There are countless pornified blogs on Tumblr claiming to involve siblings in consanguinamorous relationships. It's always good to find a blog that focuses on a consanguinamorous relationship as more than merely sexual, and details life in general for someone who in such a relationship. Star Crossed Life is one of those, and I'm hoping to see the blog continue.
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Monday, January 8, 2018
Sunday, January 7, 2018
NOT a Good Reason to Deny (Polyamorous) Love #14
“What about insurance/employment benefits?” There are many simple ways to deal with this. It is dealt with when an employee has more kids than the next, isn't it? It is not a good reason to deny the polygamous freedom to marry or polyamorous relationship rights in general.. This is something the law and/or employers and unions can figure out.
There is no good reason to deny an adult, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race or religion, the right to share love, sex, residence, and marriage (and any of those without the others) with any and all consenting adults without prosecution, bullying, or discrimination.
Feel free to share, copy and paste, and otherwise distribute. This has been adapted from this page at Full Marriage Equality: http://ift.tt/1K0B6Zj
Go to NOT a Good Reason to Deny (Polyamorous) Love #13
Go to NOT a Good Reason to Deny (Polyamorous) Love #15
Saturday, January 6, 2018
Do These Relationships Work?
"do incest relationships work"
To answer that, one must describe what means for a relationship to "work."
For some people, a relationship only "works" if it is heterosexual and always monogamous, involves religious and civilly affirmed marriage, produces (or at least raises) children, and lasts until one of the spouses dies.
For me, a relationship "works" if you are, as a whole and excluding artificial negatives like prosecution and discrimination, better off as a result of having been in the relationship. What makes you "better off" is up to you. It could be strictly that you enjoyed this person's company, but it could also be that you had children together, or helped each other grow as people, or made new friends through the other person, or helped each other's careers, or... well, any number of things. A relationship doesn't have to last until death to leave you better off.
A sure sign a relationship isn't working is if one of you is abusing the other, or you're abusing each other.
Over the years, I've been fortunate enough to talk with countless people who've been involved in consanguinamory. A few of them have even been generous enough to be interviewed. For most of the people I've talked with, the relationships have worked. If the consanguinamory is in the past, they have fond memories of the great times that were shared and the emotional growth they had as a result, even the sexual confidence they developed. For many, the relationship continues and provides times of unmatched bliss and intense intimacy, even shared parenting that they have found fulfilling.
So yes, they can and do work.
And, by the way, some of them are heterosexual, always monogamous, produce and raise great people, and last until death, and it is an injustice that they are still discriminated against under the law.
Friday, January 5, 2018
Would your teen know what to do if something went wrong at a party? Even with the information do they have the 'brain wiring' to respond appropriately?
"More than 10 percent of all children and young teens between the ages of eleven and sixteen have had to cope at one time with a friend who was sick, injured, or unconscious owing to excessive alcohol consumption. Half of those had to deal with a friend who passed out. More broadly, the survey found that nine out of ten adolescents have had to deal with some kind of crisis involving another person during their teenage years - a head injury, choking, an asthma attack, an epileptic seizure, etc. Forty-four percent of the teens surveyed admitted to panicking in that emergency situation, and nearly half (46 percent) acknowledged they didn't know how to respond at all."
I don't think the results of the study would shock many, in fact I was surprised that it was only 10% who reported looking after someone who was drunk (although the age range could have something to do with it - you would hope very few 11 or 12-year-olds would be dealing with this issue). Years ago I used to ask Year 10 students to indicate whether they had ever had to look after a drunk friend - it was usually about one third of the group who said that they had. That's frightening when you think that these are 15-year-olds who have little, if any, life experience and brains that are not 'wired' to respond well to danger ... A significant number of these young people are trying to deal with potentially life-threatening situations and don't have the information or the capacity to respond appropriately.
