From: slg@well.sf.ca.us (Sean L. Gilley)
Subject: I need to talk.
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 20:40:15 GMT


I need to talk.
 
I'm not sure why; maybe I'd simply like someone who's been in my
position to offer experiences or advice.  Maybe not, though, maybe
I just need to get this off my chest, and this seems a reasonable
place to do it.
 
If anyone here reads soc.couples, you might recall my article about
a year ago about a new emotional involvement I had started outside
my marriage.  This is, I guess, sortof about that.
 
Some background.  I have never felt like I was a monogamous person.
I've always felt that love is love, and that loved should be expressed.
And since I became a non-virgin (which happened rather late in my life),
and I began to express love physically to one I loved, I realised that
when I get close to a woman, I begin to feel the desire to express myself
physically -- not necessarily sexually, but physically.
 
I never kept this from my wife.  In fact, I told her long before we
were married that when I fall in love with a person, I would most
probably want to express my love physically.  Her one comment was
that she didn't want to know about it if I did.  
 
Well, last year a woman that I had been in love with for many years
came to me and told me the feeling was mutual.  Oh, there was a lot
more to it than that, but that was the essence.  Over about the last
year, our relationship has progressed to the point where we are
just shy of having a consumated sexual relationship.  Not to say our
relationship is only physical.  We've been extremely close friends
for about twelve years; I've been in love with her for almost
that long.  It's simply that her feelings for me changed a bit,
moved from wanting me as a friend, to wanting me as a lover.
 
Perhaps, this being alt.polyamory, I don't have to say this, but I
will.  I'm still just as much in love with my wife as I every was.
In fact, our relationship has strengthened over the last year.
 
Well, my wife and our son was at her parents house this week.  That
in and of itself was a bit unexpected -- weather had kept her there.
Her original plan was to arrive at the house of these friends of ours
on friday.  The friends are about midway between her parents house
and our house, and about four hours from our house.  And wife of this
family is the woman I talked about above.
 
I had planned to go down on thursday, spend New Year's Eve with them,
and meet my wife there on friday.  I just talked to my wife.  She's
going to arrive, probably before I do, on thursday.
 
When I found this out, I was dissappointed.  I had hoped for some time
alone with this friend of mine, and I guess I don't now feel that will
happen.  And it's not that I don't want to see my wife and son -- I do,
but I also wanted this other time.
 
I don't know.  I have all these conflicting feelings about what I
*should* feel.  Not to mention all (or most) of our society telling
me that these feelings -- let alone the intimacies we've shared --
are entirely wrong.

SO where am I now?  What conclusions do I have form all this?  None.
I'm simply in love with both of these women, passionately in love
with both of them.  As I said, I'm not even sure of why I'm writing
this.

Still sometimes the experience is love is so overwhelming that I
have to tell someone, talk to someone, express myself somehow.  I've
often written music or poetry, today I'm writing to the net.  

I guess maybe today I needed a mostly uncritical audience.
Write if you feel like it.  Critical or not, for whatever
reason, I'd liek to hear from you

Sean.

---
Sean L. Gilley
sean.l.gilley@att.com slg@well.sf.ca,us 71155.306@Compuserve.com
Newsgroups: alt.polyamory