So, me (F29) and my husband (M28) have been thinking about opening our marriage. This is something that we have talked about for few years, but mainly casual dating or "monogamish" type of agreement in mind. Now we have deep dived into the subject of polyamory for the last three months, we have red threads from here, listened podcasts, red books etc. And the reason for this is my friend (F31).
I developed really strong romantic feelings for her about 4 months ago after knowing her for few months before that. She feels the same for me. She lives in a monogamish marriage over an hour away and we both have small kids.
We have been not seeing each other for few months now for everyone to get enough space to process everything. We have talked and talked and talked with our spouses and each other about the situation. She has talked and worked through with her husband about possibly opening their marriage in a romantic sence and I have been talking with my husband about our situation.
Right now everyone seems to be in the same page. We have talked about our limits and what the relationship between my friend and myself could be. My husband is excited about opening the relationship and her husband feels at peace with the fact that there would be something more here than casual sex. We have put more effort into our marriages than, I think at least for us, for years. We have tried to establish stronger routines and ways to cherish our connections. Both me and my friend have very strong motivation to keep our marriages safe.
We are now in the phase of moving forward with this and we have planned seeing each other with my friend next week to see how it feels after this time.
I feel like this could be the greatest thing that has ever happened for us and I feel like we have been quite smart about it. But I also know I am somewhat love-blind even though the separation with my friend had calmed my feelings down. I have red a lot from here that opening a marriage specifically for someone is almost always a bad idea.
I would like to hear some anecdotal experiences about this. Has anyone been in a similar situation and it has worked out? If it didn't work out, why? What would you do differently if you had to do it again?