Over the years I have been involved with so many tragic cases of young people dying simply because those around them did not know what to do when something went wrong. When it comes to this area, there are two issues that continue to frustrate me with parents:
- some believe that if alcohol is provided to young people or they are given a 'safe space' to drink then if something does go wrong they will be more likely to seek help from adults without fear of getting into trouble, and
- those parents who choose to provide alcohol to their child to drink at parties rarely, if ever, ensure that their teen is also provided with accurate information and advice on what to do if something goes amiss
Cassie had recently separated from her husband and wanted to make her daughter's birthday special. Even though she didn't feel comfortable with the decision, she was eventually bullied into providing alcohol at the party by her daughter, Jo, who convinced her that everybody else's parents were doing the same thing (something she later found out simply wasn't true). At some point during the evening one of Jo's friends, aged just 15, became so drunk that she lapsed into unconsciousness. Instead of seeking help from Cassie, or one of the other adults at the party, Jo and three other girls carried the drunk young woman into a bedroom and lay her on the bed. The four girls, who had also all been drinking, sat on the bed and did their best to look after their friend. It was not until some time later that they realized their friend was dead. At some point she had vomited and choked to death and not one of the four young women had noticed!
I kept in touch with Cassie for many years. She was understandably devastated by what had happened and for a long time believed that she had 'killed' the young woman. There were a whole pile of issues that she struggled with but she could simply never understand why four smart young women did not come to her or find another sober adult to help look after their drunk friend. Why didn't they call an ambulance? They were not going to get into trouble and no judgement would be made about their behaviour. It just didn't make sense ... In her book, Jensen gives a similar example of teens not responding appropriately to an alcohol-related incident. Something went wrong and they took action but they didn't call an ambulance. She describes this behaviour as follows - "... the teenagers' amygdalae (the emotional part of the brain) had signalled danger, but their frontal lobes (reasoned thinking and judgement) didn't respond. Instead, the teens acted in the moment." Put simply, during the teen years they simply don't have the 'brain wiring' to always respond appropriately ...
I wrote about my second concern only recently but it's worth saying one more time! If you are going to make the decision to provide alcohol to your teen to drink at a party or a gathering on a Saturday night (and that is only your decision to make - no-one can tell you what to do with your child) then the least you can do is to ensure they are armed with some basic safety information at the same time! Simply handing over the bottles, then dropping them off at someone's house without one skerrick of advice or information should something go wrong is plain wrong and totally irresponsible ...
Now you may be thinking 'but what's the point of providing them information if their brain is not wired to use it appropriately?' Well, this is where it comes down to understanding what the teen brain is capable of doing, or at least what type of information has the best chance of being effective. If you want a teen to respond to safety advice, it really boils down to three key points:
- keep it simple
- keep it practical
- repeat and repeat and then repeat again
We're never going to be able to prevent young people from finding themselves in risky situations. As much as all parents want to protect their kids from danger, at some point you have to let them take risks, make mistakes and learn from them. But this does not mean that at 14 or 15-years-old you should abandon all rules and boundaries and simply accept that 'they're all going to drink anyway' and place them in situations of unnecessary risk ... As they enter middle adolescence, many of them may start to look like they have the bodies of young adults but parents should never forget that their brains have a lot of catching up to do ...
Thursday, January 4, 2018
We Get Letters From Adults Denied Their Rights
I'm in a relationship with my older brother.Congrats!
I'm 23 and he's 26. I've loved him since way back. It eventually evolved over the years in what I would describe as a beautiful natural way, because we love each other.
It's especially cruel when people feel perfectly matched and like they could never be as happy without each other and being with someone else instead, and they are told by others, including people who will never be in their life, that they can't be together.
We will always be a couple. Few are so lucky that they find their perfect match.
