OurPath (formerly SSN) Open Forum / The beginnings of my story.

**Posted by OutofHisCloset** September 4, 2019 5:50 am

Sounds like a lot of bargaining to me.

**Posted by a_dads_straight_journey** September 4, 2019 6:31 am

OOHC, bargaining indeed.

TSO, I’m not clear on your question, but here’s more context. Im trying to remember the sequence but I remember I was pretty sure early on was that if she was gay I couldn’t stay married. I don’t know if I’d call it an open marriage, but I allowed my ex-wife to ‘date’ the first few weeks after she came out because I sure as hell wasnt going to get divorced if she changed her mind. That was between Pearl Harbor Day (12/7) 2013 and mid-January 2014. By late January I was talking to an attorney to see what I was dealing with legally and financially, by mid March we were mediating and divorce was final 18 months later. She reconsidered in April 2015 but would not give up her partner, so we divorced in Sept 2015. So once the door was open the certainty was there. I grieved heavily for what my children lost in terms of lifestyle and a 2-parent home. It’s a pick your poison dilemma - intact family or reciprocal relationship. Every relationship is different, so I cannot advise your choice. If she was willing to stay celibate, I might have been able to go another 5 years to get my son out of high school. But 12 years to get my daughter graduated I could not do.

And regarding bargaining, even before she came out she was constantly bargaining for more recreation time away from family. She wasn’t present. So I was pretty confident I was going to end up on the losing side of any polyamorous relationship. To quote Chump Lady she was asking for cake- to have a beard, a family, and still live openly gay. I would have disappeared in that arrangement, and that would have been worse for my children than preserving an intact physical home.

So it seems no matter what, you have a choice that is going to involve more energy and resources in managing your family. Stay the course with a less than satisfying relationship but physical and time resources and capacity are there for your children, open the relationship with its attendant requirements of communication and bargaining and it’s risks, or divorce now which may stretch your resources of time, energy, and money but improve your and your wife’s emotional life. Only the two of you can decide what’s the best balance for yourselves and your children.

My ex limited my bargaining position by her insistence on trying it out.

All the best,

ADSJ

Last edited by a_dads_straight_journey (September 4, 2019 10:51 am)

**Posted by OutofHisCloset** September 4, 2019 10:52 am

ADSJ
Pearl Harbor Day--the irony! A sneak attack by your spouse who sank your marriage while you slept, unawares.
I call what my ex did the "trans bomb drop," probably because I am the daughter of a man who worked in government and private industry during the "atomic era," and I was in Nevada, near the test site for the largest above ground nuclear explosion ever on US soil (for those who don't know, the US exploded nuclear devices aboveground in Nevada from 1951-1963). When my ex dropped his trans bomb, it laid waste to my life, and I am still dealing with the radioactive afterlife--I can only hope that the radioacive "half-life" of that explosion is a short one.

TSO:
You say you wanted monogamy, but now you are contemplating a polyamorous threesome arrangement, with a female third party that you somehow expect will love both your wife and you equally so you can continue to remain committed to and attached to your wife. This is about the wildest wild card of uncertainty that I can imagine (and my trans husband said he'd stay with me but would not promise to take any feminizing activity off the table and expected me to live a life contingent on "what he might in the future do").
What about your wife? Are you convinced that your wife will retain her primary commitment to you? What about this fantasy third person, this other woman, by the way? What's in this for her, to enter into your marriage with the expectation of serving your wife's need to "experiment" sexually and your sexual and emotional needs? What about children? Yours, hers, etc. Does this really seem like a chance worth taking, a situation that will lead to a satisfying future? Is this kind of life really what you signed up for? Would you have signed up for it if you'd known this about your wife when you met? Is this the kind of life you really want to lead? In other words, in the words of the immortal Chump Lady, "Is this really acceptable to you?"
I twisted myself in a lot of sexual knots for my trans ex when he decided he hated being male and began acting out in bed his ideas of what a woman should do; I allowed him to consider himself a lesbian, and I his lesbian partner (although I continued to think of myself a hetero, I deceived myself into thinking I was "straight but not narrow"); I allowed him to imagine my body as his, to vampire on my sexual response; I encouraged my ex to imagine his male body as a female one. I did this because I had 32 years of "sunk costs" in my marriage, because I loved my then-husband (before he showed me in word and deed why I needed to stop loving him and save my sanity and health). I sure wish someone on this forum had said to me: Honey, you are engaged in some world class bargaining and need to step away from the crazy--if only for a short while--so you can get some perspective on your situation without your spouse there to pressure you--if only by his presence.
Maybe you aren't engaged in some world-class bargaining in your shock and hurt; maybe this threesome of a polyamorous arrangement will work out. But before you enter into it, don't just visit sites that espouse the wonderfulness of a polyamorous relationship. Google up "polyamorous regret" and see what you find. Polyamory relies on absolute honesty, and a woman who has hidden her sexuality for a lifetime, even if only from herself, is a longshot.

