P.S.Eudonym
Member
MIRROR: Download from MEGA
Alright I had some time to think and finally some time to sit down and write as well.
I spend friday talking to a good friend of mine whom I had been reluctant to talk to before because of his religion. He is a very devout man and strongly believes in scipture, but also tolerant enough to know that his views are not everyones. I told him the entire story from my point of view and he gave me some new perspective on things. At the end of our discussion, I asked him if he was willing to forget everything I had said and listen to my fiancé's side in order to gather a complete picture and then advise us both. He agreed on the condition that he would advise each of us as an individual and not as a couple. (Meaning he reserved the option to advise either of us to end the relationship if he judged that healthier for the person.) My fiancé was a bit reluctant but agreed and so they met the next day and talked as well while I sat at home and desperately tried to take my mind of things.
She eventually returned in the evening and we talked, calmly and honestly. As it turns out, the main problems were/are, as usual, communication and assumptions. We both made a lot of them and we both misunderstood what the other was saying.
When she told me about her concept of love, I assumed polyamory and heard that she considered me and her coworker to be equally loved and desired. We used a fruitbasket as an example. The way I understand it, polyamory has a basket filled with one type of fruit (aples) and each loved one is "handed" one fruit representing the love. (The basket is the capacity to love here) As all fruits are equal, there is no distinction between the people, all are equal. In monogamy, the basket contains multiple fruits, and different fruits have different ranks. From top to bottom, a wife/fiancé is an apple, an gf/bf/affair an orange, a sibling/parent a pear, an aunt/uncle a plum and so forth. The thing that defines monogamy is that there is only one apple and an infinte number of everything else.
I basically assumed she had given both me and her coworker and apple whereas in reality, I remain the sole apple and he got an orange. Knowing this, my entire questioning of wether or not she will give up our relationship has become pointless.
She tried to tell me this by her constant statements that leaving me was out of the question, but since I saw the two of us equal, I doubted her words. In a strange way, this makes me the prime destructive force in our relationship, since my constant doubts and questioning eroded our trust further than it had already been by her cheating.
She also told me flat out that she can imagine neither a life nor a family with her coworker. In the essence, those points combined allow me to drop all my doubts and fears in regards to her. Our engagement will remain, we will work out our issues and he will, at the most, be a friend. She is still sad at the prospect of never getting to experiment with him as she has fantasized, but she is willing to make that sacrifice and I will do my best to support her and be aware of the sacrifice she makes. Their friendship I no longer consider a threat. She knows how I will react to cheating (and now I actually will react) and our future is her clear priority, so she won't stray.
We talked a great deal about her infatuation with her coworker and personally I feel a lot of it seems to be sexually motivated. Before BDSM entered the picture, our love life did have a certain routine to it, always containing certain elements and few variation. With BDSM came hard limits of which he seems to have substantially less than I do at this point. (Taken with a grain of salt since talking and walking are two very different things.) Basically, she seems to believe that she could live out fantasies with him that are within my hard limits, although some of them are only so in her perception. (As an example, one thing that turned her on was the idea of playing to the point where she is so exhausted that she has trouble holding her bladder. Fun fact: we already did. I just didn't have the heart to tell her as she seemed not to have noticed the few drops that were spilled.)
So we agreed to both be a bit more open to experimentation and to talk more about fantasies instead of censoring ourselves because we feel it might embarass or disgust the other. During this talk I realized just how much I had still censored myself and apparently so did she.
We also spend a great deal of time discussing the concept of a threesome and agreed to look into the prospect, given certain rules. So far, we have agreed that both of us have a right to veto a prospect, that nothing happens before everyone gets tested, that we will start with a woman and that her coworker is not an option. (The last one, I pretty much dictated, but she agreed not to push the issue. I have not told her that I contemplated the option because I have since come to think it is a bad idea, especially since he did get an orange.) We have also looked into local BDSM groups and already found some. We've decided to give it some time, but we will try to enter some socially and see where it takes us.
Furthermore, we agreed to meet his fiancé and get to know her together. She has met her once before, but only shortly. If nothing else, I want to make sure she is entirely on the same page as we are, as so far she is a relatively innocent bystander that has been dragged into an emotional mess that can potentially cause her a lot of pain. I do not want to be responsible for that.
Finally, we also talked about our relationship in general and told each other many small things we never bothered to say before, simply because we felt it was not worth the trouble even though it bothered us. This has been a great help in my opinion, as it will hopefully reduce the potential for arguments in the future and hopefully allow us to behave more natural should these things arise. It was also an instant test for our newly agreed on honesty and promise to look at critque more calmly and I feel it worked.
We spend the past two days with quite a bit of experimentation and for the first time I felt that she was simply satisfied with what I had to offer and did not spend the time with her mind elsewhere. I guess I imagined a lot of that, but I am also sure it affected my performance. We did try out a few things, and I am happy to report that my sensor for her seems to have returned. All in all, I am happier than I have been in a long time. There are still issues to work through and problems to adress, but now I feel that we do so together.
