Jumped into swinging and poly with my partner for some months ago.

We had a lot of fun! Learned things about our relation and ourselves.

But then, my partner met someone and fell in love with that one (or at least, having NRE and feeling connected).

From that moment, I'm done. My partner is texting almost 24/7 with this new person. And also getting lots of presents and stuff from this person.

Right now that person is on the other side of the world for reasons, but their texting is even heavy'er...

My partner still shows love and affection (really long relation)... That's why I don't want to end my relation.

But it feels so... Bad?

Can't ask my partner to break contact with this person (I can ask, already did have that conversations but they don't want to break contact. I can understand that).

Feels like I need to just choose for myself. But leaving all future plans (baby, marriage etc.) because of this also does not feel right because my partner still shows that they love me. And I love my partner also even more then ever...

What to do?

I’m 31F, married with a young child, living in the UK. My husband and I are both Nigerians, and our marriage was essentially arranged/matched.
He earns about £3.3–£3.8k/month and pays most household bills (\~£2.2k). Because of that, he says I “do nothing” and should be more respectful.
I currently work part-time in a customer service role (around 24 hours/week), earning roughly £1,100/month, while also trying to build my medical career (PLAB/MSRA, clinical attachments).
Despite my income:
I’ve contributed financially when I could (£700–£1k at times)
I pay for childcare
I cover many of my personal and professional expenses
Even then, he still has about £1,100–£1,600 left monthly after bills, but tells me there’s “no money.”
The issues:
He says I contribute nothing and compares me to other women
Calls me “weak” and “not trainable” (I struggled with depression)
No emotional support, affection, or communication
Avoids conversations or shuts me down
There’s also financial secrecy—he sends money to his family without telling me, while denying me basic support.
Recently he said he’s “detached” and the marriage is basically over. We now live in the same house but don’t speak—he only interacts with our child.
I feel unseen, unsupported, and like I’ve been carrying a lot alone.
👉 Am I expecting too much, or are these signs of emotional/financial abuse?
👉 What would you do in my situation?

**TL;DR:**Husband earns £3.3–£3.8k and pays most bills but says I “do nothing.” I work part-time (\~£1,100/month) while transitioning into clinical practice, which has made placements difficult. We’re not entitled to benefits, and I pay childcare and fund all my personal and professional expenses myself. He still has money left but denies me support, sends money to family secretly, and is building on his land back home without discussing it. He also says buying a house is “non-negotiable” and would proceed without me. He provides no emotional support and now says he’s “detached” after speaking with him about my needs , now we don’t speak. I feel unsupported and alone, am I expecting too much or is this emotional/financial abuse?

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

OOP: u/unraveledwords

Published on: r/relationship_advice

Story is: CONCLUDED

Story timeline

• Main Post: May 12, 2026

• Final Update: May 14, 2026

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Main Post

^(May 12, 2026)

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I (21f) slept with two people after my boyfriend (23m) opened our relationship and now he wants to break up with me.

Sorry for the long post, I feel as though this is a very nuanced and unusual situation and so I struggled to explain it briefly.

So my boyfriend and I have been together throughout our times at university, coming up on three years now. He is my first relationship and my first body whereas he has slept with a number of people before we got together. We have spoken before about wanting to have a future together and potentially kids once we both have a stable source of income. For the first time in years we are spending a few months apart as he has a graduate job and I don’t. I have been living in my family home and working in hospitality so we haven’t seen each other in a few weeks.

Prior to this our relationship was a little strained due to academic stress and we were arguing for the first time ever. We also almost entirely stopped having sex for months and the relationship felt like it was getting dry. I have a higher sex drive than he does anyway and so it was mostly me who was finding this difficult. We spoke about it and he suggested we opened up our relationship and allowed each other to see other people until we could move back in together when I found a job in the same city as him.

He even implied that the idea of a threesome/ watching me have sex with someone else would excite him. As much as this might seem strange to other people I was quite excited he suggested this as I have never really had the opportunity to explore my sexuality. I was experiencing some anxiety about the fact that I have only ever been in a committed relationship and I was worried I would one day regret not exploring more when I was younger. Despite this I still love him a lot and know he is the one I eventually want to settle down with.

