Finally, Our First Steps
or
Not Quite as Over as I Thought
Do you like reading really long, meandering, probably overly-detailed posts about starting ENM? Then this post is for you!
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I'm finally getting to earn my New to ENM flair!
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About nine months ago I published a post about how my wife (we'll call her Wife) and I kind of stumbled into discussing ENM. You can read that here, but the gist is we didn't go into it properly AT ALL. I went on a date, my wife freaked out, but it started me really wanting to try opening our relationship.
If you want to explore my post history, you can see a lot of how things went over the next several months. Wife met up with and ended up becoming friends with the woman I went on the date with and kissed (we'll call her Lady). I used Reddit to learn much more and to deal with some of the things we were going through. A lot of responses, no surprise to anyone who frequents this sub, said we were doomed or that I was being cruel and needed to either let go of my desire for ENM or leave my wife.
We both went to therapy. I went to learn to deal with this awakened desire. Wife went to talk about that, but also some root issues with self-image and control. Her therapist suggested a few months ago that she not discuss ENM anymore until she had herself in better order. Honoring her request, I would only talk about it if she brought it up. There were personal ups and downs, but through it all we both knew that we love each other and at no point did we really consider separating. I took solace in knowing that while I still had desires, my agency was in choosing to put us and her wellbeing first, even when she told me things like how I should just cheat on her.
A month or so ago, Wife said she would be okay with me contacting Lady. It had been cut off so abruptly and opened up so much for me that I had some pent up issues. We texted some and she was friendly, but at this point she was in a committed relationship. However, Wife told me that Lady had told her that she and her boyfriend (call him Guy) "played" together. Wife briefly met him when she went to Lady's shop one time, but didn't recall much other than he was friendly with our kids. Anyway, Lady and I didn't have any deep conversations, but she was always friendly. We talked about getting a coffee (with Wife's permission), but she was doing a lot of traveling and had a lot going on.
A couple weeks ago, after one of my therapy sessions, Wife told me (she'd often ask how things went and I would be open with her, which sometimes led to more ENM talk) that opening was something that the thought of turned her on a little, and a lot of what was holding her back now was not a fear of losing me to someone else or having to turn off her feelings about us, but feelings of being judged for her body or looks. Mind you, she really is hot, but she feels like if someone gives her a compliment they're just being nice or are being insincere for whatever reason.
This past Friday we thought we'd have an impromptu date night. Wife texted around to some friends to see if anybody was up for a last minute meetup. One of the people she texted was Lady. The two of them have only gotten together a few times as their schedules didn't often match up. Guy happened to be in town and they thought it would be fun to all go out. Wife dropped this on me a little over an hour before we left.
Continued in comments.