husband wants it all

[swing_no_more]

My husband and I have been married almost 3 yrs. We started swinging before we were married and it used to be alot of fun. We've moved around alot and over time, swinging just didn't appeal to me any more. I'd reached the point where i wanted it to just be me and my husband--no one else involved.

There have been several instances when my husband has fooled around. Once on my birthday, we had a 3some with another girl and (he was drunk) he said that he wasn't finished with her and she wanted more. I said no. he took that as *I* was finished. He spent half an hour in our bedroom. I was outside and a neighbor friend came by to wish me happy Birthday. My husband and the girl came out to join us, but after only a few minutes said they were tired and were ready for bed. Then I hear them having sex yet again. I got so angry i grabbed my coat, slammed the door and left. I didn't return till 8am and she was still there, asleep in my bed. She never said goodbye on her way out and my husband didn't so much as look at me, before he went back to bed.

There've been other times where on his business trips he won't call me. He called me once from Dallas at 1 am drunk again to tell me he took the bartender from the hotel out on a date.
When i'd go home to visit my family cross country, I'd call home and there'd be girls in my house...girls that hadn't spoken to me in months, but as soon as I'm gone, they show up...

Well just recently my husband was drunk enough to admit to me that he wants to get back into the lifestyle because he misses the sex and the flirting because it makes him feel like a man and that he wants me to have girlfriends so i'll "get off his back"

I might add that all these little arguments we have, the problems I see, "are all in MY head" (according to my husband)

I'm very confused. I'm trying to decide whether I just want to let him do what he wants, like I'll go my way and he'll go his, or if I want to try and work on the marriage and salvage what little is left. Deep down I love my husband and I wouldn't have married him if I didnt love him. I've just reached a split in the road and I'm not sure which way to go, anymore.

any input would be greatly apprciated

[ciscosv]

You have a good reason to be at the end of your rope. You mention little arguments that you have with your husband briefly. What are they about? Is he always drunk when an argument comes about? Is your husband cheating on you or had there been an arangement on an open swinging relationship. We could probably use a little more info but I wont press it. We only get your side of the story but, he should be respecting your feelings regarding this stuff in any event. Alcohol when abused can do some pretty ugly shit to person. Hopefully you will be able to work things out. Feel free to vent a little bit.

[swing_no_more]

We had rules pretty much like everyone else. Always together and in the same room. very rarely did we have 3somes. We lived in Va when we met and got married and that's where it started. Most of the couples were older than me (seeing as I don't really like being around ppl my own age, I'm 23 now) We met alot of interesting people and always had fun. These were they types of people that you could go to dinner with, enjoy a movie, hell even bring the kids along the Putt-Putt. but once he got out of the service, we moved to Arizona to be with his family. The scene was much different there. The people were my age, and very good looking (to the point that it made me very jealous and insecure to see my husband drooling over the 22 yr old hardbodies). this crowd didn't want to know you, they just wanted to sleep with you. I think my husband got off on the anonimity(sp). It was after the incident on my birthday that I cut it off for good. Since then (and it's been over a yr since that happened) things have changed. He only touches me or pays attn to me when he is hungry or horny. He talks alot about the lifestyle, I've even caught him chatting with other couples and exchanging pictures. He had arranged (without my knowledge or consent) to meet other couples at the bar we frequent. we get into fights about it and he always tells me that he won't bring it up anymore.

No he isn't always drunk when we fight but when he is drunk, alot more comes out. I bluntly asked him if he's ever cheated on me and he didn't deny or admit it he simply said "What, you don't trust me?" And every time I try to talk to him, really open up and share my feelings, he'll either sit in his computer chair with his hands in his lap, head hung and not say a word, or dive into the computer or in the bedroom to sulk.

What i hate the most is not knowing if he's cheated on me or not. He's always saying things or dropping little hints that makes me wonder. He CONSTANTLY makes a comment from...someone...something about "keep you man in the doghouse, he'll end up in the cathouse" or my favorite is he'll see a really fit and healthy young college girl, drool over her, make a comment about a certain part of her body and in the same sentence tell me "babe let's go to the gym" He actually had the nerve to tell of our friends tha tmy legs look like "Jimmy Dean Sausage".

