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Hi Everyone
This is my first post but I've been following Our Path/SSN for a few years now. The articles, podcasts and book recommendations have been helpful....thank you.
My story sounds similar to many here, I've been married 22 years and we have 2 teenagers. Broadly speaking after our second child was born sexual intimacy was greatly reduced, there wasn't much explanation offered when I questioned "Why am I always initiating intimacy".
By mid-2014 my wife was spending a lot more time with a neighbor friend of ours and ultimately they started an affair. One of the things that's odd about my story is that the 3 of us were great friends even while my relationship with my wife became less and less intimate. My wife and I still had a great time together in all other respects.
On one of my attempts to have a deeper discussion about happiness and what the heck was going on with our sex life, and after another evasive set of answers, I decided I was up for anything. The neighbor's wife and I, the friend that my wife was having an affair with, started a year long flirt fest, and eventually we started an affair that lasted 2 years.
Yes, my wife was sleeping with the neighbor's wife from 2014-2018 and I was also sleeping with her from 2016-2018 and neither of us knew it. However, her husband eventually figured it out and at the end of an ugly weekend of us both thinking the other was going to hear from the husband, we sat down and told each other the truth. We were both shocked.
So as it turns out my wife was more into the idea of being a lesbian than the neighbor, and was ultimately hoping to steal the neighbor's wife away and live happily ever after. However, immediately after the the big blow-up and the neighbor's wife stopped seeing us, we went through a process of rebound sex for a few weeks (initiated by her every time), then a few months of crying because she missed her girlfriend, then eventually a realization that neither of us wanted a divorce because most of our life together, except for the sex (which had fallen way off again) was quite good.
By the way, the neighbor's didn't get a divorce either.
4 years later, we've made some compromises on intimacy, it isn't what either of us want fully. I don't think either of us have been with anyone else. We both talk openly about various attractions or things that we would like. Recently, during an alcohol soaked Friday night she brought up something I had suggested early on after the big reveal, that is, that we both find a "friend" (different friends this time) that fills out the piece that is missing for both of us. A month later and no one has made the first move do anything about it.
So that's it, for now. I'll update my slow motion train wreck with more developments as they occur. Thanks for reading, it was good to get a short version of the story written down.