Straight married and mono

P

Pollystraight

New member
Hello all, id like some advice.

Im male straight and married for 11 years, together for 17. I have always loved my wife and still do. However, I have periodically fallen in love with others throughout our time together.

Last year I fell for a woman with a young child. I desperately wanted to be with her, but at the same time still deeply love my wife and family.

I didn't know about polyamoury then but do now and think that may describe who I am, I feel capable of loving and being there for more than one person. I dont just desire the sexual side of things. I want it all. I feel selfish and wrong for feeling this way, but my feelings for the other in no way diminishes my feelings for my wife.

Does anyone else have experience they can share on how to talk to my wife about my desire without coming off as a bad person?
 
Welcome to the forum. Great folks here. I am open to chatting via pm. You have started by acknowledging where you are. Thinks about talking to your wife. Honesty is a must.
 
Greetings Pollystraight,
Welcome to our forum. Please feel free to lurk, browse, etc.

It sounds like poly may be right for you. You need to talk to your wife about this, tell her that you have heard about something called polyamory, and that you are interested. Ask her if she would also be interested in exploring. You must be willing to let her explore her feelings as well, if she decides that poly may be right for her. In the meantime, keep reading and posting on this forum, and learn as much as you can. It's great to have you with us!

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

Notes:

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

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Welcome aboard!
 
welcome Pollystraight,

im in a similar environment as you. in my marriage of 7 years and together 10 with my wife, I have brought up poly to her and it has not gone well. im in my mid 40s and realized about 20 years ago I was interested in poly but only knew about swinging, so for many years i thought of my interest as swinging, but now i know i was actually interested in Kitchen table poly, because the other people of poly interest were my friends that i hung out with from time to time. my first wife was not interested, and my wife today is not interested.
in my case i approached her several months back, said i was interested in having "extra" as i called it, i thought extra was a good term to not minimize my wife, because she really is a great woman, a great mother to our child. if there was anything she falls short in its affection, and we have talked about that. the idea in poly that 1 spouse cant meet all our needs. in our case we have a "Christian" marriage, so poly is very taboo, even among our christian friends, it makes me look bad to some for even suggesting my interest in poly. my wife says i am very selfish for wanting another woman, and i say she can have a boyfriend in the same non sexual way and she doesnt like that idea either.

Ive never cheated on my wife, i wanted to get her consent to have a female friend first, and im really not interested in sex, but she will be the first to tell me i will be, even tho our sex quantity is less than i would say average, but we are both ok with that.

so my wife says I'm not poly, because I haven't been in a poly relationship. i think that might be some sort of denial on her part.

what i would really like in consideration of all this, is to be a professional Cuddler, with a professional organization. i would not have a girlfriend, which my wife would not consent to, i would not be in a relationship, and i could get the non sexual physical contact with other women, and get paid good money to do it. I'm very affectionate and could provide a good service to women who are touch deprived. the professional cuddler probably isn't in the category of poly, but I would say at this point it would be a compromise to my interest in poly, maybe at some point my wife will consent to at least that.

im not pushing poly, and keeping the discussions low key so it doesnt blow up into arguments like it did in the beginning. keeping the lines of communication open are really important to me.

thats a little rambling, but hopefully some of it resonates with you. good luck on getting consent, i hope you are able to :)
 
Thanks for all your responses, I guess this is going to be a difficult conversation to have but one I think needs to be had.

I'll let you know how it goes, definitely after Xmas :)
 
Hi Polly,

I wish you well. This kind of change can really throw people for a loop. I'd suggest reading a couple of books so you know a good deal about the hows and whys of polyamory, and can answer your wife's questions clearly and hopefully reassuringly.

The best book for "how" to do this is Opening Up. It's for formerly mono couples who are venturing into any kind of consensual non-monogamy (polyamory, swinging, hotwifing, etc.). It covers all the stages and pitfalls of reconfiguring your relationship.

The best book for "why" do this is called Sex at Dawn. It's more of an anthropological/sociological book (easy to read though) about the history of humanity, going back to evidence from "pre-civilized" Stone Age and early Bronze Age times. There was a long long period of time, we're talking hundreds of thousands of years, where humans lived in small tribes and were non-monogamous. The experiment of monogamy is extremely short, by comparison! We are all hardwired to be poly, and the benefits of poly are real and many. We suppress ourselves to make monogamy work, and quite often, it isn't really working. We're just giving it lip service for economic reasons, and for social status and certain benefits we think we get.

So this book goes into all the reasons why humans (all animals, really) are polysexual and/or poly-affectionate/romantic.
 
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