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To The Man Who’s Sleeping With My Wife.

Adobe Stock Photo.
Dear Brother –
I am in joy. I am also scared.
First, thank you.
Thank you for showing up in her life in the way that you have. You’ll be exchanging eye gazes, sweet energy, laughter, meals, and touch with her. I know this will bring her joy. And her joy is my joy. I know it’s hard to believe, but the freedom for her to explore with you is evidence of my unconditional love for her.
To me, true love means wishing for my beloved to be fulfilled in every possible way, even if that fulfillment comes with some emotional work for me.
You see, we men have existed in a double standard narrative for thousands of years. Men have been mostly respected (or at least tolerated) for having more than one lover. Women have been slut-shamed, punished, and even murdered in some countries for loving more than one.
There is a revolution of this narrative taking place and we can join this wave of change together.
Brother, you are something I can never be. You are other. You are her novelty, her adventure. You are not me. When she shares her life story with you (the story I know oh so well) she will have the chance to be mirrored back with a new
curiosity.
And that feels amazing for me to know.
To try to take this experience away from her would be to exercise a conditional love, a selfish love. If exploring new love can bring her immense joy, then who am I to interfere? Conventional love is conditional love. It says… “I love you, except for this one condition: I will not share you for as long as you are with me.”
So I choose unconventional love, which says… “I love you unconditionally, therefore, your joy is my joy, even if that joy does not come from me.”
If you are reading this, then you likely have shown up in my life as a true brother, open-hearted and caring. She wouldn’t have it any other way. You honor the roots she and I have intertwined and the commitments we have made
to each other. Like us, you’ve done the work to transcend most of your conditioned insecurities.
You’ve aligned yourself with the idea that our core human needs (certainty, love, significance, variety, growth and service) are served by the ideal that we all have the capacity to love more than one, if we do so in a conscious way.
She is a divine feminine goddess. She is beautiful inside and out. She lights up any room she walks into. Her heart is enormous. She is committed to her own personal growth and to leaving this world better than she found it.
She is a woman that I am sworn to protect, yet one that I do not possess.
Despite my patriarchal conditioning, keeping all of her goodness to myself would be a sin. I have chosen the path less traveled in that I honor her freedom to radiate out love and take in love, to be seen for all the good that she is, by other than just me. This freedom means more mirrors to mirror back, which leads to more growth, more healing, and more service for her to experience. All of this makes me happy to imagine.
Still, I am scared.
The little boy in me is scared of being abandoned. The high school kid who was dumped by his girlfriend for the star soccer player right before Prom. And the man who lost two big loves to other men on this road less traveled. This is my wounding.
I am keenly aware that there are many wounded men out there who have not been able to show up for women in the ways they need to flourish. I am afraid that someone new may upset all the healing work we’ve done together, or worse, re-wound her. While I don’t know you well (yet) and only time will tell, I trust that everything will unfold the way it’s meant to unfold. I also trust in her judgment.
I persist with this love-style because it remains my deepest truth. I push forward with the faith that there are others out there (hopefully you) who share in our freedom to love more than one for life. Others who no longer wish to exist in a competitive landscape of disposable relationships or a “zero-sum game” where one’s gain is often another’s loss.
Brother, we are not adversaries, nor are we competing for the heart of this woman. You know this. Her heart belongs to no one but her. This goddess, with her free will, gets to choose how to share her space and her time. If you are ever confused, scared, or not fully expressed, please know that you’re in good company. It will always be my intention to uphold a safe container that is full of heart-centered, open, peaceful communication for everyone involved.
So I thank you for the joy. I thank you for coming into her (and my) world, and I ask that we see each other, love each other, and build our brotherhood from our common ground… this beautiful soul. While nothing is expected from you, I do wish to know you, learn from you, and share with you. I look forward to playing together, creating together and exploring all possibilities in friendship.
AND thank you for scaring me.
Thank you for allowing me to do the work I still need to do. I am human and am still shedding the discomforts that we’ve all been conditioned to carry for many generations. It is my mission to release these discomforts and I am grateful to have you (and her) on this journey with me. Thank you in advance for being patient and for being gentle with me.
Treat her well, brother. She is worthy of and will expect nothing but excellent care, high-quality love, and mindful communication. One benefit of our love-style is that no one gets to settle for mediocrity or complacency. We all are motivated to grow each day and show up as the best versions of ourselves.
Lastly, please remember this: your joy is also my joy. Genuinely.
Love,
Your Brother,
* This essay is a companion to my love’s Letter To The Woman Whose Man I’m Sleeping With. Both letters were inspired by the exquisitely vulnerable essay “A Letter To The Women Who Sleep With My Man” by Wilrieke Sophia. Visit https://freelovediaries.com/all-entries/ for more.
Here to serve,
xoxo
Shai Fishman from LEVELED UP LOVE
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Monogamy and Infidelity… What Has Happened to Relationship?

