My SO had a sexual encounter with another person. What do I do?

Post date: 2020-02-27 18:54:08

My SO/partner had a sexual encounter with another person. She recently told me. What's really difficult is that when she told me, I had to ask many questions from her to get the full truth, and I kind of feel like actually hurt more by how much I had to try. How should I move forward, if at all?

Context: cishet kinda queer couple, early 30s. I'm a man, partner is a woman. We've been dating for four years now; my partner is a close collaborator, my best friend. We've been going through some rocky patches but things were looking up. And I think this matters: the 'other person' is a person who is AFAB, trans, and non-binary.

Recently my partner went to a different city for a week long trip with some friends. I was very supportive of this. It sounds like it was a week of celebration, gathering, and of exploration.

Today she got back and told me that she had a sexual encounter with another person. The encounter was fully clothes on, hugging and heavy petting and grinding on each other, touching over clothes and breathing together, for about an hour. I'm a bit in shock and thus really calm, mostly deeply sad and lonely and disappointed. I don't know this other person, and will probably not meet them or their social circle.

What really hurts, even more than what happened, is that it took me an hour to even figure out what happened. It wasn't as clear as the sentence above: my partner told me "I touched someone. I asked 'can I hug you?' and then we hugged. but it was mostly hugging". And I asked, "mostly?" And then she shared, "well, we were grinding on each other." And then I had to keep on asking questions to figure out what exactly happened.

What also really hurts is that she said she thought about calling me beforehand, but "didn't want to put me on the spot" and so went ahead. We're not in an open relationship, although we've discussed it but never conclusively created boundaries or said "ok yes, we're doing this". Granted, the last time I did bring it up and said that I'd like to sit down and talk about what that might mean. She told me that she told the other person that she had a partner; the other person asked if she was non-monogamous, and she told them: "we've talked about it". When I asked her if she thinks that we're in a non-monogamous relationship, she didn't say yes and she didn't say no. When I asked her if she would describe us to our friends as being non-monogamous, she said "I'd say to our friends that we've talked about it".

Honestly some of what she said tonight is a bit of a blur. She said that it wasn't a big deal, it wasn't passionate but just sweet and friendly and hot. She said that they'll never probably see each other again. She said that the other person is really nice (I'm sure they are).

What also hurts is that she kept on using the word "we" to talk about her and the other person.

I generally tried to receive it really calmly at first. My voice was low and steady. I told her that I was feeling a swirl of emotions. I told her that I was happy for her that she had a connection with her and am genuinely happy for her happiness, because I care about her. I told her that I feel hurt and sad and strangely calm in my sadness and not sure how to respond.

I told her that I am mostly sad because I feel like I have learned part of the story, and that another part of the story is occluded from me. That some part of the story I had to uncover by asking questions. So I am sitting with the fact that it feels that honesty isn't something I received from her but something that I had to find or unearth all on my own. And that deeply saddens and upsets me.

When I shared this all and asked her a few times, "is there anything else you want to share with me" was when I finally received a more specific account as to what she did, which I described above.

And then after this all I reiterated that I was sad. And then for the first time in the evening after an hour and a half of talking she told me that she was sorry.

I wonder if, for my partner, the other person being non-binary or afab had anything to do with it feeling less like cheating? Like if the other person was a cis man then it would be more "serious" to her? I know like this is adjacent to shitty queerphobic/transphobic lines of thought ('queer relationships aren't real' etc). Either way it's not what happened or who it happened with that especially hurts.

What especially hurts is the way in which it didn't feel like my partner was being forthcoming or direct in their honesty, but trying really hard to "not get in trouble" with me. In fact, at some point they even said "I feel like I'm in trouble" and I shrugged and said, "I'm your partner, not your parent".

I don't know what to do. I told her I needed space to process. I'm upset and sad and angry and disappointed. I wonder if this is the end. What's really sad is that I've been in a relationship that was monogamish which worked well through lots of communication and I was able to be happy for my partner's sexual encounters. I feel sad that what happened, in a different timeline with more communication and consent, could have been a really fun and sexy time for my partner and that I could have been genuinely happy and excited for them — but now I'm upset and sad because of how difficult the communication was instead.

I love my partner and care about them deeply. We have been dealing with a lot of issues that are about unbalanced care and support, where I help them often, or they can feel younger, etc. I don't know how to deal with this. I know that my feelings are valid and whatever I need in the relationship is valid also, but I'm having a hard time because I don't know if my partner will actually ever squarely help us work things out. Based on past conversations I know that I could facilitate or start a conversation about console her / make her and us feel better. What I really want is for her to be calm and direct and honest and apologetic and responsible and vulnerable and compassionate and self-reflective about what she did. I don't know if I'll receive this though, unless I ask for it. And I don't know if this is something I should ask for, or just realize that if she isn't coming to the table with this kind of conversation, then I should learn to accept it and decide how I feel about it.

I don't know. This comes at a time when I'm trying to understand our long-long term commitment to each other. So it's making things very confusing.

Thank you SO MUCH for reading all of this and I'd appreciate and and all of your thoughts and feelings.

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