Introduction

mj511729

New member
Well I guess I should start here, with an introduction about myself and my situation. This may get long, but I'll try to keep it as short as possible.

I met the woman of my dreams in 1995, at a relatively young age. She was my first "real" girlfriend; although I had gone out on a few dates with someone else previously, there was no intimate contact beyond a few hugs. We had a relatively long dating period due to our ages and the distance between us (~ 500 miles) for the first few years. Eventually we got engaged in 1998 and married in 2000. We always had a monogamous relationship, which is what I wanted, and I assumed what she wanted too. It's been a good marriage - no major fights, no physical abuse, general happiness, etc. She's a little hot-tempered and I'm not, so there have been some minor fights but I would say nothing so bad that we went to sleep angry at each other.

In June 2008, while driving to visit some friends who live 6 hours away, she dropped a bombshell on me: that she wanted to be polyamorous. Well, I say a bombshell, but the truth is she had hinted at it before (i.e. "What do you think about polyaory?") but I never thought she was truly interested; I thought she saw it as a curiosity since I did have several online friends who were poly. I was kind of floored by this. I didn't want to lose her, so I told her that I would be willing to give it a shot.

I was very afraid as to the reasons behind this; I thought she didn't really want to be with me any more. Over the next few weeks, we enjoyed what is definitely our most sexually active period of our marriage. I think she was trying to prove that she was still interested in me. After I began to wrap my brain around the concept, I discovered a few things. First, that she had always felt like it was something she was interested in, but she never brought it up because there was never anyone else. You can do the math here - now there was someone in particular she was interested in.

Over the next few months, she had more and more contact with this other man (I'll call him A). She eventually went out to visit him (he lived quite far away). They hit it off well and eventually we decided to move him out here to live with us. It saved a lot of money - the trips to visit were quite expensive. I never actually met him until they showed up after driving cross country in a moving van. It was quite a risk, but it turned out OK. I genuinely like A, and he's been here now for almost 2 years.

So that is where we stand. We all 3 live together, but we have 2 separate sleeping areas. My wife alternates between the 2. All of us are completely hetero, so there is no sexual contact between A and I, and no desire for such.

However, my reason for joining this forum is to get advice from others regarding the situation. I'd be lying to say that I'm 100% happy with the arrangement. It's odd, though - sometimes I want things to go back to the way things were, sometimes I don't want anything to do with women, sometimes I fantasize about threesomes (with another woman), sometimes I'm content with the status quo. I'm confused about what I want, so I'm just sitting back and maintaining the current situation.

Another thing is that my sexual libido has waned significantly. I can probably count on one hand the number of times we've had sex this year. There are a couple issues there - we usually stay up until we're dead tired. There's also the fact that at one point I was told we couldn't have sex while A was awake. Since he usually stays up late, this made things difficult. And the third problem is, quite honestly, a feeling of revulsion at the thought of my wife having had sex with someone else. I'm OK with it until I actually visualize it, if that makes sense.

Well, I guess that was a lot, and probably too much to put in an introduction post. My apologies if I should have started a new thread for the more detailed issues. Anyway, I'm going to try to participate in the other discussions, but this should give you an idea of where I am.
 
Welcom MJ! You sound like you have quite a lot on your plate! Your dedication and openness are beautiful. I hope you find some peace and refuge on this board.
 
Welcom MJ! You sound like you have quite a lot on your plate! Your dedication and openness are beautiful. I hope you find some peace and refuge on this board.

Thanks! Yes, I have a lot on my plate (and I only just got started on describing my situation) but I'm hoping to find support, but also truthfulness here. I'm trying my best to be honest too - finding a place to vent but also to share what's working for me.

I don't think anyone's ever said that anything I wrote was beautiful, so... thank you! :)
 
Welcome, mj. I think this forum will give you a lot of what you seek- clarity, feedback, and an outlet. Hopefully, that will all get you to decisions that will have to be made as your journey progresses. *hugs*
 
Welcome to the forum, mj. I hope you remain actively involved in learning all you can from this forum.
It is not always an easy journey, but like the best rides it remains memorable and has the potential of empowering oneself through honest self-confrontation and liberating self-expansion.
Be gentle with yourself and respect what you feel.
 
Welcome, mj. I think this forum will give you a lot of what you seek- clarity, feedback, and an outlet. Hopefully, that will all get you to decisions that will have to be made as your journey progresses. *hugs*

Thank you for the welcome! *hugs* back at ya!

Welcome to the forum, mj. I hope you remain actively involved in learning all you can from this forum.
It is not always an easy journey, but like the best rides it remains memorable and has the potential of empowering oneself through honest self-confrontation and liberating self-expansion.
Be gentle with yourself and respect what you feel.

I hope to stay actively involved although I don't always have the time to check in on a daily basis.

I know all about it not being an easy journey... :D But I've been feeling isolated lately, with no one to talk to or listen to about my feelings on the whole thing, so I'm hoping to find that here. I'll always try to be honest and say what I really feel instead of what is supposed to be the "correct" answer.
 
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