IMG_2885 editIt has been an interesting social week for this sex geek!

Love, marriage, relationship, sex, commitment, integrity, open-mindedness, judgement, new friends, old lovers and so much more…

Most of what keeps coming up this last week for me is circling around our idea’s and beliefs when looking at marriage or a “committed” relationship. The do’s and don’ts, and what is truly correct. What I have been reminded of the most is that one person’s “right way” is not always another person’s “right way,” and that this is such a beautiful thing that so many have a tough time accepting and seeing for the incredible gift that it is. As an ego based society we have been brainwashed into believing so fully that our beliefs are actually fact that we have squeezed out life, free will and individuality. We have buried personal truth and forgotten the age old wisdom, of love thy neighbor. The one core principle that ALL religions and spiritual practices have in common and as foundation. We have also forgotten that even our own personal truths and beliefs can change over the course of time and that in the end they are still only opinions in the eyes of others. Weather we back our statements with scripture, scientific evidence, or something else, they are all conjured from human translation.

Interestingly enough, since my last writing I have been through quiet a host of events and thoughts on this. A lover that I have had for a few years now (whom is a married man) had to deal with the possibility of divorce with his wife after a large dispute over his sexual activity outside of the marriage. Yet, their relationship is sexually dead and I mean DEAD. There is not even guilt sex happening. Now, I know that many who read this will be disgusted and damning, saying that in this sort of case instead of having an affair one should just get out of the relationship and stay in integrity. If your not happy then it is time to move on. If there are issues that cannot be resolved then it is time to move on. True as all of that is from a logical stand point, there are personal reasons that many who have affairs have that make it not so cut and dry. Yes, I am speaking from personal experience here. I have been an adulteress and obviously I have been a mistress as well. Both roles have blessed me with so much life lesson and deep empathy that I cannot see the disgust in them but only the beauty and empowerment that they both have led too.

Now, here is another interesting event of my week. Another old lover of mine who is a single man but was married years ago has a jealous, controlling ex-wife who has decided that he should not even text with me. Her attitude is very similar to the wife of my other lover, yet there is no contract that she can hold over his head or shame him of some religious sin. She can however cause disturbances and chaos.

In both cases above what we have are some core beliefs that we are taught about relationship, especially marriage.

In marriage you are responsible for your partners happiness.
In marriage, you are NOT to have any intimate or emotional relationships outside of that relationship. 
Love as unconditional as we may say it is hits the wall of conditions when dealing with sex and emotions.
Ownership. (Partners own the rights to use of their partners body, especially genitals) 
Jealousy is love.
If you cheat, you do not love your husband/wife.

So as you read this list, what did your heart say about each item?

Your heart not your ego, your beliefs and programs. Not what religion states. But what did your heart say? Your heart speaks in whispers remember, while the others are in your face, yelling the answers.

In follow up to these two events, I decided to do some social research on FaceBook and pose a couple questions. Here they are with some of the answers I received.

Is infidelity ALWAYS infidelity?

▪ Nope. Not always…Guess it depends on what your own definition of that is.
▪ Other’s concept of infidelity may not be yours. Not a universal definition.
▪ Infidelity is infidelity no matter how you slice it and dice it. infidelity is kissing another woman/man on the lips or commiting a sexual act with another person when in a relationship with someone. example…. peter is dating jenna, peter kisses another girl and has sexual relations with the other girl, that is infidelity.
▪ There are couples that are monogamous and then there are others that are polyamorous. Whatever works for a couple the most important thing is honesty with each other.
▪ A toxic relationship is a toxic relationship. No one should expose themselves to such thing for a prolonged agonizing period. Though leaving in itself is self empowering, and probably something that needs to be done by you. Cheating or committing in act of infidelity is a weakness that one succumbs under.
▪ And my favorite response: If communication is open and honest, then infidelity would never occur

The next question I posed was:
70%+ divorce rate. Over 40% of men in their late 40’s to 50’s have affairs. Over 30% of women in their 30’s have affairs. Many relationships have non existent or almost there so sexual relations after the 12th year together. Sperm are designed to fight sperm from other men, so that the strongest may win and the strongest offspring will be born to a woman. Women can become allergic to their mates semen.

