Think of the Children

I need help figuring out how to tell my kids I am non-monogamous. I’ve been non-monogamous for over five years and have been married for nearly fifteen years. My husband and I have three kids together, the oldest of which is now 14. My husband and I have not been sexually active for nearly eight years, but we’re best friends, fabulous co-parents, and wonderful nesting partners, and I still love him very much. I reclaimed my sexuality and intimacy about six years ago and have been in a relationship with a wonderful man for nearly four years. My husband, dad, sister, and friends have all met and like him. I love him very much. But my kids do not know that their mom is non-monogamous! Being ethical is very important to me and telling them that I am “just going to see a friend” is wearing me down. I am concerned my oldest see might his mom holding hands with someone who isn’t his dad or hear from a friend who saw us. I do not want to hide my relationships from anyone but have waited because I just don’t know how to say it. What advice do you have for coming out to kids about being non-monogamous? I am scared they will hate me or feel betrayed. Or worse yet, that it will change my relationship with them forever as we are very close.

Mulling Over My Secret

Most kids don’t wanna think about their parents fucking each other, MOMS, and no kid wants to think about their parents fucking other people. But you’re not just fucking this other guy, MOMS, you’re in a relationship with him. You’ve taken steps to integrate your boyfriend into your life —something we all owe our romantic partners — and your boyfriend has been embraced by your husband, your dad, your sister, and your friends. But you have to tell your kids, arguably the most important people in your life, that you’re “seeing a friend” when you’re heading out to see your boyfriend and that gloss — I’m not going to call it a lie (he’s also your friend, right?) — doesn’t square with your ethics and being ethical is very important to you and blah blah ethics blah.

So, here’s an ethical question for you: If unburdening yourself — if no longer having to keep a secret from your kids — means shifting the burden of secret keeping onto your kids, is telling them the truth the more ethical choice?

Take your plan to tell your 14-year-old son but not your other kids: If you tell him but not his siblings, you’ll be putting your son in the position of having to lie to his younger siblings or other people in your orbit who don’t know. I’m no ethicist, but it seems to me that asking your eldest to lie for you is worse than continuing to tell him a glossy lie yourself until all of your kids are old enough to know that your marriage is companionate and that you have another romantic partner.

You could tell all of your kids at once — you could rip that bandage off — and there are poly parents out there who are out to their kids, and their kids are fine. But do you live in a place where you can be out as open or poly couple in your community? Because if you don’t — if this is something your kids will have to keep from their friends, your neighbors, relatives who don’t know, etc. — then you would be asking all three of your kids to lie for you. And while your eldest child might be able to wrap his head around mom and dad’s marriage being loving, stable, and companionate, knowing you’re in love with someone else could make the younger ones worry their parents might split up at any moment.

So, I would ask you… what’s more ethical: waiting to tell your kids that your good friend is your boyfriend until they’re all old enough to understand the complexities of adult lives and relationships — to say nothing of the complexities of their parents’ marriage — or dumping some very complicated shit on them so that you can feel ethically pure?

If you do decide to tell them — all of them, all at once — you will need to pour on the reassurance. It won’t be enough to tell them you, and your husband are solid, MOMS, you’re going to need to show them. And seeing your husband and your boyfriend interact without tension will help, but you shouldn’t force your kids to interact with your boyfriend if they don’t want to be around him and/or don’t want him around.

And if you decide not to tell your kids until they’re a little older, then you need to be discreet. That means no public displays of affection — no holding your boyfriend’s hand — in places where your eldest or one of his friends might see you. You won’t have to sneak around forever, but sneaking around right now, while your kids are young, might be the more ethical choice.

