Having your cake and eating it too...

A couple of years ago I was seeing a guy for about 12 months. We met online and hit it off from the first date. We were very sexually compatible until about 7-8 months into the relationship when I had some unforeseeable severe and chronic illness problems that made it very difficult and painful to have sex. We went from being intimate 2-3 times a day to maybe once every week or two. To be honest I wasn't overly fussed at this change as I was so ill and in pain, I wasn't interested in doing very much at all. However I felt very guilty and selfish that I wasn't able to keep up with my partner's needs. Without sex he was an absolute nightmare. Mood swings and tension galore. While trying different treatments to help with my medical issues, I had plenty of time to reevaluate and assess our relationship. We were very open and honest with each other and had previously talked about open relationships, bringing a third party into our bedroom and watching one of us pleasuring someone else. I came to the conclusion that if all the other parts of our relationship were going well, maybe we could try having an open relationship to help with his needs and maybe occasionally share a third person as well, and thus bring us closer together through a rather rough patch. When I put this idea to my partner he immediately shut down the conversation and refused to explain his reasoning. After a couple of weeks I managed to pry his reasoning out of him and I was shocked. He didn't want to have an open relationship as he thought that I'd have more interested parties than he would. He said if there wasn't such an imbalance, and the interested parties weren't all skewed in my favour, than he might consider it. He eventually came out and said he wanted to be able to have an open relationship and see other women while I remained exclusive to him. I hadn't really considered the fact that he'd expect me to go out searching for other people to be intimate with, when I just wasn't in any condition to even be intimate with him. However when I had some time to think it over, I felt like it was definitely a double standard. We didn't end up opening our relationship and we stayed exclusive for a few more months but I kept feeling more and more guilty until I finally broke it off. We are still good friends but I'm glad we went our separate ways, even though a few months later the medical treatment completely returned my health to normal. I'm curious if anyone else had similar experiences with broaching an open relationship with a past (or current) partner and if they (or you) had similar reasoning about there being an imbalance of interest and not wanting to share. Del x - Posted from rhpmobile