Since we opened our relationship about a month ago I have slept with two people, a girl and a boy. I met them both on dating apps, and I was very open about the fact I had a boyfriend and I just wanted to explore. Both people were very accepting of this. I enjoyed the experiences a lot and I ended up spending a few nights with this girl in her apartment.

It was mostly just because I find living at home very frustrating after having the freedom of living with my friends/ boyfriend throughout uni and my parents still treat me like a child. She and I only actually had sex a couple of times after drinking and mostly when we would hang out we would just play Minecraft or go to the pub. It was more like a friends with benefits situation. I was very open about the fact I was staying at her place with my boyfriend and she was totally ok with the fact I had a boyfriend.

So anyway, my boyfriend has been planning to visit me this coming weekend and I have been thinking about what he said that he would like to have a threesome. I asked this girl about it and she said she would be down so I brought it up to my boyfriend and his reaction totally shocked me. He went absolutely nuts after finding out I had had sex with this girl already and said he had no idea.

He feels like he has been cheated on because I didn’t explicitly tell him that I had sex with this girl, only that I had been staying at her place occasionally. I was sidelined. I assumed that he had also been seeing other people as there have been a few nights where he has not replied to me in the evening or asked to call like he usually does. However he is saying that when he spoke about opening up our relationship he meant only for threesomes and not for us to explore on my own.

This surprised me as I got a completely different impression from our initial conversation where we spoke about us both getting a chance to explore before we settled down and became adults. One of my friends from uni also sent me a screenshot of him on a dating app from a couple of weeks ago which I told her I was completely fine with as we were both using them. He says now he only had the app to look for a third, not for him to do his own thing.

Now he is saying that he isn’t sure if he can look past me ‘cheating on him’ and that he needs some time to think about whether or not he wants to be with me. I am completely devastated. I have deleted the apps from my phone and blocked the two people I slept with no explanation. Although I did want to explore I have always been certain that he is the man for me.

We get on so well and he is dependable, caring, driven, everything I could ever want in a partner. My friends and family love him and we also share most of the same friends so our lives are intertwined. We have even decided on our kids names and the street we want to live on one day. I have tried to explain to him that this was just a lack of communication and that I never wanted to hurt him. I have never even looked at another person until we agreed to open the relationship. But he is just saying this changes the way he thinks about me entirely. He has barely spoken to me since finding out and pretty much ignored my apologies.

How do I earn his trust back?

 

COMMENTS

DepartmentDapper9823 >I didn't quite understand your post... Does your boyfriend know you had sex with another guy (not a girl)? If so, that's probably the real reason for his anger. > >But either way, it's his fault. He shouldn't have suggested an open relationship if it wasn't a sincere decision. > >OOP >>He knows about both now as he began questioning me about it when I told him about the girl

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AffectionateTrash146 (downvoted) >In the eyes of most poly relationships you have cheated. You said you made the new people aware of your BF but did he know you were actively going on dates and intending to sleep with people? Usually opening the relationship means having honest open communication about your actions and intentions with other partners, not the ins and outs of the activities just an understanding that somethings brewing. I don't think you guys have the right communication and maturity for an open relationship. In terms of earning his trust back, it will take a lot of time and effort but it's difficult for things to ever go back to how they were. > >OOP >>I didn’t tell him at all about the guy until he asked, but I was under the impression that he knew I had slept with the girl. I guess it is poor communication on my behalf that he didn’t understand the nature of my relationship with her. The reason why I didn’t tell him details is because I personally wouldn’t be comfortable with knowing the ins and outs of what my boyfriend was doing with other people and I stupidly assumed he felt the same. I just assumed that he was, and assumed he knew I was as that was what we had both agreed to do