I’m a 40-year-old married man who has had one male lover (who is also 40 and married) since we met in college. We are not married to each other. We’ve both been married to women. We were best friends for several years before we had sex and began our sexual affair before we got married. Our wives and children are all friends, and we often take joint vacations together. In addition to having sex with our wives during these joint vacations, we also have sex with each other. Our wives and families are ignorant of this arrangement. We’ve only had gay sex with each other. We are in love with our wives, but we have admitted that we love each other more. While we have many more opportunities to have sex with our wives (all the time, at least in theory) we have sex with them one to two times a week. While we can’t be alone overnight very often, we have sex five to six times when we do spend a night together. All the information I can find about bisexual men who are married to woman and sexually active with other males focuses on “hook-ups” and never on a relationship like ours. I know that there are variations in everything, but have you ever come across men like us?

Friends And Longtime Lovers

My first thought reading your letter: You should be less concerned about whether I’ve come across a relationship like yours, FALL, and more concerned about your wives or kids coming across the two of you fucking the shit out each other on one of your shared family vacations.

My second thought: This is a case for Dr. Joe Kort, the psychotherapist, sexologist, and author who specializes in marital problems faced by couples in “mixed orientation” marriages.

“I am non-judgmental and can even be supportive of a situation where a man has another guy or guys on the side,” said Dr. Kort. “However, I draw the line when the wife knows the other guy and the guy is in their friend group, as it is insensitive and unfair to the wife. Many people will feel it’s unfair to the wife that her husband is with anyone else, but it is more problematic when the two guys are the kind of friends who vacation together with their families.”

There is a name for the kind of relationship you describe: two married straight-identified/straight-perceived men who only have gay sex with each other are in a “closed loop.” The term was popularized by swinging couples where the men were open to their wives about being bisexual, Dr. Kort explained, and their wives consented to the arrangement, FALL, which doesn’t describe your situation. (Also, if a “straight” married man is having sex with other men, it’s important that he get the consent of his wife and take precautions to protect her sexual health. If the husband and wife are no longer intimate with each other, the man should be taking steps to protect his own sexual health and the health of his male partners, e.g., getting on PrEP, getting tested regularly, using condoms when appropriate, etc.)

Like me, Dr. Kort, who has written extensively about straight and/or straight-identified men who have sex with other men, is concerned about how this is going to play out when — not if — your wives find out.

“Given that they are doing this right under everyone’s noses, discovery seems inevitable,” said Dr. Kort. “And when they are discovered, the scale of this betrayal will make it very hard to recover from. The show Grace and Frankie made light of a similar situation — two old friends who were lovers leaving their wives for each other — but once exposed these things rarely go the way it did on that sitcom, where everyone remained friends. A revelation like this devastates everyone — including the men involved. When this comes out, their relationships with their wives and kids will never be the same.”

Maybe you and your male lover will continue to get away with it and your wife and kids will never discover that you’ve been something more than close friends for decades, FALL. But if you want to up the odds of getting away with this — if you wanna take his loads and your secret to the grave —you gotta stop fucking the shit out of each other while your wives and kids are sleeping in the next room.

Follow Dr. Kort on Instagram @DrJoeKort. To learn more about his books, his practice, and his podcast, go to www.joekort.com.

Our teenage son does not allow us in his room. His room is sacred, and we must respect his privacy. And we do. So long as his room isn’t filthy and doesn’t smell, we never go into his room. He doesn’t show the same respect for our privacy. Every inch of the rest of the house is his to roam through and there isn’t a drawer or a closet he hasn’t inspected. The issue is we don’t want him using drugs and he believes it would be hypocritical of us to use drugs, hence his searching through our things for evidence that we’re doing what we don’t allow him to do. My wife and I are into BDSM. We don’t practice BDSM at home, but our “date nights” involve getting a hotel room or going to a fetish club. We have gear and fetish attire that we keep in a locked trunk in a corner of the garage. We don’t even open it at home! If we’re going to a kink event, we toss it in the trunk and only open it after we get there. Well, our son found the key, rifled through everything, and was appalled and disgusted. We’ve relocated our trunk to a friend’s place, at my wife’s insistence. He’s barely speaking to us and I’m not sure what to say.

Kid Now Knows

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