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (September 4, 2019 9:37 pm)

**Posted by TheStraitOne** September 4, 2019 4:10 pm

Thanks for the perspective from the both of you. Obviously a lot has gone on in past few months and it’s been very stressful for the both of us. I don’t think bargaining is the word I would use, because she has said on multiple occasions her greatest fear is that we stay together and ruin the relationship that we have left. She doesn’t want us to get to a place where we are both angry at each other. She has openly said that she doesn’t know what will work. She has also said that she said she doesn’t want me to agree to opening our relationship if I really can’t be okay with it. She has not placed pressure on each other for anything to happen at this point. We really are just continually having conversations to see if we can find something that will keep us together. I think in regards to finding a woman that would be able to meet our needs we would be looking for a unicorn. Could we find this mythical woman? I’m not sure. Also you both given me a lot to think about. I know that we still love each other and we still want what’s best for each other even if that means divorce. I hate this feeling that’s inside it’s this knot of anxiety that comes and goes all day everyday.

**Posted by OutofHisCloset** September 4, 2019 9:46 pm

No matter what choice you make, to stay and allow your wife to have sex with another woman or separate and divorce, you are going to experience a lot of anxiety. Perhaps you might ask yourself what choice of the available choices you can make will have the best chance of untying that knot of anxiety in you. I notice that you say, a lot, "she": "she has said"; "she doesn't want"; "She has openly said"; "She has also said'; "she has not place pressure." Occasionally you say "we," when discussing her plan of opening the marriage. But you don't say much about what YOU say, about what YOU want, about what YOU think about what she says--other than the very telling "knot of anxiety" that you "hate...feeling."

**Posted by Ellexoh_nz** September 4, 2019 11:07 pm

Strait......Outofhiscloset has made a very pertinent observation....your use of "she" and her struggles of identity as a focus for the answer to the situation you're in. Focus on your wife too much and you'll be in danger of losing yourself.

You are part of this. Have your say!

As an aside....I told my partner "yes of course you can see other people. But you won't be doing it with me in your life"
It took a year of soul-searching, counseling, arguing, losing my shit for me to realise this is my fucking life too, and I found it was easy then to set this boundary

**Posted by Daryl** September 4, 2019 11:17 pm

So true - it's possible to get so caught up in trying to help our spouses figure themselves out that we neglect our own needs. As Kel says in her signature "You are not required to set yourself on fire to keep other people warm."

It's a lot to think about.

**Posted by walkbymyself** September 9, 2019 9:28 am

I'm trying to thread the needle here, between offering support versus reality check. I'm going to apologize in advance to all of you who are in open marriages, and I also recognize that there are individual factors (particularly money) that leave you with few viable options, and for these people, having an open marriage may be the only way to survive.

But I'm posting about the open marriage that is accepted in order to salvage a relationship that was initially understood to be monogamous, where one party wants to continue to enjoy the benefits of marriage plus the benefits of playing the field.

As for a couple seeking female partners: I don't think our society is actually overrun with beautiful young single women desperate to find partners, whether straight or gay, for whom there is absolutely no possibility of an eventual monogamous long-term relationship. I think the idea that you're going to open your marriage and both of you find partners who are just delighted to have sex with no possible future? I don't see it happening. Maybe there are women like that out there, but from the sound of your posts it doesn't seem to me that these are actually the kinds of women you want to get involved with.

And the couple seeking men? Well, speaking for myself, as a wife, I get that there are plenty of men out there who love the idea of sex without any long-term commitment. The problem for me is that these are exactly the kinds of men I always avoided when I was single, and they're not looking any more attractive to me now that I'm married. The kinds of men who would sleep with a married woman, are exactly the kinds of men I have no attraction to.

Last edited by walkbymyself (September 9, 2019 9:28 am)