Another thing i'm wondering about:
My mother got him a beard and mustache trimmer for his Bday. He never used to care what he looked like. This morning he was in the bathroom shaving it for 20 minutes...he said it had to be just right. Is that a sign your mate is cheating when he suddenly gives a damn about his appearance?

[TeamSoBe]

Is that a sign your mate is cheating when he suddenly gives a damn about his appearance

If you don't already know why he suddenly gives a damn about his appearance then yes, it's a sign that he's either cheating or hoping to cheat soon. The outside perspective on this issue says that it's pretty obvious that he is either cheating on you already or will as soon as he gets a chance.

You definitely don't want to add swinging to a relationship that's already so broken. If he's not willing to make his relationship with you a priority over his own dick then there isn't much that you can do. You definitely don't want to reward him for being a jerk by letting him get back into swinging.

Life is short. You're young enough to salvage yours. Ditch the prick and find somebody who is worth spending your life with.

[Quin]

To be quite truthful, he cheated on you when you said 'no' and he went on ahead and had sex with the girl you spoke of in your first post. He betrayed you, he betrayed your rules as a couple, he betrayed your trust, and he disrespected you not only as his wife but as a female and human being.

I gotta go with Team So Be, drop the zero and get a hero. You mention several times that on several occasions he's been drunk but yet you don't think drinking is a problem. You may want to step back and take a long hard look at his drinking or it could be you need to look into the future and wonder if his drinking could possibly cause problems and what if the two of you have a child...will his drinking lead to any further abuse of you or worse, some kind of abuse against your child. His drinking is already leading him to emotionally/mentally abuse you (the call from when he was out of town telling you that he took someone out on a date is emotional/mental abuse) not to mention his emotional/mental abuse when he's sober.

You may love him but love isn't always enough especially when the other party continues a pattern of drinking, disrespecting, and/or abusing in any form. You didn't mention if you had children or not and I'm assuming you don't...but if you stay with him and have children...is this what you want to teach your children (and especially your daughters) about love, marriage and relationships. Children learn more by the example you set than any words you may speak, especially when you tell them that love and marriage should be this and that but then they see you suffering thru the emotional/mental abuse you receive from your disrespecting husband.

You have much to think about and try to take a few steps back and look objectively, not as someone who loves this man. It's hard to do, I'm sure. This man obviously doesn't respect you or your wishes and I really doubt that he loves you in the way that a husband should love his wife because his penis comes first...YOU should come first. I hope some more of the married couples, especially the men, chime in and confirm that he has shown a total lack of disrespect and love for you. Those are harsh words, I know and probably not what you want to hear but it's the truth. He has a definite pattern of abusing you and disrespecting you...that's not even adding in the possible alcohol problem.

Quin

[Quin]

No he isn't always drunk when we fight but when he is drunk, alot more comes out. I bluntly asked him if he's ever cheated on me and he didn't deny or admit it he simply said "What, you don't trust me?" And every time I try to talk to him, really open up and share my feelings, he'll either sit in his computer chair with his hands in his lap, head hung and not say a word, or dive into the computer or in the bedroom to sulk.

I want to address this paragraph specifically. He's f'ing with your mind and if he continues, you won't know which way is up. Instead of answering your question when you outright ask him, he turns it around and throws it back at you by asking about not trusting him. He does this to make you second guess yourself and your thoughts. By turning it around, he's trying to make YOU feel as if YOU are wrong for suspecting him, questioning him. Don't allow him to do this. Run away as fast as possible from him before you lose all your self respect, self esteem, self confidence and love for yourself. That's what he's attempting to do, beat you down emotionally to the point where you think you're the problem and not him. Not to mention that if he destroys your self esteem, self confidence and self respect, you open yourself up for any abuse he dishes out because you will feel he's the best you can do and you need him.

