Well here goes..... my story.
When I was 17 I met a girl, I knew there was something special about her the moment I met her. Within less than a month we were dating. Within a month from then I knew that I loved her and wanted to marry her. We moved in together less than a year later, we got married 4 years later. We have two wonderful children together who are 4 and 3 years old. It has now been over 11 years since we first met and I still love her. We prided ourselves on our great communication and cooperation as partners, rarely fighting and agreeing on all the big issues. Sounds like a perfect love story right?
Rewind to fall 2010.
My wife brought up the idea of polyamory and having an “open marriage”. She said that she thought she may be bisexual and that she wanted to try dating women. At first I was a little anxious about the idea but then I thought, hey, why not? This could be fun!
I’m not gonna lie and say that our physical relationship was perfect. We had a miscarriage before the birth of our children and that combined with trying to get pregnant and the fact that my wife’s body and pregnancy do not go well together certainly had a toll on that aspect of our relationship. Plus I had just resigned myself to the fact that I had a much higher sex drive than she did. Not something that is too uncommon. All that being said we definitely were not celibate and did have some good times in bed.
Back to the story. So in the fall of 2010 we started looking for someone to date. We had decided that we were looking for a Triad. We found someone on OkCupid who lived in a nearby city and began dating. Things started out really well and really fast! She came and stayed with us at our house and we each had a great connection with her. My wife fell in love with her, as did I. However there were some issues as my wife was definitely jealous of our relationship (although she will never admit it and has always denied it) I could tell from her actions and it did cause some stress on things from time to time. We never did the threesome thing because of this and we both had our physical relationships separate (when she came and visited we alternated nights together). Within 3 or 4 months she was going to be moving in with us. I freaked out! I wasn’t ready for THIS. I started questioning everything... I wasn’t sure if I actually loved her or not. I knew for sure at this time that my wife wasn’t comfortable with our relationship and would have been more than happy if we weren’t dating. So I made the very poor decision to break up with her. I said some quite harsh things looking back and hurt her a great deal. She then decided to break up with my wife as well and then all hell broke loose relationship wise. I realized that I did love her, I wanted to make amends, I wanted things to go back to the way were. My wife wanted nothing to do with this and didn’t want me to hurt her anymore. It was a mess caused by my fear of the whole situation. Eventually after much pain all around, it all ended and we attempted to move on knowing that a triad would never work for us.
At this point I wasn’t sure if polyamory was right for me (I’m still not sure). However with my wife being bisexual she insisted that it was something that she needed to be happy. So I agreed to continue on with it.
After the failure of the triad my wife dated a few different women (none serious) and I dated one woman causally (who was great and understood poly). One of the women whom she was becoming great friends with and casually dating (who was also married and experienced in poly) expressed interest in me and I admitted that I was attracted to her as well. My wife did not take this well at all after what we had just gone through with the failure of the triad. Needless to say nothing ever happened between us and it was clear that I wasn’t to date any of my wife’s friends.
Then I got a job offer in another city. The family jumped at the idea of getting a fresh start in a new (and very liberal and fun) city. So we moved out to an unknown place away from all of our family and friends to get a fresh start.
Things started out well. My wife (the social butterfly that she is) met a number of great people online that became good friends and even dated a girl here. Things were going well, I wasn’t really interested in dating and I was fine with that. We had met another couple who were poly and became very good friends very quickly. They loved our kids and we all had tons of fun together (not sexual, just friendship). Then the girl told me that she really liked me (we already had kind of a flirty relationship). I was clear to her before and then that nothing would/could ever happen between us because I didn’t want to ruin the friendship we had. Then I made the mistake of not telling my wife that she had told me this. Fast forward to a month later. We had a party at our house and she was being flirty and I was being flirty back. It’s fun to be flirty and I thought that that was all that was happening as I was quite clear with her before. But she kept escalating things and I told her again that nothing would ever happen between us. My wife saw this exchange and got angry at her. Then I lied and didn’t admit that she had previously told me that she liked me. Big mistake. She told my wife this and I was in big trouble. Stupid, stupid mistake on my part. I believe that she over-reacted and she completely shut me out. I slept in a separate room for over month while she completely shut me out. Then feeling desperate to find out what was going on with her I made another big STUPID mistake. Her account on Facebook had the password saved on the computer and I looked at her Facebook messages. She found out and decided that we needed to separate for a while. She moved back to our hometown with our children. (There were some extenuating circumstances to the move however as we still owned a house there that we were having troubles selling and prior to this she was actually thinking of moving back but this was the event that pushed that decision to a sure thing)
This was November of last year.
Within a month of living apart we had reconciled and both said we love each other and want to stay together. I had made some mistakes, was unsure of what I had wanted but through it all always supported her in whatever she wanted to do.
Then about a month later she dropped the bomb on me. She told me that she was gay. That she loved me, wants to stay married, wants to remain best friends, wants to raise children, grow old together, cuddle but is not interested in me (or other men) physically anymore and of course will continue to date women.
So what do I do? We are still living in separate cities with me working (her staying at home with the children in our hometown), travelling back and forth whenever possible to see them and mostly alone in a city that I just moved to with very few real friends.
I love her, I want to grow old with her, I want to raise our children with her but I am still incredibly physically attracted to her and I’m not sure I can handle it all. She wants me to move back and live there but I’m not sure I can handle it all. The poly thing worked for me when I still felt that she was interested in me.... but now it’s clear that she is not. I don’t know what to do....
