New to this whole world

S

Scarista13

New member
Hi everyone. My husband and I are new to this world. Heres a little background: over the last two years my husband and I had not been having sex. And it lead to a lot of problems in our marriage. Well about 6 months ago i proposed the idea of having an open marriage to him and to my surprised he agreed. I have maintained a FWB relationship with a friend whom Ive been friends with over 2 years. Both the FWB agreed this was to be strictly sex however he has become more affectionate than my husband and filling in a gap Ive been missing in my life. And Im scared that I might fall for him. Is it wrong to do that?
 
If your husband isn't affectionate or sexual with you, is he really just a roommate? (I ask, because I had a life like that, once).

Is it wrong for you to develop feelings, or experience love, for the man who does act in the capacity of affectionate, er, lover? Well, you'd be breaking the agreement that it was to just be FWB, but you wouldn't be the first person around here to be told that such agreements are usually set ups to failure. Because you are being intimate with someone. And intimacy and feeling actually go hand in hand. It's a part of the human condition.

BUT, and here's the part I really can't figure out most of the time when this type of question arises (be happy you're not alone) - feelings are just that, feelings. You are perfectly allowed to feel them without needing to assign meaning to them. In fact, the meaning part of a feeling, the "oh no, what should I do now I feel a thing, does that mean I don't feel a thing for hubby? Does that mean I need to run away with lover?" is actually the ego or thinking brain trying to wrest back control from the feeling body. Thinking brain is a little bit scared of feeling body, thus the attempt to assign meaning to every little feel when it just isn't necessary. Feel away. Enjoy it. Fall in love. It doesn't MEAN you have to [fill in the blank].

And you're not doing anything wrong.
 
My Hubby can be but nowhere near as he used to be. As far as my friend in a lot of ways we are more than FWB we just kinda put a label on it. No one knows that we are. We hang in the same circle of friends. But thank you for reassuarance because there really is no pressure or stress with him because i dont feel i have to live up to being a wife, a mother and a million other things. With him I can be myself and thats a welcome change. :)
 
Scarista13 said:
... And Im scared that I might fall for him. Is it wrong to do that?
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Well, you are on a polyamory forum, so I kind of feel that most of the folks here would probably say that "falling for" people (that you are sleeping with) is par for the course and that expecting otherwise might be naive - and kind of missing the point in being in a "polyamorous" relationship.

Is it "wrong" to feel what you are feeling? No - in my philosophy feelings happen, and you can't, necessarily, control them.

Is it "wrong" to act upon those feelings? It depends on what agreements you have with your husband. Does your (you and your husband's) definition of "open" include the possibility of feelings developing?

Some of us (me, for example) are good at "sex-friendships" non-romantic, many are not.
 
This is true. Again Im new to the whole relationship. I was raised in a very monogamous background and have always struggled with being tied down to one person. So forgive me if i say things that sound ignorant. And as far as the agreement with my husband it was ageed upon that things happen and as long as it doesnt affect our home life we have established for our kids its fine.
 
Doesn't sound ignorant at all. Good questions that we all struggle to figure out. Sounds like you are finding some things you need with your BF/FWB. But that doens't mean you have to give up the connections with your primary. Sounds like that is up to you... But I don't really know how this works - I'm struggling to figure it out too, so you shouldn't take my advice, but just wanting to provide you some reassurance....

Peace.
 
Having stronger-than-friendship feelings for a "friend" isn't inherently a bad thing. Nor does it automatically mean destabilizing your home life. One of the points of polyamory is that it's possible for some of us to feel love toward more than one partner *without* detracting from either/any of them, or from our kids, or whatever.

My offspring, who are obviously older, not only don't feel that their home life has been adversely affected by my being poly; they think it's been *improved.* I'm happier. I have another outlet to help me cope with some of the issues from my past that have at times caused problems for my family. They have another man in their life who considers them, if not his kids, at the very least kids about whom he cares a lot, and they look at him as another parental figure even though he hasn't been in my life for long. (They were making strides toward thinking of my ex-boyfriend the same way, until that relationship began to falter; then my kids, who are sometimes fiercely protective of each other and me, decided he was an asshole not worth their time--and that's a direct quote.)

I don't know Highlight's whole story, but her kids are considerably younger than mine, and from what I've been told, when they were made aware that Woody is their mother's boyfriend, not just a friend, they reacted essentially the same way. They were happy for her. Woody spends a lot more time at Highlight's home, with the entire family, than she does at his or than he does at mine (he has yet to really spend any time at my home when the rest of the family is here, though we're working on changing that), and her kids accept him as a member of the family.

So if you fall for this FWB of yours, that doesn't necessarily equate to any kind of problem. As long as you are honest with yourself, your husband, and your FWB--and, within age-appropriate boundaries, with your kids, because kids notice far more than adults give them credit for--and make the effort to ensure that no one's being ignored or short-changed emotionally, everything should be fine.
 
Re (from Scarista13):
"I'm scared that I might fall for him. Is it wrong to do that?"
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It seems that you answered your own question here:

From Scarista13:
"As far as the agreement with my husband it was ageed upon that things happen and as long as it doesn't affect our home life we have established for our kids it's fine."
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So, it seems to me that you can let this FWB relationship evolve naturally, as long as you make sure to make due room for your husband's and kids' needs.

Just wondering, have things improved between you and your husband?

Sincerely,
Kevin T.
 
Firstly, have you & your husband seen a therapist yet? :eek:

I don't care in the least whether you EVER have sex again -- there's clearly some issues, whether emotional or physical or whatever. If you're at all serious about the "for the kids" stuff, you two had better start lifting some load on what you need, what he needs, what your dyad needs, & what your family/household needs.

Until you begin to deal with THAT, other intimacy is at best a distraction, at worst putting a pretty Band-Aid over a festering wound.
________________

From personal experience, I'm leery of letting myself get too attached to someone who insists on a "no strings" relationship.

Most times, it frees them to encourage & then take advantage of my affection, but to whip out the WE AGREED card at any time I even seem to indicate that I might in some infinitesimal way start to hope for more than "fun."

If you're getting attached, & your FWB keeps insisting on clear boundaries, then it is no longer a balanced relationship. Even if he's a verified saint, you're dangling a LOT of power there, & that's tempting to many people, & they easily thereafter become abject jerks.

You've indicated that you have no interest in risking your home life. The simplest answer: dump the FWB, find someone else (maybe a married poly guy?) with whom you can have a reciprocal relationship, either able to keep each other at arm's length or to freely establish whatever emotional connection the two of you are capable of.

A somewhat messier answer: sit down with the FWB & discuss what I wrote. Admit that you need to either have a mutual emotional distancing, or you need to stop. If he was honest in the "no strings" basis, then you too have been responsible in keeping him fully informed of how your situation will affect his situation.

If he cannot/will not change his need for minimal emotions, & you are honest about "family first," continuing WILL lead to pointless melodrama as you focus more&more on balancing mutually exclusive burdens.

Ever wait tables? This is like carrying two heavy platters on a greasy tray. At the least little misstep, they start to slide, & every time you recover they slide the other way, & at some point you have a choice: accept that you're going to lose ONE platter, or keep juggling until you drop BOTH. There is no third option.
 
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Scarista13 said:
....Im scared that I might fall for him.
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I'm never sure what "falling for" means. Are you assuming that when you feel love your life falls apart? You can feel love for someone (people) without anything else changing. You don't have to let your life explode just because you love someone. It can just be love.
 
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