DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I am writing to you, since I have not seen this issue covered yet in your archives and maybe you can give me a solid advice as you always do. There is a huge chance that in a few months, I will move alone to another country for work. I had a job offer by a huge company, which is quite interesting and they pay really, really well. Moreover, it’s a chance for me to live abroad and expand my horizons.

What makes me anxious however, is that I will have to leave an adorable circle of friends and relatives behind and start from scratch. Moreover, the native language will be different, which means that for a long period, I may struggle to build new connections. Finally, it is very common to see people close to my age returning back to my country, since they cannot stand social life abroad. In my country (south Europe), people are very social and outgoing, which might seem not to be the same for norther countries. The mix of all these issues, combined with homesickness, is what leads a huge number of people returning back to our homeland, even though the quality of living here is poor (high cost of living, very low salaries).

From my part, although I have a huge number of friends, I am not a terribly social guy, meaning that I suffer a lot from approach anxiety. Moreover, I am not quite good at building connections, which is an issue on which I am working on with my therapist. With respect to dating, my sex life is non-existent (virgin) due to my shyness. I guess that if dating feels so hard in my native language, it will be 10 times harder in a new country, with no social circle and a whole different culture. I am well over 30s and I want to build a stable social and love life, which may be counterintuitive with moving abroad.

I know that if I accept the job offer and make the jump abroad, I will have to accept a long period of loneliness. That’s what almost everybody who has moved to another country tells me. What advice would you give to me and other expats, who struggle with building their life from scratch?

Best regards,

Almost Ready to Move

DEAR ALMOST READY TO MOVE: OK, ARM, let’s start with the assumption that you’re going to that the job – the money is just too good, etc. One thing you’re going to want to take into consideration is how long this is going to be. Is this going to be a semi-permanent to permanent position? Or is this something you’re intending to be a short term (for suitably variable definitions of “short term”) stay? Do you see this as being your new home, or a place you’re going to be kicking around for a few months to a few years?

There’re a few things you can do to prepare yourself before you leave so that you’ll be ready to hit the ground running. The first thing would be to see if there’s any way to be put in contact with the folks who are already there. Having a few conversations – via email, DMs or Zoom – with your future co-workers will mean that you’re not starting off cold at the new job in a new country. Your co-workers are likely to be your primary social connections while you’re getting settled in, so it’ll be good to make some connections now. It’s not going to be the same as having a ready-made social circle to slot into, but at the very least it’ll give you a head start of people that you can connect with.

Another thing to do is to use social media. Do some research and see if there are Facebook groups or subreddits for ex-pats in your new country or for new arrivals.  Not only will these give you an insider’s view of what to expect – as well as some ideas of how you might want to spend your time after work and on weekends – but this can also lead to at least having a few nodding acquaintances in-country by the time you get there. Not everyone is going to want to be your new friend or meet up in person, but having those names and people to reach out to can help keep the loneliness at bay as you’re getting used to the new living situation, the new culture and customs.

Once you’re officially moved in and at least a little adjusted to things, one option will be to find where the expats hang out, especially the ones from your country. Homesickness can hit hard, and in unexpected ways, even if you’re not getting hit with major culture shock. Just hearing your native language or a familiar accent can be a balm to your soul. You may also want to look for MeetUps or organizations specifically for folks like you – foreign workers, expats, students and other people who are new to the country. 

Now, if you’re not planning on staying for all that long, then expats may well be your major source for socialization. However, as tempting as it may be to stick to expat hangouts, pushing yourself and getting out to explore and really immerse yourself in the language and culture will go a long way towards acclimating yourself and widening your social options.

One option you may want is to start with taking some second-language classes to help you improve your fluency. This will put you in contact with a lot of people who are more or less in the same boat as you, which will give you some immediate points of commonality with them. That’ll make it easier to make friends – or at least friendly acquaintances – while also helping you bridge the language gap a little faster than you might under other circumstances.

However, I’d recommend pushing yourself out of your comfort zone (and the tourist areas) and getting to where the locals hang out. As a general rule, immersion is one of the best ways to speed up learning and mastering the language and adjusting to your new city. Think of it as a challenge, not just of your capacity to learn a new language but to get out of your shell and to force yourself to meet people… even if the language barrier may be intimidating.  

