I am a mother and married for ten years to the love of my life. We have been very close and committed and raising our children during this time.Our eyes never wondering past each other.That is just how it was.
Two years ago I travelled away from my family to do some training. While away I met another man whom I connected with deeply. Nothing happened other than deep meaningful conversation and who knows whether he ever felt the same but he left an impression on me. When I returned home I struggled to reintegrate myself back into my former life of being devoted wife and mother. I also re met a former love interest and sparks flew when we shared a platonic kiss that could have led to more...
I broached the subject of an open relationship to my husband (I did not know the term polyamory yet).He was angry and hurt at the suggestion. I had, out of fear and confusion, lied about my feelings for these men to him and he had found out because he felt suspicious and had gone through my computer.
Everytime I tried to broach the subject he grew angry and insecure and eventually I shelved the idea and resolved myself to the fact that if I wanted to be with this man, I had to decide to continue monogamy. When I did come to this conclusion, I felt fine about it.
During this time, he and I had a blow out and he left home for four days, he returned home a different person, much more empowered.
Fast forward one month and I am sitting on my bed catching up with some work. He sits down next to me and asks to speak to me, tells me he has fallen in love with our very good friend (Cindy) and he wants to speak to me about it.
I felt elated. I was so happy that he felt he could come and speak to me about this new love. I felt for the first time that I could speak openly to him about my feelings and needs around our relationship...that loving someone else didn't mean we loved each other less. We fell asleep happy in each other's arms.
Two days later he and friends and the children and Cindy were going away on a camping trip. I had to stay behind for work. He told me he wanted to initiate a physical relationship with Cindy. I felt it was all moving too fast. Thank goodness Cindy decided not to go with on the camping trip. She felt uncomfortable with it.
While he was away I had dinner with Cindy, we drank a bottle of wine and I reassured her. I told her that I felt fine with what was going on between them, she was feeling freaked out. I told her that communication between my husband and I was open and good and that I trusted him. That I was happy for them.
She proceeded to tell me a tale which was very different from the one he had told me.
It seemed that while he has been away for those four days after our blow out, he had initiated a relationship with her. Some thigh stroking and hand holding and much talk of love and connection.
Then over the next month they met and held hands and spoke and sent text messages and emails.much talk of love and all but nothing was said to me until that night when he admitted he was in love with her. he had made it seem very new and fresh and had omitted details.
I left Cindy's that night feeling shaken and confused. I got hold of him and got him to drive down so we could sort things out.
We talked well into the night and I asked for time to process and reconnect, for him to take a break from Cindy for a week while I integrated what was happening.
he was not able to do that and the text messages flew backwards and forwards between them...at first in secret and then in the open once I realised that there was not much I could do.
This went on for three weeks.most of it was beautiful and opening and a real opportunity for open communication and discussion between the three of us but there were moments of real hurt and sense of betrayal for me which my husband was very closed to (Cindy was great - really good listener - our friendship really blossomed during this time). He found my negative feelings threatening and confusing and we would inevitably fight.
Cindy was very confused about it all. Sometimes she gave a very clear yes and sometimes a very clear no. In the end we decided the best was to end it all. We were all emotionally exhausted.
Four days after we broke it off with Cindy, my husband had to go away for work. These four days were a very sensitive time for me.I felt I had been put through the emotional wringer and had not had much time to integrate everything that had happened. I was still confused and trying to process the sudden turnaround of the man who had been so adamently monogomous just a few months previously and now wanted to have secondary partners. I felt confused and sad by the lies and betrayal that had taken place. In essence I was confused and fragile and needed reassurance from my partner that we were stable - that our foundation was strong and from there we could explore this new idea and concept.
he left four days later for his three week trip.
He had a layover in a middle eastern country for under 24 hours and then was going on to Europe. I heard from him when he landed and that he had met an attractive Asian woman in the lift. That she had asked him to go sight seeing and that he had declined as he was tired but had given her his room number. I never heard from him again while he was there.
We chatted via Skype/email once he was in Europe. I was feeling sad and insecure the first two days he was away and we had much backward and forwarding about that. We had a long talk about how I made him feel scared to open up to me when I was down.that he worried he would depress me more.we processed a lot and I felt very close to him after that.
I started feeling better and had a good time with work and children.
My husband texted to say he had an important email to send me, that he wanted me to read in private. we arranged that I receive it Sat when I had time off and had no children.I didn't feel suspicious or scared or worried.
Friday night Cindy came over and we drank a bottle of wine together and sat under the stars. We had a good chat and she apologised to me about everything that had happened.
We then went on to talk about my husband who was sending us both cheeky texts.she mentioned that he had said to her that something beautiful had happened to him during his layover in the middle east but that he couldn't tell her before he had told me.
The penny dropped and so did my bowels. From the toilet I wrote to him from my phone: "Did you have something with someone in the middle east?"
