Opening Up - It's Complicated

Status
Not open for further replies.
D

DaddyD823

New member
TL; DR - in an LTR, but realize that mono isn't working for me.

Hello, all.

51 M here. I've really only been in two LTRs in my life. Both were mono, although my first wife and I did dabble in swinging for a bit. It was fun, but we did it for the wrong reasons (trying to fix a marriage that was unfixable).

Been with my current wife for almost 22 years, married for almost 13. She has had two sexual partners in her life - me and her ex. She's also 10 years older than me..

She's never had the highest sex drive (especially compared to me), but it's become practically zero since she had some health issues several years ago.

While she was going thru that, a mutual (platonic) friend suggested opening up the marriage (for my benefit). Wife was pretty freaked out. I've made throwaway comments over the years (at appropriate moments) about the fact that I'd be fine sharing her if that's what she wanted to do. She's always been adamant that she doesn't share.

For the last several years, things have gotten worse. We have sex maybe two or three times a year, always at my insistence, and there's no passion - it's simply "by the numbers."

I masturbate frequently and watch a lot of porn and OF content. She's fine with this. Says at least she knows my needs are being met.

I love my wife and want to stay married to her, but I miss sex. And I also recently met someone (online and lives four hours away) with whom I've developed a strong emotional connection. This woman is poly, has two BFs, and has no interest in being exclusive with me.

We can't deny the attraction we have, and I want to re-address poly with my wife. I'm not looking to go sleep around with strangers, but I do want to explore this new relationship.

Any advice on how to bring this up? I've started to a couple of times, but my wife recently started going thru health stuff again. My new friend said she thinks I should tell wife, but I feel like I should wait until she is feeling better.
 
That's one of the things that's just wrong with monogamy and the attendant expectation of sexual fidelity. It is so common for one spouse's libido to tank, for health reasons, medications, menopause or other hormonal changes, lack of emotional intimacy, some kind of life hardship, or any number of other reasons. Yet the one lacking in libido insists that their partner, the one with the healthy natural libido, does not have sex with anyone else. So that person is doomed to a life of masturbation, or cheating, or doing half-cheating things like getting massages with happy endings, or lap dances.

Sometimes women's libidos tank when they are pregnant, or lactating, or they're just exhausted from the high stress lifestyle of caring for very young children. That happened to me. But when my youngest finally started sleeping through the night (he was five), my libido came back with a vengeance and my ex-husband thought he'd died and gone to heaven haha. But we managed sex during our dry period about once every 3 or 4 weeks. So, like 12-16 times a year? Not 2 or 3 times a year, for years on end.

And now your wife is having health problems again.

It's really up to you to decide whether to face this head on or not. She doesn't own you. You *could* just tell her masturbation isn't cutting it. Sex isn't just about getting the orgasm release, it's about touching another person, having that total body experience. Solo sex is just nowhere near as exciting and fulfilling as partnered sex.

So, you could tell her you're going to seek a lover. You've decided and that's that. Put it out there. Then she can decide what she's going to do.

Or... you could continue with porn and sexting with this long-distance person (if you are sexting, or doing video chats, and sharing nudes and the like), behind her back. You could cheat and meet with this person. It's up to you. Some people would rather have their partner cheat than officially open the marriage. I mean, that's how it's been in our culture for hundreds of years. In France, people are basically expected to be married and also take lovers; it's like an open secret.

I'm sorry I can't tell you when and how to bring it up, but I hope I've provided food for thought.
 
Thanks for your kind words.

My new friend said that she thinks that I should tell her, but said that she understands why I don't. She also mentioned the fact that men have historically had mistresses, so there is some precedent for that.

I want to bring it up. I do. I think that my wife knowing there's distance between us would make things easier in that she may feel less threatened if she knew this is a "few times a year" situation.

If this woman was local, I'd probably just go ahead and cheat. But her living so far away makes it hard to come up with an excuse to leave the house. So again, bringing it up seems like a good idea.


Again, I truly love my wife and don't want to end the marriage. I'm afraid that opening up will start us down that road. But at the same time, I can't deny there's something growing between me and another woman.

I also feel somewhat guilty about the timing - not just that my wife is having major health problems again, but that I met this woman right around the same time I started realizing that monogamy isn't working. Ideally, I should have been out first, but kinda stumbled into this.
 
Last edited:
I'm terrible at copy/paste, apparently. Wanted to also mention that your thoughts about sex with a partner vs. solo sex exactly echo my own.

And yes, new friend and I are exchanging sexy pics/videos/chats regularly.
 