This is actually going to be important for you, especially as you try to build a new group of friends, but also potential relationships. A lot of folks have romantic ideas of moving to a new place and reinventing themselves. The problem is that they forget that moving doesn’t mean that they’re leaving themselves behind; they’re still bringing their hang-ups, insecurities, sticking points and habits with them. Even when you’ve moved some place new and you have a clean slate, you’re still you, with everything that means.

Fortunately, “you” are a fluid concept; you can adjust and change if you’re willing to put in the deliberate effort. And in this case, you’re going to have some pretty hefty motivation; you’ll be in a new country, without your pre-existing social circle to coast on. This means that you’re going to have to put in a lot of deliberate effort to build a new social life. Part of it is going to be working on making stronger or deeper connections with folks. One of the best ways of doing this is simply to start with weak connections and build from there. The keys to building and maintaining friendships are propinquity, repetition and regularity. You’re more likely to form relationships with the people you’re around the most often, and the way you strengthen the connections is through seeing them often and regularly.

Having hang-out spots where you are a regular will be helpful; it means that you’ll be seeing a lot of the same people over and over again, which increases the opportunities for connecting with them and making friends. Hosting events or regular get-togethers also makes a difference. If you, for example, host a regular gaming night or dinner parties or movie nights, you’re going to have not just more opportunities to hang out with people but making sure you see them on the regular. The benefit of regularly scheduled events (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly at a stretch) means that it’s easier to carve out the time for it. When someone knows that you hold a poker night every other Thursday, they know that if they can’t make it this time, there’s always the next one. When things are more sporadic or random, it’s much harder to factor that into your plans.  

You’re also going to have to be deliberate and mindful if you want to date. Right now, you may struggle with it, but it’s still relatively easy to take it casually – you are surrounded by people who share your culture and language. When you’re in another country, you aren’t going to be able to coast along and hope that you’ll bump into someone. It’s also much easier to decide to not pursue things, using minor issues to give you the excuse to say “nah, I’m going to pass on this.”

While you’re in another country, you’re going to have to be an active participant in your own love life, which means not letting little worries or anxieties give you excuses to not even make the attempt. You’re going to have to be engaged in looking for people you might be interested in. This means finding places that’re conducive to meeting folks, and deliberately checking for interest, commonalities and compatibility. You’re going to need to be purposeful in trying to communicate your interest and in asking them out. This is going to be especially vital for you; since you’ll be speaking in a language that’s not your mother tongue, you’re going to need to be willing to put yourself out there in a way you may not be used to.

Now this will be intimidating. But you’re also going to have an advantage: as a foreigner, you’re going to be something of a novelty. While it’s not as though nobody will have ever met someone from your home country before, you will be different from the norms, and that’s going to spur some interest. Novelty is incredibly appealing, and it can help make you stand out from the crowd… if you’re willing to put yourself out there.

Something else to consider: since you’re going to be in a new country, it may well be worth your time to be willing to use this as permission to stretch the boundaries of who “you” are and to behave in ways that you may not necessarily think of as being “you”. As I said: “you” are a fluid concept and that means you can adjust what it means to be you. So this could be your chance to give yourself permission to be braver about meeting people, to start exploring and practicing the sides of yourself you wish were more developed, or even taking on new aspects that you never had before – that sense of “Oh, I’m not the kind of person who…” Well, now’s your chance to start being that kind of person. Just remember that there’s a difference between being inexperienced and not being “able” to do something.

When you see someone doing something skillfully, you’re not looking at a binary of talent; you’re looking at someone who simply has more experience than you in that area. Someone who is good at meeting and dating women wasn’t born able to do so; they learned how and got good through actually exercising those skills. You can get there too; you just have to put in the deliberate practice. And being in a foreign country, without a social safety net (er… as it were), means that if you want things to be different, you’re not going to have a choice but to try.  

The last thing I’ll suggest: if you are going to take this job, you want to shift your mindset. Right now, you’re looking at this in terms of “ok this is probably going to suck, how do I make it suck less?” You want to be looking at this like an adventure. See it less as “this is going to be hard and it’s going to be rough” and more of “this is going to be a challenge and I’m ready to face it.”

As with many things in life, you how you choose to see the world will change everything. You can see it as “I’m struggling to keep my head under water and I’m going to sink any minute now” or “I’m working hard at this, and I’ll figure it all out any minute now.”

The choice is ultimately yours.