He wrote back: "Maybe. I'll phone you"
The phone rang and I can still hear his voice telling me that he had spent the day with the beautiful Asian woman (M.) - she sounded intelligent and pretty - that they had ended up kissing and making love.
We ended up having a facebook chat (I couldn't bear to hear his voice).by this time he had sent the email he was waiting to send which gave the full details.he had planned to send it the moment he had arrived in Europe (or so he says) but got scared when he interacted with me and found me down and sad.
He felt good about his experience and didn't regret it. I think he was pretty high off it.
I felt confused and shocked.
I didn;t speak to him for a week and when we did start communicating I made it quite clear atht he had gone too far.that he had overstepped the mark and boundries of our relationship without consulting me.that as far as I was concerned, we had never agreed to an open relationship and what had happened was cheating. I wasn't sure I wanted him back in my life unless he could commit to me 100% until we were clear about our relationship and how it was going to work, etc.
He agreed begrudgingly at first but then warmed to the idea as we reconnected and chatted online and planned our time together.
It has been three months since all of this has happened and it has been a roller coaster ride.
I felt the need to communicate with M. and wrote to her. Twice. But she never wrote back. It was not a rude letter but one fo wanting to open up communication and resolve things - it had worked to well with Cindy and she is really one of my closest friends after this experience so I hope I could do the same with M.
She did write to my husband in response to my letter but when he wrote back she didn't write again (they had communicated quite a bit while he was still in Europe).
1. Do I write to her again - or do I just let it go? I feel the need to write and get some sense of peace from that but I could just be deluding myself...
2. I have been badly burnt through this experience and don't ever want to go through the kind of pain I have just been through again. My husband feels strange about what happened and is again at the place where he only wants me and to be with me and committed to me. He says the whole experience feels surreal and he wishes it ahd never happened.
i feel confused by his chopping and changing...it makes me feel insecure.
3. I am not sure what I want now...two years ago I wanted to explore other realtionships with other men.I then closed that idea in myself and also those relationships.I committed to monogamy and then was badly burnt.
At the moment I don't want a relationship, sexual or otherwise, with anyone one else but I feel the need to put down the ground rules we never put down before in case an attraction to someone else does happen.
4. In essence I believe in open love and relationships but I also believe in honesty and openess and that these all go hand in hand.in my case this has not happened and as a result I feel very fragile and insecure in my beliefs.
I am sure I have more questions and I will post them as they come up but I would appreciate some feedback please and support.
Two years ago I travelled away from my family to do some training. While away I met another man whom I connected with deeply. Nothing happened other than deep meaningful conversation and who knows whether he ever felt the same but he left an impression on me. When I returned home I struggled to reintegrate myself back into my former life of being devoted wife and mother. I also re met a former love interest and sparks flew when we shared a platonic kiss that could have led to more...
I broached the subject of an open relationship to my husband (I did not know the term polyamory yet).He was angry and hurt at the suggestion. I had, out of fear and confusion, lied about my feelings for these men to him and he had found out because he felt suspicious and had gone through my computer.
Everytime I tried to broach the subject he grew angry and insecure and eventually I shelved the idea and resolved myself to the fact that if I wanted to be with this man, I had to decide to continue monogamy. When I did come to this conclusion, I felt fine about it.
During this time, he and I had a blow out and he left home for four days, he returned home a different person, much more empowered.
Fast forward one month and I am sitting on my bed catching up with some work. He sits down next to me and asks to speak to me, tells me he has fallen in love with our very good friend (Cindy) and he wants to speak to me about it.
I felt elated. I was so happy that he felt he could come and speak to me about this new love. I felt for the first time that I could speak openly to him about my feelings and needs around our relationship...that loving someone else didn't mean we loved each other less. We fell asleep happy in each other's arms.
Two days later he and friends and the children and Cindy were going away on a camping trip. I had to stay behind for work. He told me he wanted to initiate a physical relationship with Cindy. I felt it was all moving too fast. Thank goodness Cindy decided not to go with on the camping trip. She felt uncomfortable with it.
While he was away I had dinner with Cindy, we drank a bottle of wine and I reassured her. I told her that I felt fine with what was going on between them, she was feeling freaked out. I told her that communication between my husband and I was open and good and that I trusted him. That I was happy for them.
She proceeded to tell me a tale which was very different from the one he had told me.
It seemed that while he has been away for those four days after our blow out, he had initiated a relationship with her. Some thigh stroking and hand holding and much talk of love and connection.
Then over the next month they met and held hands and spoke and sent text messages and emails.much talk of love and all but nothing was said to me until that night when he admitted he was in love with her. he had made it seem very new and fresh and had omitted details.
I left Cindy's that night feeling shaken and confused. I got hold of him and got him to drive down so we could sort things out.
