I want to end our ENM but he doesn’t
My husband and I opened our marriage 3 months ago. He was the one who introduced this idea to me 6 months back. It started as fantasy talks to spice our sex life.
To give some context we have been married for 6 years and we moved to a new country a year ago for his work and I am on a dependent visa. It is a non English speaking country and hence it was very difficult for me to find a job or any friends and I grew lonely at home which ultimately got me depressed. This took a toll on our relationship and sex life. He doesn’t think I have depression and doesn’t know how to help me either so I’m mostly met with avoidance instead of care.
My love language is physical touch and words of affirmations both of which he shuts the moment he sees me sad or crying. As I knew I wasn’t getting any support from him I joined an expats interest group which gave me some hope and a change that slowly started to ease my mind. That in turn made him relax and he slowly started making me realize how much he needs to be sexually active to ease his mind from frustration. He started telling me about his fantasies and started to talk a lot about MMF which I was highly uncomfortable with in the beginning. He started making me watch porn videos specific to this and started telling me how much it would turn him on to see another man being with me. He’s super straight and he was doing this to get me to be comfortable with an FFM later as that’s his interest. At first since it was only talks I eased into it and started enjoying the attention I was receiving from him. Later we went on a trip where he started telling me how good he felt when he saw men checking me out and he created a tinder account for me and said it’s just to spice things up and it’s only for flirting and conversations. The response on the app was overwhelming for me and he said I don’t have to meet anyone. just have conversations. Which was very exciting for him and that brought some excitement into our life. Once we were back to our city he encouraged me to match again with people in my city and I matched with a guy who was traveling. We had great conversations about life and things that interests me and I felt good talking to another person. He asked me out on a date and my husband asked me to go and meet him. I was skeptical at first but he gave me the assurance that this was just to make our life more interesting. I met this guy and he was great. We spent time talking about a lot of things and I had already told him that I’m married. He was very kind and respectful and we got along well. I had gone to meet him knowing I won’t be having any sort of sexual relationship with him so once it was time for me to leave I left. But he said he liked my company and would like to keep talking as he was from another city. We talked for a while and it was great to have someone who spoke the same love language or understand my feelings and be caring. Later he said he would like to see me again and have something more and my husband said he’s totally okay with it and encouraged me to visit him in his city. A part of me wanted to and the other part didn’t. My husband told me that he wanted me to have sex and come back and tell him everything and that would excite him a lot. I believed him, so I went with zero guilt.
My husband had also installed tinder but he wasn’t able to find matches as the city we stay is pretty conservative and girls are mostly looking for something long term or marriage. And since he had mentioned in his profile that he’s in an ENM he wasn’t getting any matches.
I went to meet the other guy and I spent two days with him and I won’t lie I felt great. I felt seen, loved, understood and beautiful. He was a great guy who knew what to say and do. But for me it was very clear that it was just a one time thing to get things exciting for my marriage. I came home excited to share my experience and I saw my husband terribly heartbroken and sad. He said he thought he could handle it but it broke him to think I was with someone else. I can’t tell you how much that shattered me as now I stood there in front of him after sleeping with another guy. The guilt drove me crazy and I tried my best to console him and myself for what had happened. Meanwhile he matched with a girl who he was texting a lot to distract himself from this thought. He started spending less time talking to me and more time texting this girl as he said it was helping him cope up.
My husband usually never texts me or say anything naughty during the day which are things I really like, but I had accepted the fact that it wasn’t his way and he always said he was busy at work and being an introvert I thought it wasn’t natural for him. But now I saw him doing things he never did with me with this girl. Being attentive, caring, flirty, texting in between work, all the things I loved and wanted but never got. But I still tried to reason my making myself believe that he was doing all this because I hurt him.
Finally I couldn’t take it anymore and I told him we need to set some boundaries as it’s important if we are to go forward with this. He was very hostile to the things I mentioned to him. I asked him why I wasn’t getting any of this care or attention and I told him how it hurt me too. All I expected was for him to give me some attention and love too , I was okay with him meeting other women but not be so involved. He justified saying that he had to be involved like that as women won’t respond otherwise. I felt it was unfair as I was keeping things very straightforward and casual with the men I spoke to. So we had a crazy fight as I told him that I wanted us to put a pause on ENM and figure things out as it was affecting our marriage. The fight really hurt us both and for some reason the girl he was talking to ended things with him saying she is not comfortable seeing a married man. After a few days things got better between us and he again initiated for an MMF and we met a guy and it went great. My husband was very happy and he enjoyed it a lot and I thought things were going to be okay. But after that I didn’t actively talk to anyone as I was quite happy with where we were as a couple and didn’t feel the need. Meanwhile my husband was getting more frustrated with him not matching with any girl because of the married label. One of the rules I had explicitly told him was that we wouldn’t see anyone from our native country.
He went on to match with a girl living in a different country but originally from our native country. At first I didn’t think anything of it, but now they are super close and he has also stopped sharing details with me. He has started hiding the notifications and his body language tenses up as soon as I’m near him when he’s texting her. They plan to meet in November and she’s in a marriage where she’s separated from her partner.
We had a big fight yesterday where I said that I expect transparency and honesty and he said he doesn’t wanna share because I will create problems. I’m not sure who is right or wrong here.
At this point all I want is to be able to fix our relationship before we proceed to explore and he’s not willing to do that. He said if that’s the case we can end our relationship.
When I cried he said he doesn’t want to see my drama. He has been texting her throughout the day even when I was crying or feeling low the whole day.
He expects me to amend my ways and keep this relationship going.
Please guide me I’m not sure what to do anymore.