Thanks so much for your feedback and appreciation!KarrieKraves wrote: ↑Tue Jan 23, 2024 9:45 pmHave been following this thread for some time now and figured I’d show some support in terms of what a super job you are doing documenting your (and Emily’s) journey, and what a learning opportunity it is for even for some of the older dogs here like me.
IMO perhaps the most interesting post from you was on Dec 15/23 when you describe the details of Emily’s Birthday Party with Josh in attendance.
“It was also the first time I had to stand there openly in a group of people who knew us, where several people there knew what was going on between Josh and Emily. I couldn’t pretend this was just some bedroom thing we did between us, playing with fantasies.”
Sorry for backtracking somewhat at this point, but is there any way you would consider detailing your above quote any further in terms of your exact thoughts and emotions as you were standing there among these friends. Was Josh there alongside you as well? What was being discussed?
Also (and sorry for so many inquiries) was there any discussion/debriefing between you and Emily on what this had felt like for you later, after the two of you were settled for the night?
Thanks and great thread. Can’t wait for more updates.
Yes - the night of Emily’s birthday party was intense for me. I knew it would be, which is why I was surprised when she casually told me she had invited Josh to her party, like it was nothing, and not something to check in with me about. Since I didn’t really have a choice about whether to be at my own wife’s birthday party, especially since my own friends were also invited, it felt like a really bold move to put us (Josh and me) in the same place in front of all these other people. It felt like a power grab that I wasn’t ready for. Or like she was testing me. But I quickly decided it wasn’t really either. She wasn’t even thinking about it. That almost made it more infuriating – it was so casual. She wasn’t grabbing power to see if she could – she already had it, and truly wasn’t even thinking about – just doing what felt natural to her, inviting her lover to her birthday party.
It did still feel like a test, though – a test she wasn’t watching for me to ‘pass’, but one that would be a problem if I were to fail. And she clearly just expected me not to fail.
As for what was going through my head while at the party – well, to be honest, I was very focused on just keeping things smooth and making it not awkward. Strangely, I was busying myself with making sure Josh didn’t feel uncomfortable, since he didn’t know anyone else, and Emily was hard to get to because it was her party and so many people were talking to her non-stop. I got Josh a drink, and I introduced him to people I thought he might like talking to, and I filled in the gaps by just talking to him myself – asking him politely about work, his life in general.
One way to approach the situation would be to pretend like nothing was what it was, and just connect with him like I was a totally different person and all that other stuff was a game for the bedroom. But that didn’t feel comfortable because we both knew it wasn’t a game and it would be kind of laughable for me to act tough and just bypass the fact that he was fucking Emily in a way I could not, and that I had been showing extraordinary deference to him coming over to do that, repeatedly. So, I walked this fine line, not acting tough or like none of that were true, but also not acting ridiculous either – acting “normal”, but just very soft and respectful, like I would to an authority figure or an older brother I looked up to. It’s all the little things – body language – standing with a humble posture, being overall pleasant and agreeable, making eye contact only for brief moments, but more of it when he was speaking to me, showing with my face that I was giving him my full attention.
I felt humbled – I knew, for instance, that Josh was seeing how I acted with all our friends, and if I were to act really differently from the humble and compliant guy he knew, that would feel kind of silly and embarrassing – like I knew he’d be thinking it was funny. So it forced me to remember, in that social situation, the truth: I’m a guy who has accepted what almost no man would accept: Total stripping down of my masculinity by my wife and by Josh, who was more than happy to displace me from the bedroom.
And of course I did feel self-conscious. I knew her close friends knew who Josh was, and the ones who knew who Josh was also knew that I knew and accepted it. So I knew they’d be looking over at us with curiosity to see how I acted toward him face to face. I had to just absorb their eyes on me as I stood there next to Josh, looking up at him (taller than me), nervous, deferent, and respectful, and obviously accepting him as the alpha male over me, publicly, in my house at my wife’s birthday party.
You have to understand – Josh is extremely good looking, imposingly tall and built, and has this obvious big dick energy about him. And the way Emily responded to being near him, looking up at him with admiring eyes – you’d have to be willfully ignoring that she had sexual affection for him. But she wasn’t doing anything overt to show that. Technically, they were staying within the bounds of normal friendly interaction. Had there not been extended family members of hers at the party, I don’t think she would have held back at all. But because there were several older family members there, she wasn’t interested in having to explain things to them, or to ambush them with seeing her caressing the chest of this big guy and having that confuse them.
As for debriefing afterwards – I don’t remember having any specific conversations about it. It was all just added to the growing body of experience of the new normal. I never did say a word of protest about her inviting him, before or after. I just completely accepted it. Just like she knew I would…