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Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: My wife and I have engaged in the hotwife (specifically stag/vixen) lifestyle on and off since 2019. We have been married for 14 years as of December. I (36) am a military veteran and the sole provider of the home and she (41) is a stay at home mother of 2 kids (12 & 13).

Before I get into the reason I am writing, a little context is in order.

We have had many relationship issues over the years, all really boiling down to communication problems. I have emotionally reached out of the marriage on more than one occasion, and my wife has failed to validate me and allow me to be vulnerable around her several times (always correlated together). We have since sought couples counseling and continue to communicate and love one another. We are no longer in couples counseling, and we are doing great. I truly love this woman with every fabric of my soul, and she loves me just as much. We stopped hotwifing while we handled our issues. One year later, we are doing a TON better. Still growing, but that never stops so I digress.

We started hotwifing again recently. Again, I found sexual gratification in watching her with other men. She would bring home videos of the event for me to use later and watch before I reclaimed her. My wife has been using dating apps to find partners. She is fully transparent that she is married, and that hubby knows what’s going on. She has zero problem sharing messages with me and such. I never ask her to, and I refuse to snoop, but when she does share with me I get a gut feeling. It’s like it’s not “ok” once I see her contacting folks, but of course I have consented.

I have noticed that her being on her phone has started to make me feel isolated and has caused significant anxiety in the recent week, which didn’t exist previously. I also find myself automatically defaulting to anger if I know she has given out her personal number. Previously, we used Fetlife. Fet had a degree of separation and anonymity that I seemed to enjoy, because it never really became more than what it was. A f--k and videos. Now, any guy, any meet, any talk about it at all makes me anxious.

I have read a few of your articles about Sperm Competition and Voyeurism, along with a few other articles, and you have helped me really get down to the “why” I like hotwifing. The sex, in general, after we started again was quite possibly the best sex either of us has ever had together. It makes me feel that there is a way to make this work for both of us, but getting there is where I need your help.

Now to the reason I’m writing.

Cut to the most recent meeting. She met “Bob” on Bumble. Bob is a transient guy from a different part of the state. Bob works for the railroad so he’s in town around once a week for a day, then leaves back home. He’s married, 47, his wife allows him to play when he’s away. He’s a nice guy, a communicator, and has a lot of experience living this lifestyle in a safe manner. Bob and wife met for coffee. Before the meet, I was honest with the wife and said “it goes where it goes, just record it if you do.” It went where it went.

The issue is that it lasted for 3 hours. I’m self-conscious about being a one and done kinda guy. I hit it and move on to other parts of my day. I have never had the ability to just screw for hours or have multiple orgasms. I wish I could. He can, he did. This isn’t the first time she’s been with a guy like that. There is usually a HINT of jealousy that’s overcome by my need to reclaim her. However on this day, I couldn’t reach her. We use life360 in case s--t goes sour and I need to intervene, but she had somehow turned it off and couldn’t figure out how to fix it. (A phone and brick are the same thing to her). My married wife of two kids spent 3 hours at an unknown location, with a relatively known person, doing unknown things and never thought to check her phone. Not once did she think about me once the action started (she was there for me in the first place, to please me. I understand that).

You can see where this is going. I left work in a panic. Luckily my boss is a rockstar and understands family emergencies and doesn’t ask a million questions. I vaguely remembered her kinda hinting at where they met for coffee so I started there and worked outward. I drove to every hotel in town looking for her car. I feel like I should clarify, the warnings signs pointed to a possibility of my wife being dead. So, you can appreciate the gradual trip to crazy town I took. I managed to track her down because I called instead of texting. The call vibrated her smartwatch, but texts didn’t I guess. Maybe she has that turned off. I don’t know. I find her, and of course I am visibly and audibly distraught, but she was perfectly fine. This was by far the scariest thing I have ever experienced in my life, and I have deployed three times.

She told me her phone was in her purse on silent and that she never thought about it once they got busy. The problem there is that the phone is IN THE VIDEO ON THE BED next to her head. I chalk this up to bad memory, because let’s be honest, she had her mind in other places. The videos were also not exactly what I hoped, and he cut the camera off before the finish every single time, adding to my frustration. Capturing the finish is the reason for the meet in the first place (for me). This could have been a miscommunication somewhere, because I haven’t talked with Bob, and if my wife didn’t share my expectations with him, then that’s on her, and this has been discussed by her and I ad nauseum. I honestly feel like I was ACCIDENTALLY cucked by my wife and her bull. I say accidentally, because her honest reaction to my disappointment was devastation. She was devastated that she didn’t get me off and she knows what a HARD NO humiliation is for me. I was left feeling like an outsider in my own relationship at that moment, and DAMN did it hurt. I perceived it as a waste of time and reacted as such, causing a lot of hurt on my wife’s part. She put herself out there with another man and I reacted like an asshole. I will mention that we have rules, and she broke several of them that day… which is probably also a factor.

