Open Relationships (feeling really insecure)

[Igankaru]

Hey guys, I'm feeling pretty down right now. I think my boyfriend desires a more open relationship and it makes me feel shitty. This is all very ironic because I was the one who initially wanted an open relationship. Sorry if this story is too long, hopefully it is interesting. First let me give you our history. My boyfriend is 3 years older than me and was the first person I ever had sex with. I am a white 22 year old from a liberal family and he is a South Asian 25 year old from a conservative Muslim family that will probably disown him when he comes out. We were both each other's first boyfriends. The first time we dated I was a complete newbie to the entire gay dating world and I really did not know what I wanted. By what I thought was a mutual desire, we agreed to have an open relationship. My boyfriend later told me that he did not really want an open relationship at this time and felt pressured. From what he has told me, he was completely in love with me during this time and didn't believe in open relationships because he saw his parents' relationship as a model. Our first time dating was a little rough, and neither of us knew what we really wanted. I did a really bad job with communicating when we were in different place over the summer because I thought that we were taking a break while we were apart. I ended up hurting his feelings by this lack of communication, and in order to repair things, I decided to go visit him in New York City. During that trip, we had a lot of good times but too many small arguments and I thought that we both mutually decided to end the relationship. I later found out that he thought that I had broken up with him in a hurtful way and harbored some resentments against me. After he broke up with me, he lived a pretty wild life in new york and hooked up with lots of people, however he told me that he never got over us and thought about me a lot. Meanwhile, I was having a pretty uneventful sex life in Memphis and probably hooked up with about 2 people. He eventually reached out to me and I slowly fell back in love with him. I want to stress that we had a long time apart to think and reevauluate our lives and I am extremely in love with this man. Eventually, I asked him if he wanted to be my boyfriend again and he said Yes!!!!!! I was so happy and our relationship has been really awesome over all. However, I often feel insecure because he is a medical student and I am a recent graduate with a liberal arts degree trying to figure out my life. One day, just out of curiosity, I asked him if he would ever be open to a three way. He stated that he would not, and was so disgusted by me bringing it up that he wanted to change the conversations. Months later, I brought it up again and he said that he would be more likely to want to have sex with someone else if we ended up living in different cities (an open relationship without having sex with multiple people together). Even though he did not directly say that that was what he wanted, I was very bothered that he would prefer that situation, especially after expressing that he was very opposed to open relationships. I simply could not understand how it could be better to hook up while we were apart than to have a three-way. He said that he was more bothered by the idea of seeing someone else be intimate with me than the thought of having sex outside of the relationship. Ultimately he concluded that he was still completeley opposed to any kind of open relationship. About a year later, though, he brought up a new desire for a more open relationship completely on his own including an openness to three-ways but also other things. I was extremely shocked. After probing him, he admitted that he wanted to do this in part because he felt that our sex life had not been as good recently, but also simply because his views had evolved over time. Unfortunately, my views had evolved in the exact opposite direction. I had come to completely accept him as my sole sexual partner and was totally okay with never opening things up. I started to feel very insecure. I overreacted and snooped on him very bad. I didn't find any evidence of cheating but he caught me and was very angry. He stated that he felt a loss of trust that would be very difficult to repair. All of this happened right before he was about to go back to New York for a month. He brought up the open relationship thing at first in part because he wanted to try things while he was back there (apparently with me and others.) However, after he got mad at me for the snooping, he stopped talking about it. After I brought it up with him, he stated that he would not want to do anything until we had rebuilt trust. However, he made sure to stress to me that he still desires a more open relationship at some point. I am very bothered because some of that still seems to include encounters not centered around us as partners. I have stated multiple times in no uncertain terms that I would not be open to any experiences that we did not share, but it still seems like there is a part of him that wants this. This really scares me because I have no idea if we will even be in the same city long term in the near future. I love this man more than I have ever loved anything before. Until now, I assumed that he had always felt this strongly about me but I worry that he has moved in the opposite direction. I am about to visit him in New York in a few days. What should I do? How do I address my insecurities personally and with him?

[Pacific]

This is very complex. It sounds like the two of you cycle through wanting an open relationship to not wanting one and both of you cycle through this at different times. To complicate the situation even more, it's a long distance relationship. I do not really have any advice as I struggle with the whole open relationship concept and its prevalence in the gay world, but I would say you two could start by figuring out where this relationship is going, such as will it stay a long distance relationship? That could help you two come to a decision TOGETHER about whether or not is ideal and feasible to be monogamous or not, and remember, the rules of the open relationship can always change according to life needs (i.e. moving to the same city). No real advice hear from me accept: as someone who has been on the shitty end of an open relationship, respect and communication (even if this means checking in on each others feelings about the "open" aspect on a weekly basis) is key to making it work.

[Anocxu]

I've met way too many couples that entertain the idea of open relationships for awful reasons.

I think you should stabilize your relationship first before considering openness.

Going back and fourth about what type of relationship when you two can barely hold your own is a waste of time, and impractical.