The one curse is how people look at it. I broke down once when I was drunk and told my best friend. I was stunned when she said: "Oh, I knew that." Well, she said that she had definitely suspected that it was going on. She was cool with it, because she knows how good my brother and I are together. And that's why she's my best friend, love her! I was lucky once again, I guess.It is such a good thing when you discover your friend is an ally. It is interesting that she'd figured it out already. Just as the relationships are more common than people think, so is it more common for friends and family to figure out what is going on than the people in the relationships realize. When someone is experiencing that double love bond of consanguinamory, it usually shows.
But it would destroy our parents, just destroy them!That's too bad, if it is true. Sometimes parents surprise us, in a good way. Sometimes in a bad way.
Does anyone here have any experience about "coming out"?I do know siblings who have come out. Here's what I've written about coming out.
Also, we are looking into moving to France. So at least we don't have to worry about the criminal aspect.
But, again, it's the social stigma that's so bad. I would love to be able to scream to the world: "This is my brother and I love him with all of my heart!"
Does anyone know if there is a country (or place) where people would perhaps understand and accept? Would it be France? Spain? Japan?If you move to where nobody knows you, you can present yourselves as a "regular" couple. Attitudes about consanguinamory have a long way to go, so people still need to protect themselves.
Well, I just had to write something, because it's so lonely to be in this situation.Comment on the blog anytime. Please email fullmarriageequality at protonmail dot com. You can also connect with me on Facebook. And, of course, there is the Kindred Spirits forum.
Good luck to all of you who have found your true lover to be a sibling!
It's a shame you can discuss this openly yet and had to comment as Anonymous.We are working towards full marriage equality and opening minds so that nobody has to hide their love.
Can I be affected (or get stoned) if someone around me is smoking cannabis?
It sounds as though you are someone who has never used a drug like cannabis and you have no intention of ever doing so. If that is the case, it is no surprise that being around those using the drug could worry you. In most parts of the world cannabis is still an illegal drug and being around people who are breaking the law can often result in problems for you, even if you're not actually involved. But as far as the risk of being affected by cannabis due to exposure to the drug by others smoking around you ('passive cannabis smoking'), from what we know from current research it should not be a major concern.
Just being in a room where people are smoking and the smell of cannabis is in the air is not sufficient to cause effects and you should not be worried about such levels of exposure. If you are in a very confined space that is not well ventilated, it is possible, however, to experience mild intoxication from inhaling the smoke of others. Even then, the effect would be at much lower levels. An effect is more likely to be experienced when the newer, stronger strains of cannabis are smoked as they contain higher levels of THC (the chemical that produces the high) that can be found in side-stream and exhaled smoke. Realistically, however, this is a situation that can, and should be, avoided.
The simplest thing to do if you suspect someone is smoking or vaping cannabis near you and that you may be exposed to smoke or vapour is to move away, or excuse yourself politely if you know the person. If you don't feel comfortable about being honest with them and telling them about your concerns, say that you are allergic to the smoke/vapour or you're worried about the smell of the smoke getting onto your clothes or into your hair. Alternatively, simply make an excuse to leave the room when they're using the drug. Even though the risk of being affected by the drug is low, if being around someone who is smoking the drug causes you to become anxious, avoid the situation when you can - it's just not worth the worry!
Wednesday, January 3, 2018
If You Get Called to Jury Duty
The Basics of Criminal Case Juries in the US
Here in the US, people being accused of criminal activity have a right to a trial by jury or they can go with having a judge decide their case. If they go with a jury trial, the judge pretty much acts like a referee until the jury reaches a decision. The decision will be in the hands of the jury, not the judge. The judge should give you no indication of whether they think the defendant is guilty or not.
For a criminal conviction, the jury of twelve people has to unanimously decide the person on trial is "guilty" and it is supposed to be because the prosecution proved their case for guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt." If just one person (or, up to eleven people) on the jury says "not guilty" and won't budge, the case ends in a mistrial and the prosecutor can try again with another jury. If all twelve say "not guilty" then the accused is cleared of that crime and can't be retried for the same crime for the same incident. People can appeal after they've been convicted of a crime, but their appeal usually won't get them cleared.