Finally, I want to adress some issues brough up by you guys, just to make sure there are no misconceptions:
Luna: "If you turned to her and expressed a desire to carry on a sexual relationship with another woman, how would she react?"
She is essentially in the mindset that as long as I return to her in the evening, she doesn't mind. I take this with a grain of salt, but there is a piece of the puzzle you guys don't have. She spend several years in a relationship with a man who cheated on her constantly. I always though this made her transgretion worse because she knows what it feels like, but it wasn't until a friend pointed it out that I realized it could also very well have desensitized her. He always came back to her and confessed about it, so she felt assured of his love and chalked it up to "he's a guy". As she strictly divides love and sex in her mind, me having an affair seems to be no big deal to her as long as she remains my single apple. I have trouble comprehening it emotionally, but I believe her the way she explains it.
WoT: "Let's see how comfortable this "dom" is with the proposition of you fucking HIS woman."
Frankly, I doubt he would mind. Apparently she is a switcher and has a few female subs of her own outside their relationship. Since the two of them don't have any sex at all (in terms of penetration), yet she does have sex with other men occasionally, it seems he couldn't care less. The only potential problem would be that as far as I know he is the only dom for her, but even there I'd be suprised if he minds since he is a switcher as well and subs on occasion. He'd probably ask if he could watch.
Frankly, the vibe I get from him when he describes their relationship is that of two people hdding from the fact that they are in an alibi-relationship. They both seem to enjoy the single lifestyle and no strings attached BDSM relationships, but for some reason have decided to commit to each other emotionally without going the whole nine yards. Granted, it is quite possible they simply love each other and are truly fine with the way things are, but for reasons I don't want to disclose here, I have my doubts.
"From a rationalize point of view I'd like to point out that in automatically discounting the option of walking out on your relationship you have just thrown away your bargaining tools and practically placed your well-being at the hands of this woman and her sexual desire roller-coaster.
This one made me smile as my friend made me realize the exact same thing by constantly questioning my description of the situation and gently nudging me towards this very same conclusion. That was about an hour before you posted. You are both entirely right, I claimed to have no choice when in reality, I made the choice not to break up with her from the start and then convincing myself that making my choice was no choice because I did not consider it an option. What it boils down to is that I am of the mindset that love is worth any price but this whole thing has lead me to questioning that mindset as unhealthy.
I once again want to thank you all for your advice and help. More input is always welcome, but for the time being, my mind is at peace.
I spend friday talking to a good friend of mine whom I had been reluctant to talk to before because of his religion. He is a very devout man and strongly believes in scipture, but also tolerant enough to know that his views are not everyones. I told him the entire story from my point of view and he gave me some new perspective on things. At the end of our discussion, I asked him if he was willing to forget everything I had said and listen to my fiancé's side in order to gather a complete picture and then advise us both. He agreed on the condition that he would advise each of us as an individual and not as a couple. (Meaning he reserved the option to advise either of us to end the relationship if he judged that healthier for the person.) My fiancé was a bit reluctant but agreed and so they met the next day and talked as well while I sat at home and desperately tried to take my mind of things.
She eventually returned in the evening and we talked, calmly and honestly. As it turns out, the main problems were/are, as usual, communication and assumptions. We both made a lot of them and we both misunderstood what the other was saying.
When she told me about her concept of love, I assumed polyamory and heard that she considered me and her coworker to be equally loved and desired. We used a fruitbasket as an example. The way I understand it, polyamory has a basket filled with one type of fruit (aples) and each loved one is "handed" one fruit representing the love. (The basket is the capacity to love here) As all fruits are equal, there is no distinction between the people, all are equal. In monogamy, the basket contains multiple fruits, and different fruits have different ranks. From top to bottom, a wife/fiancé is an apple, an gf/bf/affair an orange, a sibling/parent a pear, an aunt/uncle a plum and so forth. The thing that defines monogamy is that there is only one apple and an infinte number of everything else.
I basically assumed she had given both me and her coworker and apple whereas in reality, I remain the sole apple and he got an orange. Knowing this, my entire questioning of wether or not she will give up our relationship has become pointless.
She tried to tell me this by her constant statements that leaving me was out of the question, but since I saw the two of us equal, I doubted her words. In a strange way, this makes me the prime destructive force in our relationship, since my constant doubts and questioning eroded our trust further than it had already been by her cheating.
She also told me flat out that she can imagine neither a life nor a family with her coworker. In the essence, those points combined allow me to drop all my doubts and fears in regards to her. Our engagement will remain, we will work out our issues and he will, at the most, be a friend. She is still sad at the prospect of never getting to experiment with him as she has fantasized, but she is willing to make that sacrifice and I will do my best to support her and be aware of the sacrifice she makes. Their friendship I no longer consider a threat. She knows how I will react to cheating (and now I actually will react) and our future is her clear priority, so she won't stray.
