She slept with someone else and it hurts
Advice #45
In this edition, our 1st asker is wondering how to do deal with their parents finding out about they and their wife being consensually non-monogamous as well as bi-sexual.
Our 2nd asker is processing the pain of their partner being intimate with another person and wants some tips.
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Hey, just wanted to reach out. So my wife and I are exploring ENM, and it's going good!
I’m bisexual so it's nice to be able to explore that side of my sexuality once in a while. The only thing is we are worried about our families finding out; just worried about being judged. Any advice?
Hey there! First off, super cool that you’re exploring ENM and that it’s working out. I’m sure it’s not without it’s bumps in the road, but if the overall is good then that is great.
However, you’re worried about your families finding out, specifically about being judged by them…
That can be tricky.
Depending where your families are from, how conservative they are, how judgey they are in general, this can be especially scary.
The first question that comes to mind is this: Are you more scared of sharing with them that you’re ENM (ethically non-monogamous) or are you more scared to share that you’re bisexual?
The reason I ask is as follows.
Often we are scared to tell people things that really we haven’t made peace with ourselves. Especially when it comes to parents, their voices live inside of us. And we can decide not to listen to them. We can ignore them or push them down and resist their power, but often they’re just there. And all we can do is learn how to navigate them when they speak.
I have this with my mom. I love her to pieces. She is so sweet and loving and she’s actually coming to Berlin next week to spend time with her grandchild (and also with Flo and me).
She is a perfectionist, and I inherited that perfectionism from her. I often hear her voice in my head from when I was a child, criticizing anything that isn’t just right. (Originally from Haiti, she came to the U.S. at age 17 with her family so I think there is a stronger than normal urge to always fit in.)
She wanted me to be perfect too, her little girl, an extension of herself.
Because of this mindset, it’s like I can’t help but impulsively pass judgement on myself for stupid things that other people might not care about.
And often I find myself hiding little things from her for fear that she will also judge me for them. Like if I woke up “too late” one morning or something.
But how do I know she’ll pass judgement on them? Because I’ve already judged myself for them in some way. I’ve already felt some sort of shame inside myself about it.
The voice is in me. I don’t need her to say anything. It’s there. It’s my own voice now.
And her judgement triggers me only because I’m ready to feel something about it, and let it hurt me.
What I’m getting at here is if you’re truly afraid to share this with your family, it may be because you haven’t fully accepted this all for yourself yet. Whether it’s the bisexuality, the non-monogamy or both.
Because if you had come to terms with it completely, if you felt there was absolutely nothing to hide, their judgement couldn’t really hurt you, right?
You’d be so confident, so bullet proof in your choice and it’s rightness that nothing they say could touch you.
There’s nothing there to touch.
So have you accepted this yourself yet? What do you think your parents will say if they find out? What hurts about that? Why? How can you think about it differently? How can you reframe?
In the end, you definitely don’t have to tell your parents about this unless you want to or you think there will be a situation that comes up where it will be too obvious to not spill the beans.
But in my experience, as long as you’re happy and healthy, parents are not seeking to find out things about you that will make them worry, so I wouldn’t worry so much about them suspecting anything without you making that leap yourselves. My mom at this point knows I’m non-monogamous, but sometimes I think she still tries to pretend to herself that I’m not. It’s just something she’d rather not think about it. Which I’m okay with.
Either way (if you tell them or you don’t), try your best to ensure you have your own responses to their judgment ready, more for yourself than for them.
And I hope you know in your heart, that all you’re doing is enjoying your lives to the fullest and being yourselves. You’re not hurting anyone by taking this path. You’re creating joy and pleasure and growing as people in the process. You are living authentically and paving the way for others to do the same. Be proud of that.
You have nothing to hide.
Love,
Sarah
How should I process feeling hurt when my partner was intimate with someone else?
Your partner was intimate with someone else. Wow that is a difficult one.
Yes, it’s like basic non-monogamy, but I don’t care. It can be painful even for people doing it for a long time.
But the first time can be the hardest. It certainly was for me.
It was like playing with fire those first few times he went on dates with another woman he actually liked.
It was scary, imagining them together. White sheets, breathing heavy, loving each other in some way. Me, not being part of it at all.
Society trains us to think of this as an infidelity, as them doing something obviously hurtful toward us. It paints us as the fool to have let ourselves be in this position.
And the worst part is, we don’t know really what this means for our relationship.
What does it mean that they were able to feel this way with another person?
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