Considering an open relationship.

[preacherman]

I've NCed.

DH and I got married very very young (pre 18.) I had a lot of sexual partners before I met him, and he only had one drunken one-night-stand with a friend before meeting me. He's a very monogamous, traditional person and I don't know what I am- he's always been keen on a long term relationship / marriage / kids etc.

Every six months the issue of having an open relationship keeps cropping up (something that I possibly want and something he possibly doesn't want). He's essentially saying, "Let's do it so we can stop talking about it" and saying that having to talk about an open relationship constantly is worse than just having an open relationship.

I feel a bit lost. Every time we've had these conversations and come to the conclusion that we'll have an open relationship, sometime during the next day I decide it's not worth the difficulty, but it keeps cropping up time and time again and I can't shake the feeling. Maybe it's to do with my MH issues, but my MH is a lot better recently and I don't know what could be causing it.

I know that open relationships on here are NOT popular, nor is the success rate high, especially when it's from a previously monogamous marriage & one partner gets more out of it.
I'm not necessarily asking for advice on having an open relationship, more what could be causing me to feel like I need one and how to stop that thing from cropping up again (I understand this whole post may make me sound like a shit person, which I admittedly might be, but I promise I'm genuinely trying to sort myself out).

Divorce doesn't really seem like an option, if that's anyone's first thought.

It also seems very common for women from dysfunctional/abusive families to get into serious relationships or get married very young as a means of escape/a refuge.

@Ohalrightthen As much as I seem to not be happy in the relationship, I think I am. I love my partner and enjoy our daily life, so maybe it's self destructive or maybe it's just a small part of what most people in LTRs feel and I have it to an increased degree. Thinking of all the bad sex is a good idea though.

@GilbertMarkham The age of consent in my country is 16, but I was having sex with people prior to this (including people with a big age gap). I turned 16 and had a huge age gap situation, and then my DH and I got together monogamously not long after. I experienced childhood abuse which might have caused it, but it wasn't sexual.

@GilbertMarkham No worries about bluntness, you're right about family dysfunction. I can love my partner and also see there was probably an element of refuge, too.

He's a very monogamous, traditional person and I don't know what I am

I think this, in your OP, is part of the reason.

You imply that part of your validation at a young age was lots of sex with different partners (which PP pointed out is likely to have been, at best, unhealthy).

You don't know who you are, and your brain is telling you to go back to your teenage years to find out, it seems to me.

As you say you know, an open relationship is likely to be terribly self destructive and ultimately unhelpful.

I think you need to deal with your past to make sense of yourself and your behaviour.

@Cavagirl How do I deal with my past? The typical stuff has either not worked or is inaccessible at the minute (I know that sounds negative but it's genuinely true). I'm not sure what to practically do to talk it all out. My husband is brilliant but he's not keen on talking about the past / traumatic stuff, and I wouldn't want to lay any more weight on him and I've not got any family to casually talk it out with.

This is a tough situation to be in isn't it, and I'm similarly inclined. I think it's because it's because of sexual incompatibility for me, and I noticed you mentioned the same thing. I think it can be as simple as that.

I think it can be harder as a woman to have your sexual wants and desires to be accepted as valid, and not the result of trauma etc. It's ok to expect and want a fulfilling sex life.

I think it's impossible to get everything you want in a relationship with one person. We have a great family life, but he doesn't do it for me in the bedroom. Marriage etc is basically a made up convention. There's no real need to be monogamous and have a traditional marriage. I wonder if we were born into a society where it was normal for sex to just be considered another need that you could have fulfilled outside the relationship, like enjoying a hobby with a friend, how many people would then choose to be monogamous.

I don't have any answers! It's not fair on either of you really whichever way you go, and then splitting the family would be such a shame. Even if you got married older you'd end up feeling the same. I think when you are first with someone you think you'll always feel the same, so you marry and it's only years down the line when the chemistry has worn off that the sexual incompatibility comes to the forefront and you realise what you're missing.

So you've had an abusive childhood.

And I'd consider the men who had sex with you below the age of consent abusers too (to me the older than you they were, the worse it is).

Even men who have sex with women just over the age of consent, especially with large age gaps, are not well-adjusted individuals, to me. That's the mildest word I could use.

Do you think you used the sex/relationships with those men (especially much older partners) before you met your dh to try to deal with or fix your childhood abuse?

If these things weren't in your background, I'd say "you're possibly a polygamist/polyamorist, perhaps you should break up with your DH since he appears not to be, and seek out what fulfills you" but with the above; it's nowhere near that simple.

