I’ve Got Outside Sex on the Calendar for the First Time
Chronicle of an Open Marriage #17
My husband has been encouraging me to have sex with other men since late December. That’s when we opened up our marriage, and he started having outside sex. I wasn’t much interested, at first. But now 1,000 things have changed for me — perhaps the biggest one being that I’ve met a man online.
Hungry Man has a wife who doesn’t want as much sex as he does. Sounds familiar. (That’s why I asked Hubs to seek outside sex.) He’s gotten her okay to look elsewhere, and as it turns out, elsewhere is in my pants.
I’m speaking figuratively here, because this particular hungry man lives thousands of miles away from me, which is an ideal location. That’s because I’m not ready to make our sexting relationship physically real.
Yet it IS physically real. Very, very physically real, if you measure by the moisture between my legs.
So many things have happened so quickly that sometimes I think I’m losing my mind! A quick recap:
- Hubs explores his long-suppressed urges for bisexuality
- I unearth my deeply buried spanking fetish
- My friend Bethany is impressed by our new marital arrangement, and invites me to a stripper party, where spanking is a party game (!)
- Hungry Man arrives on the scene and starts showering me with sext
That last bit has been particularly challenging to my psyche, and my reactions have been all over the map. One minute I can’t wait to sext and sext and sext again, in a manic frenzy. The next minute I’m sure the whole thing is a big mistake and I never want to write to Hungry Man again. Until I do.
Mostly, I think, I’m making my own self horny. I sext Hungry Man, and the mere fact of doing that turns me on. I don’t even need to read what he writes back. But when I do, sometimes it’s overwhelming. Then I want to call it quits.
One reason for my bipolar reactions is the drastic change in my emotional environment. Hungry Man is very loving. He loves his wife to distraction. He and she have a suicide pact. One day, when they’re old, they’ll walk off a cliff together. He has a big, tender heart and is ready and able to give some of it to me — a true polyamorist. His emails are full of love and praise.
My husband, by contrast, never tells me he loves me. He doesn’t comment positively on how I look, what I do, my writing — no praise. It’s not that Hubs doesn’t love me or think I’m smart and good looking. That’s just not the way he communicates. This is the world I’ve been living in for 40 years, and I’ve adapted to it. It feels normal to me. Then in comes a walking Love Bomb.
Here’s an example: Hungry Man asks for a naked picture — actually, he asks for a picture of me wearing the green panties we’ve been discussing. And even though I’d been telling myself just moments before not to send him any naked pictures, because of all the stories I’ve read online about naked pictures gone wrong, I get up out of bed and put on my sexy green panties and stand in front of the bedroom mirror and take a number of selfies, minus my head. Then I choose one I like and sent it off to him.
Then I show it to Hubs. “That’s not a good picture,” he says. “Don’t send him that one.”
Meanwhile, Hungry Man responds: “OMG — I’m speechless — You are so beautiful. *Five heart-eyed emojis with open mouths*”
Are you getting the picture?
Another time, Hungry Man and I FaceTime. After much sincere conversation, I take off my top, fondle myself for the camera, and HM feels pretty enthusiastic about that.
But when I report the proceedings back to my husband, he looks confused. “Did you use a filter?” (No. I did not.)
It’s like I’m living in Regular World and Opposite World at the same time.
Helping me map out Opposite World has been my friend Bethany, hostess of the stripper party. “Do it like the young people do,” she suggests when I express trepidation about sudden onset sexting. “Ask for a picture of his face and a voice message. Then, if you like the way he looks and sounds, start FaceTiming so you can vibe each other out.”
I send him a picture of my face and a voice memo. He responds with generous praise. But when he sends me his own, I freak out. I call Hubs right away.
“I’m so unhappy right now!”
“Why is that?”
“He sent me a picture of his face and I don’t like it! He looks like my cousin!!!”
“Okay. Okay. Calm down. Don’t do anything until I get home. I want to look at the picture. You can’t expect Rock Hudson. You’re 67 years old…”
I have to laugh at the Rock Hudson reference. Of course he chooses a Hollywood hunk who was secretly gay…
Hubs isn’t going to be home for awhile, and I’m feeling distraught (a common mood lately), so I call Bethany. She schools me on how to politely bow out of a sexting relationship. Then I forward her the pics: a head shot and a body one.
“He’s cute,” she informs me. “He’s really cute. My assistant and I both think you should definitely go for it.”
Go for it?
By “go for it,” Bethany means that I should invite this unknown man to meet us in New Orleans in September, when she and I are planning to attend the Southern Decadence festival together, which she describes as a kind of Mardi Gras for gay people.
“I don’t know if I want him there. I don’t know if I ever want to meet him in person. I don’t know if I’m okay with any of this,” I tell her.
“Okay…” she says, but she doesn’t sound convinced.
“Maybe you need to learn to let some of the sweetness in,” Bethany tells me. “You’ve been traumatized by living with a cold man for 40 years.” I should add here that Bethany is a big fan of my “cold” husband, who’s brilliant and funny and basically goodhearted in addition to being emotionally remote.
“But is that the trauma? Or is that the refuge?” I ask. “I feel safe and normal and protected with Hubs. But when Hungry Man starts talking about L-O-V-E, it’s disorienting.”
“You two have a lot to teach each other,” she says.
Hubs, of course, feels otherwise. “It’s all about the sex,” he tells me confidently. “If he wants to pretend he’s having a big romantic experience, let him!”
That made me laugh, but also huff. Humph.
In the end, it is Hungry Man’s voice memo that sways me. He says something sexy to me in French. I don’t even know what it means— but it sounds super yummy.
So I invite him to NOLA. He books a room in our hotel. And now we have three months to fantasize, and sext, and buy lingerie, and get ready, and take our clothes off on FaceTime.
I guess this means that my previously described “open” marriage is officially and actually fully open at this time. It’s no longer just Sexcapade Central for Hubs and his lovers, but also for me and mine.
What happened next? Read Chronicle of an Open Marriage #18. Find all of my stories about opening our marriage on the list below, or about sex in general on this one. Get an email whenever I publish. And have a delectable day.
