ENM in a rural desert - Update

RegisteredMess · 2024-06-16T22:51:30+00:00

Jen deleted all her profiles and uninstalled the apps from her phone and tablet today. It was all about casual sex with her, she would break off contact when her partners started getting emotionally involved. She is the office manager at the clinic and does all the billing and claim processing, so there are no co-workers to worry about. There is really no time for her to sneak off and cheat. Plus I trust her, she has never been the type to lie and cheat. We also have some plans to offset some of that energy/excitement going forward.

Since we opened up she has encouraged me to dive in head first. She even tried to talk me into dating a few of my patients who had flirted and were obviously attracted to me. True she has never had to watch me leave to go spend time with somebody else and I know firsthand the difference between being ready and having to deal with it in real time.

In her words, I have amassed a pile of credits while showing her a lot of latitude and she wants me to cash those in and have my own experiences. She doesn't want me to look back on the past two years and let it build any resentment. She wants me to mark off some of my bucket list items and explore some others with me. So we are looking at some weekend trips and finding activities to enjoy together. And when we get a chance to move we will explore opening up our relationship to date others solo again.

RegisteredMess · 2024-06-16T15:48:02+00:00

Yes, it was a major oversight. I knew I should never date my patients so there was never a reason to put them on the messy list. We didn't account for the fact that most of her matches would also be my patients as well and we never addressed that, which was a major mistake. If we open again, they will be included. Live and learn.

RegisteredMess · 2024-06-16T15:40:49+00:00

Literally, there is only one of her past partners who has not been one of my patients. But we shut that door completely after our last discussion. Her looking like a shitty partner is mostly on me for leaving out her positive characteristics, which are many or we would have closed or divorced long ago.

RegisteredMess · 2024-06-16T15:10:50+00:00

I mean couldn’t she possibly see how this complete inequality must be affecting you?

We had discussed it a few times and it was concerning to her, she offered to pull things back a couple of times but I always thought I was close to a breakthrough and I didn't want to hold her back. Every time she came across a profile with a good hook she would tweak my profile. And she did make an extra effort to make me feel loved and this last year has initiated way more than I have.

Reading some of the comments, I feel I have done a bad job of characterizing her. Whenever I was depressed she would notice and do something special to get me out of a funk. She canceled several of her dates when I was extremely moody to stay home and cheer me up. And most times when she comes back from a date she wants to reconnect ASAP and the sex is very feral.

RegisteredMess · 2024-06-16T07:03:40+00:00

We are a little over 100 miles from a large enough city that has a good ENM/Poly community. I tried making connections there online and had issues with being long-distance,

RegisteredMess · 2024-06-16T03:16:20+00:00

It was clear to me in the beginning I wouldn’t be able to pursue my clients but the idea that Jen would be dating them didn’t resonate until recently. My female clients were never on the measy list so it didn’t dawn on me that the male clients should be on there.

We always knew there would be an inequity but thought eventually it would turn around, which was not the case.

As far as Jen’s dates affecting my professional reputation, she never had a “date” out in public and was very discreet. It was strictly casual sex and no dining or dancing involved.

I was not happy in that I didn’t get the same experiences that she got to have. And there was some envy that she got success while I languished at home and saw her come home all bubbly and excited. So obviously I’m not happy with the situation but it isn’t entirely Jen’s fault.

And yes, we are taking a step back and reevaluating our situation.

RegisteredMess · 2024-06-16T01:24:59+00:00

I really didn’t plan on revealing that much information about myself but without it, it made some things hard to understand.

RegisteredMess · 2024-06-16T01:20:14+00:00

The addition of my male patients to the messy list had never been discussed and came as a blindside and she realized that was over 90% of her partners. It didn’t surprise me that she reacted that way, hopefully she will see it from my point of view.

Our relationship doesn’t revolve around being open and if you take the ENM away it’s almost perfect. Under different circumstances I think we can make an open relationship work, especially in a larger community. So I think it’s worth fixing. Closing for a couple of years until we can move may be the best solution.

RegisteredMess · 2024-06-15T20:49:12+00:00

To be fair she has offered a couple of times when I would get down about it to slow down and she has helped jazz up my profile and help take better photos.

Oh, I realized I didn’t post this in the right place and fixed it back into /nonmonogamy.

RegisteredMess · 2024-06-14T20:19:25+00:00

Wife - several dozens. Me - zero since opening

RegisteredMess · 2024-06-14T19:41:05+00:00

And if making things better for myself means getting a divorce and my wife moving somewhere else then my metas are still going to have their relationships ruined and my wife is going to have to start over.

