Hello all!
I just joined this group today after seeing lots of incredible advice and support for the various places folks may be in their journeys into open relationships.
I am at the beginning stages of this. By beginning, I mean my husband and I have had a few fruitful conversations. But I am getting ahead of myself. Time to give some context.
My lovely husband and I have been together for four years, 12 years altogether in a relationship. We have a two year old, as well. Since our child was born, we have been in a deeply depressing dead bedroom. The reasons for that I will expand upon later. In April of this year I had a mental breakdown because of our sex life. I decided to take to therapy to work on myself and evaluate my position, to see how we got into a DB. After three months of deep therapy, I gained the courage to have the talk.
It was scary to do, but necessary. It was full of vulnerability on both sides. We both weren’t happy and both wanted to fix it, but we were so scared of hurting each other with the truth that we were silent. That silence totally broke down our communication skills.
I told him that it was so hard to say that I hadn’t been satisfied before, and didn’t know what to ask for in our sex life. I wanted to see a therapist to help us work on these things. He said he had a feeling that this was why weren’t having sex, and was very ready to try and make things better.
What also came from this conversation was the thought of opening up our marriage. I really regret bringing that up during this initial conversation, as I didn’t have a lot of knowledge about what I was really looking for. But we both were being as honest as we could about our feelings. This part was a bit of a shock to him, and after a few days of grieving our previous relationship he and I started talking a little bit more about non-monogamy and strengthening our relationship.
We both said we want to focus on the two of us first, which is exactly what we are doing. I am doing the work in therapy, and reading books like Girl Sex 101 and the Ethical Slut. We are going on dates (this part has been HUGE for us!), and having more honest conversations about sex and masturbation. And while there hasn’t been any penetrative sex, we’ve been having lots of fun discovering ways to get each other off.
The idea of opening up is still in our conversations, and the more we’ve researched and talked, the more he has gotten into it. This is very exciting to me! I am trying not to rush any part of this process. I have expressed my desire to move slowly on the path we’re on.
Two weeks ago, an old friend, who I had slept with a few times, got in touch with me to say hey. Our conversations have mainly been catching up, nothing flirtatious. But his reappearance in my life has made me think about exploring turning that flame back on. I haven’t told my husband that I’ve been thinking of him in that way yet.
So here are my questions:
Are we moving in a good direction if we want to open our marriage? We haven’t set up anything for this kind of relationship yet, like laying out boundaries, or coming up with starting agreements. But we have both discussed that this is what we need to do before we get there.
How should I address this old flame situation? I have no desire to start up anything with him right now, but I don’t want to ignore my interest.
When the time is right and I feel like I am ready, how do I talk to that person about my open relationship and wanting to exploring something with them?
Thank you for reading!
I just joined this group today after seeing lots of incredible advice and support for the various places folks may be in their journeys into open relationships.
I am at the beginning stages of this. By beginning, I mean my husband and I have had a few fruitful conversations. But I am getting ahead of myself. Time to give some context.
My lovely husband and I have been together for four years, 12 years altogether in a relationship. We have a two year old, as well. Since our child was born, we have been in a deeply depressing dead bedroom. The reasons for that I will expand upon later. In April of this year I had a mental breakdown because of our sex life. I decided to take to therapy to work on myself and evaluate my position, to see how we got into a DB. After three months of deep therapy, I gained the courage to have the talk.
It was scary to do, but necessary. It was full of vulnerability on both sides. We both weren’t happy and both wanted to fix it, but we were so scared of hurting each other with the truth that we were silent. That silence totally broke down our communication skills.
I told him that it was so hard to say that I hadn’t been satisfied before, and didn’t know what to ask for in our sex life. I wanted to see a therapist to help us work on these things. He said he had a feeling that this was why weren’t having sex, and was very ready to try and make things better.
What also came from this conversation was the thought of opening up our marriage. I really regret bringing that up during this initial conversation, as I didn’t have a lot of knowledge about what I was really looking for. But we both were being as honest as we could about our feelings. This part was a bit of a shock to him, and after a few days of grieving our previous relationship he and I started talking a little bit more about non-monogamy and strengthening our relationship.
We both said we want to focus on the two of us first, which is exactly what we are doing. I am doing the work in therapy, and reading books like Girl Sex 101 and the Ethical Slut. We are going on dates (this part has been HUGE for us!), and having more honest conversations about sex and masturbation. And while there hasn’t been any penetrative sex, we’ve been having lots of fun discovering ways to get each other off.
The idea of opening up is still in our conversations, and the more we’ve researched and talked, the more he has gotten into it. This is very exciting to me! I am trying not to rush any part of this process. I have expressed my desire to move slowly on the path we’re on.
Two weeks ago, an old friend, who I had slept with a few times, got in touch with me to say hey. Our conversations have mainly been catching up, nothing flirtatious. But his reappearance in my life has made me think about exploring turning that flame back on. I haven’t told my husband that I’ve been thinking of him in that way yet.
So here are my questions:
Are we moving in a good direction if we want to open our marriage? We haven’t set up anything for this kind of relationship yet, like laying out boundaries, or coming up with starting agreements. But we have both discussed that this is what we need to do before we get there.
How should I address this old flame situation? I have no desire to start up anything with him right now, but I don’t want to ignore my interest.
When the time is right and I feel like I am ready, how do I talk to that person about my open relationship and wanting to exploring something with them?
Thank you for reading!
