Although this will probably sound very naive, I had always believed that I would have one sexual partner my entire life. I didn't date much throughout high school and university, and that was for several reasons, concentration on school and lack of self-confidence brought on by being overweight among them. I was also raised to believe that you should wait for marriage to have sex, and that was that. Well, I didn't wind up doing that, but I did wait until I was 26 to find the man who would become my first lover and, ultimately, my husband a few years later. And I only took that step when I felt reasonably sure that we had a committed relationship.
To give some background, I have struggled with my weight my whole life, which affected my self-confidence greatly. Though I ultimately take full responsibility for controlling (or not controlling) my eating habits and activity level, I strongly believe that my weight gain was precipitated, at least in part, by several incidents of inappropriate touching by my former step-father starting when I was five. Because of that, I developed a real distrust of the male species. My husband had quite a few walls to break down before I would let him get close to me, especially emotionally. I pretty much threw issues out there that would be either make or break, one of the biggest ones being a diagnosis shortly before we met that would result in me never being able to have children. He handled it all like a champ, and I let down my well-fortified guard and fell in love. We wound up marrying just a few years later.
Fast forward about a decade. I was now in my early forties, had lost around 100 lbs, and my self-confidence was soaring. I was on vacation in paradise with a girlfriend of mine, at a place I had stayed before. One of the staff that I was already friends with had been flirting with me very heavily, and had made it very obvious that he wanted to sleep with me. One night, very late, he had closed the bar, and he and I were just sitting around chatting. He started holding my hand, stroking my hair and kissing me. He's a good kisser, I must say, so I was enjoying, or at least part of me was. The other part of me was feeling incredibly guilty. He said he wanted to make love to me, that life was too short not to be lived fully. I was tempted, God, was I tempted! I was feeling at the time that, despite my husband still telling me he loved me and that he found me beautiful, that he wasn't really seeing the outside me anymore, after all the years of marriage. He would have loved me if I got disfigured in an accident, or if anything else happened to change my physical appearance. He looked at me, but saw the inner me that he had always loved. Normally, this would be an ideal situation, but it wasnt what I needed at that time. Having someone else come on to me, so hot and heavy, was thrilling, and sent my self-confidence through the roof. But, ultimately, I decided to leave it at the kisses we shared, knowing that I simply couldn't live with the guilt I would feel if I cheated on my husband. So, I went home, remaining friends with the guy who had kissed me and ignited a fire by doing so.
A few weeks later, I was still thinking about the kisses, and the guy as well. Having only ever been with my husband, there was a definite curiosity about what it would feel like to be with someone else, someone who didn't have the history with me that hubby did. So, being the upfront type of person I am, I gathered my courage and told my husband everything that had happened, and what could have happened, and all of my crazy, mixed up feelings about it all. Mostly, I was feeling guilty. Even though it was just some kisses, I felt as guilty as if I had actually slept with the other guy. I was nervous, wondering what his reaction would be. Would this put an irreparable chink in our marriage?
His reaction totally amazed me. He understood why I was curious, and basically told me that he would not have stopped loving me if something had happened, that he would actually have been okay with it. That conversation opened up lines of communication between us that we had never had before. It was, to be honest, an amazing feeling, and one that rejuvenated our marriage. This continues, even to this day.
The next time I went to my vacation spot, I went knowing that I didn't have to say no anymore. And I didn't. And as I was waiting for my "Latin lover" to meet me to share that first night together, I messaged my husband to let him know that it would be happening. I was so thankful for the incredible gift he had given me of being able to explore my curiosity without guilt. Yes, fine, I am a grown woman, able to make her own decisions, and I could quite easily have taken the path of many other married people and just done it behind his back. But, knowing me, I would have been wracked with guilt, and the whole thing probably would have wound up with our marriage ending in divorce. That guilt would have been the underlying factor in every interaction between us, and it would have eaten away at everything we had.
My husband's easygoing attitude about my "exploring", allowing me to do so without guilt, has truly been an incredible gift. Not all of the experiences I have had since we opened things up have been wonderful. But I feel like I'm becoming more confident, and learning more about myself as a sexual woman, with each experience that has happened. And I make sure that I share that newfound confidence with the man who loved his butterfly enough to let her fly free, with the utmost faith that she would only be flying away temporarily, and would be coming back to him a stronger, more vibrant woman.
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