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Read other letters about this article
Woah. I sent this in hoping for a response, and I appreciate that Cary took the time to respond to my letter. I was a bit taken aback to see it on the page today, and particularly that there were 20+ pages of responses to it. I've read most of the letters here (and was anticipating being called a slut by some of you).
Some things I'd like to respond to:
He did actually end up coming to the couples therapy appointment with me. Things went ok in the appointment, but I'm not sure that things can be salvaged at this point. I think he has a lot of growing to do, and I was hoping that he could do that within this relationship, but I'm not sure that's possible. I've tried my best to make him secure in this relationship, to compliment him on the things I love about him (sexually and otherwise). It's easy to make him into a bad guy, and often times I see him that way, but at the heart of it, these are problems that most couples go through to varying degrees.
For those of you who have mentioned paternity - that is not a problem in this relationship. He knows that I would never cheat on him. That I have done some "slutty" things in the past does not change the fact that I am loyal and caring and, as this relationship has proven, forgiving to those that I love. But I guess there is only so much you can forgive before you have to give up. I have made clear to him that there is a big difference for me between casual sex and sex with someone that I love. The casual sex that I have had - some has been with people I don't know well at all, some (the threesome, for example) has been with friends that I care about in non-romantic ways. Sex with my boyfriend, who I cared about romantically from the get-go, is a whole different thing. It IS sacred to me, and I would rather have sex with him than anyone else that I've been with. I guess to me, as opposed to my boyfriend, the fact that I chose to have sex with him isn't what should make him feel special - but the fact that I love and care about him and that the sex means a lot to me should make him feel special.
And for the people who have brought it up, the threesome I had was MMF. I'm sure that this justifies his reaction to a lot of you, but knowing him like I do, I'm not sure that it would have made too much of a difference. He's been with about half the amount of people that I have, and my number really is not nearly as high as you all have probably assumed. He's had oral sex with about as many people as I've had sex with, and I've had oral sex with about the same number of people he's had sex with. For me, oral sex is something I only share with people I'm in a relationship with. We all have our rules about what's ok. I guess I thought (mistakenly) he would respect mine, even if he disagreed with them.
Someone brought up that I should have known how he would have reacted to my answer, and that I didn't know him well enough. His reaction to the fact that his friend had a threesome (MFF) wasn't positive, and I didn't think he'd like my answer. But he straightforwardly asked me a question, and I did not want to lie. I figured he would be annoyed, but I did not forsee the shitstorm ahead. Maybe that was really naive of me. I thought it would bother him, he'd get over it, we'd move on. Apparently I am dating the one man I have ever met who has had no fantasies whatsoever about threesomes, MFF or otherwise. He's not even into girl-on-girl. I can't get someone to understand having a threesome if they can't even understand why someone would fantasize about having a threesome.
I made the choices that I made because I had physical needs. I had broken up with a boyfriend of four years, and it took my heart a bit longer to get used to the idea of being with someone emotionally than my libido would have liked. Individually, I regret the decisions I made, but I like the person who came out of it. I'm not really interested in casual sex or threesomes anymore, and I had hoped my boyfriend would judge me for the person that I was when we started seeing each other.