Quin

[swing_no_more]

Well yeah the comment about "you don't trust me" sent alarms off in my head. That right off the bat tells me that he has something to hide. And yes he does try and turn it around alot. Whenever we have these discussions and I let him know what i feel is going wrong, he tells me that it's all in my head...I'm imagining things to bitch about. It came to a head one night (before we moved from Az to Ct just recently) a bunch of out friends wanted to treat us to a little going away party. Well, they have tables set up at the bar where you can log onto the net and sit there and play on it while having your booze. Well my husband is on the computer 24/7. As soon as we ener the bar he's got his face plastered right in it. But oh no, he doesn't realize why i'm mad. I got so pissed, I just left him there at the bar. One of my girlfriends gave him a ride home. he didn't say anything to me when he walked in the door, right away. It took him about 15 minutes to finally ask me "what's wrong" I sat on the couch and cried my eyes out. Instead of comforting me and trying to talk to me, he grabbed the remote and started channel surfing. As I cried louder he just turned the volume up. I guess he got tired of hearing me cry cause he said that "once he gets his new job and we get health insurance he'll find me a shrink because I apparently have issues and it's all in my head"

My main thing is, I need to know of some sure-fire way to get him to open up and spill it all. I want to know every single thing that is going thru his head! I even want to know who he's thinking about when he jerks off!!!!

[JustAskJulie]

Kick him to the curb. It's obvious that he has little care for how you feel or what you need.

If you have talked to him and told him how you feel about what he is doing and that you don't want to swing nor do you want him to continue doing so then that should be enough.

If your relationship is important to him (as it should be) then he will do whatever it takes to make it work. Your relationship should be a priority over anything else.

[ September 12, 2002, 11:47 PM: Message edited by: JustAskJulie ]

[swing_no_more]

" Find out what it is and do your best to give it to him."

Anal sex. He never passes up the opportunity to fuck a girl in the ass cause he knows I sure as hell won't do it.

No i'm not giving him a damn thing. I've already told him that after my guests from Az come next month, i'm moving into the guest room. I told him that he obviously needs his space, that i'm just hindering him and getting in his way. His retort was that he didn't need "physical space". Oh no, I just need to shutup, be the obediant housewife, cook his food and spread my legs for him. Well he's not getting any of it.

LOL you know what's REALLY hillarious! He told my best friend that if I eer cheated on him or he cheated on me then "the love was never really there"!! LMFAO. Maybe he just proved his own point!

[TeamSoBe]

Seriously, this guy is a loser and doesn't deserve to have a woman in his life. I probably sound unnecessarily harsh to you since you say that you love him, but from what you have described your love is unwisely directed. The question isn't even whether you should swing with this guy, it's why you are still with him at all. You're very young and you have a real chance to lead a happy life if you get rid of him now before he's able to do any real damage to you. My wife and I met when she was 28 and didn't marry until she was 32. You could spend years learning more about yourself before finding a guy that will really love you and treat you like you deserve to be treated.

You're at one of those critical crossroads in your life, where you could take one of two paths. One of them leads to a life of subjugation, conflict, pain and emotional abuse. From the sound of this guy you'll also start getting into the physical abuse and co-dependency problems soon enough. Think real hard as well about the sort of children that this guy is going to produce. If you have a son with this guy then your son will be an emotionally distant abuser just like his dad, do you really want to spend your life feeling like your own immediate family doesn't love you? If you pick that road when you can see what lies down it so clearly then you probably deserve that life when you get it. Enjoy your trailer and have fun visiting your loser husband in prison.

If your love for yourself still isn't strong enough to be more important to you than your love for him then look at it this way: if you love him then you aren't doing him any favors by reinforcing his bad habits. You're letting him abuse you and mistreat you and he isn't developing skills for relating to women. If you want him to eventually learn to be a big boy and have a real relationship with a woman then you're preventing him from ever doing that by sitting there and giving him a whipping post. If you want him to learn the joy of true love then you have to teach him that his behavior is not kosher and that women that are worth loving will not tolerate abuse and deception.

Either way, please do us all a favor and remove your husband from the swinger community by either dumping him and turning him into a single guy or by just not swinging with him. The last thing that any of us guys here want is to have some loser like that running around trying to fuck our wives. If your swinging partners knew what a schmuck he was then they wouldn't fuck him, so please don't conceal his true nature from innocent couples so that he can get laid.

