A few months ago Mrs. Eddie found her high-school ex-boyfriend on MySpace and contacted him. No big deal, she's been messaging with people of both sexes for quite a while and never let it get out of hand.
She originally broke up with him because they lived a couple of hours apart and never got to see each other. A month after they broke up she wrote him another letter asking him to get back together. She never received a reply.
Soon after finding him on MySpace she finds out, 20 years after the fact, that he sent her several letters that she never received, and it turned out that her grandmother intercepted and destroyed the letters, as she had done to Mrs. Eddie's mom years before.
She also finds out that High School Ex-Boyfriend still has feelings for her and that she still has feelings for HSEB.
The whole thing has since progressed to "cybersex" with webcam performances. He says he's going to move here, but won't say when. She told me that if he does show up, she doesn't think she'll be able to stop herself from sleeping with him.
Meanwhile, she's still as loving and affectionate and sexual with me as ever. Well, except for a period of almost a week when he wasn't in contact with her and she went into a funk and wanted nothing to do with anyone. But, fortunately for both of us, she came back out of it.
My secret is out. When she told me she'd probably end up sleeping with him, I didn't even try to threaten her... she wouldn't have bought it and if she did and something happened anyway, I don't want to give her up. Not because I don't want to be alone (being alone is pretty cool in many ways), but because, as long as she remained emotionally and physically intimate with me, I would still want to be with her.
So how can she carry on without losing her feelings for yours truly? For one thing, I'm figuring it doesn't hurt that I'm not begging her or threatening her or placating her, and while I love being with her, I'm not terrified of losing her. Also, a big part of the pattern seems to be that she'll justify her affair by blaming it on someone else, usually the husband, at which point he becomes the enemy. Mrs. Eddie instead blames her grandmother, who is conveniently dead. Mrs. Eddie's logic is that if her grandmother had allowed them to remain in contact, she'd have either ended up with him or had enough of him and broke up with him for good. She has not rewritten any history with me, said she still loves me, and knows that I did not cause her feelings to develop. So she can still love me, and she does.
Or maybe I'm nuts, and y'all are going to get a chance to say "I told you so!" any day now.
One of the bad things about being weird is that it's not always easy to learn from other people's experience... you have to test it against your own experience before you can be sure it applies. But so far I'm still happy with her and she's still happy with me, and she just might get to chow down on all the yummy cake she can handle.
a fine and enviable madness, this delusion that all questions have answers, and nothing is beyond the reach of a strong left arm.
I'm not so sure I'd be as calm as you about all that... not even sure I have any advice for you, because it sounds like you are slipping into DB/DR almost by default.
I think it is utterly stupid to believe that once we marry, we will never experience attraction for another. I don't know if you 'busted' her on her actions, or if she just told you... but, at the very least, it is an open secret. If the two of you can at least face it together... one person's attraction for another is never the 'fault' or 'problem' of the spouse... we all have domain over our own emotions/actions/reactions...
I suppose, at the very least... you know... and it's out there.
Eddie, from all the posts I see of you I deduce that you're a very level-headed person. I admire that, even if I can't always understand it. This is one such instance. What you're essentially saying is that you're ok with an open marriage, as long as she continues to be loving to and intimate with you. Do you get the same carte blanche? Would you want it?
I, personally, am deeply skeptical about the long-term viability of the open marriage model, but I admit I've got a conservative streak. I couldn't even date two people at the same time back in the single days because it was too confusing, and being intimate with two would send my inner cat screeching up a tree.
If you and she tell each other the truth and are both ok with what's going on more power to you.
As you know, she is playing with fire, and she could burn the house down. but at least she is warning you so you can get out. That is thoughtful of her.
Before I married I liked to have 2 boyfriends at all times, one local and one long-distance. That way if one broke up with me I still had the other for emotional support. So, when I married my local boyfriend, Mr. Longdistance was still in the background. I thought about him often, even while I felt in love with my husband. I felt that I had the ability to love them both for themselves. But over the years, the tedium of marriage set in, and Mr. Longdistance started to look better. But he had gotten married too. So we kept up the talk, but didn't do much about it.
This was not a good thing for my marriage. I was not more than 3/4 committed at any time. And though I don't think my H knew exactly what was wrong, he sensed my emotional distance. Eventually as a self-defense mechanism, he had an affair. And lo and behold, that was a crisis. Because it wasn't me leaving him, it was him leaving me! And I wasn't prepared for that.
I can tell you with certainty it is not a good thing that your wife wants to have an open affair with another man. But your chances are about 50/50, that she may decide she prefers you if you simply let it be a dramaless event.
