Hi all,
I was wondering if anyone has experiences to share about having a primary partnership that isn't sexual.
My wife is mono. I was poly when we met, I consider myself poly by nature but we have spent the majority of our 12 years together monogamously. Due to the distractions of raising children and building a home/family I've been mostly happy with that. About a year ago we opened things up so I could have kink relationships with others, but they were not to include sex. That has gone well. I now have two 'friends with benefits' with whom my wife feels very comfortable (she has no interest in BDSM).
My wife is not a very sexual person. We are emotionally and physically close but it is rare that that develops into sex, usually less than once a month. I am much more sexual, am often interested when she isn't and we have been discussing this issue for years. We both now accept that our pattern is simply not an overly sexual one. I have, since we started being more 'open' been thinking more about wanting to have sexual relationships with others again. We've been talking about this possibility for a number of months now.
We keep hitting a wall though and that is that my wife feels so deeply hurt that I might want to be sexually intimate with others - something that doesn't happen when I engage in BDSM play with others. She completely understands and has no issues intellectually with it, but her emotional response remains very strong and difficult. She has recently had the realisation that if she were to choose to cut off our sexual contact then she would feel a lot less upset and vulnerable if I were to be sexual with other people. So we are now considering continuing with our partnership - as my primary partnership - in all ways except sex.
I find myself having some very mixed feelings about this. On the one hand - the horny me end - I'm not losing a lot of sex (quantity/frequency-wise) in that and can envisage a future in which I am much more sexually satisfied by one or several lovers and in which we manage to retain most of the rest of partnership - and my wife is feeling much less hurt. On the other hand I would be losing the deepest and most profound sexual partnership I have, we as a partnership would be losing our most intimate way of connecting and my wife would ultimately be signing up for celibacy.
Does anyone else have a non-sexual primary partnership? Can this work? We're still at the discussion/setting boundaries stage so anyone else's experiences would be useful in helping us consider all the permutations of this possibility.
I look forward to hearing any and all responses. Thank you.
I was wondering if anyone has experiences to share about having a primary partnership that isn't sexual.
My wife is mono. I was poly when we met, I consider myself poly by nature but we have spent the majority of our 12 years together monogamously. Due to the distractions of raising children and building a home/family I've been mostly happy with that. About a year ago we opened things up so I could have kink relationships with others, but they were not to include sex. That has gone well. I now have two 'friends with benefits' with whom my wife feels very comfortable (she has no interest in BDSM).
My wife is not a very sexual person. We are emotionally and physically close but it is rare that that develops into sex, usually less than once a month. I am much more sexual, am often interested when she isn't and we have been discussing this issue for years. We both now accept that our pattern is simply not an overly sexual one. I have, since we started being more 'open' been thinking more about wanting to have sexual relationships with others again. We've been talking about this possibility for a number of months now.
We keep hitting a wall though and that is that my wife feels so deeply hurt that I might want to be sexually intimate with others - something that doesn't happen when I engage in BDSM play with others. She completely understands and has no issues intellectually with it, but her emotional response remains very strong and difficult. She has recently had the realisation that if she were to choose to cut off our sexual contact then she would feel a lot less upset and vulnerable if I were to be sexual with other people. So we are now considering continuing with our partnership - as my primary partnership - in all ways except sex.
I find myself having some very mixed feelings about this. On the one hand - the horny me end - I'm not losing a lot of sex (quantity/frequency-wise) in that and can envisage a future in which I am much more sexually satisfied by one or several lovers and in which we manage to retain most of the rest of partnership - and my wife is feeling much less hurt. On the other hand I would be losing the deepest and most profound sexual partnership I have, we as a partnership would be losing our most intimate way of connecting and my wife would ultimately be signing up for celibacy.
Does anyone else have a non-sexual primary partnership? Can this work? We're still at the discussion/setting boundaries stage so anyone else's experiences would be useful in helping us consider all the permutations of this possibility.
I look forward to hearing any and all responses. Thank you.