Dear Readers: Like I said on the Lovecast this week, I’m taking a break from Struggle Session for the rest of August. My summer has been a little crazed — in mostly good ways — and I still haven’t managed to figure out how to keep Struggle Session to a manageable length.
Anyway, on the suggestion of one of our superstar commenters — hey there, Jonathan! — I’m gonna to try something else on Thursdays for the rest of the summer: I’m going to post one of the many questions I get that are too long for the column and let you, Savage Love Magnum Subs, weigh in and give the LW some advice. I will most like jump into the comment thread and share my thoughts as well.
So, here we go… a long letter from a reader that wasn’t going to make it into the column. This reader could really use some...
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...the column. This reader could really use some advice and you — our Savage Lovecast Magnum Subs — give great advice in the comment threads every week and I’m confident that you’ll come through with some great advice for this reader.
Bisexual cis woman in her thirties here. My husband (heteroflexible cis man in his thirties) and I have been together since we were both in high school and married now for almost twenty years. During most of that time, I have defaulted to living a very traditionally monogamous, heteronormative domestic lifestyle with my husband — not because I was forced to, but because I believed that was what people do when they love someone, e.g., get married, buy a home, only have sex with each other, etc. You’ve probably encountered this kind of social conditioning before.
I am dealing with perhaps a common issue that can come out of such a history, but one that’s incredibly heartbreaking nonetheless: because we got into a relationship so young, we have inevitably grown and changed as we’ve evolved away from our childhood communities/families that conditioned us both to want a traditional monogamous marriage. I, in particular, have gone to therapy and worked on self-advocacy, embraced my queerness and kinks, and worked to undo various family traumas/broken core beliefs. Because of all this, I no longer feel as compatible with my husband as I did when we were younger. In fact, I no longer feel as compatible with marriage/domestic partnership as I did when I was younger. I have different desires and goals than I did back then, and I want to live the kind of independent, self-focused life I never got to live because I entered a relationship so young. I never got to actually experience being single, you know?
In addition, my sexual attraction to my husband has also waned over time, which I feel very guilty about. My husband still loves and desires me, he wants to stay together and make things work. In recent years, we’ve tried being open/poly so there wouldn’t be so much monogamous pressure for us to be each other’s “everything.” I managed to find a second serious partner, someone with whom I have an amazing kink-focused sexual dynamic, but that has only caused more issues between me and my husband. (My husband has not had much success finding a second partner of his own, so me being with my second partner often makes him feel very lonely and insecure.) We both knew going in that it can be common for the woman in an open/poly male/female partnership to have more success dating than her male partner, but we felt a little blindsided when it ended up happening to us. I’d really hoped he’d be able to find someone, too.
At the end of the day, though, what I really want is to have the experience of being single. The sex with my other partner is amazing (and BDSM-centric), but I have no desire for something more serious with him right now. So, this isn’t a matter of me wanting to be married to him instead of my husband. Basically, I’ve come to realize that polyamory/open marriage isn’t really addressing the core issue in my marriage, which is this: I’m a different person now than I was at 17, at 20, at 28, etc. It happened subtly, in lots of imperceptible ways, and nobody did anything wrong.
I am agonizing over what to do. I don’t want to break my husband’s heart. I don’t want to abandon him or hurt him or ruin the good parts of our partnership, like all of the ways he truly does feel like my best friend. I do love him very much! Still! It’s just the responsibilities of marriage that feel hard for me right now. I also have more sexual desire for my second partner than I do for my husband — we are far more sexually compatible than me and my husband — and I am really really struggling with this. I know you have always said that the end of a long-term relationship ending doesn’t have to be viewed as a failure, Dan, but I’m really scared of not only failing, but regretting. What if I leave my husband to go live the single person life of adventure I want to have, only to miss him terribly in five years that I wish we were still together? By then, wouldn’t it be too late to “change my mind”?
The decision to end a marriage with someone you still deeply care for feels impossibly difficult. What’s the best way to work through this? How do I make the right choice? When do you know when it’s truly time to end something vs continue working on it? How do I overcome all of the guilt I feel about this? The fear of regret?
Twenty Years And Change
What say you, Subs?