Why This is Relevant to This Blog
As mentioned above, Utah can still prosecute adults for unmarried cohabitation and polyfidelity.
Also, 48 of 50 states have a law against some form of consanguinamory, and all states would currently consider a marriage licensed filed by, say, a sibling couple, to be fraudulent. Some states criminally prosecute first cousins for having sex, and about half of states will not marry first cousins, and so first cousins who file a marriage license may be prosecuted for fraud. So, consensual sex and "fraud" are two things for which Friends of Lily could be unjustly prosecuted in state courts. Federal courts would deal with consanguinamory on an "Indian Reservation" (land controlled by indigenous peoples) and in the military.
If you're an American citizen, you might be called to jury duty about once per year. For each case, there is a screening process to see if the judge and the prosecution and the defense all agree that you'd be an appropriate juror (including being sufficiently unbiased) for any given case. For example, if you're a teetotaler and think drinking at all is sinful, you're probably not going to get placed on a jury in a DUI trial, but you might end up on a shoplifting trial.
Until we have relationship rights, including full marriage equality, for all adults, there is a possibility if you're an American citizen that you could get considered to serve a juror for a case in which someone is being prosecuted under the unjust laws mentioned above.
Your Basic Choices
Please keep in mind that this blog does not officially offer legal advice. Also, please keep in mind that there is such a thing as "contempt of court," in which a judge can have you thrown in jail if you do something they consider to be problematic in their courtroom. Finally, if you are "sworn in" or put under oath, lying can be prosecuted as perjury.
With the above in mind, your basic choices if you are being considered to serve on a jury in one of these cases are:
1) Get out of jury duty by, when they question you, saying you can't possibly be impartial because you believe what the people are alleged to have done shouldn't be a crime.There is a chance you won't actually get picked to serve on the jury if you choose the second. You certainly will not be placed on the jury if you choose the first.
2) Give the impression you agree with the law and will serve without a prejudice for or against conviction, then once it is time for the jury to deliberate to rule "guilty" or "not guilty", refuse to vote "guilty" and refuse to budge.
The first choice would be the honest thing to do. But honesty is not always the most ethical policy. An extreme example: You're in Germany in 1943. Government officials come to your door and ask you know of anyone in the neighborhood hiding Jews. You're hiding Jews, but being honest is NOT the right thing to do. The judge, who has to constantly deal with people trying to get out of jury duty, might be irritated with you (or might appreciate your honesty), but you'd get removed from consideration to be on that case.
You would definitely irritate the judge and the prosecutor (and might be found to be "in contempt of court") if you loudly (so all the rest of the potential jurors could hear) elaborated by saying something like, "This shouldn't be a crime to begin with. Who is the victim? In light of Lawrence v. Texas, United States v. Windsor, Obergefell v. Hodges, and the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, it is clear to me that this law is unconstitutional. Consenting adults have a right to private sex and a right to marry, and I personally know people who are in such a relationship and it is a very beautiful thing. I'm aware that jurors can vote 'not guilty' when they understand a law to be unjust."
That last thing is called "jury nullification". Yes, the prosecution proved their case, yes, the defendant broke the law, but you vote "not guilty" because the law is unjust. It has been used for good and bad. An example of how it has been used for bad is when white racists on a jury refused to convict a white person of murdering a back person even though they knew the white person was guilty.
If you try a more gentle approach, you're less likely to get in trouble while still getting the other potential jurors to think critically about the case. The gentle approach would be, for when you are asked if you have questions or if you understand the charges or the nature of the case, to ask something like, "So, this is a situation involving consenting adults and not an abuse case?" followed up with "Why is that illegal? I don't understand." It would best to seem genuinely surprised. The more questions you can ask in your apparent attempt for clarity, the better. Think something like, "So there's no victim?" and "I have a friend who has a genetic condition. Is it illegal for him to have sex with [or marry] another consenting adult because he might pass along his condition to his children? No? OK, then why are these people in trouble?" You can come up with many different questions using the material here.
