NorthCarolinaGuy
New member
So I'm new to these forums and I'm here seeking some advice from those with more experience to help me assuage my fears and insecurities about the idea of opening up my relationship with my wife. My situation is as follows:
My wife, I'll call her Amy, and I have been together for 11 years. She and I have three beautiful children together. The course of our relationship has been atypical in that Amy and I had our first child at ages 21 and 20, respectively, and we did not "tie the knot" until 6 years later--so we've been married for 5, and have (by and large) been monogamous for our whole relationship.
Amy has largely been a stay-at-home mother, supporting me while I worked, finished college, and earned my graduate degree. I have a great career now, and she's hoping to get her own started, although that has been a pretty tough transition for her.
I love Amy fiercely, and she loves me the same way. I love waking up next to her, holding her, and making love to her. Most mornings it’s hard getting out of bed because she doesn’t ever want to stop cuddling. Truthfully, while I admit that I can get very excited, sexually, about other women, I really just have no motivation to go out and pursue another relationship. While Amy and I have our ups and downs, overall, I am really, really happy to be with her.
Recently, Amy has been talking about dating outside of our marriage. It seems like it's something she really wants to do, and by and large, I am O.K. with it in terms of nearly every area of our relationship, except for one: Sex. And this is where my fear and insecurity sets in.
See, I have always had a much higher sex drive than Amy. I would say that in my perfect world, I would be having really good, intense sex about every other day to every day. For Amy, she tells me her preference would be once a week, if that. We seem to compromise at about 2-3 sessions per week, although our sexual experiences are, by and large, pretty vanilla (it’s still passionate and I really enjoy her and feel fulfilled when we make love, but I will admit to wanting something more). She seems to be okay with the rate and the way we make love.
I consider myself a pretty generous lover, but at the same time, I have a lot of my self-esteem tied to my performance, sexually. Often times in the past, for me, I experienced our difference in libido as rejection, and have frequently felt like she didn’t desire me when we slowed down. Although I’m working to get over that, I have been guilty of withholding affection as a result of her apparent sexual disinterest—something which has perhaps created a stigma for us and our sexual togetherness.
Where this all ties in is, when Amy talks about dating outside our marriage, which includes sexual relationships, I get really scared that perhaps I do not satisfy her, and this notion makes me feel really, really low. I guess the story I am telling myself is, what if Amy has never been satisfied by me sexually (she just likes my other relationship qualities), and now she wants to go and meet someone who will turn her on in a way that I just can’t?
She and I have talked about this fear, and she assures me that this is not the case, that she gets more than enough satisfying sex with me, and that she really wants us to explore other relationships because she thinks it would be good for her self-esteem and because it will motivate us to be better, more attractive, and more attentive spouses to each-other. She says she will be more turned on for me if she is getting male attention elsewhere, and also will get more turned on if I am getting female attention elsewhere. We’ve both agreed that we’re together for the long-haul, and that no matter what, we’ll always be one-another’s “primary.” In fact, before Amy and I got together, Amy had far more sexual partners than I, and she has told me many times that she’s never connected sexually with anyone like she has with me.
Still, I can’t seem to shake the nagging, insecure feeling that, because she knows how sensitive I am to this subject, Amy may be withholding the truth from me in order to protect my ego. It would make sense—I would be pretty devastated if it really were the case that I didn’t meet her sexual needs and she wanted to go elsewhere for them. Frankly, I’m not sure how I would handle such a revelation.
There is one other twist I would like to add to this. A few times, Amy and I have experienced other women in our bed, in the threesome context, but never really in the context of an ongoing relationship. Each time, Amy got extremely jealous, but also extremely turned on. In fact, the aftermath of these scenarios were some of the very few times when Amy’s libido actually outstripped my own. I know exposing me to other women, sexually, was a really scary plunge for her, so I can’t help feeling a little bit hypocritical that I’m feeling so insecure about her being with other men.
From a rational standpoint, I really have no reason to doubt Amy. But when stepping out of your comfort zone, it’s hard to keep irrational feelings of fear from overwhelming you. So that’s the main reason why I am here. I am hoping someone has perhaps found themselves in a situation quite a lot like mine. I am hoping they can tell me that they had fears like mine, but that those turned out to be unfounded. I am hoping they can tell me that their sex life with their life partner was enriched by opening things up, and not that their partner found a preference for someone else.
