Venting / Oversharing Time

[Erica2Sweet]

Hi Jamie. It appears the corner you've painted yourself in has a few landmines strewn about. You seem very intelligent, so I suspect you know that your involvement with the ex, is ground that has to be treaded-on very lightly, or it could turn ugly fast. The last thing you need right now is to fall into bed with your ex. Even if it were to be with your wife's blessing, I think the repercussions would be life-changing in a very bad way in terms of your marriage.

In your post I see there are some issues you have with the imbalance of peripheral relationships you and she are allowed to partake it. If it were me, I would probably suggest to the wife to temporarily pause ALL external relationships until you and she set right what needs to be within the marriage. Then, take a look at how the rules for external relationships for you and she are structured, so it feels more BALANCED for the both of you. You two together may even decide that peripheral people need to go. Whatever. As long as the decisions here are mutual and communication is TOTALLY HONEST. Be thoughtful in choosing your words as well, but honesty is still paramount. The main point is to get some balance with regard to this issue, or resentment is going to build.

The absolute worst thing you two could do at this point is to fall into bed with peripheral people and ignore your feelings. I've seen this play out and it will turn into a s**tstorm of epic proportions if you do not heed what I write in this paragraph! Do NOT maintain relationships and have sex outside of the marriage unless there is agreement AND balance in terms of the rules in which you two are operating. Did I mention honesty?

One last thing: There are several relationship books out there from around the 1990s that talk about similar situations. They often suggest remedies that involve a changing of your philosophy regarding your relationships and adopt a philosophy of "living in the now" and "being in the moment" to absolve everyone of responsibility. This stuff is garbage that teaches people it's OK to act irresponsibly. It's crap and should be treated as such...