The second choice, which would be indicating you will give the case impartial consideration based on the evidence presented, might get you on the jury, but might be breaking the oath. Although, the prevailing allegiance is to the Constitution, and these laws are unconstitutional.
If you did this and are placed on the jury, you could prevent someone from being sent to prison (and registering as a sex offender if that's a possibility, and all of the other things that come along with being criminally convicted under these laws) by at least taking the case to mistrial. If you were the lone "not guilty" vote, it is likely the prosecution would try again with another jury, but there's a chance they wouldn't. You'd have to endure a lot of pressure from at least some of the other jurors (if the prosecution does prove their case) and even the judge, but unless it can be proven that you lied to get on the jury or have been violating the judge's orders by doing research during the trial, you wouldn't get into any trouble. In the best case scenario, you would convince anyone on the jury who wanted to vote "guilty" to go with "not guilty" and get the defendant(s) cleared of the crime and they would be free and couldn't be retried for the same events. Even if you didn't get that, if you convince SOME of the other people on the jury to go with "not guilty" the case ends in a mistrial, and if the jury was split 7-5 or 6-6 or whatever, the prosecutor might not want to bother with another trial.
When A Guilty Verdict is Good
The one time a conviction of guilt would be "good" is if it was set up as a test case to try to get the state law or federal law overturned by a higher court or to get a nationwide overturning of the laws by the Supreme Court. That's because after the conviction, the defendants would appeal to the higher courts to have the conviction overturned, and the case would hopefully work its way up through the court system. Test cases are usually planned out between lawyers and the people who are going to be arrested and put on trial. BUT... it is likely someone who has planned a test case is going to go with a trial by judge, not a jury, even avoiding the trial by simply pleading "no contest" and then appealing the judge's "guilty" decision.
Also note that for some things, a civil lawsuit can be filed to attempt to get a test case going, rather than undergoing criminal prosecution, with the same ultimate goal of a higher court such as a state Supreme Court, Federal Court of Appeals, or US Supreme Court ruling in favor of rights and equality. An example would be a consanguinamorous couple suing a state/county office for a marriage license.
Final Thoughts
You should vote "not guilty" even if you don't like the defendant or you think the relationship isn't a good one, if the prosecution didn't prove their case. Also, one may decide to engage in jury nullification even if the case was proven and even if they don't like the defendant or don't think the relationship is a good one, because nobody should be criminally prosecuted for having a consensual relationship with another adult.
Please note that if YOU are in such a relationship, the Fifth Amendment protects you against being forced to incriminate yourself, so you don't have to volunteer that you yourself are in such a relationship or have been. It's better not to.
This blog can't tell you what to do if you ever get called to jury duty for a case like this. You'll have to decide for yourself how you'll handle it.
Carrot Halwa/ Gaajar ka Halwa; quick and healthy version
Happy New Year to all of you. To start off the year on a sweet note, I rustled up together some carrot Halwa or gaajar ka Halwa as it is popularly known. This is akin to a pudding where in shredded carrot is cooked with milk or milk solids, sugar and clarified butter. This is a winter delicacy. I remember the last time which was basically my first time making carrot halwa. It was almost 25 years ago on New Year’s eve, where I spent half the night cooking the carrots, waiting for it to reduce. You guys know that I am not a person for long drawn process. I never ventured to make it again until now. This time I used a quick technique which was basically a trial and error which worked out well. I bought shredded carrots which I pressure cooked with condensed milk which I then cooked on stovetop for a few minutes and reduced the liquid. Add in some raisins , nuts and clarified butter and Viola! Gaajar ka Halwa is ready!
You must try this technique to see the ease of making it. You will never use any other methods.