[OhioCouple]

First I agree with almost all of the advice given to this situation. A couple of things though I feel need a little more clarification.

Originally posted by TeamSoBe: Life is short. You're young enough to salvage yours. Ditch the prick and find somebody who is worth spending your life with.

This in itself is very true, but what also needs to be said is it doesn't matter if you are 17 or 70 it is NEVER to late to remove yourself from an abusive situation. Your life can be salvaged at any age if you take the steps to leave and refuse to be a victim to it any more.

Originally posted by TeamSoBe: If you pick that road when you can see what lies down it so clearly then you probably deserve that life when you get it. Enjoy your trailer and have fun visiting your loser husband in prison.

I have a problem with the deserving part of this. Most victims of abuse be it mental or physical have been so twisted and manipulated by the abuser that they truly believe they are the reason for the problem and that if they could only change then everything would be hunky dorey. They stay in troubled relationships out of financial insecurity, the insecurity of living alone, or even worse for the sake of the children. It is a sad situation indeed as usually everyone around them can see the harm that is being done except for the victim themselves.

Lori

[R&C]

swing_no_more

Having been stuck in a bad relationship for years, I can tell you that there is no benifit in staying in a bad relationship. It just makes everybody miserable. The big benefit you have is the "adult" in the relationship is always going to do better.

As bad as getting out of the marriage is, it is much better long haul than staying around and suffering with someone who's primary goal is to make you suffer. Why bother? If his primary goal is to go play with the PPUC (Pretty People in Ugly Clothes) crowd, let him do it. They are going to dump him too when they figure out who/what he is.

R (Neither young, nor hard bodied in AZ)

[swing_no_more]

Well I have decided that tonight, I am going to sit down with him and give him an ultimatem(sp) Either he agree to take marriage counseling classes with me and try to work on it, or start splitting our assets and go our seperate ways.
I'll be happy with either decision

[OhioCouple]

Originally posted by swing_no_more: What i hate the most is not knowing if he's cheated on me or not. He's always saying things or dropping little hints that makes me wonder. He CONSTANTLY makes a comment from...someone...something about "keep you man in the doghouse, he'll end up in the cathouse"

I agree with everyone elses opinion of this. He has already cheated on you when he proceeded to continue to bed the girl in your first post. You have no reason to wonder, it has already happened at least once. His comments to you are only being said to manipulate you into believing that you are the one at fault for his sexual strayings. I am suprised that he hasn't accused YOU of *cheating* yet. That is a common pattern among lying, cheating spouses. It makes them feel better about their own indiscretions and takes the focus of them.

My main thing is, I need to know of some sure-fire way to get him to open up and spill it all. I want to know every single thing that is going thru his head! I even want to know who he's thinking about when he jerks off

Why do you want to punish yourself even further? It would only cause more pain of which you are obviously experiencing now. The plain and simple truth of the matter is that he does not deserve you, nor do you deserve him.

My first marriage was similar to what you are going through. We were not swingers, but he didn't mind poking the neighbors and female co-workers. After the third affair that I found out about, I had had enough. At the age of 24 I left and never looked back. The only problem though was that I now had three children in tow. It was scary and it was tough at times, but to this day I do not regret it. My mental and physical health was more important than trying to save an obvious disrespectful and loveless marriage. Do not wait to get insurance to get help. That is about the only thing I agree with that your husband has said. There are plenty of *no cost* support groups available countrywide that can help you to rebuild your self-esteem and give you the courage to toss him like a greasy rag.

Lori

[swing_no_more]

Well i'm a nosy person by nature. I like to have all the stops pulled and everything out in the open....I just hate not knowing. Did he bang the girl he took on a date when he was on his business trip? Did he sleep with my best friend when I flew home to Va to visit my family? Did he continue to see the girl we had a 3some with?
These are some of the questions I want answered.

It's not that I'm trying to put myself thru more pain and suffering, to me it's like sealing the lid. (I'm having a bit of a hard time trying to describe where i'm coming from.) But i hope you get my drift.