We talked a great deal about her infatuation with her coworker and personally I feel a lot of it seems to be sexually motivated. Before BDSM entered the picture, our love life did have a certain routine to it, always containing certain elements and few variation. With BDSM came hard limits of which he seems to have substantially less than I do at this point. (Taken with a grain of salt since talking and walking are two very different things.) Basically, she seems to believe that she could live out fantasies with him that are within my hard limits, although some of them are only so in her perception. (As an example, one thing that turned her on was the idea of playing to the point where she is so exhausted that she has trouble holding her bladder. Fun fact: we already did. I just didn't have the heart to tell her as she seemed not to have noticed the few drops that were spilled.)
So we agreed to both be a bit more open to experimentation and to talk more about fantasies instead of censoring ourselves because we feel it might embarass or disgust the other. During this talk I realized just how much I had still censored myself and apparently so did she.
We also spend a great deal of time discussing the concept of a threesome and agreed to look into the prospect, given certain rules. So far, we have agreed that both of us have a right to veto a prospect, that nothing happens before everyone gets tested, that we will start with a woman and that her coworker is not an option. (The last one, I pretty much dictated, but she agreed not to push the issue. I have not told her that I contemplated the option because I have since come to think it is a bad idea, especially since he did get an orange.) We have also looked into local BDSM groups and already found some. We've decided to give it some time, but we will try to enter some socially and see where it takes us.
Furthermore, we agreed to meet his fiancé and get to know her together. She has met her once before, but only shortly. If nothing else, I want to make sure she is entirely on the same page as we are, as so far she is a relatively innocent bystander that has been dragged into an emotional mess that can potentially cause her a lot of pain. I do not want to be responsible for that.
Finally, we also talked about our relationship in general and told each other many small things we never bothered to say before, simply because we felt it was not worth the trouble even though it bothered us. This has been a great help in my opinion, as it will hopefully reduce the potential for arguments in the future and hopefully allow us to behave more natural should these things arise. It was also an instant test for our newly agreed on honesty and promise to look at critque more calmly and I feel it worked.
We spend the past two days with quite a bit of experimentation and for the first time I felt that she was simply satisfied with what I had to offer and did not spend the time with her mind elsewhere. I guess I imagined a lot of that, but I am also sure it affected my performance. We did try out a few things, and I am happy to report that my sensor for her seems to have returned. All in all, I am happier than I have been in a long time. There are still issues to work through and problems to adress, but now I feel that we do so together.
Finally, I want to adress some issues brough up by you guys, just to make sure there are no misconceptions:
Luna: "If you turned to her and expressed a desire to carry on a sexual relationship with another woman, how would she react?"
She is essentially in the mindset that as long as I return to her in the evening, she doesn't mind. I take this with a grain of salt, but there is a piece of the puzzle you guys don't have. She spend several years in a relationship with a man who cheated on her constantly. I always though this made her transgretion worse because she knows what it feels like, but it wasn't until a friend pointed it out that I realized it could also very well have desensitized her. He always came back to her and confessed about it, so she felt assured of his love and chalked it up to "he's a guy". As she strictly divides love and sex in her mind, me having an affair seems to be no big deal to her as long as she remains my single apple. I have trouble comprehening it emotionally, but I believe her the way she explains it.
WoT: "Let's see how comfortable this "dom" is with the proposition of you fucking HIS woman."
Frankly, I doubt he would mind. Apparently she is a switcher and has a few female subs of her own outside their relationship. Since the two of them don't have any sex at all (in terms of penetration), yet she does have sex with other men occasionally, it seems he couldn't care less. The only potential problem would be that as far as I know he is the only dom for her, but even there I'd be suprised if he minds since he is a switcher as well and subs on occasion. He'd probably ask if he could watch.
Frankly, the vibe I get from him when he describes their relationship is that of two people hdding from the fact that they are in an alibi-relationship. They both seem to enjoy the single lifestyle and no strings attached BDSM relationships, but for some reason have decided to commit to each other emotionally without going the whole nine yards. Granted, it is quite possible they simply love each other and are truly fine with the way things are, but for reasons I don't want to disclose here, I have my doubts.
"From a rationalize point of view I'd like to point out that in automatically discounting the option of walking out on your relationship you have just thrown away your bargaining tools and practically placed your well-being at the hands of this woman and her sexual desire roller-coaster.
This one made me smile as my friend made me realize the exact same thing by constantly questioning my description of the situation and gently nudging me towards this very same conclusion. That was about an hour before you posted. You are both entirely right, I claimed to have no choice when in reality, I made the choice not to break up with her from the start and then convincing myself that making my choice was no choice because I did not consider it an option. What it boils down to is that I am of the mindset that love is worth any price but this whole thing has lead me to questioning that mindset as unhealthy.
I once again want to thank you all for your advice and help. More input is always welcome, but for the time being, my mind is at peace.
Keep2share Premium PRO Account