Servings: 3-4
Prep time: 5 minutesCook time: 45 minutesTotal time: 50-60 minutes
Ingredients:
Shredded carrots: 4 cups
Condensed milk: 1 can
Clarified butter/ghee: 2 tbsp
Cardamom powder: 1/8 tsp
Raisins: 2 tbsp
Nuts: 2 tbsp, chopped. ( I used slivered almonds)
Method:
In a pot take the shredded carrots and condensed milk. Cook this in a pressure cooker. It takes about 15-20 minutes. Turn off the pressure cooker. Open only after the steam is completely released.
Now cook on medium high on stove top, stirring intermittently until the liquid is almost gone. Reduce flame to low.
When the carrots are cooking, lightly toast the raisins and nuts in 1 tsp clarified butter. Add this to the above pot with the remaining clarified butter. Mix well. Add the cardamom powder. Stir. Turn off the flame.
Garnish with pieces of nuts.
Stays fresh for upto 1 week in the refrigerator.
Serve warm as is or with ice cream!
Enjoy!
Cooking made easy:
Regular milk/evaporated milk or heavy cream can also be used. You can also pressure cook using water and then add milk solids such as mava.
Tip for healthy living:
Desserts are best eaten in small quantities just enough to satisfy your sweet tooth and prevent you from craving it.
Food for thought:
We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, to have the life that is waiting for us. E.M. Foster
We Get Letters About Scratching an Itch
I'm 51 years old married mom. I'm sexually involved with my 27 years old son. My husband is still alive, but he doesn't know.Relax. You’ll find I am not about to throw stones.
Keith, you say you don't support cheating. But I don't know what to do. I love my husband very much and I don't want to be separated from him. At the same time I love my son too and the physical satisfaction he gives me makes our bond stronger. And to be honest me and husband not sexually active for over 20 years or so. But that didn't make me love him less. I never cheated on him before and I know he would never cheat on me. But now I have fallen into a quicksand and I can't find a way to get up. I don't know what should we do.
How many people are in similar situations? More than most people think.
Getting Into a Predicament
In an ongoing relationship, the sex or even all physical affection and/or romance ends or is reduced to the point someone feels deprived. Discussing it doesn’t resolve the problem. Counseling or therapy doesn’t resolve the problem (or the spouse refuses to discuss it or get counseling or therapy).
Perhaps health is an issue. There are people married to people who don’t even know who they are anymore, due to memory problems, and it won’t get better. The choice then becomes: leave or stay. In some cases, leaving would be detrimental to the spouse being left. Someone who stays might be able to ask for an arrangement or agreement, if the other spouse is lucid and able to communicate. Ideally, this is what would be done when someone stays but feels deprived. Life, however, isn’t always that easy and clean. Some people have too much of what some might call pride and others might call jealousy or even selfishness or bitterness and could never bring themselves to explicitly grant their spouse “permission” to seek fulfillment with someone else, but secretly are fine, or even happy, with their spouse getting what they need.
Sometimes it isn’t a physical or mental issue, but rather an identity issue. Due to prejudices and pressures, people entered into heterosexual, monogamous, closed marriages with someone to whom they were not sexually attracted, or even though they are polyamorous, or consanguinamorous. This has been very common when and where LGBT and Asexual people have been basically forced into marriages with someone to whom they weren’t attracted. It can take a long time for someone to come to terms with who they really are, especially if family or cultural pressures are against them.
In addition to external pressures, people get married and stay married for many different reasons, including, but not limited to, wanting to share: a bed, a home, dates, friendship, sex, physical affection, finances, a business, conceiving children, raising children, and leisure and recreation. Some spouses rarely actually sleep together and like to take separate vacations, but do have an active sex life together and enjoy hiking together every weekend. It’s great when spouses enjoy each other for general companionship and are romantically and sexually attracted to each other throughout their marriage, but that isn’t reality for most couples. You can find married couples who literally spend about 23 of 24 hours together on a daily basis. Others would murder each other if they had to do that, but are very much in love and look after each other affectionately and devotedly.