College Study: In the early 1970s, a schoolteacher in southern England assigned a class science project in which his students were to find out the blood types of their parents. The students were then to use this information to deduce their own blood types (because a gene from each parent determines your blood type, in most instances only a certain number of combinations are possible). Instead, 30 per cent of the students discovered their dads were not their biologically fathers.

Question of the day: Are humans designed to be a monogamous species?

▪ It is possible. it requires a lot of internal work; which most people are not willing to go through.
▪ No, I don’t believe so. The reality of our true biological nature does not lend itself to that. We are programmed & learn that we should be, however, just look realistically at the divorce rate & you can see that something is a miss.
▪ I don’t think so… I think monogamy is a choice, one that can be followed through with, but naturally designed to be, no. Look at the bonobo, we are more closely related to them than any other primate/species. They, besides us (humans) are the only species who have sex, just for fun, and they do so with multiple partners. There is no hierarchy, no violence… I think it’s time we realize this, not to necessarily have multiple partners, but to have a better understanding of why we have such a high rate of failed monogamous relationships.
▪ Yes, were designed to be monogamous.. But as we as a human race evolved down through history, very early on we developed an appetite for more, and diverse engagement.. The pleasure center of our being was unlocked and an insatiable desire took over.. Pleasure is one thing, real love is another.. There is something sacred, about loved shared with one…and one only.. But our society doesn’t know how to facilitate that anymore.. There are unseen forces that prompt and Ignite some of the deeper..even hidden.. Passions.. That we might have had for just one person.. So yes, were designed.. But in the current cultural climate it is difficult to maintain.. Must be an incredible commitment to that person in your life.. Subtle, seek to steal and Rob the beauty, of that kind of oneness between two people.. Like some unseen force trying to take it away entirely… Just my sincere and humble opinion.
▪ I used to believe we were meant to be monogamous but I’m believing more and more that there is no way that just one person can satisfy all of our wants and needs (nor can we satisfy them). I believe in being open and honest with a partner but not necessarily monogamous. Just my opinion.
▪ Interestingly . . . way back in time . . . women decided what attributes their child would have . . . strength, stature, gentleness, hair colour, etc. . . . and would then seek out amongst the males in their community or tribe . . . those who embodied or embraced those qualities . . . and they would then mate with all of the chosen ones, repeatedly . . .

When the woman became pregnant with child . . . she would be supported by others of her ilk . . . and when the baby arrived . . . all of the fathers – sperm donors . . . would come to acknowledge their contribution to the new arrival . . . Within the tribe there would be those who quite naturally assumed the fatherly role in the child’s upbringing . . . even though they might not have been amongst the sperm donors .

What does all of this come down too?

Opinions. Beliefs. Programs.

All supported. All beautiful. All correct and all wrong. The true lesson of humanity is to love thy neighbor as thy self. And such raw topics such as infidelity and monogamy vs. non-monogamy are perfect teachers. Yet, fear blinds us. It blinds us from the possibilities of living in harmony and peace by embracing in unconditional love our neighbors, our lovers and mates and even ourselves. Instead of opening our minds and hearts we restrict them and point fingers. We say, “I am not judging you, that is God’s job,” while we state our opinion as fact. We slam the door of brotherhood because we fear our brothers beliefs. We go on witch hunts and call those who do not live according to our ways sluts, whores, tempters and temptresses. We pity them and most of all we fear the questions they pose to our soul without ever verbally asking it: Why am I not happy and what am I so scared of?

Fear is the answer to both.

Both questions come back to false evidence appearing real. Both are based on what we perceive as a danger when in fact, it is only self-created illusion supported by society.

We are not happy because we lack the strength and courage to live in integrity and authentically to be ourselves. We are fearful that if we were to do this, we would loss love, acceptance, family, comfort, all that we know. We fear that what we cherish in our lives and in love is truly conditional based.

We are scared of the reality of these conditions and that by living in our truth we will loose all that we feel we need.

And in reality….

Fear is just an illusion. There is no danger in any of the above. There is the reality that in many cases our fear WILL be supported by those parties we are interacting with and that we may very well find out that what we knew deep down is actually true. But, this just means that it was all a hoax anyway.

The hoax of conditional, fear based, controlling need wearing the mask of unconditional love.

In the end, it is a personal choice. The choice of living in a lie and being a sheep to needs of another or being a lion and standing firm for WHO YOU authentically are, just the way god made you.

Choose wisely. You deserve it!

-KW

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Extra Relationship Energy – By Janet Kira Lessin

1man2womenEarlier this month while Rose, my female lover, furiously rode my husband during a love-in, my body felt that old familiar pain in my gut and my heart once again. I silently collapsed in defeat. Jealousy! When will I ever be done with that ‘ol green-eyed monster?

