Guess it's confession time.
I'm not in an open marriage, but have been married a long, long time. I decided that this year would be an experimental one in a lot of ways, and sex turned out to be one of them.
Over a period of about six months I found myself meeting a ton of attractive professional women. I became friends with a lot of them and ended up in bed with several. None of this was done under any pretense - they all knew that I was married and had no plans to leave my wife, etc.
At this point, my wife knows about this and we are dealing with it very well and will likely end up with a stronger more fulfilling marriage than we had before. And a monogamous one.
What did I learn from all of this?
That it is remarkably easy to meet women. That women find intelligence and humor VERY attractive, and when combined with confidence and genuine interest in others, the mix is deadly.
That it is a huge ego boost for a man when a beautiful woman comes on to you - which is both a very nice and a very dangerous thing.
That people are starving for someone who will give them their full, undivided attention.
That there are a LOT of women out there who REALLY like sex - and I would disagree with Mindchild's reference to them as sluts. They are simply wonderful. Was it just among the Witnesses, or does society in general think that men have the sex drive and women don't like it?? Man, is that idea ever wrong.
That in the end what I think a lot of this is about is that we all want to connect with others, that we're looking for someone who makes us feel special, and that we all want to be close to someone and not taken for granted.
That what we'd really like is for that one-on-one relationship to have all the excitement and passion that meeting and making love with a beautiful stranger has.
That when you give your partner the same attention and interest that you give to other women, she can easily be as passionate and sexy as any of them, if not much more so.
That though I apologized to my wife that I'd hurt her, I will not say I'm sorry for what I did. I'm not sorry. I wanted to do it, I enjoyed it, I chose to do it and I realized all the possible consequences of doing it. I had been with just my wife for 28 years, and knew that I could be monogamous. Having sex with other women was a choice, not something I had no control over. I willingly take responsibility for what I did.
That if my wife had done the same thing, and I found out, I would very likely not have handled it as well as she did me. Double standard? Yeah. You can learn a lot about yourself by being brutally honest with what you think and why.
That as nice as it is for a new woman to tell you how wonderful you are, it's even nicer to hear it from someone who has known you for a lifetime - and seen you at your very worst.
That in the end, all of this extra sexual activity can take a lot of time and energy and focus that could be put to better use.
That you can actually have a pretty good friendship with former lovers. And have a pretty good love affair with former friends.
That having these affairs can make it much, much easier to not have them again. You can look and know what it's all about, and walk away content. Hey, been there, done that.
That a strong relationship and great sex with your life partner is probably as good as it'll ever get - and it's more than what most people will ever have.
I'm sure there will be many more lessons learned from all this. I'm taking the time to digest it.
And Klaus - not searching for a Monica. Xena - we should have connected a few months ago!! And what was that position?? GentlyFeral - wow. Now that's an amazing marriage. My best wishes for you. Celia - now you know. Still want to meet for coffee?
S4