading all of this. Any questions or feedback are more than welcome.

Reply

Hi. I just want to confirm your feelings of being devastated, "not enough," the shock of this after a Christian upbringing and only ever being with one romantic/love/sex partner. You are reeling, and that is completely understandable.

And you are not alone.

I would suggest you try not to carry guilt for denying your wife your consent to immediately consummate this new romance. There is no fire. It might feel urgent to her, her crush, but people get crushes all the time. Even mono people. That doesn't mean you need to act on the crush. Calling it "love" is premature. It is new relationship energy (NRE), an extremely common state of obsessive interest in a person you are romantically or just lustfully interested in. There are actually hormones involved, such as dopamine and oxytocin, flooding her/their brains and genitals right now.

Most couples who go from monogamy to some form of ethical non-monogamy take at least one year, if not longer, to learn about it (whether it's polyamory, swinging, or something like hotwifing or cuckolding), before actually opening up, or deciding not to, or splitting up, if it comes to that.

We have an entire section of resources on ENM/polyamory here:


There are dozens of articles, books, movies, videos, and a podcast listed, as well as archived threads on every poly topic you could imagine. We also have a search function where you can look up specific topics.

I'd highly recommend you request your wife cool her jets, enjoy her crush, but not do anything overtly romantic or sexual with this person. Just because those two are interested in each other doesn't mean you are required to make a sudden 180 in your relationship.

Do you have children? If so, that adds a very important aspect to consider in changing horses in midstream.

Hello JustAMonoGuy,

The only book I can think of to recommend is "Opening Up," by Tristan Taormino. It doesn't go too heavy into the notion that you have supposedly already decided to open, but really I think you need a book that sympathizes with the hurt you are experiencing, knowing that your wife wants to open when you do not. There is such a thing as a mono/poly marriage, in theory you could go that route, but it is not for everyone, and in particular I have my doubts about whether it would be right for you. Like you said, there is also the idea of you and your wife breaking up, and you do seem to be hitting a wall of incompatibility. However, I don't think either of you wants to go down that road. It looks like both of you will have to remain monogamous, as much as it sucks to look at it that way.

Sympathetically,
Kevin T.

Magdlyn said:

Do you have children? If so, that adds a very important aspect to consider in changing horses in midstream

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply, and words of encouragement and expressing that I’m not alone in this.

To answer your question, no, we don’t have any children, we decided early on that neither of us wanted children, and I actually got a vasectomy over 10 years ago to make that decision permanent.