Any advice?
When I was 17 I met a girl, I knew there was something special about her the moment I met her. Within less than a month we were dating. Within a month from then I knew that I loved her and wanted to marry her. We moved in together less than a year later, we got married 4 years later. We have two wonderful children together who are 4 and 3 years old. It has now been over 11 years since we first met and I still love her. We prided ourselves on our great communication and cooperation as partners, rarely fighting and agreeing on all the big issues. Sounds like a perfect love story right?
Rewind to fall 2010.
My wife brought up the idea of polyamory and having an “open marriage”. She said that she thought she may be bisexual and that she wanted to try dating women. At first I was a little anxious about the idea but then I thought, hey, why not? This could be fun!
I’m not gonna lie and say that our physical relationship was perfect. We had a miscarriage before the birth of our children and that combined with trying to get pregnant and the fact that my wife’s body and pregnancy do not go well together certainly had a toll on that aspect of our relationship. Plus I had just resigned myself to the fact that I had a much higher sex drive than she did. Not something that is too uncommon. All that being said we definitely were not celibate and did have some good times in bed.
Back to the story. So in the fall of 2010 we started looking for someone to date. We had decided that we were looking for a Triad. We found someone on OkCupid who lived in a nearby city and began dating. Things started out really well and really fast! She came and stayed with us at our house and we each had a great connection with her. My wife fell in love with her, as did I. However there were some issues as my wife was definitely jealous of our relationship (although she will never admit it and has always denied it) I could tell from her actions and it did cause some stress on things from time to time. We never did the threesome thing because of this and we both had our physical relationships separate (when she came and visited we alternated nights together). Within 3 or 4 months she was going to be moving in with us. I freaked out! I wasn’t ready for THIS. I started questioning everything... I wasn’t sure if I actually loved her or not. I knew for sure at this time that my wife wasn’t comfortable with our relationship and would have been more than happy if we weren’t dating. So I made the very poor decision to break up with her. I said some quite harsh things looking back and hurt her a great deal. She then decided to break up with my wife as well and then all hell broke loose relationship wise. I realized that I did love her, I wanted to make amends, I wanted things to go back to the way were. My wife wanted nothing to do with this and didn’t want me to hurt her anymore. It was a mess caused by my fear of the whole situation. Eventually after much pain all around, it all ended and we attempted to move on knowing that a triad would never work for us.
At this point I wasn’t sure if polyamory was right for me (I’m still not sure). However with my wife being bisexual she insisted that it was something that she needed to be happy. So I agreed to continue on with it.
After the failure of the triad my wife dated a few different women (none serious) and I dated one woman causally (who was great and understood poly). One of the women whom she was becoming great friends with and casually dating (who was also married and experienced in poly) expressed interest in me and I admitted that I was attracted to her as well. My wife did not take this well at all after what we had just gone through with the failure of the triad. Needless to say nothing ever happened between us and it was clear that I wasn’t to date any of my wife’s friends.
Then I got a job offer in another city. The family jumped at the idea of getting a fresh start in a new (and very liberal and fun) city. So we moved out to an unknown place away from all of our family and friends to get a fresh start.
Things started out well. My wife (the social butterfly that she is) met a number of great people online that became good friends and even dated a girl here. Things were going well, I wasn’t really interested in dating and I was fine with that. We had met another couple who were poly and became very good friends very quickly. They loved our kids and we all had tons of fun together (not sexual, just friendship). Then the girl told me that she really liked me (we already had kind of a flirty relationship). I was clear to her before and then that nothing would/could ever happen between us because I didn’t want to ruin the friendship we had. Then I made the mistake of not telling my wife that she had told me this. Fast forward to a month later. We had a party at our house and she was being flirty and I was being flirty back. It’s fun to be flirty and I thought that that was all that was happening as I was quite clear with her before. But she kept escalating things and I told her again that nothing would ever happen between us. My wife saw this exchange and got angry at her. Then I lied and didn’t admit that she had previously told me that she liked me. Big mistake. She told my wife this and I was in big trouble. Stupid, stupid mistake on my part. I believe that she over-reacted and she completely shut me out. I slept in a separate room for over month while she completely shut me out. Then feeling desperate to find out what was going on with her I made another big STUPID mistake. Her account on Facebook had the password saved on the computer and I looked at her Facebook messages. She found out and decided that we needed to separate for a while. She moved back to our hometown with our children. (There were some extenuating circumstances to the move however as we still owned a house there that we were having troubles selling and prior to this she was actually thinking of moving back but this was the event that pushed that decision to a sure thing)
This was November of last year.
Within a month of living apart we had reconciled and both said we love each other and want to stay together. I had made some mistakes, was unsure of what I had wanted but through it all always supported her in whatever she wanted to do.
Then about a month later she dropped the bomb on me. She told me that she was gay. That she loved me, wants to stay married, wants to remain best friends, wants to raise children, grow old together, cuddle but is not interested in me (or other men) physically anymore and of course will continue to date women.
So what do I do? We are still living in separate cities with me working (her staying at home with the children in our hometown), travelling back and forth whenever possible to see them and mostly alone in a city that I just moved to with very few real friends.
I love her, I want to grow old with her, I want to raise our children with her but I am still incredibly physically attracted to her and I’m not sure I can handle it all. She wants me to move back and live there but I’m not sure I can handle it all. The poly thing worked for me when I still felt that she was interested in me.... but now it’s clear that she is not. I don’t know what to do....
Any advice?