Truth is, if she is really committed to you and your marriage, she wouldn't do it. The fact that she is doing this shows she is not really committed.
I'm not sure Mrs Eddie isn't committed. I think she just feels cheated of an R that could have developed or fizzled out naturally. Her grandmother tricked her and she feels like she wants to go back and check out her feelings in an open way. Eddie you are unbelievable, amazing and incredible (but you knew that ) What I have to ask is: are you sure this isn't your self-esteem playing games with you? In some of your previous posts you have talked about your amazement that Mrs Eddie ever bothered with you. Are you sure you're not playing the one-down a little too well? This could be Mr Nice Guy taken to an extreme.
OTOH I posted something a while back about a TV show here where some women spent time in a convent on a spiritual journey. One of these women was living in an open R with her husband and bf (menage a trois!). Which was totally weird. But what she discovered while in the convent was that she realised the depth of her H's love for her that he was able to allow her to be free. When she came out of the convent she decided to recommit monogamously to her husband.
Fran
if we can be sufficient to ourselves, we need fear no entangling webs Erica Jong
Sorry, but I can't remember if you guys have kids. If you do, what lesson(s) are you teaching them? Tolerance? Maybe. Tolerating the intolerable? Maybe.
To me, this is a dealbreaker. It just reeks of "nice guyness" to me.
I think some of the posters may have missed that you also have kind of a "thing" about at least THINKING of your wife with another man, right? This "fetish", along with the facts that you don't seem too concerned that she will actually leave you and feel certain her feelings for HSEB are not getting in the way of her feelings for you, are why I assume you don't feel threatened at this point and maybe even feel a little excited at what it going on.
From what you've written before I don't think you're viewing this as making your wife "happy" or comfortable in order to "keep" her so I don't think you're in "Mr. Nice Guy" mode. Am I reading you right??
STILL, besides the fact that I don't understand your fetish or your lack of concern, I am concerned that you (and your wife) are being a bit naive. Mostly because this x-boyfriend is such an unknown. Plus I don't understand your wife's POV exactly. Yes it's "sad" that her grandmother manipulated her but you cannot change time. To me I wouldn't want to risk messing up my marriage and my kids lives in order to see what she missed.
At the same time you're kind of stuck because how can you tell her not to do anything when it's not a dealbreaker for you (NOW) and actually it is kind of a turn-on for you. As she has probably noticed???
But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads? ~Albert Camus
Your wife is simply indulging in the "one that got away" fantasy. It is ok to have this fantasy as long as she understands that it is one. As long as she understands that since she isn't sure if she can help herself if she were alone with him - well, she can't be alone with him.
It is admirable that you aren't over reactive about something that isn't anything - YET. It is admirable that you didn't do some one upmanship in the form of "Yeah, well I feel the same way about your sister/best friend/kid's teacher or whatever." At the same time Eddie this is a TEST. Part of this is her seeing if you care, seeing if you will fall apart, seeing if you will act to protect your family without over reacting and acting like an azz. What is stopping you from using her admission as a way to become more intimate with her to expose yourself and get her to expose herself. If you did that this OG wouldn't have a chance. Find out what she likes about him. Find out what he brings out in her that makes her feel special.
Blackfoot wrote a great deal about women testing men and how you react will be very important in how your marriage fares. You might review some of his old posts.
CE, I know you have tested the boundaries of your marriage in the past, and now it seems it's your W's turn, and it does sound like there is a piece of you that gets off on it ( the yummy cake comment), and it's your life, so I don't want to interfere, but I do hope something good comes from what I see as a potential disaster headed your way.
She also finds out that High School Ex-Boyfriend still has feelings for her and that she still has feelings for HSEB.
The whole thing has since progressed to "cybersex" with webcam performances.
That would be a reason to say he has to be out of her life or the M is over.
One of the bad things about being weird is that it's not always easy to learn from other people's experience... you have to test it against your own experience before you can be sure it applies. Have you known of other Rs that survive a 3rd person? What are the ratios of survival VS breaking up. I wouldn't want or trust the odds.
I worked in juvenile corrections where many of the boys said they have to test things for them self and they couldn't learn from other's examples. He!!, they couldn't learn from their own mistakes. Oh well, that is life.
CE, even if you think, might think, your W and HSEB would make her happy and you could live with a 3rd person in your M, I think there is a 90% chance you won't like what might happen in the long term.
) What I have to ask is: are you sure this isn't your self-esteem playing games with you? In some of your previous posts you have talked about your amazement that Mrs Eddie ever bothered with you. Are you sure you're not playing the one-down a little too well? This could be Mr Nice Guy taken to an extreme.