My husband and I are in an open relationship (both male, married for eight years) and on a recent holiday we started to explore group sex. We had a wonderful threesome where we both felt great afterwards and had a mutual attraction to the other man – which is rare for us. However, our latest endeavour wasn’t as successful.
We invited a couple and a single man back to our hotel room. Everything was great during the fivesome, and afterwards the couple left. We invited the other man to stay the night (mostly led by me). In the morning, things between me and this man started to heat up. He went to the bathroom and I asked my husband if he wanted to partake, to which he said no and that he’d rather sleep. Regardless, I carried on with the man for a short period until we climaxed.
After he left, my husband was extremely mad at me. It wasn’t a boundary we had discussed, and I’ve apologised. However, part of me feels like it isn’t as bad as he’s making me feel. He has punished me with silence, distance and an expectation of pandering from me throughout. I also feel like he’s using it as an excuse for his own bad behaviour of concealing communication with other men. Our agreement is to be upfront and honest about everything we get up to, but he has a history of hiding and erasing sext messages, and in general is quite closed off with his feelings. Am I morally in the wrong here? And is there hope for us in the relationship?
I cannot be a morality judge, but what I can say is that any open relationship requires a great deal of frankness, negotiation and respect for each other’s feelings. Clearly, as often happens with couples, there is a discrepancy between your understanding of what was acceptable during group sex and your husband’s. The finer points really need to be discussed in great detail as soon as possible.
But even if a couple discuss all kinds of scenarios they think might occur, it is still easy to be taken by surprise by new situations and feelings that arise unexpectedly and create turmoil. You seem to have good insight, and have now learned that for your husband, each new situation requires that you check in with him.
People who are alexithymic (who find it hard to express emotion) have great difficulty letting others know when they are uncomfortable about something, and may require prompting. In the heat of the moment it can be easy to forget this, but he has made it clear that it’s important to him. If you wish to continue including other people for sexual fun with relative emotional safety, stay in touch with your intuition and err on the side of caution.
If you would like advice from Pamela on sexual matters, send us a brief description of your concerns to private.lives@theguardian.com (please don’t send attachments). Each week, Pamela chooses one problem to answer, which will be published online. She regrets that she cannot enter into personal correspondence. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions.
