agonyaunt | (no subject)

Dear How to Do It,

I am a man engaged to another man and we’re getting married next year. This is going to be my second marriage, as I was in an opposite-sex relationship with one person for my entire twenties. After coming out and getting a divorce, I dated around but didn’t hook up so much, so my body count is pretty low for a gay man. My fiancé came out in high school and has a much higher body count than I do (he’s bisexual and has been with plenty of men, women, and lots of people in between.)

I have made peace with our divergent sexual histories in all ways but one: He wants to invite several of his exes and former FWBs to the wedding. I understand that among queer people this is not unheard of, but at the risk of sounding coarse, I cannot stand the idea that on an occasion in which we will be celebrating what I hope is a long and happy future together a significant number of the guests will have made my fiancé orgasm and that they will likely be thinking about that fact during the service.

I also will have *no one* from my past—friends or family—attending the wedding, as I lost contact with them all as a result of coming out.

Am I overstepping if I ask him to significantly limit the number of wedding guests with whom he has had sex?

—Three’s Company, 12 Is Absurd

Dear Three’s Company, 12 Is Absurd,

It’s your wedding, so you should have a big say in the guest list. However: The course of action with the potential to yield the least amount of drama is to accept that your fiancé keeps strong bonds with people from his past. I understand that it makes you uncomfortable, but at least try to see the good here. It means people want to stay in your husband’s life, irrespective of the sex he offers them—these relationships transcend the transactional, and that’s a sign that you’re with a good guy who treats people well and knows how to be treated. Not only is it not unheard of for gay men to stay connected with exes and former fuck buds, it’s common. This is one way chosen families get made. I have a hard time believing that you’ve truly made peace with your divergent sexual histories, as you seem to want his out of your head entirely. Embracing his past—literally, hug his friends—will do you much better.

These guys aren’t showing up to the wedding of a guy they made nut—they’re showing up to the wedding of a friend. Unless he’s banged some free-meal enthusiasts, they’re showing up because they care about his future and want to support your union. Understand that your fiancé probably isn’t just bringing these people around as one-offs. These people are part of your potential future friend group. So you can gate-keep that out of principle, or you can be generous and let them in. You are still gay-green. In my gay-brown opinion, you should do the latter. Sex is just sex for a lot of us, and we’re no less worth knowing for a casual, grounded attitude about bonding and pleasure with other men.

If the guest list is a monetary concern, then it makes sense to ask your fiancé to limit the number of plates to people that he truly cares about. No fuck boys, no dudes he’s inviting out of obligation. But you’re not offering much by way of the guest list, and this is to be a proper party, right? So he’s going to fill it how he sees fit. Insist on monogamy, fine, but you should refrain from trying to block your future husband from spending time with people who matter to him, regardless of the previous nature of their relationship. That will only cause resentment. If you can’t handle someone who stays in touch with people he slept with, well, he’s showing you who he is and sending you a message in the process. You need to decide whether you can accept that, and by extension him. He’s not going to change without major drama, if at all. Take this as a preview of your future.

Link - note, if you want to follow the link be aware that two of the other letters discuss sexual assault

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I'm very baffled at LW's belief that his fiance's exes/friends will be thinking about all the times they fucked at the ceremony.

That's... not really a normal thing to think about during somebody else's wedding is it? Even if you did have sex with one of the grooms. The normal things to think about during a wedding are things like "They look so happy" and "This is taking forever, when do they cut the cake", right?

I actually think LW needs to put this wedding on hold until he can sort out his issues here, possibly with the help of therapy, because this belief cannot be a good sign for that marriage.

Word.

Or at least LW could do what my favorite ex did with all his exes whom he invited to his wedding, and put them all at Table #13. We were all very amused.

Well, I think the deeper issue is that it's not normal to be so worried about what the guests are thinking about, even if they could in theory being thinking something that would be inappropriate to speak of. (And of course anyone could be. Inappropriate crap flies into people's minds all the time. But being so sure that such specific inappropriate crap will fly into those people's minds - LWdude, that's weird OF YOU to think that.)

