Opening up our marriage?

spankybees

New member
[I just wrote like 3-4 pages of stuff and then lost it when I previewed it. This is shorter and might be less consistent]

My wife and I have been married for 11 years or so. We're very committed to each other and believe that a marriage and love both require work, not just something that happens to us.

We've always had a reasonable sex life, including a little bit of what I'd call "slap and tickle", maybe a bit of dress up (who's a naughty little girl type thing). A few years ago my wife came to accept that she was bisexual. She was raised in a christian family (and is a christian), and so coming out to them and our friends was a big deal. I think her family was more accepting because this was "bisexual in theory" to them, since she was married to me.
Anyway, about 7 or 8 months ago, some of the sexual slap and tickle requests or conversations made me start thinking she was kinkier than I knew how to cope with and started doing some internet research. I found various BDSM communities and FetLife. Through that we found a local kink community that had regular munches and I convinced my wife to go along (and it took a lot of convincing).
My wife absolutely loved meeting people who were into kink. We also met some people who were poly, in particular a pair of couples who were in long term marriages but also had sexual partners as secondaries. The fact that this existed and worked for them, and several chats with them was fascinating to both my wife and I.

We very quickly went to our first play party, (about 3 weeks after our first munch), and at the first event we/she played with some people, being tied up and being flogged.
This built up a kink relationship between us that has been a lot of fun, exploring and trying lots of things we probably wouldn't have thought of alone.
We've also continued to go to play parties and play. This is where things start to get complicated.
My wife realised that she really likes to play with other people, not just me. This made me very uncomfortable, I didn't like the fact that she wanted to play with others. We argued for a few months about it, trying different things, for example me watching, me talking to her partners before to find out will happen. None of it took away my anxiousness, however as I've watched more kink I've experienced how it's about sensation, power, sensuality but often not sexual itself. That's made me relax a bit and although I still feel uncomfortable when my wife plays with others, I feel like I can cope with that anxiousness and that it'll lessen in time. (It's like uncomfortable, rather than painful).

However, that's not all, no there's more.
As we got to know our poly friends, my wife started us talking about the idea of opening up our marriage. I did what I do, I went away and researched, lurking here, reading online, reading the ethical slut and so forth. I logically can understand poly, and I think I probably agree with the descriptions. I can understand what people talk about with compersion and so forth.
But the emotions of my wife wanting to open our relationship is just too hard for me.
We met a nice man at kink events that we both got on with, and after a fun play session, my wife told me that she had a crush on him. (I'd suspected, I know her pretty well). She said that she would like to play privately with him, including sex, and wanted to have a relationship (like dating, dinners, staying over etc).
I didn't react very well to that, as you might imagine, and in the argument I expressed how I felt worried she'd leave me, how I felt like she'd asked for a divorce, how I felt hurt that she even wanted to do those things.

After a week or two of thinking, we had a much more rational argument. She outlined that she desired these things, not that she was necessarily going to do them (I think me and her use different language, she said they are fantasies, but I use that to mean something that will never happen, my word is desires, things she actually wants to happen).
We agreed that neither of us has made our mind up about poly, but she is leaning (thanks to her crush) towards yes, she'd like to try. (As in if we had to decide today, she'd say yes lets do it, she still reserved the right to not actually be able to carry through with it). I have the opposite view, if pressed right now, I'd lean towards no, I can't cope with the emotions and feelings it gives me. We're both still open minded and talking about it though.

The problem for me is that the uncertainty of not knowing is causing me serious anxiety, like actual sleeplessness, anxiety attacks and constant worrying.

Secondly, the anxiousness over the poly discussion is affecting our kink life. We went to a play party recently, one where things went well, she played with others out of my sight. For the first time I was able to top some other girls, which helped distract me from worrying about her. however after the event when I asked about one of the things she did, and she was a bit vague, we argued, with her sensing my worry and anxiousness, despite the fact that the play party was fine from my perspective.

Several poly friends have suggested that it might be that I'm envious of my wifes success. I struggle socially sometimes, I'm actually a good socialiser, but I find it takes energy and effort, it doesn't come naturally to me.
I've also tried things like creating an OKCupid profile to see if I can find someone I have a crush on, but I realised very quickly that I don't really want to, I don't have the desire to spend energy, time and effort on building relationships with other girls, I just want to be with my darling love of my life.

Me and my wife have discussed and agreed that our marriage comes first. She has said that if I am not willing to do this, then she wont do it.
However, this is the happiest I've seen her in a while. Spending time and getting attention from others makes her happy. I don't want her to be unhappy so that I can be happy, but equally what is making her happy is making me feel unhappy.

