Matt,

Just like you, I really appreciate this site. It has been a year and a half since I discovered it, I think I got the answers I needed at the time, but I am still returning back to it almost every day even now.

I tried to reread all of your posts to get a big picture (from your perspective) of your current situation overall.

You called your wife “the love of my life” and then proceeded to writing that you were attracted to her again. That gap in closeness and affection was caused by your work load, the fact that the in-laws were living with you, and by the depression that your wife was suffering from? Or did I miss something?

“For 6 years I have fought the wrong fight. I thought it was my responsibility to help her with the disease of drug dependence and depression. Over the course of the last 6 months I finally came to grips with the fact that my actions have actually been destroying our marriage. I was trying too hard to fix her, instead of making peace with myself and working towards living my life as a better person” – this also caught my attention.

Could you elaborate a bit more how exactly your trying to fix her instead of working on yourself to become a better person were destroying your marriage?

I may be trying to dig too deeply, nitpicking here and there and seeing conflicting statements whereas they (conflicting ideas expressed by you) may only be reflecting your internal conflict and the ongoing process of trying to figure things out, please forgive me.

In that italicized paragraph above, it sounds as if from now on you want to make peace with yourself and work on your life.

This is sort of confirmed in your                 question, “Where do insecurities belong? Do you think that a person need address insecurities to grow to their full potential? I imagine some insecurity is healthy or else you would be a raging sociopath” – reflecting your desire to reach your full potential (that is, work on yourself).

On the other hand, you state firmly that you would at least try and comply with all the wishes made by your wife (open marriage) in an attempt to save your union.

In your “situation update” post from Oct. 3, you mentioned all the possible developments that could rise of Jay being in your wife’s life. I didn’t see the one where she is so happy to have two men by her side, that she decides to keep them both indefinitely.

I was a mistress to a married man for six years. I went through all those thoughts that you had about right and wrong, what exactly is it that is so uncomfortable in the three-people scenario, etc. And even though I was so very much in love with him, even though I am very stubborn and perseverant in general, I don’t think I would have been able to go through it if I hadn’t known (had ways to do my research) that he was intimate only with me indeed. Even given that, the fact that they had to appear together at social functions would make me very, very jealous. So if it hadn’t been for that sort of exclusivity (his sincere love for me, to the extent he was capable of loving), I would have given up straight away.

So I would say give it a try, but I am pretty sure that something will happen and you will realise that you are simply not up to it, however much you might be in love with your wife OR your brain will eventually process everything and you will wake up one morning aware that this is not for you.

I would agree with you that some insecurity is healthy. In fact, I don’t see any conflict here. First, I don’t think there is such a thing as “full potential”, hence one can’t “grow to it.” It is like happiness, a never-attainable goal that we all are entitled to pursue. Second, I fully support that happy medium concept and everything in moderation, no extremes thing.

It is really comforting to know that there are still caring men out there, who are willing to and capable of registering their impulses, their thoughts, analysing their actions and trying to understand the reasons behind it all.

Have a great evening!

X

P.S. I am not so sure that the survival of your marriage depends on how YOU handle the day-to-day emotions and feelings. For one thing, “It takes two to tango”; for another, if there are three of you in your marriage, isn’t it “a bit crowded”?; and for still another, even if there are only two of you, what kind of marriage (I mean marriage of what quality, satisfaction for all parties involved, etc.) can you really call a marriage?