I have been to the weddings of multiple people with whom I have had sex. I am boggled about why I would have been thinking about that during the wedding, unless it was the kind of wedding where the afterparty is literally an orgy.

...are there orgy weddings? I guess if you're not inviting your parents it works out....

There are, but I don't think LW would enjoy them!

I have clearly been attending the wrong weddings!

yes, me too!!!!!

Make more friends with lifestyle kinky folks! Scene weddings can be an absolute blast. (Well, depending on your definition of a good time. But lifestyle folks generally wouldn’t be inviting anyone who’d be freaked out by, say, all attendees in leather until the afterparty, when nobody’s wearing much at all.)

I admit, the one full-on scene wedding that I attended was MEMORABLE!! (And a wonderful time!)

I feel like LW needs some time to deal with his insecurities about being an older baby gay but also the massive pain he must be feeling about losing his entire social support network. Like, I'm sure some of this is feeling insecure about his relative sexual inexperience but... I'm pretty comfortable with my exes & FWBs and my partners' exes and FWBs & so on, but I would still really hate to have no guests at my wedding & be surrounded by only my spouse's friends...

I dunno, maybe they have financial reasons to marry now, but it might be nice to put off the ceremony until LW has a bigger social circle of people to invite.

I think you have a very good point.

Yeah, it's hard to tell if LW has nobody to invite, period, or just nobody from his life before he came out but he has a lovely queer found family to equal his fiance's. But if it's the first one - or anything at all like the first one - and I kind of expect it is, given he doesn't seem to have any other connections to his fiance's friend group - my advice is the exes are a side note, don't marry anyone until you have a support system other than just the person you're marrying!

Nobody still using a gross phrase like "body count" has actually made peace with their having had sex with fewer people than they would like to have had. And someone still being friends with multiple exes is frequently a good sign! Much better than if every story about an ex ended up with saying they turned out to be awful!

I wince whenever I hear that phrase. It's only appropriate if you're discussing a serial killer!

And I'm close friends with a number of exes (and have attended weddings of friends who had been intimate partners of mine, and actually had a bit of history with one of my *officiants* at my own wedding), and none of that ever particularly crossed my mind during their (or my) weddings.

Mostly, I was just happy for them!!

I think the LW would benefit from some counseling to deal with the pain of losing his family/friends when he came out, and dealing with his insecurities about his partner's sexual history -- *especially* in the queer community, *extra especially* with gay men, that level of discomfort is not going to serve him well in the long run.

None of this means that he doesn't get to desire monogamy or have the type of relationship/marriage that he wants . . . but this is going to be an ongoing pain point if he's uncomfortable with his husband still being close friends with former partners.

I'm yet another "went to an ex's wedding, did not think about his orgasms during the ceremony" person. Thoughts included things like "aww his little sister is a real live grown-up now" and "please don't rain please don't rain please don't rain" and "oh look, there's his old roommate, I should say hi at the reception."

I have had friends who married "everyone is consumed with desire for my partner at all times" spouses, and it was not fun for anybody.

"I also will have *no one* from my past—friends or family—attending the wedding, as I lost contact with them all as a result of coming out."

This wedding sounds a little saddening to me, and maybe LW and fiance should think about scaling it back a bit. Fiance can maintain ties with his FWBs and all that without having them at the wedding and reception, surely? Maybe invite only a subset based on criteria such as "We see X regularly for dinner and in our friend group?" A smaller list with a less-disproportionate weighting toward fiance's past? I think fiance may be reflexively outgoing and isn't thinking about the cumulative effect here.

I really want to tell LW that I scheduled my husband's memorial service at least in part so my Favorite Ex was able to attend. (He wore a t-shirt under his sweater that said "That's a terrible idea! ...what time should I show up?")