I am confused ..
Why would you inject the Idea of an open relationship when yours was ok at first?

Why do it again after you two rekindled?

My opinion...
Both of you embrace chaos.
Some couples thrive on chaotic circumstances then spend all their time ironing out the issues they bring into their relationships.

Note.
Going back and fourth is not moving forward.

You two need a legitimate start.

Figure out what you both want...
See if you can agree logically..
Start there...
or end it and move Forward.

[Cobalt]

I usually don't contribute to semi-serious/advice threads because I'm not sure my opinion is good enough but I feel compelled to give it a shot.

First off I think what you should accept is that this might be over. It seems you both want different things. He wants something more open while you want something monogamous. I'm not here to judge either of you or your preferences, I couldn't care less what works for individuals or couples as long as it works. However, if you both have different ideals about such a very fundamental principal of your relationship (open/closed) then this is a huge, huge problem.

I wouldn't let the fact that you "introduced" him to the concept of an open relationship bother you. I'm going to use a horrible analogy for a way to explain this (read: I'm not comparing an open relationship to horrible things, like I said I don't care if people like them or not, it isn't my place to judge them). Let's say there's this guy (we'll name him Chris). He has this passion for robbing banks. All day every day he's robbing banks. He meets this other guy (we'll call him Adam). Chris teaches Adam everything he knows about robbing banks. Adam begins robbing banks with Chris and on his own. One day Chris decides he's had enough and gives up his life of crime, Adam continues. Adam blames Chris for his lifestyle, after all if not for Chris Adam wouldn't have started robbing banks.
Does that sound logical? (Aside from the fact that it's a silly and far-fetched story of course) No, of course not. Adam knows what he is doing and he continues to choose, every day, to do it. Whether or not Chris "showed him the way" is irrelevant. Adam keeps making the choice to do what he's doing.

You're my Chris in your story. You may have been the one to "present" the idea of an open relationship to your partner but he is the one who is choosing to continue with the idea. If you do not want such a relationship and he does, you are on separate paths. It's as simple as that. If he is 100% set on a type of relationship you're not comfortable with, please end it. You will spare yourself and him a lot of stress and pain by ending things before they continue. Being in an open relationship is not bad, it's only bad when one person wants it and the other feels forced into it. Things will only get worse from here.

[MikeW]

OH MY EYES!!! [MENTION=23019]Igankaru[/MENTION] please when you're making a long post, break it up into paragraphs. I don't care if you just put them in randomly, it helps us keep our place as we're scrolling to read for one thing.

Yeah, what [MENTION=22355]Pacific[/MENTION], [MENTION=21156]Anocxu[/MENTION] and [MENTION=22914]Cobalt[/MENTION] said...

I've been in a chaotic relationship. I will NEVER EVER EVER do it again. I'd much rather be alone than in the kind of relationship [MENTION=21156]Anocxu[/MENTION] was describing:

Some couples thrive on chaotic circumstances then spend all their time ironing out the issues they bring into their relationships.

Sound familiar?

[Igankaru]

So all of y'all's advice is super interesting but I really don't think I did a good job of explaining myself. Neither of us has ever said that we would pressure or expect anything from the other partner, we just expressed our openness for different options at different times. We are not an inherently "chaotic" relationship and we get along really well and communicate well 99% of the time. I really am shocked that so many of you have advised me to end the relationship. As it turned out, I visited him in New York and we went to seedy clubs together, groped some gogo boys, and jacked each other off in public. We had a great time. We both are completely satisfied with this level of "openness" and we're ready to move things from there. I have made it completely clear that anything not involving both of us is off limits and he said that he doesn't desire anything more. Why were so many of you so quick to advise ending things?

[Pacific]

Glad you were able to negotiate something that you're both happy with.

I think some people suggested ending it if it was a values difference where one absolutely wanted an open relationship and the other absolutely did not--those situations tend to create huge problems and get very stressful.

[MikeW]

... Why were so many of you so quick to advise ending things?

Reading through the replies, I don't see anyone actually saying that. What I see is we're saying chaotic relationships are, well, chaotic and often end badly... and if that's what you want, great. But now you're telling us that's an inaccurate perception, that your relationship isn't "chaotic". Well, ok, but it sure looks that way from what you wrote in your OP. If things are working for you now, fine... as a general rule I'm all for couples trying to work through whatever issues they have rather than giving up on the relationship. It all depends on the individuals, what they really want (which may be something other than what they think they want, btw), how they actually feel about themselves and one another. If you both truly love one another, respect one another, communicate openly and honestly, work through differences, so on and so forth... hey, no problem.

[princealbertofb]

[MENTION=23019]Igankaru[/MENTION], maybe your original post wasn't sufficiently clear in stating what sort of advice you were seeking???

[LJay]

I agree that it is all too complicated. Sometimes we get so emotionally wrapped up in things that it is hard to sort them out.

Try writing the major points down, not as a story but more like an outline or just a single idea at a time. Sometimes doing that helps to clarify.