I’m a mostly straight, young but not too young, sexually active adult woman. I don’t intend to get married, but I very much value emotional connections and intimacy. I can have sex for the sake of sex without needing it to mean more, but I appreciate more when it’s there. Well, about two years ago I met a much older man who claimed his was an open marriage; we didn’t actually have sex for a couple of months, and I was intrigued by the idea of a close but not fully committed lover who would not be seeking a wife. Eventually I found out that while his wife didn’t much mind his having no-strings extramarital sex, she would not at all have accepted his being emotionally involved with a mistress. I was pissed because I had expressed early on that I didn’t want to get involved in keeping secrets, but he talked me back into his arms and thus ensued another year of amazing sex, moments of transcendent friendship, and also plenty of moments of being ignored or even fully disregarded despite his expectation that I would be responsive to him and his texts and his emails. He could have gotten the sex without having to make false promises of emotional attachment, but that’s not what he did. So I ended it because being told I am amazing while simultaneously being ignored might be as damaging as anything I have experienced. Still, I have a lot of self-doubt over this; is something wonderful about him that I am overlooking? Did my desires and wants cross the line into immature self-centered behavior? Am I overlooking a point of view, or am I just overlooking an asshole’s asshole nature?
It’s hard for people who are sexually experienced, savvy, wise in the ways of the world and generally free of belief in romantic bullshit to recognize that we, too, can be deceived in relationships. No matter how much we may like to think that we’re “immune to the stuff”, as Robert Palmer put it, the fact of the matter is that the right dose in the right combination delivered in the right medium will still intoxicate us just as if we were starry-eyed ingenues. And unfortunately, there is no way to be sure that the mixologist isn’t up to pure no good when he or she slips you that mickey; every time you imbibe you run the risk that the cocktail will be stronger than you bargained for, especially when it’s so delicious you just keep knocking ‘em down without keeping a very close count. From what you’ve told me here, your lover was quite the skillful alchemist; he read what you wanted, told you what you wanted to hear and expertly smoothed over your valid concerns. This doesn’t mean you’re gullible; it means you’re a real and complex person with needs of your own, and you fell in with someone who both knew how to manipulate that and had no moral scruples against doing it. Lest you think I’m being unnecessarily harsh in my judgment of him, consider your own statement that “he could have gotten the sex without having to make false promises of emotional attachment”; he wanted the advantages of a regular sex worker without having to pay for one. You didn’t say what he does for a living, but he’d have made a great politician; the combination of charm, promise making-and-breaking and casual dishonesty is typical in that career. Politicians are usually very popular, too, which is how they keep getting elected no matter what they do; that doesn’t make them good people, it makes them good manipulators. So I think you made the right decision: treasure the good memories, let go of as much of the pain as you can, and walk away before he talks you into wasting another year on someone who seems unable to play by the rules of ethical polyamory.
(Have a question of your own? Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)
“I don’t intend to get married, but I very much value emotional connections and intimacy.”
This seems like a statement waiting to cause harm to the one who issued it. Someone not wanting the commitment of being a spouse but wanting the dependability a spouse offers. It’s bullshit to say the fellow is somehow immoral for playing the same game. Sure he clearly enjoys “emotional connections and intimacy.” It’s just he also enjoys the stability of his primary relationship. When his adventures with polyamory conflict with his attachment bonds to his lover, to his family he pulls back.
It’s rather clear that this disturbs the questioner. Sting free sex is not about money. It is about not putting demands for the other person to be there for one’s self. Yes, polyamory is messy, simply because as humans we want secure connection and we also have propensity for sexual promiscuity. The questioner is no more able to sort this stuff out than the man she is complaining about.
If she is unhappy with not being able to access her polyamorous partner for emotional support 24 hours a day seven days a week then she should realize she needs to find someone else who can give secure attachment 24/7 so she can go out an have sex as she pleases.
He has family commitments which are more important to him than her. He has said that and he as also said as she has said that he values “emotional connections and intimacy” with casual sex.
Such is the human state of sexual freedom and the human need for secure attachment.
No one is evil. They are just trying to understand themselves, each other and live in community where other people matter. It’s hard to reach maternal understanding of each other. They both sound like very moral, caring people who are torn and unclear how to meet their needs in harmony with others.
I think that’s kind of the normal pattern for an extramarital relationship. When you’re the other woman, you’re going to take a back seat to the main relationship. Guys in that position also have conflicts and uncertainty — they want both relationships, but they can’t have both relationships — and it sounds like his behavior was changing depending on which direction he was being pulled. It doesn’t mean he was being deliberately manipulative, but it doesn’t mean you had to put up with it either. Sometimes its just one of those situations where there’s no way to make everybody happy.
Judging by these responses, I’m guessing that I edited the lady’s letter down too much to do it justice, for which mea culpa. Salient points:
1) The man promised emotional intimacy even though she didn’t actually ask for it; he just read her desire for it.
2) He then avoided giving her the intimacy he promised.
3) He asked for considerable emotional intimacy in return for the intimacy he refused to give.
4) He repeatedly lied despite knowing he didn’t actually have to.
Think of the exchanged intimacy as services from her and cash from him, and I think you’ll understand the problem more easily.
Taking Maggie’s addendum into account, I would say this was a valuable and obviously in part quite pleasant learning experience. It was certainly right to end this once actual circumstances became obvious to you. Actually smart people do not expect deviousness from others, until they experience it as you have here. And then they sometimes have trouble believing it, after all, this is so exceptionally stupid on the part of the manipulator.
Don’t take it too hard, just learn from it and move on. Everybody can be manipulated and above some level, smart people are even more susceptible to it, because they can see all the obvious attempts and consider themselves immune. Happened to me one time or another as well in other areas.
But he did give her emotional intimacy. That aspect faded, and understandably so when one’s in a Secondary Relationship. Never trust your gut when it comes to being hurt when someone else isn’t into you enough. Most people’s natural instincts falsely want
to Accuse the other person of wrongdoing at a level that fullfills the amount of hurt they have — because after all, our hurt is the Same as when wrongdoing is actually done.
I will say this though — his wrong doing, which was very fixable during it and should have been addressed — was his double-standard of her not being on ready-5 when getting emails and such. She should have politely just reminded him what’s up by putting things in perspective. Why not? Fear of him being upset and potentially losing him? Well, if that was the case, then even more of that hurt brought on to oneself. I’m not saying he was some perfect guy, no…
But it’s false expectations and being naive to expect being in an on-the-side relationship while the other is married, that it’s always going to be emotionally like peas & carrots. It’s definitely not — and one Should expect it to change gears if held over time to being primary a sexual relationship. That part’s just common sense.
This happened to me recently. I invoiced him a reasonable amount for the time, energy and effort I’d invested on good faith. He immoderately paid, but later he called it blackmail after saying he’d like to be friends, but continued to ghost me. Politician is the perfect name for it. That came to my mind several times as I became aware of what was happening.