From the beginning ...

I've always been a traditional girl. Raised in the South by parents who have been together for more than 30 years, it was always my idea that once I got married I would remain devoted and committed to my husband for the rest of my life. In my mind, it all worked out beautifully and simply. We would marry, have kids and grow old together.

But about two years ago - a few weeks after my husband Mark and I celebrated our first anniversary with a romantic trip to Charleston, South Carolina - he told me something that literally knocked the wind out of me. His admission was that he fantasized about me being with another man. His fantasies involved me meeting, dating and eventually sleeping with a man that wasn't him - again and again. While he said he was interested in watching me experience intimacy with a lover, his primary motivation was expanding my pleasure, allowing me to explore my sexuality with others whether he was present or not.

The confession threw me into an emotional tailspin for weeks. I was hurt, angry, confused and not at all happy about this new development. I couldn't reconcile at the time - and I still struggle with this - how he could profess to love me yet still want me to give myself to someone else - to share my most intimate secrets and desires with a man who would be a stranger to him.

Months would pass, and while the initial shock of his admission had worn off, the hurt and sting surrounding the idea of me giving myself to another man did not. Over time, however, as he explained how much he loved me and how important it was to him for me to experience as much as I possibly could from a sexual perspective, I began to understand that his idea was actually an expression of his complete devotion and trust in me as a woman and as his wife.

With a lot of anxiousness and quite a bit of fear, I finally agreed to at least meet another man for dinner (with Mark present) if we could find a guy that I clicked with. And thus, about six months ago, the search began to see if we could find a man who could eventually be my first lover as a married woman.

Trying to find a potential partner is, of course, easier said than done. My husband wrote a bio and took a few somewhat revealing photos of me and posted them on a site devoted to helping married women and couples find a man to join them. Within a few days of posting, we had received several emails seeking more information about me and wanting to chat further. Of the dozen or so responses we received, one of them stood out from the rest.