Re: [UUPoly-L] I'm new

[bear@pagansexcult.org]

On Sun, 1 Jul 2007, Jenni Gaffney wrote:

> Hi,

> I'm new. I got connected to this list through the
> polyamory booth at GA in Portland last week, and the
> people at the booth who talked to me. I don't know whether
> my situation is too far from anyone else's to be worth
> discussing, but I have been looking for people to talk to
> for awhile.

Hello.  Welcome to the mailing list.  Sorry for the time it
took to come up with this reply.

> I'm not planning on having sex with anyone but my husband,
> and I am happy with our relationship and marriage and sex
> life. But I realize I do love someone else. It's kind of
> confusing to me, because... well, let me just start by
> explaining: The internet has really changed the way
> relationships and friendships can affect a person and yet
> keep any secrets.

The ability to keep secrets on the Internet is,
unfortunately, an illusion.  If someone is determined to
know who you are, or where you live, or what brand of
toothpaste you buy, or where you hang out online, and is
even a little bit knowledgeable about the resources
available on the 'net, they WILL FIND OUT.

That includes husbands, wives, bosses, subordinates,
siblings, parents, children, coworkers, and everyone else in
your life.  So -- you can have fun, sure, but don't consider
yourself any more anonymous than you'd be going out on the
town and having fun.  You're not.

Congratulations on having a relationship and marriage and
sex life that you're happy with.  You are blessed.  Lots of
new people show up on the list having already made crucial
mistakes that jeopardize all of that, or having already been
caught cheating and having it blow up in their faces.

> role playing. I play a lot of World of Warcraft and have
> really enjoyed the role playing servers lately. As a
> female who plays a "fight the monsters" type game, there
> are many boys/men who are very interested in me once they
> find out I really am a girl.

*sigh*.  "Gamer girls" are rare.  Straight guys perk up and
take notice when they find a fem who has some of the same
interests they do, especially if such are rare.  And, um,
how do I say this....  Time spent playing online does not
help guys in finding and maintaining romantic relationships,
so a lot of them are lonely.  What you're seeing is not an
unusual response.

> I tell them all that I am happily married and that I am
> not looking for another boyfriend or anything. But i
> really do like to flirt, and I really like to role play.

Okay, good point one: honesty up front.  That's a good
reflex, keep it working.

> Anyway, this one guy and I really hit it off both in
> character (meaning the characters we were playing got
> along well) and out of character (meaning when we talk
> about the real me and the real him we also get along). Our
> characters "fell in love" quite quickly and got "married"
> in front of friends on the server.

You may have confused play and fact for all the people you
game with at this point; when you say you're happily
married, they may be thinking you're talking in character
and mean the in-game marriage you did on the server.  That
would lead them to speculate that you may not be happily
married in real life (ie, that you're fair game for romantic
pursuit).  I advise you to bring them and yourselves to the
same understanding of the situation, if that's not already
the case.

> I try to explain to myself that it is not very different
> from being in love with a character in a movie or a TV
> show or a book. But it is a little different because there
> is a real person on the other side who is reacting to me
> and who I react to in real time. So then I tell myself it
> is like an "actor's crush" where we are both acting in a
> play or something and the characters are in love and I get
> swept up in it and feel like I have a crush on the actor
> when it is mostly that my character is in love with his
> character. This is closer to the truth, except that in a
> play we don't get to choose what we do and say, the writer
> and director decide for us, and while role playing, we
> decide what to do and say.

And why do you try to explain things to yourself?  This
sounds more like you're trying to convince yourself of
something than trying to understand what, in fact, is.

Your feelings are real.  No matter how they came about,
that's the fundamental reality.  Your feelings are real and
separating yourself from this guy (which seems to be your
goal here) is going to hurt you.  If his feelings are real
as well (which seems likely) it's going to hurt him too.

When you hurt, you may need a shoulder to cry on and
somebody to talk to.  I would say that this is where you go
to your husband and cry on his shoulder and talk to him.  Of
course, if this were all a secret from him, that would be a
lot more complicated.

> Anyway, neither my husband nor I feel comfortable at this
> point sharing sexual relations with anyone else and
> neither of us can imagine that ever happening.

Okay, you have clear boundaries then.  That's a strength in
this kind of situation.  If you both know that and trust
that, it'll be a lot easier to talk to him about your
feelings for this other bloke, because certain things
apparently important to you both *won't* be under question.

> I'm not trying to become truly polyamorous, though I do
> strongly believe that what consenting adults agree to is
> fine and nobody else's business.

You know what?  It's okay.  Poly is a choice I think people
should have, but it's pretty clear that it doesn't work for
everybody.  Thanks for respecting our human dignity enough
to acknowledge it as a valid choice.

But it does make your choice of venue for this question
peculiar.  I'm giving you the best advice I know how to give
_monogamous_ people.  My advice to a _polyamorous_ person
(or to someone who intended or wanted to at least discuss it
with her husband as an option or a possibility) would be
different in several key respects.  Anyway, my point is that
most of my relationship experience isn't monogamous, and you
may be able to find better advice with a counselor who has
more personal experience of monogamy.

My relationship experience has pounded my head again and
again with the value of (and happiness resulting from) a
policy of complete honesty and openness with partners.  All
things become possible when all feelings can be discussed
honestly.  I tend to consider that to be a universal truth
across all non-cheating relationships both poly and
monogamous, and that really forms the primary basis of my
advice.

> There has been some "internet sex" where the two of us
> describe what our characters would be doing with each
> other if they were really together, but I decided to get
> "cursed" so that we couldn't do that anymore because my
> husband was uncomfortable with it.

Oh, good.  It comes out that your husband *does* know what's
going on, which means that you *can* talk to him about it
instead of suffering in silence or starting out with a
difficult and potentially explosive explanation.

But now I'm going to ask a pernicious question.  Have you
extended your WoW partner enough respect and human dignity
to tell him honestly what's going on and what's behind this
"curse?"  Because in the context of the game, this can be
interpreted as a romantic quest for him - his character has
to cement your relationship by finding some way of breaking
the curse, or by accepting you despite it, or etc.  This is
a classic (albeit gender-reversed) "beauty and the beast"
scenario.  And if he plays it, he will wind up more in love
with you, rather than less, and if you blow him off, it's
going to hurt him REALLY BAD.

If you're keeping a secret: Imagine all the ways the secret
could come to an end.  If some of them are pretty horrible,
you owe it to yourself and those you love to pick the way
you like best (one that is, um, less horrible than the
others, for *ALL* of the people you care about) and try to
bring it about.

> This guy can express his character's love for mine in a
> way I've always wanted from a boyfriend or husband, and I
> love living vicariously through my character. But I don't
> want it to put too much strain on my already wonderful
> marriage.

Sounds like there are expressions of love that you enjoy a
lot and ought to be asking your husband for (or even
demonstrating to him in hopes that he responds in kind).
And some of the bloom might be off "living vicariously" when
just plain "living" begins to show a similar level of
romance.

                                Bear