My wife and I have very recently decided to become polyamorous. While the circumstances to us arriving at this point would be shocking to most people, I'm not completely shocked. But I know I have a few things that I need to come to terms with before I move much further.
I'm really feeling compelled to write, but I'm not sure where I should begin. (Midpost: and now I see it will be a dissertation! End of post: yep, very long.)
My wife and I have been together for ten years. We knew one another for several years before our relationship began. We sacrificed everything to be with one another, committing to one another before we actually began anything romantic. In that, we're both keenly aware of one another's attractions to other people. Her bisexual history made it both fun and exciting for us to people watch from afar and we found that we enjoyed one another flirting and making out with others. Our rule had always been that it was okay to do anything, up to sex.
After several years together, we were married and then had a daughter who was heavily dependent on her. She required a great deal of attention for five years, so much so that my wife lost a lot of her self-identity, as she took on the responsibility of being "Mom." Recently, at six, my daughter's independence has finally arrived. My wife has finally been able to rebuild some of her identity, and has wanted to get out of the house more.
We recently moved across the country to Oregon, from the buckle of the Bible belt in NW Louisiana. We both sought to meet new people, and while I've built a solid group of colleagues from work, as well as a few fellow transplantees from Louisiana, she's done a bit better building a network of closer friends.
Over the past year, she's developed a friendship with a guy in our new town. That went very slowly at first, as she was still rarely energetic enough to motivate herself to go out. In fact, this summer, she was away for several weeks, but her friend and I hung out and went to a few parties together. I learned that he was a great guy. I'd hang out with him more, but work has had me bogged down. I'm a school teacher and the school year is still pretty new.
As the recent weeks have unfolded, she's gotten more energy and has wanted to go out more frequently, and usually with him. So I started to realize that a tighter bond had been established between the two. Nothing stated, no problemo.
This Friday we had a talk about polyamory, an issue which we've fleetingly discussed in the past (I had friends that called themselves swingers), but nothing formal, no decisions either way. In our talk, I learned that she had developed genuine feelings for our friend and that they'd been fooling around (no surprise), but at no sacrifice to our relationship. Then, after we really enjoyed ourselves, she went out.
I usually wait up for her, as she's usually keyed up and wants to tell me about how the night went. If she had someone hit on her or flirt with her, we'd usually bring that into the bedroom, as she has done likewise with me, over the years.
Friday I had fallen asleep on the couch. I woke immediately as I heard the key in the door. When she come in, she immediately sat down next to me, and told me, with no secrecy, no guilt, about what she had done. She had no desire to hurt me, but just honestly told me that she had had sex with her friend.
It was three a.m. (though there are no curfews in our house). That didn't make it easier for me to think clearly. I did not know what to say, but my biggest surprise was that I was not taken aback at all by this news. It didn't bother me. I felt no jealousy, no rage, and in fact, part of me was absolutely okay that she didn't ask my permission before she went out to do so. (I think I wouldn't have been really cool with that, and I'm not certain if I would have said yes, but I'll get to that part next.)
I was okay with this, but two things started to bother me. The first has been a problem since I realized that their friendship was formulating more strongly over the past few weeks: I don't have a close friend right now, someone I can confide in, a male friend, or a platonic relationship, and I began to feel lonely and a little insecure, which leads to my other problem.
I've always been highly confident, sometimes even to a fault, but that has changed over time. During the last six years, our sex frequency has been extremely low. Sometimes we will have just one sexual encounter in several months time, and we went an entire year after her pregnancy. During that time, I would make advances and be shot down over and over, only to have her tell me that if I really wanted to go and find someone to have sex with, I could, but I should know that I would never have sex with her again. While I really wanted to have sexual encounters with female friends of mine, I never pursued them because of these consequences she laid down. While the frequency was low, those that happened were intense, and I could not think of sacrificing that connection with my wife.
But while I was hopeful, I still felt rejected then, which leads me back to my insecurities. Furthermore, I have been hesitant to pursue any friendship with women to whom I was even slightly attracted, because I felt like I would hit this impasse and would only be more frustrated in the end.
The only apology that was needed early Saturday morning, was because she said she feels horrible that she put me through that while she was sexually dormant.
My only problem with how this has gone down is not the manner in which she steered our relationship by sleeping with her friend. In fact, my initial reaction kind of sealed the thought that I have always felt that this lifestyle was really for me, especially after I heard about the emotional void in my swinger friends' escapades. But what I have a problem with was the restrictions, frustrations, rejections, and insecurity that came about during the past six years of our life. And being that I'm not looking to rush into a secondary relationship, I don't want to resent my wife while she's enjoying hers.
So now, I'm not certain where I go. Should I start searching for someone to help fill this loneliness? I honestly don't know how I would even start looking and then approach someone sounding as lame as, "Hey, you know I'm married, but my wife is totally okay with me dating other women," and I'm fearful of that rejection. Damned insecurities.
We've always had a wide-open system of communication. We're not jealous people. We have a grand sense of partnership in our marriage. However, we both know now, and I think she's learned a lot more recently, that the traditional closed marriage relationship is for neither of us.
