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Comment by 71bw | Hacker News Reader

I can relate to this probably the most out of everything I've seen on HN so far. My fiancee is pansexual and overall seems to prefer women, so I surely am quite a bit of a surprise in her life (to the point where her family laughed at the fact that I 'fixed her' the first time I met them...) as a straight man. I know she loves me, I love her with all my heart but I am aware that at some point she may want to change me for someone of the opposite sex. I have therefore decided that as long as this does not happen behind my back I will support her, even if that means I have to endure a lot of pain.

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I don't really see why you should support that. In your case your wife is not closeted and living a lie, everything is out in the open. So deciding to change you for someone else, regardless of sex, is no different than if I decided to change my wife for another woman. We give stuff up to make a commitment to someone else. It doesn't always work out and I'm not saying people should stay together when they don't want to, but I am questioning your pre-acceptance of your partner wanting to shag someone else even though that would clearly make you very unhappy.

"Prefer women" could be in a sexual context, romantic context, platonic, etc. and the commenter above didn't define it. I imagine it's hard enough for bisexual people to be asked if they're "living a lie" by having to choose a side.

They aren't choosing a side, they're choosing a person. Being bisexual surely just opens the field to more potential mates, but once you're with someone the same rules apply as to folks in any other relationship. And I don't want to sound too conservative - if you choose to be with someone and both agree to have an open relationship of some kind, or any other mutually agreed kind of thing, that's no-ones business but yourselves.

In this case though, they're saying their partner is pansexual - open to many kinds of sexual activities. And they're saying that they'd be accepting if their partner needed to go and do sexy stuff with someone else even though it'd cause them a lot of pain (that's my reading of it, not having a platonic friendship with someone else as you mentioned). I'm asking why? Having a different to hetrosexual appetite before going into a relationship shouldn't give you special rules once you're in one - it's absolutely no different than if a hetrosexual person wanted to sleep around. OK if your relationship allows for that, really not OK if it's going to cause your partner/spouse/love pain, as they said.

Already explained this a bit further in a reply below in the chain, hope this explains a bit more.[1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46033816

Yes that makes more sense. I would take the same approach.

For you and anyone else reading this I recommend the book "the designer relationship" - its actually about polyamory but I think it does a great job solidifying the concept that really, a relationship between two people can be basically whatever they want it to be, not defined by social norms. What comes first is open and honest communication and negotating through hard conversations to find a way of mutually meeting everyones needs

FWIW my wife is bi and dates women, not that really ever bothered me but in no way has it ever been more damaging to our marriage beyond basic scheduling conflicts. I will admit I would have had a much harder time opening up to her being with other men though. Im lucky that she has never fallen in love and wanted to run away with one of em I guess, but partly thats because our marriage is otherwise great and shes already free to explore her gay side so why would she want to leave?

https://www.amazon.com/Designer-Relationships-Monogamy-Polya...

I admit that when reading the description of your relationship (I don't mean to be disrespectful, for what it's worth) I can't help but wonder how it can possibly be consistent with "a relationship between two people can be basically whatever they want it to be." It really reads like the relationship is whatever _she_ wants it to be.

If you had come into the relationship with the understanding that you'd both date/have sex with other people then great; it doesn't matter what other people think. However, when you say that it was hard for you to accept her being with other men, and that you're lucky that "she has never fallen in love and wanted to run away with one of em", damn. My first instinct is that you should take your own advice: find or design a relationship where you don't have to accept this.

I realize that some of my knee jerk reaction might just be instinct/cultural values, I mean no disrespect.

If I didnt like it, I would leave. Reread the post though you misinterpreted our situation.

You have a right to have firm boundaries and communicate them clearly to your partner. Doing so will usually make a relationship and life together better, not worse because your partner will respect your honesty and strength. If her doing that will hurt you, I strongly recommend you communicate clearly and up front that you know she has those interests, but following up on them is a deal breaker for you, and you need her to be honest about that. You’re not even married yet, have the conversation now! It won’t be good for you or for her to be an angry shell of yourself like the dad in the article, making a sacrifice you never wanted to make.

I'm only mentioning this as a potential future divorce topic.

It's not up to debate whether or not I accept cheating because I've already set it as an immovable barrier multiple times: come into sexual contact with anybody else during the marriage and she's going to be thrown out of the window with all of her belongings.

But if she comes to me with honesty and hasn't done anything yet - why would I want to be on bad terms with her as she leaves? I can only be sad at her decision.

Besides what everyone else said, just get yourself a pre-nup too :-)

dude fuck that - cheating is cheating - don't be that guy (unless you're into that sort of thing, of course). if she feels that you aren't the one for her, drop it like it's hot. there's plenty of other fish in the sea

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