Now, any hint of hotwifing at all makes me incredibly anxious. I don’t exactly know why. Why now am I getting jealous and craving constant attention? I have never gotten separation anxiety from being gone from the wife (deployments and such) but now I literally want to be home with her all day, which isn’t sustainable naturally. I do wish to continue the lifestyle, but how can I overcome this new obstacle without indirectly sabotaging everything? Bob is a trigger for me, but dates and guys in her DM’s never bothered me till now. Will it pass? PTSD from the event? Something about Bob rings every alarm bell in my head, but he really hasn’t done anything beyond what we asked of him.

I should clarify that I like Bob as a person. He’s a nice dude, holds my wife in high esteem, and is very polite and “safe” as an outsider can be. I believe it is because I was forced to experience my fantasies in a way that I was not comfortable with, without my consent. Bob wanted to include me, because one of my fantasies is a MMF threesome with my wife, but I don’t know if I am a “watch my fantasy like a movie” or “experience my fantasy” kinda guy. Like I said, up until now this was not a real issue in our relationship. I would like to find a compromise between the wife and I in which she can keep Bob around but get rid of the others. What I want to avoid is a poly relationship of any kind. Absolutely zero chance I will ever be interested in anything live-in, “wife away from home,” or anything close to emotional sharing. She is mine and mine alone. I imagine a friends with benefits type situation, but right now I’m conflicted because of my Cerebral Cortex and these involuntary feelings I have developed.

More of a side note here, but sometimes I think to myself “damn, another guy already? You just did it last week” so there is a frequency issue we need to hash out yet, but I never hold any of this against her. I do sometimes find the quantity in which she feels is appropriate as somewhat disgusting, but I don’t know how to tell her this kindly (so I choose silence for now). It’s gratifying in the sense that its slutty and dirty, but also not gratifying because it’s slutty and dirty. I prefer that she’d show some decorum. We are learning the boundaries together.

In summary, my triggers are:

Bob (would like to fix if possible)

Her being on her phone and not up my ass (not fair, should most certainly be fixed)

Any talk of hotwifing, dates, and Bob (even harmless conversation and questioning)

Frequency (sometimes I feel like she’s too eager)

This is a part of me. This seems like something that is a real part of her. I know I’m lucky that I have a wife that literally wants to fulfill my needs at any cost. Up until this last meetup, the sex has been great. I have found myself scared, nervous, or generally unable, or struggling to, “finish” since. We are sexually compatible, but emotionally I am not sure if I will return to where I was. I want to, but I just can’t promise that. It still turns me on. She still turns me on… but the situation as it sits doesn’t. The REAL concerning part of all this is the anxiety in the bedroom when it’s just her and I. I get stage fright now and she interprets it as me being dissatisfied with her, her body, or something else related to her. I feel terrible about that.

I know she would stop forever if it meant keeping me, but I don’t know if this is a NEED or just a want for her. I will find that out… but if we have become sexually incompatible because of a significant emotional event, I don’t think I could live with myself. She has literally become the second half of my whole. Dissolution of the marriage is not a course of action here. We will not be divorcing one another over a kink. Period. This has already been discussed and put to bed by both of us.

What should I do, oh Obi-Wan of sexual navigation?

-Stagnant Stag

DEAR STAGNANT STAG: This is a lot, SS, both in word count (and this is AFTER I cut things down…) and in emotional ups and downs. But honestly, I think it’s a lot simpler than it seems on the surface.

It really comes down to two things: the conflicts with your wife – not validating or allowing you to feel vulnerable, your feeling jealous and left out – and the fact that your wife was basically cheating with Bob.

(Hang on party people, I’ll explain what I mean in a moment.)