I just want to make sure I don't wind up resenting her in the future because of our past.
Any advice?
I'm really feeling compelled to write, but I'm not sure where I should begin. (Midpost: and now I see it will be a dissertation! End of post: yep, very long.)
My wife and I have been together for ten years. We knew one another for several years before our relationship began. We sacrificed everything to be with one another, committing to one another before we actually began anything romantic. In that, we're both keenly aware of one another's attractions to other people. Her bisexual history made it both fun and exciting for us to people watch from afar and we found that we enjoyed one another flirting and making out with others. Our rule had always been that it was okay to do anything, up to sex.
After several years together, we were married and then had a daughter who was heavily dependent on her. She required a great deal of attention for five years, so much so that my wife lost a lot of her self-identity, as she took on the responsibility of being "Mom." Recently, at six, my daughter's independence has finally arrived. My wife has finally been able to rebuild some of her identity, and has wanted to get out of the house more.
We recently moved across the country to Oregon, from the buckle of the Bible belt in NW Louisiana. We both sought to meet new people, and while I've built a solid group of colleagues from work, as well as a few fellow transplantees from Louisiana, she's done a bit better building a network of closer friends.
Over the past year, she's developed a friendship with a guy in our new town. That went very slowly at first, as she was still rarely energetic enough to motivate herself to go out. In fact, this summer, she was away for several weeks, but her friend and I hung out and went to a few parties together. I learned that he was a great guy. I'd hang out with him more, but work has had me bogged down. I'm a school teacher and the school year is still pretty new.
As the recent weeks have unfolded, she's gotten more energy and has wanted to go out more frequently, and usually with him. So I started to realize that a tighter bond had been established between the two. Nothing stated, no problemo.
This Friday we had a talk about polyamory, an issue which we've fleetingly discussed in the past (I had friends that called themselves swingers), but nothing formal, no decisions either way. In our talk, I learned that she had developed genuine feelings for our friend and that they'd been fooling around (no surprise), but at no sacrifice to our relationship. Then, after we really enjoyed ourselves, she went out.
I usually wait up for her, as she's usually keyed up and wants to tell me about how the night went. If she had someone hit on her or flirt with her, we'd usually bring that into the bedroom, as she has done likewise with me, over the years.
Friday I had fallen asleep on the couch. I woke immediately as I heard the key in the door. When she come in, she immediately sat down next to me, and told me, with no secrecy, no guilt, about what she had done. She had no desire to hurt me, but just honestly told me that she had had sex with her friend.
It was three a.m. (though there are no curfews in our house). That didn't make it easier for me to think clearly. I did not know what to say, but my biggest surprise was that I was not taken aback at all by this news. It didn't bother me. I felt no jealousy, no rage, and in fact, part of me was absolutely okay that she didn't ask my permission before she went out to do so. (I think I wouldn't have been really cool with that, and I'm not certain if I would have said yes, but I'll get to that part next.)
I was okay with this, but two things started to bother me. The first has been a problem since I realized that their friendship was formulating more strongly over the past few weeks: I don't have a close friend right now, someone I can confide in, a male friend, or a platonic relationship, and I began to feel lonely and a little insecure, which leads to my other problem.
I've always been highly confident, sometimes even to a fault, but that has changed over time. During the last six years, our sex frequency has been extremely low. Sometimes we will have just one sexual encounter in several months time, and we went an entire year after her pregnancy. During that time, I would make advances and be shot down over and over, only to have her tell me that if I really wanted to go and find someone to have sex with, I could, but I should know that I would never have sex with her again. While I really wanted to have sexual encounters with female friends of mine, I never pursued them because of these consequences she laid down. While the frequency was low, those that happened were intense, and I could not think of sacrificing that connection with my wife.
But while I was hopeful, I still felt rejected then, which leads me back to my insecurities. Furthermore, I have been hesitant to pursue any friendship with women to whom I was even slightly attracted, because I felt like I would hit this impasse and would only be more frustrated in the end.
The only apology that was needed early Saturday morning, was because she said she feels horrible that she put me through that while she was sexually dormant.
My only problem with how this has gone down is not the manner in which she steered our relationship by sleeping with her friend. In fact, my initial reaction kind of sealed the thought that I have always felt that this lifestyle was really for me, especially after I heard about the emotional void in my swinger friends' escapades. But what I have a problem with was the restrictions, frustrations, rejections, and insecurity that came about during the past six years of our life. And being that I'm not looking to rush into a secondary relationship, I don't want to resent my wife while she's enjoying hers.
So now, I'm not certain where I go. Should I start searching for someone to help fill this loneliness? I honestly don't know how I would even start looking and then approach someone sounding as lame as, "Hey, you know I'm married, but my wife is totally okay with me dating other women," and I'm fearful of that rejection. Damned insecurities.
We've always had a wide-open system of communication. We're not jealous people. We have a grand sense of partnership in our marriage. However, we both know now, and I think she's learned a lot more recently, that the traditional closed marriage relationship is for neither of us.
I just want to make sure I don't wind up resenting her in the future because of our past.
Any advice?