How Stalin Always Wants More Power And Money

After 17 years of marriage (no kids), my wife told me she would like to open our marriage. This would hateful allowing each other to sleep with other people. She says she has been doing a lot of reading most it and has a work friend who is in an open up relationship and it works for her. I am outraged by the suggestion as I feel it is a major threat to our marriage. I love and value my wife way too much to permit her to take sex with other men. I know that I would be extremely jealous and could not handle it. She says it would be "simply sex activity," we would brand the rules in advance, no feelings involved. It sounds so simple but I am not sure that is how it works. My wife says she has thought almost it a lot and she thinks she could handle me having intimate relations with some other adult female. She says the way she would arroyo it is with total honesty and advice to make sure everyone feels OK almost it. She says that either 1 of united states of america would have veto power. I don't desire to sleep with other women, believe it or not. I don't want to have to wield veto power! I just don't get why she feels similar she wants to practice this. She says the idea would be to but "spice things up" and "keep things fresh" and that she thinks it could ultimately bring usa closer together. We have a great sex life, which I think she would agree with. I'1000 so bewildered by this. I feel similar my options are: (1) refuse to play along and hope she can respect that and stay happy and faithful; (ii) pursue a divorce; (3) allow her to play outside the union while I stay true; or (iv) both of us effort information technology and hope for the best. Is couples therapy some other option? I think I would notice information technology humiliating to tell another person near this, and information technology might not even help anyway. —Open-Ended
Beloved Open-Concluded,

Thanks for your question. I tin only imagine your cliffhanger and confusion; things are humming along fine and of a sudden, out of nowhere, your wife is asking you to play the "keys in the bowl" game from the 1970s. Information technology sounds like you have a strong marital connexion and are completely taken aback past the question, which is understandable. I would feel the same in your shoes.

Here is the fundamental quote, far equally I'm concerned: "She says information technology would be 'just sex,' we would brand the rules in accelerate, no feelings involved. It sounds so simple but I am not sure that is how information technology works." Frankly, I'one thousand not sure that it works, menses. To my mind there is no such thing every bit "just sex." We westernized, Cartesian types seem to think nosotros tin can neatly separate mind and torso, merely this is a conceptual fantasy that I remember has to be done abroad with. Emotion is irreversibly intertwined with every facet of our beingness. Even being extremely intellectual has emotional overtones; lack of emotion (coldness, sternness, etc.) is itself an emotion or touch, as we say in psychology. This "no feelings involved" doesn't make sense because clearly your married woman is expressing some want (i.e., a feeling) for a new sexual experience. The question is, why?

Detect a Therapist for Relationships

Because of the intensely physical nature of sex, we tend to call up of it as exterior the spectrum of the day-to-twenty-four hour period relationship—its own special category. I find, though, that the couples who chronicle together mate together. Sex is on a continuum that includes the mundane interactions of paying bills, housework, schedules, and so on. It puts as well much pressure on a couple to accept a somewhat routine existence drained of spontaneity and playfulness and and so wait sparks in the sleeping room. My hunch—from a distance, of class—is that your wife feels something is missing and wants to get outside the relationship to detect it. Why is that? What is she not finding betwixt the 2 of you that she needs to have such an emotional run a risk of bringing some other partner into it? And information technology is a take a chance, no affair what anyone says. Sex involves desires that are unconscious, and the latter is e'er a wild card (which is function of sexuality's exciting appeal). Of course, my attitude would exist different if you were in favor, but you're plainly strongly opposed.

Are at that place ways in which she tin can express some of those desires with y'all? Is she afraid of hurting your feelings by not saying something or making a asking for something new? Is this asking for openness a round-about way of expressing dissatisfaction? Are there ways you two tin "milk shake things upwards" a bit in the romance and sex section? A weekend away, a trip the light fantastic class, a vacation, a petty role play? Is in that location a role of her she wants to let out but is agape? (Not to be contemptuous, merely I almost wondered when I read your letter if she already had someone in listen.)

You might want to take a serious talk with your married woman or even seek some couples counseling to help her understand how unhappy this idea is making you, and how rattled and bewildered you are in low-cal of it. I call back you owe it to yourself, and the wedlock, to do all you can to endeavor and seek together, rather than separately, a solution or compromise that allows you both to discover satisfaction; you accept that rare successful spousal relationship that has endured for many years, and that is definitely worth protecting. It would be tragic for information technology to slip abroad due to lack of understanding or withheld feelings or desires. Thanks again for writing.

All-time,
Darren

Darren Haber

Darren Haber, PsyD, MFT is a psychotherapist specializing in treating alcoholism and drug habit every bit well equally co-occurring issues such as feet, depression, relationship concerns, secondary addictions (particularly sex addiction), and trauma (both single-incident and repetitive). He works in a diversity of modalities, primarily cognitive behavioral, spiritual/recovery-based, and psychodynamic. He is certified in heart move desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy, and continues to receive psychodynamic training in treating relational trauma, including emotional abuse/neglect and physical and sexual corruption.

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Source: https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/dear-gt/my-wife-wants-an-open-marriage-i-dont-now-what

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