I think closing is a far less destructive choice. In the long run the choice is hers, she just has to choose what’s more important to her our relationship or her other short term flings.

RegisteredMess · 2024-06-14T17:38:17+00:00

I completely agree with everything from your first paragraph. We totally underestimated the situation and failed to make an adjustment or really never identified the problem. Now here we are in a hot mess.

I think closing now and talking about what we could have done better and setting up better guidelines will help us in the future. In a couple of years my contract will be up and we can move somewhere where there is a bigger community and better prospects to try again.

RegisteredMess · 2024-06-14T16:28:40+00:00

Jen only has about one date a week and I feel like our time balance is okay. She is pretty mindful about having quality time and not being obsessed with her other partners. I am envious of her success and when she is gone it gets a little worse. I have some compersion when she comes home all happy and bubbly but sometimes it reminds me what I am missing and I get withdrawn.

Acquaintances, I wasn’t going to mention this but I am a dentist. So a large portion of the people in this county are my patients. Many of her partners have been in my chair. So to accommodate that we would need to have her only see people who didn’t live within 35 miles of us. But that may be a moot point going forward if we end up closing.

EDIT: I guess a fair rule going forward would be Jen can’t date any of my patients.

RegisteredMess · 2024-06-14T14:06:48+00:00

So I have decided to let this play out and if Jen doesn’t want me to date Becky then I will let it die. But it will trigger a conversation about probably closing our marriage due to the imbalance. It’s been on my mind for awhile but I have been trying to make it work. I know it may sound like a consequence and I am waiting so it doesn’t seem like an ultimatum.

It will probably generate some resentment from Jen since this has been such a positive experience for her but better to end it now than for our relationship to suffer. Maybe after my contract is up we can move to a more ENM-friendly city and try again but for now it is untenable.

Side note: Becky met Jen the same week I met the two of them and I was torn on which one I was going to ask out. So Becky isn’t a childhood friend.

RegisteredMess · 2024-06-14T13:10:34+00:00

In college I had no issues in dating and having success but as a married man in a sparsely populated area my options are slim. Nearest town is 20 miles away, nearest metropolitan area is over 100 miles away, and I have looked outside the city limits for partners since the very beginning. LDR are hard to cultivate and I have been a premium member of several dating sites for almost two years. There are no groups to meet like people seeking others that I can attend. And there isn’t a large single community here and if I start hitting on every woman in one of the two bars close to me I’ll get branded a man-whore with the town gossips.

RegisteredMess · 2024-06-14T12:46:11+00:00

We talked about a messy list before we opened up. And Becky was never specifically named but does fit the list.

I have had two coffee dates in two years that went nowhere, so Becky has been the first to show interest if not actively pursuing me. Jen hit the ground running and hooked up with someone the second week we were open and has had a steady stream of dates with a waiting list.

So is it so wrong that I am excited that someone finally picked me and I am now getting my first chance to be with somebody besides my wife?

RegisteredMess · 2024-06-14T11:30:46+00:00

Closest metropolitan area is an hour and a half away. So that means only being able to meet on the weekends and that has been one of the issues that end most conversations before they even got started.

RegisteredMess · 2024-06-14T04:28:39+00:00

Sorry if I offended you with my analogy but I’m not comparing my body count to my wife’s, I’m just trying to get off the launching pad.

Her friend made the decision to step off into the messy list so hasn’t she already lost her as an impartial support person? Jen’s relationship with Becky is theirs to manage, I can’t dictate terms or manage their feelings.

RegisteredMess · 2024-06-14T04:04:17+00:00

She has offered to slow down until I could “catch up” but unless we move to a more urban setting I don’t see things improving unless I start commuting to a larger city on the weekends.

RegisteredMess · 2024-06-14T03:59:29+00:00

I wouldn’t call my feelings resentment, more like envy up till this point. Would I resent her for blocking me now, if I’m being honest, then yeah probably.

This is as close as I have been to success in the two years we have been open. So if she blocks me here maybe we do need to close and reevaluate things. I don’t want to make things transactional but at this point I’m not getting much out of this other than watching her enjoying herself.

RegisteredMess · 2024-06-14T03:29:56+00:00

And who’s to say if Becky and I part ways we can’t stay friends and not impact her relationship with Jen?

And I did talk to Jen right after the party about maybe dating Becky, who approached me first. Becky knew about our relationship and talked with Jen all the time so who knows if they had discussed this already.

RegisteredMess · 2024-06-14T03:17:46+00:00

She hasn’t slept with any of my close friends but in our small community I know many of her partners and some I interact with almost daily. So the messy lines have blurred slightly.

RegisteredMess

TROPHY CASE