open marriage

So, you and she have a thesis - as my wife did - that she "doesn't enjoy sex."
Your wife and mine have then shown ample evidence that they DO enjoy sex, and will go to considerable lengths and risks to get it.

Adjust your thesis to correspond to the evidence in front of you.
You don't actually need her to say words out loud that indicate agreement to the manifest behaviour.
Her behaviour has shown that "I do not enjoy sex" is not a true statement.
Even if it is true, her behaviour has shown that despite not enjoying it, she will still have sex, but only with people or conditions that are agreeable to her.
Sex with you, in the format of a marriage or an open marriage - no evidence that this is in the cards for you.

Also, unlike what you stated - previously - that you don't mind this situation - you have now stated clearly that you do mind it.

I'm not clear on what you get out of the ultimatum, or even what the value of an ultimatum is to get sex from someone who doesn't want to have it with you.
Of course she's enjoying it. She's finding out that she enjoys sex with people and under the conditions she likes to have it. Just not with you. And she suffers no downside from that, including knowing that you are faithful to her and not having sex with anyone else, and a low likelihood of that happening within the next few years

What's not for her to enjoy about that situation? - it's all for her.

Does it really work for some couples? In my experience in that community, and making the same rationales as you - I did not see that it did. Couples in this situation did not work out.

I will tug the thread about the strict Catholic household. Often times in my singledom, I've found a correlation between partners who grew up feeling shame about sex, and those who want or need a bit of "BDSM" rough and dirty play to one extent or another. It helps them to "get out of their head" during the sexual act, so they feel they are not in charge - not making decisions, swept away - and thus evading the guilty feelings. By framing sexual activity in this way, they can enjoy sex - within the frame of certain behaviours or activities.

I'm somewhat comparing apples to oranges here.  I wouldn't ever seek an open marriage but I can certainly see your quandary.  But, I would still feel that way in a theoretical situation because it makes clear that it was never "she doesn't like sex" but it was "she doesn't want sex with me".  That feels like a lot of years of lying to me.

Thinking this may be the case (the whole self-flagellation thing w Catholics) I tried the BDSM route. The experience was typical of her: She enjoyed it. Then she decided she never wanted to do it again.

The feelings are complicated. My frustrations and resentment over my SM were just destructive - mostly to myself - driving me to drink, lose a ton of sleep, and sometimes act out... I had to teach myself acceptance, not dwell on negativity, and find peace. I guess the right way to express it is that yes I mind it, but I have learned to make peace with it. Most of the time.



I don't understand a woman's psyche enough to describe why she doesn't see it as lying. She is doing the same with him that she did with me before we got married. I think she uses sex as a way to get what she wants, then once she has it she doesn't see its usefulness. She's afraid I'll divorce her so she's setting up fallback options and feeling pretty justified about it since I was the one who made the ultimatum.

So I am at peace with my SM. I am at peace with the fact she found a boyfriend. I'm just not at peace with myself because, although I feel good about drawing that line in the sand, I'm only human. I still need sex, and I'm still not getting any

So, she used sex to manipulate you.  She's been lying to you about her sexuality for years.  She's now having sex but not with you.  She's now using sex to manipulate someone else as a fallback option.  You're still not having any sex.  Why are you staying again?    

It'll be interesting to see if your wife, like Apocrypha's, inexplicably expects monogamy from you when she's enjoying polyandry so effusively.

I think his wife was a little crazy for her reaction to Apocrypha's joining her in polygamy. The hypocrisy would be crystal clear to a large majority, of people, I feel. Her reaction struck me as bizarre. Maybe it's common. I hope we find out, one way or another, because it means your dry spell will have ended.




NRE can bring people to engaging in behavior they don't normally agree to.

Infatuation and obsessive thoughts about a new mate can bring a spirit of adventure to otherwise repressed people.

They may enthusiastically engage in oral, female superior, backwards cowgirl, BDSM, or other things they would never try with previous partners.



As the hormones simmer down, she may well fall off a cliff with this new guy. I'd even put money on it.

Continuing to have sex with a long term partner commonly requires an interest in your partner's pleasure. Perhaps your Mrs. is in it just for the high of "new love" and doesn't see that's what's going on?


It may serve you well to make note and even encourage her to go through fling after fling, enjoying dessert and never eating her veggies (long term mature relationship.) Maybe she's just not built for it. The financial and labor partnership that is your platonic relationship may be serving you well enough.

Maybe it'll work a lot like Jerri's situation, but with both of you having FsWB. Having a primary "nesting partner" means there are lots of criteria in a mate you don't need to consider. That's not a small advantage.

1. It's not that she never wanted to do it again. She may have indeed enjoyed it. It's that she didn't want to do that with you.
This distinction is hands down - the hardest thing for anyone on this board (myself included) to truly understand. 
What that means is, she enjoys sex (and may be surprised by that). She gets horny, but prior to her bf, had no outlet for that horniness. Instead, it gets turned to fantasy or suppressed. 

2. She might not see it as lying. She might simply see sex as a low resolution image of conflict and suppression in that she did not allow herself to fantasize about others, or viewed her fantasy life and masturbation as something less than sex.

3. She's not so afraid of divorce so as to risk her entire marriage to avoid having sex with you, as well as living with a boyfriend while you are celibate, during the beginning, baby steps of an open marriage. I'd take this as a blatant "take THAT, @surfinhubby! I'm NOT a cold fish!"  Some people, like Mrs Apocrypha, have difficulty expressing conflict and aggression in productive ways - so they try to create untenable relationship conditions to provoke their partner to take action and therefore responsibility for things that they don't want to admit. The goalposts move so fast that you might as well put rocketskates on them.

@surfinhubby, please feel free to PM me on this - it's a private question I'm posing publicly for the benefit of others exploring non-monogamy. One thing I have noted as a guest in several other couple's relationships and in the community, is that sometimes the husband finds it "hot" to be in a situation where he is denied, while his sexually active wife couples as much as possible with a lover. He eroticizes HER libido - his greatest fantasy - while eroticizing and playing up his own "inadequacy". In the same way that other BDSM people would not like to be slapped across the face or tied up while walking down the street, there are limits and conditions around that feeling that put it in his own control - so that it is a role-played or enacted feeling. Frequently, this gets downplayed out of embarrassment when it's clearly there - and it ends up confusing to all involved, instead of talking about it and acknowledging it in an "out of character" way so everyone can plan together so as to "be on the same side". Without doing that, this ends up as a volatile situation that can end up recharacterized as something awful later on.   Is there an element of what you see unfolding in the scenario with your wife and her boyfriend that you find is sexually irresistible?  When you fantasize sexually these days, is it about her with him? Or is it about your own thing?

Thank you for the public service you've done for women everywhere keeping your husband off the dating market.
That's some messed up shit.
Deliberate bait and switch. 
I figured it might be happening. Good to have confirmation from the horse's mouth.

Thanks to him, too, for accepting your polyandry. He won't damage two women's lives / self-esteem now that he's sharing a wife.