Help me random internet people, you are my only hope
 
Help me random internet people, you are my only hope

I'm a random, but very real, internet person and my experience is similar to your wife's - minus the kink and Christianity. :)

After an unspoken agreement of monogamy, I introduced opening our marriage of 15 years. My husband had trouble at first, but after some soul searching and re-searching he did come around to the understanding that my need for intimacy with others was not going to erode what we have at home. As far as I'm concerend, it's because we've been able to open our marriage to include other emotional attachments that I know for certain now that I will never desire to leave. I appreciate his generosity, open mindedness and adaptability in ways that neither he nor I knew he was able to offer until he was called upon to do so. His ability to change his perception of marriage (from the norm to one that is more suited to us as a couple) is enormously valued by me. Because he loves me with appreciation, generosity and confidence in our relationship, I am all the more filled with appreciation, generosity and confidence in him.

Hope this is helpful in some small way. It's definitely possible to renegotiate the unspoken and spoken agreements in a marriage and come through together all the better. You and your wife sound well on your way.
 
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This is similar to my story - not quite the same, I knew I was bisexual and kinky before my husband met me, but his side is similar.

He struggled a lot with me wanting more, once I discovered that poly was a thing and not just something wrong with me, and I started to ask for it.

Kinky play can help a lot, I think - it's a way to gradually get comfortable with your wife doing intimate things with others, and as each step gets comfortable, expanding the comfort zone a bit. With my husband, he's very much not social, and the more regularly we participated in the community, the more he was able to relax and be himself and make friends, which increased his comfort levels a lot.

Another thing to remember is to go slow. It took us a lot of years to get to where I can date men and sexual activity is a possibility. If you can commit to working through your side of things, maybe she can commit to being patient with you?

Since research is something you mentioned a couple times, you may be interested in Sex at Dawn. It's a tome, but fascinating.
 
...I've also tried things like creating an OKCupid profile to see if I can find someone I have a crush on, but I realised very quickly that I don't really want to, I don't have the desire to spend energy, time and effort on building relationships with other girls, I just want to be with my darling love of my life.

Me and my wife have discussed and agreed that our marriage comes first. ...

I think that you and my husband might have a lot in common. He's not the forum-sort however. He created an OKC profile to link to Dude's profile and to my profile - but never had any interest in pursuing other partners for himself.

My husband is involved primarily with me...but he enjoys the fact that he has the theoretical freedom to enjoy interactions with other women to whatever degree he desires (generally, this involves being peripherally involved with women that I am involved with - although he and Lotus also have their own "thing" going on :p).

It's not so much that our marriage "comes first" - although you could say that - it's more that our relationship is solid and can't be "broken" by other people, if we fuck up then then it is our responsibility to fix things between us. (Which sometimes means that others get less of our attention, and vice versa - if things are rough between Dude and I, then I am preoccupied with "fixing" that and MrS gets somewhat less of my attention. I am only one woman after all, and there are only 24 hours in a day.)
 
Kinky play can help a lot, I think - it's a way to gradually get comfortable with your wife doing intimate things with others, and as each step gets comfortable, expanding the comfort zone a bit. With my husband, he's very much not social, and the more regularly we participated in the community, the more he was able to relax and be himself and make friends, which increased his comfort levels a lot.

Another thing to remember is to go slow. It took us a lot of years to get to where I can date men and sexual activity is a possibility. If you can commit to working through your side of things, maybe she can commit to being patient with you?

Since research is something you mentioned a couple times, you may be interested in Sex at Dawn. It's a tome, but fascinating.

Thanks, that's really helpful.

The kink socialisation is definately helping, and we've agreed that we are going to put poly relationships off of the table for 6 months. That gives us time to relax into the kink and social circles.

Thanks again.
 
Hello spankybees,

Re (from OP):
"I don't want her to be unhappy so that I can be happy, but equally what is making her happy is making me feel unhappy."

When you say it like that, it suggests that you and your wife are incompatible on a fundamental level, and maybe you were unaware of this incompatibility before but now it has come to light. If it persists, I can't imagine how any solution could be correct except (hopefully amicably) breaking up.

But as the others have said, sometimes you can get feeling better about something if you take it slow and give it some time. So take this poly stuff slow and give it some time, and see if you can't reach a certain peace of mind about it after however many weeks, months, or what have you.

Hope to hear updates as time goes on,
Sincerely,
Kevin T.
 
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