Let’s start with the conflicts. You and your wife have already had issues with communication and – from the sound of it – connection with one another. You mention not being validated or allowed to be vulnerable. Loosely translated from therapy-speak, what I’m hearing is that you felt like your wife wasn’t taking how you felt seriously or acknowledging that you were trying to express your genuine feelings about things. This would track with your emotional affair – getting your needs met elsewhere, as it were – but also part of why you had your freak out. It’s pretty common for folks who’ve stepped out on their partners, even just emotionally, to be hypervigilant over their partners doing the same.

I’m wondering if there’re other issues that you and your wife didn’t discuss in couple’s counseling – such as jealousy and anxiety. I think part of the issue here is the separation between your kink and the people involved in the kink, and I wonder if that disconnect is what’s getting to you.

One thing that stands out to me is that you mentioned that your wife’s use of her phone has been making you feel isolated and that seeing her contact people on dating apps makes you uncomfortable. That’s not unusual, even when we consider that she’s on there specifically to meet people for the kink the two of you are engaging in. Part of what makes the kink work for you is the actual act – she goes out, sleeps with the latest bull, comes home and shows you the videos and then you two have rapturous sex. But the critical part is that this is as much for you as it is for her; you’re included – indirectly, but still included – in the act.

However, in order to get to the act, you have to find the people. And finding guest stars for the act – whether for threesomes or cuckolding – means finding people you’re compatible with and find attractive. So… you know. A lot like dating. And finding someone who is sexually attractive to and compatible with your wife means that there’s a non-zero chance that there might be an actual threat to your relationship and your primacy as her partner.

Now with cuckolding and hotwifing, that sort of fear and jealousy isn’t a bug, it’s feature. Part of what makes cuckoldry enjoyable to folks is sperm-competition – that is, the tendency to have stronger orgasms in order to flush out the “competitor’s” sperm. But the funny thing about jealousy, even when it’s harnessed in the name of sexual enjoyment, is that it doesn’t always stay in its lane. And neither does anxiety.

FetLife, as you say, created a certain level of anonymity and separation that the dating apps lack. But even if you stick to FetLife,  you can’t really get past the fact that hotwifing is about creating a connection with other folks. The anonymity and separation allows you to keep the pretense that these are guys just dropping out of the sky and vanishing into the ether when things are done,  like your own custom AI generated fetish video. But seeing your wife actually going through the motions of actually contacting them and arranging the dates pierces that illusion – now they’re no longer fantasy figures, they’re actual people.

Put a pin in that; we’ll get back to it in a minute.

And so we come to the fulcrum that all this revolves around: Bob. Bob is not just someone your wife was willing to bang – as much for your pleasure, to be clear – but also one of the uncommon cis men who has a low refractory period and has a lot of stamina. Things that you very pointedly mention that you lack and wish you had. So in a very real way, Bob feels like an actual threat to your emotional safety. It’s like he’s You +2, in a way. 

This is part of why I suspect that – as much as you were worried for your wife’s physical safety – you were more worried that this wasn’t a kink meet but an actual affair. While yes, the risk of harm was very real and the fear that something might’ve happened was valid, I wonder if that isn’t covering for a worry that things were going off the rails in a different direction: that your wife was getting dicked down like a champion by someone who might replace you and take what was “yours”. 

And considering everything that happened – she somehow turned off the FindMyPhone app, she didn’t respond to your texts (with her phone being on the bed and not in her purse like she said) and the fact that the video was less than what you wanted… yeah, basically that was cheating. You had boundaries that defined what was and wasn’t acceptable and what was expected – both for her safety but also your emotional security and your enjoyment – and she went past them. The whole point of hotwifing is that you’re involved, not left out; the video is what you get out of it. Without the video, you’re just being cuckolded, which is, as you said, a hard no.

All of this is a long way of saying that it’s entirely understandable why all of this has freaked you out. While yes, it’s possible that this was a confluence of unlikely events happening in sequence – the odds are vastly against it, but not zero – it still looks like a series of signs of infidelity, rather than part of a kinky hook-up that’s for the both of you. That, as the kids say, hits differently.

So I think the first thing that needs to happen is that you and your wife need to close things down for a bit while you talk this through. The last thing you need is the specter of Bob hanging over you like Banquo’s ghost. He may be a genuinely good guy and not a threat to your relationship, but your limbic system ain’t buying it right now. Taking him out of the equation (metaphorically speaking) will make it easier to process things. Instead, I think you should involve a different third party: going back to your couple’s counselor to help mediate and guide the discussion. Having a third party involved can make it a little easier to keep things from spiraling out of control.

