Views From The Stag

So I wake to the buzz of my cell ringing at near-two in the morning. It’s my wife. She’s out dancing. My immediate thought is, “Oh shit, is she ok?” I fumble for the phone. “I need to be honest,” my wife says after she assures me everything is great, “Armando kissed me tonight.” Now let’s backtrack a few steps to give some context before diving in and unpacking everything that statement meant in the moment. For over a decade, my wife and I have had a wonderfully comfortable marriage. We are best friends, best partners and the best parents we can be to our children. Put simply? We fit in nearly every way, except sex. That’s not to say we don’t enjoy sex together, rather we have been discovering our arousal contexts are different. My wife discusses this in more detail ‘here’. So we have an incredibly open, respectful, objective conversation about open marriage. My whole hope in this is not in some hidden fantasy but simply to lay all options on the table. I know my wife. She is the most vivacious person I’ve ever met. So my thought process is: “why not challenge some of the traditional conventions for the sake of testing the sexual context theory?” Now it needs to be said that I never “let my wife” do anything. She is my wife but she is also her own person. I do not control her. I did not “let her” go have sex with another man. My part in broaching the subject was respectfully that: “hey, you know how we struggle with sex? What if we tried opening your side of the marriage to see if situational context really is your accelerator?” You can read our discussion, here. With that, I was pretty much done. Like my wife, I did not expect anything more. The idea was there if she ever wanted to pursue open marriage but it would have taken a miracle for her to consider it. And now back to the call from that night. “Armando kissed me.” My first thought? Was my wife ok. During our initial conversation about open marriage, I articulated my only two requests in all this: a strict preservation of our union and safety first (physically, emotionally and psychologically). I called and we discussed those two things. Armando had kissed her. She had been okay with it. All good. They had discussed this only being a physical relationship. Great. And that was it for the logistics. Everything else was simply enjoying the thrill in my wife’s voice as she recounted a lived fantasy many women only dream about and then hearing how much she loves me and us. It was also fun to take a step back and marvel at the irony of things, as well. We had just talked about open marriage and then there Armando goes, testing the theory. So that was the kiss but what about the first time she had sex with another man? That must have been intense! Nope not really. It felt more like hearing about her regular night out with her friends except instead of going for drinks, they happened to fuck at a performing arts center. Now before everyone assumes I am a robot husband who is dead inside when it comes to his wife (or just straight up lying about shit), I’ll be honest, there are feelings involved. Not jealousy or insecurity but a strange competitive compulsion. Here’s the thing, it’s not sexual. I don’t feel any need to reclaim anything sexually, because I don’t feel there’s anything that was lost between us and in need of reclamation. Rather, I feel a drive to remind my wife exactly why I will always be her best partner in life. I feel more attentive, observant, and cued into her needs. Where before she might have said something and a million other thoughts would have drowned out her voice, there is more natural intent to hear. My wife often mentions intimacy in her posts and I feel this is where the lifestyle has personally benefited me. I am more tuned in to her than ever before. Opening the marriage has been a wonderful experience and while we agreed I am free to explore other relationships as well, I don’t have the desire at the moment. I’m just happy my wife is happy and having so much fun. I love our marriage. I love this new part of it and am excited to see how things progress. I hope this provides a little insight into the other side of the equation. Feel free to drop any questions you might have at Vixey’s website for me, as well, and I’ll be happy to answer.