Fascinating thread
Creepy psycho stalker question for anyone: Are 2 phonecalls, a few minutes apart, each lasting 1 minute seem like protocol SP booking? Again, thanks in advance for any PMs and replies.
@vancity_cowboy: You're right. I'm a pretty intelligent person, and forgiving and loving to a fault. I hope that he knows this too, that any shame or embarrassment or problems he's got with me, I'm a stand up person who will take responsibility for what I can and be there, not to judge, but to love unconditionally. Sounds lame, but it's true. I wish there were a way for him to truly know this with all his heart so that he wouldn't feel like he needs to do this.
@Hatrick: Thank you. A part of me knows it's not my fault, but I try and deny it because I just wish so badly that there were something -ANYTHING- I could do to make this situation better for both of us.
Hey sister,
Once in a blue moon we get an angry post from a pooner's distraught wife—but it's certainly not your kind of humble request for feedback.
You sound like a savvy, sweet-natured lady, judging from the tone in which you present your story. I especially applaud you for not seeing us pooners as evil, but the way most of us really are: normal men from all walks of life who just happen to enjoy sexual variety.
Predictably, the heartfelt advice you've received on this Board is all over the map, ranging from "be honest with each other" to "just turn a blind eye"; from "it's probably your fault for not being sexually exciting enough" to "this has nothing to do with you"; and from "try to breathe fresh ideas into your marriage" to "divorce the bastard."
I totally agree with comments made by vancity_cowboy, Hatrick, Playful Alex and Sucre:
your husband's pooning is unlikely to reflect any shortcomings on your part.
There's an almost inevitable progression of male-female relationships from erotic passion to boredom, which is mostly a function of evolutionary wiring, brain chemistry, the addictive reward of dopamine and opiates that are released in the brain upon sex with someone new.
And there's really no lasting cure for what psychologists call "marital boredom"—only the dilemma either to give up an exciting sex life or else to open the relationship to sex with others.
So your post hits close to home for many of us, who have wives or GFs. Some, like esteemed brothers Sucre or Lost-In-Japan, swear by pooning discreetly behind their SO's backs. Great this approach works for them.
But I personally find dishonesty in an intimate relationship so repugnant that I couldn't be happy knowing I'm living a lie. The path of "don't ask don't tell" may be desirable for the sake of raising children in a stable home, but luckily neither you nor I face this challenge.
I'm still with my SO after quite a few years, in large part because I shared my sexual fantasies with her early on, and she agreed that sex with others is okay as long as I pay for it. We've gone to swinger clubs together and done quite a bit of same-room play with others.
And whenever I feel like talking about sex—which is frequently—she never makes me feel like a dirty pig, but jokes along, giggles sweetly, teases me about wanting to fuck this or that female acquaintance, and displays no trace of judgmentalness. Way to go, baby!
Like Hatrick, I know that only permission to poon makes a long-term relationship with a woman possible for me.
I believe that a husband's pooning may actually strengthen a marriage. Old-fashioned, possessive monogamy may have been a good breeding arrangement in the past, but nowadays I think it does far more harm than good in most cases.
So if I discovered my partner's "cheating" and wanted to save the relationship, I'd definitely be having "the talk"—if necessary, with the help of a counselor. I think there's no single best answer for how to proceed in your sort of situation; there're too many variables. I could steer you toward one of the best counselors in this field (not myself). It's 180 bucks an hr, though...more than my SPs.
If your relationship is strong in other ways, it can endure the vicissitudes of sexual straying. If not, it should probably end, but hopefully—unlike so many endings—without acrimony.
You deserve exactly the same sexual freedom your husband claims for himself (and finding lovers, without having to pay them, will be a 100 times easier for you than for him).
Right now you seem to do a lot of snooping into your husband's phone records. My advice: cut that out. Do not muck around in your partner's backyard.
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You sound exceptionally smart, so your husband is probably too. Let me recommend two fine books that may help:
Eric Anderson,
The Monogamy Gap: Men, Love, and the Reality of Cheating http://books.google.ca/books/about/The_Monogamy_Gap.html?id=YR5QgNY_9c4C&redir_esc=y
Naomi Wolf,
Vagina: A New Biography, http://naomiwolf.org/vagina/