I think there’re a few things you need to talk about before you get around to putting in safeguards to keep mistakes like this from happening again. Talking about, for example, your jealousy  and the way that this incident poked it with a stick, should be top of the list. This is particularly important because I’m picking up hints that you feel like you can’t object to things or speak up.

The tell for me is when you mention that “…but of course, I consented” – as though consenting to something doesn’t mean that you can’t also have conflicting or complicated feelings about it. Part of the point of consent is that you aren’t locked into it like a chastity cage once you agree; you can (and should) say “Hey, I’m feeling weird about things, can we put this on pause for a bit while we work it out” when you’re having weird icky feels.

Now to be clear, I’m not saying your wife won’t listen or is shutting down your attempts to talk it through; I think you may still be feeling the sting from the first time you went into counseling over it. It’s clearly a sensitive spot and that’s something you should be talking to the counselor about.

The next thing I think you may want to do is relax on the “guy drops out of the void to f--k my wife and returns to it afterwards” approach to finding bulls. While I understand you don’t want a poly or even poly-adjacent relationship with the bulls (and Bob in particular), I think your actually meeting with the future bulls before your wife goes off with them will work much better for everyone involved.

Your being there at the meeting is a reminder – for you, as much as your wife and the special guest – that you’re the primary and this is for you and your wife. It also means that you can be present for discussing the boundaries and the exact four corners of what is and isn’t inbounds, so there’re fewer opportunities for mistakes and misunderstandings (or “mistakes” and “misunderstandings”). It also means that, from a safety perspective, you’ve at least clapped eyes on the dude who may have just dragged you into a true crime podcast, and you know where they’ll be going.

I realize that it’s probably easier for you, emotionally, to have that distance; it lets the bulls be an abstract instead of a person. But considering what happened this time, I think meeting with them is a lesser issue than the Category 5 s--tstorm you had on your hands.

Plus, meeting with them may help reassure you that while yes, they’re the dude f--king your wife, they’re not f--king your marriage or your connection. That’s one of the subtle things about hotwifing compared to cuckolding: it’s happening at your direction. Much as the sub in a BDSM scene is really the one in charge, you’re allowing someone else to bang your wife, not having it “inflicted” on you. As you said, part of the whole point of the kink is that she’s yours. The way she conducted things with Bob contradicted that. Even though it was happening with your knowledge and approval, it still carried the tone of two people getting away with something sneaky… which is precisely part of why you freaked the f--k out.  

So perhaps in the future, you should make your being present at the meeting and giving your official blessing part of the process. , your being there makes the subtext more textual and helps keep the former from oozing into the latter.

Er… as it were.

But as I said: you want to put the hotwifing on hold for a bit while you process your feelings, go over what happened and – importantly – reestablish your connection with your wife. You want to rebuild your sense of trust and safety with her before you get back into sharing her with others – either indirectly via hotwifing or directly with the MMF fantasy you have. The relationship itself needs to be on strong footing to work, especially with varsity level kink like this. Kink is a tool in the relationship arsenal, not the entire relationship.

So take time off, suspend the Fetlife and Tinder accounts and get back into the counselor’s office. Talk this through, repair what you have and get back to the place where you feel safe and secure and – importantly – empowered to actually speak up about how you’re feeling. When you get there, then it’ll be time to talk about all the pants-off-dance-off fun times you and she want to have again.

Good luck.

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Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’ve (25, cis male) been seeing my girlfriend (29) for over a year now. I met her family this past holiday and we all got along well. Her family even invited me to spend time with them after the holidays.

I was having a conversation with my girlfriend’s sister and cousin when the topic led to the ending of her engagement with her previous fiancé. I already knew about the bad break up, but I didn’t know the details as to why. Months before the wedding, my girlfriend suggested the possibility of an open marriage after they got married. The fiancé immediately ended the engagement over the suggestion. I kept my reaction hidden and moved on to something else.

I haven’t confronted my girlfriend with this information and still trying to process the whole thing. First, I feel it’s none of my business when it comes to my girlfriend’s past relationships or the choices she makes. I also don’t have any issue if others want to have an open marriage. But if the question had been posed to me, I probably would have the same reaction as the ex-fiancé. Which leads me to wonder if my girlfriend still has such desires. And there are still lots of details I am not clear on.