It's up to you if the love for your wife overrides the importance of living your full polyamorous truth. But as she has been going through health issues for several years now, you will be sitting on the fence for how long? At a certain point you have to throw it in the ether.

Is your wife mobile enough to go away for a day or weekend, spend time elsewhere on a beach or get away, relax for quality-time and talk? Perhaps that could make it feel better somehow. Beyond that, I am out of advice.
 
I've gone back and forth on it. While I don't want to pile anything else on her right now, I feel like I need to start speaking my truth sooner rather than later.
 
It sounds like your wife has been pretty consistent. She has always had a relatively low sex drive that declined with age. That is pretty typical.

I think part of your acknowledgement is that you chose to marry someone you knew wasnt as sexual as you are. She made the choice to marry someone more sexual. Those choices are coming back to bite both of you. How will you (both) fix it?
 
Why do you think you're polyamorous? When, in the past, have you had feelings for more than one partner at a time? Seems to me long term monogamy is more your style, based on your r'ship history so far. Are you "living your polyamorous truth" or just over your sexless marriage?

Considering that you might be monogamous, what makes you think you are not/will not fall IN love with sexually available, shiny new partner while falling OUT of love with low-libido old partner?

Would you still be interested in polyamory if your current partner was more sexual, or at least more sexual when not dealing with health problems?
 
Last edited:
Good question, and one I've asked myself.

I think I'm just realizing that love is not a finite resource.

Obviously, a LOT of this has to do with the sex. But I truly do love my wife. I genuinely want to stay married to her. She's a great partner and a wonderful person. I just can't spend the next 20 - 30 years without sex.

I've caught feelings for other people in the past, even when wife and I were doing better in the bedroom. And now I'm having feelings, emotional and physical, with my new friend. So I'm wondering if I could be poly.

And yeah, if the shoe was on the other foot, I'd encourage my wife to get her needs met, as long as she promised to stay in the marriage. Hell, if she says okay to this and wants to do it herself, I'm fine with that.
 
Well, today I brought it up to my wife. She didn't give an outright no, and she needed lots of reassurance. I told her that I'm more than willing to work with her on establishing boundaries and limits.

I told her that I'm not interested in going out and randomly hooking up with strangers; I have one friend in mind. I told her that friend is not local.

One of her things was that she didn't think she could mentally handle the idea of me being intimate with someone else. I told her that I'd tell her as much or as little as she wants to hear - DADT structure, maybe?

Anyway - just wanted to post this update. My wife is amazing for being more open to this than I expected. 🥰
 
Loose DADT, as she would know you are going away for the weekend to be with her. But if it makes her feel better, you can call it a yoga retreat or something... She will know why you are going without having to call it that, and if anyone asks where you are, she can tell them. 😉
 
Greetings DaddyD823,
Welcome to our forum. Please feel free to lurk, browse, etc.

Good on you for bringing this up with your wife. And good on her for being more open to it than you thought she'd be. It sounds like the two of you will be able to work something out, perhaps some kind of a compromise that you can both live with. Keep the lines of communication open with her, and keep us posted here so we can continue to help.

Sincerely,
Kevin T., "official greeter" :)

Notes:

There's a *lot* of good info in Golden Nuggets. Have a look!

Please read through the guidelines if you haven't already.

Note: You needn't read every reply to your posts, especially if someone posts in a disagreeable way. Given the size and scope of the site it's hard not to run into the occasional disagreeable person. Please contact the mods if you do (or if you see any spam), and you can block the person if you want.

If you have any questions about the board itself, please private-message a mod and they'll do their best to help.

Welcome aboard!
 
Bobbi said:
Loose DADT, as she would know you are going away for the weekend to be with her. But if it makes her feel better, you can call it a yoga retreat or something... She will know why you are going without having to call it that, and if anyone asks where you are, she can tell them. 😉
Click to expand...

Yes, my new friend actually lives between where I live now and the town where I grew up and where I often go to visit family. I was thinking I'd just take a solo trip to see family and make a stop along the way.
 
Yoga! Yeah, that's the ticket. With a focus on downward dog.

I'll see myself out.
 
Honestly, we could probably lock this thread down and I might delete my account.

Wife said no. She said she couldn't handle the thought of me being intimate with someone else. I asked if she was sure that was it, because I had rationales for other arguments, but that is one with no real defense.

Not sure what's going to happen next. I really can't leave her right now (health problems) and I really don't know that I want to. Other than sexual incompatibility, she's amazing.

But I also can't deny feelings for my new (experienced poly) friend - who, by the way is deep in some NRE with a new partner, so my contact with her has been less the past few days.

I'm just batting a thousand right now. 😂
 
Sorry to hear that.

Thread locked as per your request.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top