“I can’t ever possibly compete with that,” I thought as I watched them, peeking between my fingers. “They’re so involved; so wild in their passion, they don’t even notice me and how miserable I feel!”

What chemistry do they experience when they feel that wildness, connection, joy? It looks like, but no, it couldn’t be could it? Could it be … NRE–new relationship energy?

Wait a minute here. My husband had been involved with Coyote and Rose for about 15 years! This was not a new relationship by any means. I met Sash, moved in with and married him. A month later, he introduced me to his lovers, Coyote and Rose. So, if anything, Sasha and I are the ones who possibly still have NRE, not Sasha and Rose!

But here it is, obviously, an energy that is still there for them after all these years.

I had been in two long-term monogamous relationships, 12 years each, spanning 24 years of MY adult life. I know how sexual excitement fades, how lovemaking becomes routine, stale, perhaps even boring. In those monogamous days of my life, I contemplated that “swingers” probably maintained the excitement in their love life by bringing that new, novel energy back home to their beds.

And what of my observations of Sasha and Rose, long, long time lovers? Their energy “felt” to me like NRE. I was jealous. Does he have something different with Rose and not with me-his wife, his buddy, his companion, his lover, his confidant? Perhaps there is a “key” here. What do they have together that Sasha and I don’t have?

Could they be so passionate because they don’t live together? Could it have something to do with the frequency of their encounters? And if there is a different energy for those who are infrequent lovers, perhaps we need to coin yet another phrase?

How about ERE? External Relationship Energy? Extraneous Relationship Energy? Extramarital Relationship Energy? Perhaps OPE: Outside Primary Energy?

Familiarity breeds contempt, doesn’t it? My husband and I counsel couples, triads and moresomes, so I’ve heard all the stories. I’ve also read hundreds of emails and had hundreds of emails, chats and instant messages from people bored with sex with their mates. Many complain “My wife (or husband) won’t make love with me anymore.” The neglected mate often goes out and cheats and feels justified for their actions. “We started out so passionate, so in love. What happened?”

What I think happens is we pent up resentments. Pent-up resentments create distance in our relationships. We always create resentments; we can’t help it. When we’re primary lovers with someone, we inevitably resent them.

We resent our lovers because we’re in the thrall of negative bonding patterns–repeated sour interactions fueled by our childhood conditioning. We react to our lovers as though they were our mothers, fathers or siblings.

We and our partners are imago mates, deeply imprinted, desired soul mates who complete each other, who give touch, sensitivity, intimacy and respect we still need but didn’t get (the way we wanted) from parents. The catch to lovers who could heal our hurts with parents is that our lovers could disappoint us again if they don’t do better than Mom and Dad. Our imago mates resemble our caretakers–not necessarily physically–but emotionally, psychologically and energetically.

Our imago mates mirror us, reflect our disowned subpersonalities, our inner voices. They show us disowned aspects of ourselves we need to use to center ourselves. They mirror underdeveloped parts of our humanity; they do this by what they do or how they are that we envy or hate.

Here’s how this operates for me and Sasha. He snaps at me because he’s scared ex-wife Joan will get our house. He’s upset by that but snaps at me. He morphs into an irritable father. I become withdrawn daughter, then angry mother. He reacts as rebel adolescent. We stick in a parent/adult/parent/adult vicious cycle till we center ourselves, apologize, reconnect and make love wholeheartedly again.

Sometimes partners find that though they forgave each other verbally, resentment lurks within and eventually kills sexual desire. They create internal scoring systems. She hits the “One Too Many Resentments” button and they separate.

We overcome our difficulties and survive in our relationships, react less to our lovers’ predicaments, and learn new ways to enrich ourselves by learning from our lovers. We learn, grow and appreciate our mates more. How do we prevent resenting the heck out of one another over time? How do we keep that passion of NRE or infrequent relationship alive in our primary pair bond?

I suffered jealousy for days; I ranted at Sasha. I penned a 7-page “hate” letter to Rose! (how dare she, that Bitch!). I analyzed my reactions with Sash and Rose when they came over. We’d focused on pleasing them and showing them a good time. But we lost feeling of being connected to each other. I resolved to return to Sasha during water and bathroom breaks. We’d bring each other the passion we’d just shared with our Rose and Coyote. We’d keep returning to each other. Sash enthusiastically agreed.

I keep communication lines wide open with Sash as loving, tactful and honest as I can. We stay orgasmic, follow our tantric practices twice daily, we can also enjoy sexual diversity and simultaneously keep linked to each other. Then we bring the electricity of other loves to each other.

Janet Kira Lessin: Original Post No Longer Available