When something very important to a spouse gets taken away from a marriage, it’s easy for everyone else to say “get a divorce,” but what if that would leave the person being left worse off? And while divorce is acceptable in many cultures, there are some where it is very difficult, legally and/or culturally, to get a divorce, and in some of those cultures affairs are tacitly approved. It’s also easy for everyone else to say “Stay and deal with it.”
Sex is a normal, natural, and for some people, an essential part of life. It isn’t just about orgasms (most people can give themselves orgasms), but that physical, primal connection with other people.
On Cheating
Yes, this blog does not endorse cheating. As a reminder, I’m polyamorous and I fully support all forms of ethical nonmonogamy. Cheating means breaking existing agreements or vows and not informing the other person or people so that they think the agreement is still intact. If the agreement is that they can both have up two other lovers, it wouldn’t be cheating to have two other lovers. It would be cheating to take on a third additional lover while retaining the other two, unless this was something negotiated.
Anonymous apparently had an explicit or implied agreement with her husband that they’d have no other lovers. Usually, though, part of that agreement is that they would not deprive each other, but would rather be available to each other as sexual partners. For whatever reason, he hasn’t been available for over 20 years.
Now let’s look at what problems cheating can cause:
1. Spreading sexually transmitted infections. Even if Anonymous were to contract such an infection from her son, she would not be passing it along to her husband (at least not sexually).
2. Paternity fraud/paternity claims on the joint estate. She’s not going to get pregnant. He’s not going to get pregnant, so this isn’t a risk, either.
3. Depriving a partner of time and/or energy. It’s a definite problem if someone is cheating, has sex with their cheating partner, then goes home to an official partner and the official partner, who wants to make love, is rejected because the cheater just had sex with someone else. That’s not a risk in this case.
4. Dividing loyalties. She’s actually staying loyal to her husband. It is unlikely that, in trying to please her son, she’s going to do something detrimental to her husband. It’s not likely the son will grow resentful of his father and confront him or attack him.
5. Luring away a partner. We’ve all seen this, right? Someone cheats on their spouse or partner and leaves their official partner or spouse for their cheating partner. Even when that’s how it appears, it might not always be so. It is possible the departing partner was going to leave even with no affair (and in some of those cases, for good reason). Regardless, it doesn’t apply in this case. She’s not leaving her husband.
6. Public embarrassment or ridicule. This is often tied into some or all of 1-5, but also happens when a lot of other people know what’s going on, but the official partner doesn’t. It can be humiliating and traumatizing. However, it doesn’t really apply to this case.
7. Violation of trust/lack of trust going forward. Most of this is tied to some or all of the above. In this case, however, how does the husband lose trust? It doesn’t really apply.
So Where Does That Leave Things?
Ideally, Anonymous could have gone to her husband and asked for their agreement to be modified, promising him that she would discreetly take on one lover and it wasn’t going to be something that would bring public embarrassment to him and he wouldn’t have to see or hear about it, and she wouldn't leave him for the new lover. Her husband would then have agreed to the modification. Some husbands would even encourage this sort of thing.
That's not what happened, though.
Even so, she is not depriving her husband of anything.
There is a good chance her husband knows, or has a strong suspicion, whether he is in denial or quietly resigned to it. The double love bond between a mother and son can create a sense in both the mother and the son that others can see, even if they don't know exactly what's causing it. Since he's her husband and, especially if he's the boy's father, he's very near to this connection, so on some level he probably knows.
While this blog does not endorse cheating, I can't think of a better way for her to get her needs met while staying with her husband. Her son loves her and will protect her privacy and that of her husband. She knows him well. They are sharing an experience unlike any other.
I'm very interested in hearing more from Anonymous (especially how this started) and anyone, parent, adult child, partner/spouse, or sibling of the adult child who is in a similar situation. I never share what anyone tells me without their permission. You can email fullmarriageequality at protonmail dot com (preferably) or comment after this entry. Anyone else is also welcome to comment, provided you follow the rules, or write to me.
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