You said yourself you suspect you'd be using it to (dysfunctionally) deal with stuff.

I’m not a Physcogist by any means but I think this is a self esteem issue. Did your childhood lack love and feeling wanted? So you filled that void by getting married young... now you are seeking affection again. Just my view. The way to deal with this is work on yourself and love yourself enough that it doesn’t matter if any one else does. But I may be wrong like I say I’m no professional

Hi @Gyh863. Thank you for sharing your experiences, and it's good to know that someone out there has a similar perspective (though it may be different route causes, I'm not sure). Do you ever express these feelings to your partner, and what do you do to cope / how do you accept that these are your feelings without needing to jump to action?

I think I'm overwhelmed by my feelings and impulses pretty much all of the time.

Going back to support groups/forums if you can't afford more counselling and the waiting list is very long on the NHS; it sounds like child abuse support groups might be relevant.

There are numerous "but we took you to stately homes" threads on here for people who suffered child abuse, though (aside from seeing that you're not alone and that these parents have lots of commonalities) I'm not sure how useful they are for individual posters.

@GilbertMarkham

Yeah, I did it because I had low self esteem and sometimes because I was trying to indirectly piss off my family members on some level, I think. I do also have a desire for people to hurt me, which is probably a trauma response and I was pretty apathetic to the risks involved in casual sex with random older blokes (which did lead to me getting hurt, but even that I'm still quite apathetic and closed off to).

I don't have any desire to hurt my DH or anything though, I rarely ever do anything with the intention to piss him off. Maybe it is just residual stuff from my childhood, but I'm not sure what to do about that.

@JANETSP12 I don't know anyone who's gone from having bad self esteem to good self esteem, so I guess I don't hold out much hope for myself. I can't turn on the switch to just love myself, and I don't have a natural feeling for it like I do my DH. Thank you for your advice though - I'm not sure how to practically implement it but I can acknowledge that it is good advice. x

@GilbertMarkham I'll have a look at the threads, thank you for suggesting them (and I'll look into child abuse support groups too, though I guess I'm just a bit worried about doing any too close to home and bumping into people I know). Thank you for the suggestions.

[quote preacherman]@Cavagirl How do I deal with my past? The typical stuff has either not worked or is inaccessible at the minute (I know that sounds negative but it's genuinely true). I'm not sure what to practically do to talk it all out. My husband is brilliant but he's not keen on talking about the past / traumatic stuff, and I wouldn't want to lay any more weight on him and I've not got any family to casually talk it out with.[/quote]
I think you need to prioritise getting some therapy, and that might be a financial prioritisation too. Get yourself on the NHS waiting list - you said it didn't work in the past, what do you mean?
You should seriously ask your husband to listen to you about what happened, not only will this help you offload but also will put into context for him why you are asking for an open relationship and why it's really not a good solution for you.
And start a new thread on these boards about what happened to you, to ask for advice from others. I suspect writing the OP for that will be tough and may bring some clarity in itself.
On this thread you'll get ppl posting who haven't RTFT and advising you how to make an open relationship work when that's really not what you need at all.

I would recommend looking at, and listening to, videos / podcasts etc from Esther Perel. She is great at addressing these type of issues.

If someone I was in a relationship/marriage with kept on harping on about an open relationship it would male my think - they don't love me, I'm not enough sexually and why are they with me when I am not a sleep around kind of girl.

I agree with this poster 'Your H wants monogomy. So you should choose between staying with him and having the option to have sex with / date / have relationships with others.' I agree it is grim, especially for him, to keep talking about it. You keep on banging on about it and he wears down and says ok we will try it but he really doesn't want to.

If you want to have sex with other men/women and he obviously doesn't want to have sex with others then split up and go off and do it. Or decide the marriage is for you and respect him.

Ah, sorry OP I didn't read the whole thread.

Some abuse victims seek validation for themselves by wanting/having sex with lots of different people - looking for love that they didn't get as a child but were sexually abused and so badly trauma damaged. People then struggle to form secure attachments. There are some good suggestions on here for previous people

@cavagirl I went to several counsellors and had "independent listeners" when I was younger. One of them (the private one) was brilliant, but she's out of my budget and too far away from me. A lot of the others really didn't help and I'd go so far as to say harmed me - e.g. things along the lines of suggesting my self harm was due to being an over-emotional teenager and I'd grow out of it etc.