I don’t know if this was suggestion to someday try in the future or just a fun conversation started that went sideways. I don’t how to broach this subject with her without coming of as a jerk.

Is The Past Merely Prologue?

DEAR IS THE PAST MERELY PROLOGUE: Alright PMP, I think your girlfriend’s family may have been telling tales out of class in this and I think it’s important that you avoid leaping to conclusions. As you said: there’re a lot of information that you don’t have, likely a lot of critical details too…  and there’re likely even more details that your girlfriend’s family doesn’t have.

What we have, for now, is gossip, not history. You don’t mention how close your girlfriend is to her family, so I don’t know whether she would’ve given them all the dirty details. Some people are very close with their siblings and cousins, some folks aren’t. It’s entirely possible that there’s a lot of vitally important information that’s been left out or that the others were filling in a whole lot of blanks with their own speculation. So do yourself a favor and don’t try to draw a lot of conclusions based on what you’ve heard.

The fact that she floated opening up the relationship to her previous partner doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s going to have this conversation with you some time in the future. It’s certainly possible that your girlfriend is generally non-monogamous and prefers an open or polyamorous relationship over a monogamous one. But it’s also possible that this was a relationship-specific circumstance.

Dropping this particular mortar shell so close to the wedding could suggest a lot of possibilities. It’s certainly possible that she didn’t see why lobbing this when and how she did wasn’t the smartest move. It’s also possible that she did so strategically. There are people who propose or start practicing non-monogamy for reasons beyond they’re someone who has a lot of love to give, who needs a certain amount of sexual novelty or who just generally doesn’t do monogamy.

There are, for example, people who’ve used opening up the relationship because – consciously or unconsciously – they were actually looking for an escape hatch. Perhaps things with her fiancé weren’t as rosy as it seemed. It’s also possible that your girlfriend wasn’t satisfied with her sex life with her fiancé and this was how she thought she could fix it.

Now, one thing that’s important to note is that people who know that they’re non-monogamous and are going to require an open or poly relationship are more likely to bring this up early on. They’ll frequently agree to a period of exclusivity in order to both prove that yes, they’re committed to their current partner, and also to help build up the levels of trust and communication a non-monogamous relationship requires. So the fact that your girlfriend hasn’t mentioned it before, while not conclusive, doesn’t suggest that this is definitely in your future.

But there’re a lot of things you don’t know and a lot of things you don’t know that you don’t know yet. You know who does know those things? Your girlfriend. So you should ask her.

However, you don’t want to come in guns blazing about whether this is going to be your future too or treating family hot goss as the unvarnished truth. You want to start from a position that she’s going to be telling you the truth, not that she needs to do damage control after her family accidentally slipped you some scandalous news.

So when asking her, the best approach here would be to leave the whole open-relationship aspect aside and say “hey, your family had some wild stories to tell about your ex and your break up. I don’t think I we ever actually talked about it; what actually happened?” Then let her tell her story as completely as she can before you start asking follow-ups. Since I’m presuming that you weren’t told about her fiancé calling off the wedding in confidence, you can give a little info on what you were told, but it’d be better to let her tell her story without pushing one way or the other on the monogamy question. The last thing you want is for this to turn into a weird confrontation when it’s not needed or warranted.

If her asking about opening up the marriage was something she asked for and was serious about, you can ask “So how do you feel about that now?” or “Is that something that’s important to you?” Keep in mind: the answer may well be “yes, it is”. If that’s the case… you’re going to want to take some time to sit with it, rather than leaping to ending the relationship right then and there. It’s very easy to make snap decisions based on how you were taught to feel, only to realize that maybe on second thought you weren’t feeling as strongly about it as you supposed. Of course, by then, it’s frequently too late to do anything about that.

This doesn’t mean that you have to be cool with it or that you don’t actually prefer or require monogamy. You just want to give yourself some time to actually think about it before doing anything, rather than having a knee-jerk reaction. It may even help to do a little research and read up on it – I recommend Opening Up by Tristan Taormino and Building Open Relationships by Dr. Liz Powell (who, in full disclosure, is a friend of mine and has contributed to the column before.)

But that may not be an issue. That may well have been a situation-specific issue, not something she’s hoping to pursue with you.

But it’s better to have the information than a lot of unanswered questions lurking in the back of your mind.

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Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com