If you’ve read this whole post, I really thank you, as I recognize that it is very long. Any input ya’ll would like to add is most welcome.
My wife, I'll call her Amy, and I have been together for 11 years. She and I have three beautiful children together. The course of our relationship has been atypical in that Amy and I had our first child at ages 21 and 20, respectively, and we did not "tie the knot" until 6 years later--so we've been married for 5, and have (by and large) been monogamous for our whole relationship.
Amy has largely been a stay-at-home mother, supporting me while I worked, finished college, and earned my graduate degree. I have a great career now, and she's hoping to get her own started, although that has been a pretty tough transition for her.
I love Amy fiercely, and she loves me the same way. I love waking up next to her, holding her, and making love to her. Most mornings it’s hard getting out of bed because she doesn’t ever want to stop cuddling. Truthfully, while I admit that I can get very excited, sexually, about other women, I really just have no motivation to go out and pursue another relationship. While Amy and I have our ups and downs, overall, I am really, really happy to be with her.
Recently, Amy has been talking about dating outside of our marriage. It seems like it's something she really wants to do, and by and large, I am O.K. with it in terms of nearly every area of our relationship, except for one: Sex. And this is where my fear and insecurity sets in.
See, I have always had a much higher sex drive than Amy. I would say that in my perfect world, I would be having really good, intense sex about every other day to every day. For Amy, she tells me her preference would be once a week, if that. We seem to compromise at about 2-3 sessions per week, although our sexual experiences are, by and large, pretty vanilla (it’s still passionate and I really enjoy her and feel fulfilled when we make love, but I will admit to wanting something more). She seems to be okay with the rate and the way we make love.
I consider myself a pretty generous lover, but at the same time, I have a lot of my self-esteem tied to my performance, sexually. Often times in the past, for me, I experienced our difference in libido as rejection, and have frequently felt like she didn’t desire me when we slowed down. Although I’m working to get over that, I have been guilty of withholding affection as a result of her apparent sexual disinterest—something which has perhaps created a stigma for us and our sexual togetherness.
Where this all ties in is, when Amy talks about dating outside our marriage, which includes sexual relationships, I get really scared that perhaps I do not satisfy her, and this notion makes me feel really, really low. I guess the story I am telling myself is, what if Amy has never been satisfied by me sexually (she just likes my other relationship qualities), and now she wants to go and meet someone who will turn her on in a way that I just can’t?
She and I have talked about this fear, and she assures me that this is not the case, that she gets more than enough satisfying sex with me, and that she really wants us to explore other relationships because she thinks it would be good for her self-esteem and because it will motivate us to be better, more attractive, and more attentive spouses to each-other. She says she will be more turned on for me if she is getting male attention elsewhere, and also will get more turned on if I am getting female attention elsewhere. We’ve both agreed that we’re together for the long-haul, and that no matter what, we’ll always be one-another’s “primary.” In fact, before Amy and I got together, Amy had far more sexual partners than I, and she has told me many times that she’s never connected sexually with anyone like she has with me.
Still, I can’t seem to shake the nagging, insecure feeling that, because she knows how sensitive I am to this subject, Amy may be withholding the truth from me in order to protect my ego. It would make sense—I would be pretty devastated if it really were the case that I didn’t meet her sexual needs and she wanted to go elsewhere for them. Frankly, I’m not sure how I would handle such a revelation.
There is one other twist I would like to add to this. A few times, Amy and I have experienced other women in our bed, in the threesome context, but never really in the context of an ongoing relationship. Each time, Amy got extremely jealous, but also extremely turned on. In fact, the aftermath of these scenarios were some of the very few times when Amy’s libido actually outstripped my own. I know exposing me to other women, sexually, was a really scary plunge for her, so I can’t help feeling a little bit hypocritical that I’m feeling so insecure about her being with other men.
From a rational standpoint, I really have no reason to doubt Amy. But when stepping out of your comfort zone, it’s hard to keep irrational feelings of fear from overwhelming you. So that’s the main reason why I am here. I am hoping someone has perhaps found themselves in a situation quite a lot like mine. I am hoping they can tell me that they had fears like mine, but that those turned out to be unfounded. I am hoping they can tell me that their sex life with their life partner was enriched by opening things up, and not that their partner found a preference for someone else.
If you’ve read this whole post, I really thank you, as I recognize that it is very long. Any input ya’ll would like to add is most welcome.