This compounded by the fact that I kept getting rejected for anxiety and depression diagnoses from CAMHS despite being actively suicidal has probably put me off the public mental health services (plus the horrendous waiting times).

I'll make a new thread as well as this one on a board for my specific childhood stuff, hopefully it will help me or maybe bring comfort to someone else in a similar situation, I'm not sure. Re; making counselling a financial priority I genuinely don't think I can. I know that may be a confusing thing for people on higher incomes, but I can't spare £200 or so a month for counselling. Thank you for your suggestions.

@AnythingConsidered I've not heard of Esther Perel but thank you for the reference, I'll have a look for her.

@RationalOne I'll not respond to your first post, but thank you for your second one. It is probably a love replacement thing, I guess I've never been good at accepting a small amount of something good (rather than a big amount of everything). Sorry I've no idea if that makes sense.

I'm afraid I don't! That's why I don't have any answers.

I have brought it up and he isn't keen. It's really hard to have these conversations isn't it. I read an article about how it's a bit like having to 'come out' as you know it may not be well received and isn't how most people want to do things. Although I do wonder. Are these feeling a normal but others are better at ignoring their true feelings/accepting unfulfilling sex for family life etc, or are we different. There's no good answer. You don't want to force them, but then you don't want to be unhappy, and you don't want to lose everything else. It feels impossible really with no solution.

I'm afraid that the lack of feeling desired and getting the sex I want has resulted in me falling for other people who made me feel sexual. I'm having an affair unfortunately and it's made it even worse because it's the best sex I have ever had and is better than I ever thought possible. I feel terrible though and I'm not suggesting this!!

@Gyh863 I personally can't agree with the idea of cheating, and I guess it worries me that someone who feels similarly to me needed to do that (though this isn't any kind of moral judgement on your part - you will do what you need to to keep yourself happy, and I'm not here to criticize that). If you're comfortable, would you be willing to explain if there was kind of a tipping point for you? E.g. things were building up in relation to feeling romantic feelings for other people, and then a certain event happened that triggered your affair. Or was it just you found someone who you liked and it was right time, right place?
Would you take the good sex over the relationship?

Sorry, I know it's a lot of questions and don't feel the need to reply if you're not comfortable. I guess I'm just trying to take steps to avoid getting to a point of needing an affair (no offense though, obviously).

I hope this is going to come over in a nice way as that is the intent.
I think you have a low opinion of yourself, and also have very low self esteem. I don't think you particularly like yourself at this moment in time, and because of that are looking for the validation of others in the only way you know worked when you were much younger - sex ?
Why do you think having sex with almost strangers will fill that void in you ? Can I ask what it is about you that you don't like , or what you feel you are missing out of ?

I actually find Esther Perel wordy and boring.

Her schtick is also applicable to monogamy issues, but not to the childhood abuse, possible low self esteem, wanting people to hurt you, past suicidal feelings, depression, anxiety etc. in the background here.

Validation through sex with multiple other men is not going to solve any of these and is going to fuck up her marriage/relationship with someone who seems to be decent.

Can the good counsellor not do zoom or similar sessions op? Is it impossible to fund it?

@VictoriaBun I'm not sure I can describe what I don't like about myself. I really just don't care about myself as a person. I'm quite apathetic to whether I succeed or not, and I wouldn't choose to be around myself if I had the option. I don't necessarily blame myself for the things that have happened to me, but I do feel like the world wouldn't be very affected if I weren't here lugging around my emotional baggage.

I guess nothing really fills the void. I've got everything I've ever wanted and the void is still there - self destructive tendencies are usually the only thing to put a plaster on the void for a little while. I guess reckless and random sex makes me feel better as somehow it's validating to know people value you as little as you value yourself. I think it feels like a confirmation of some kind.

I can imagine this sounds batshit to anyone who can't relate to this way of thinking though.

@GilbertMarkham He is a great guy, and I guess I'm aware I want an open relationship for shitty / not conducive to happiness reasons, but I can't stop the feeling of imploding. As for the good counsellor, she's quite a lot out of my budget and also counsels a family member who I'm no longer in contact with, which I think would make me uncomfortable.

It's totally fine and natural to not want to be monogamous. Some people are, some arent. You haven't told him he isn't good enough, but it might be hard for him to understand that.

I have been through this too.

Unfortunately, if he isnt on board really, it most likley wont work. You could try but be prepared for things to get difficult.

It's hard to leave someone when you get along, are friends and they did nothing wrong. But it still can be the right thing in the long run.