We talked well into the night and I asked for time to process and reconnect, for him to take a break from Cindy for a week while I integrated what was happening.
he was not able to do that and the text messages flew backwards and forwards between them...at first in secret and then in the open once I realised that there was not much I could do.
This went on for three weeks.most of it was beautiful and opening and a real opportunity for open communication and discussion between the three of us but there were moments of real hurt and sense of betrayal for me which my husband was very closed to (Cindy was great - really good listener - our friendship really blossomed during this time). He found my negative feelings threatening and confusing and we would inevitably fight.
Cindy was very confused about it all. Sometimes she gave a very clear yes and sometimes a very clear no. In the end we decided the best was to end it all. We were all emotionally exhausted.
Four days after we broke it off with Cindy, my husband had to go away for work. These four days were a very sensitive time for me.I felt I had been put through the emotional wringer and had not had much time to integrate everything that had happened. I was still confused and trying to process the sudden turnaround of the man who had been so adamently monogomous just a few months previously and now wanted to have secondary partners. I felt confused and sad by the lies and betrayal that had taken place. In essence I was confused and fragile and needed reassurance from my partner that we were stable - that our foundation was strong and from there we could explore this new idea and concept.
he left four days later for his three week trip.
He had a layover in a middle eastern country for under 24 hours and then was going on to Europe. I heard from him when he landed and that he had met an attractive Asian woman in the lift. That she had asked him to go sight seeing and that he had declined as he was tired but had given her his room number. I never heard from him again while he was there.
We chatted via Skype/email once he was in Europe. I was feeling sad and insecure the first two days he was away and we had much backward and forwarding about that. We had a long talk about how I made him feel scared to open up to me when I was down.that he worried he would depress me more.we processed a lot and I felt very close to him after that.
I started feeling better and had a good time with work and children.
My husband texted to say he had an important email to send me, that he wanted me to read in private. we arranged that I receive it Sat when I had time off and had no children.I didn't feel suspicious or scared or worried.
Friday night Cindy came over and we drank a bottle of wine together and sat under the stars. We had a good chat and she apologised to me about everything that had happened.
We then went on to talk about my husband who was sending us both cheeky texts.she mentioned that he had said to her that something beautiful had happened to him during his layover in the middle east but that he couldn't tell her before he had told me.
The penny dropped and so did my bowels. From the toilet I wrote to him from my phone: "Did you have something with someone in the middle east?"
He wrote back: "Maybe. I'll phone you"
The phone rang and I can still hear his voice telling me that he had spent the day with the beautiful Asian woman (M.) - she sounded intelligent and pretty - that they had ended up kissing and making love.
We ended up having a facebook chat (I couldn't bear to hear his voice).by this time he had sent the email he was waiting to send which gave the full details.he had planned to send it the moment he had arrived in Europe (or so he says) but got scared when he interacted with me and found me down and sad.
He felt good about his experience and didn't regret it. I think he was pretty high off it.
I felt confused and shocked.
I didn;t speak to him for a week and when we did start communicating I made it quite clear atht he had gone too far.that he had overstepped the mark and boundries of our relationship without consulting me.that as far as I was concerned, we had never agreed to an open relationship and what had happened was cheating. I wasn't sure I wanted him back in my life unless he could commit to me 100% until we were clear about our relationship and how it was going to work, etc.
He agreed begrudgingly at first but then warmed to the idea as we reconnected and chatted online and planned our time together.
It has been three months since all of this has happened and it has been a roller coaster ride.
I felt the need to communicate with M. and wrote to her. Twice. But she never wrote back. It was not a rude letter but one fo wanting to open up communication and resolve things - it had worked to well with Cindy and she is really one of my closest friends after this experience so I hope I could do the same with M.
She did write to my husband in response to my letter but when he wrote back she didn't write again (they had communicated quite a bit while he was still in Europe).
1. Do I write to her again - or do I just let it go? I feel the need to write and get some sense of peace from that but I could just be deluding myself...
2. I have been badly burnt through this experience and don't ever want to go through the kind of pain I have just been through again. My husband feels strange about what happened and is again at the place where he only wants me and to be with me and committed to me. He says the whole experience feels surreal and he wishes it ahd never happened.
i feel confused by his chopping and changing...it makes me feel insecure.
3. I am not sure what I want now...two years ago I wanted to explore other realtionships with other men.I then closed that idea in myself and also those relationships.I committed to monogamy and then was badly burnt.
At the moment I don't want a relationship, sexual or otherwise, with anyone one else but I feel the need to put down the ground rules we never put down before in case an attraction to someone else does happen.
4. In essence I believe in open love and relationships but I also believe in honesty and openess and that these all go hand in hand.in my case this has not happened and as a result I feel very fragile and insecure in my beliefs.
I am sure I have more questions and I will post them as they come up but I would appreciate some feedback please and support.