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OrwellianIconoclast >Classic. He wanted to open up the relationship because he thought he'd get to sleep with other people, now he's mad & trying to punish because you had success on the apps and he didn't. > >You didn't misunderstand, he's lying because he played himself and wants to make it your fault. > >Mischiefmanaged715 >>For real. This happens so much, it is practically a cliche. The man wants to open the relationship to get some side action, inevitably it is way easier for the partnered woman to find others, and the man gets pissed off about her success and wants to shut things down. OP, this isnt for you to fix. Your boyfriend needs to own his actions rather than punishing you for them. Until he does that, I wouldnt be trying to beg for his forgiveness. His behavior is juvenile and a red flag. >> >>OOP >>>After receiving a few comments saying to unblock the girl i definitely will be! She was really great and I think we could have a friendship if nothing else now. I just did it out of blind panic because I wanted to salvage my relationship

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theclosetenby >You didn't misunderstand. He's lying. > >dirndlgrl >>Co-signed. This is such a transparent lie

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lenusniq >"How do I earn his trust back?" What are you talking about??? How did you lose his trust? You agreed on an open relaitonship. Dump this insecure hypocritical boy. > >Omgoodtimes >>THIS!!! He’s gaslighting you!!! It was his idea, but you got action and he didn’t, so he’s pissed and trying to change his mind. He told you to open it so you could both see people while you’re apart for months AND that he thought a threesome would be hot. He sounds like a loser, don’t fall for his emotional manipulation

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Final update - after 2 days

^(May 14, 2026)

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Update: I (21f) slept with two people after my boyfriend (23m) opened our relationship and now he wants to break up with me.

Thank you everyone for the helpful comments! I didn’t expect this post to get so much attention and I don’t normally use Reddit so I’m not sure if this is the correct way to do an ‘update.’

So he finally called me after he finished work last night for us to ‘talk.’ I apologised again for the miscommunication and said that I didn’t feel we had a detailed enough conversation to establish boundaries and to define what an open relationship means to us. He agreed but didn’t apologise for his role in that. He then said that he was mostly hurt because I seemed to have developed an emotional connection with this girl which I can understand and I apologised for again. Then he asked me if I felt like I was happy in our relationship. And to my surprise I told him I wasn’t. He said he wasn’t either and so we decided to break up. I haven’t even had a text from him this morning and I haven’t tried to reach out either.

I do feel hurt and a bit lost but after the last few days of crashing out I also feel a huge sense of relief. As well as reading all the comments under this post I also spoke to a couple of my friends and came to the conclusion that if the two of us were truly happy together we wouldn’t have felt the need to open our relationship in the first place. I am going to give it some time to heal but now when I am ready I am free to be a young adult without the pressure of a big future looming over me. It has also opened up new jon opportunities as I don’t just have to look in the same city as him so we could move in together.

I know a lot of people are calling him a piece of shit and a gaslighting liar but I am still very fond of him and so I don’t really care at the moment to argue with him and question his side of the story; whether he changed the terms of our open relationship or did end up sleeping around and didn’t want me to know. Maybe at some point I will bring him up on this but I think the most important thing is for us to both try and move forwards.

As for the ‘Minecraft girl,’ I sent her a text saying I will give her a call at some point soon to explain and she said that was totally ok and to take my time! So hopefully I have at least made a friend and something good has come out of this.

Thank you once again everyone for the help and support xx

 

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This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

Please remember to follow the subreddit rules, especially the ones about brigading.

Let’s aim for a respectful and friendly discussion for everyone involved.

Do any married women who read the spicier Romantasy novels 3/5 and above not masturbate? Or do they go hand in hand?

No judgment here one way or the other, I think those activities can be healthy potentially.

Edit: I appreciate the genuine/honest replies.

My wife and I had a first full-swap experience recently, and I’m looking for serious advice from experienced nonmonogamous people — not blame, not debate over whether freezing equals consent, and not “you should have negotiated better” lectures.

We had met the couple before and felt there was good rapport. They came over, we spent time talking, and everyone seemed comfortable. We agreed to full swap and then separate rooms, which we had done before with soft swap. My wife had told the male half that she enjoys some dominance/instruction, but nothing about that meant consent to anything and everything.

In the room, he started with a condom for vaginal sex. He then switched to anal without asking or getting consent. Later, after leaving the room and coming back, he had vaginal sex with her without a condom, after condom use had already been established. She froze, was crying, was in pain, and just wanted it to be over. He knew she was crying and continued anyway.

Afterward, my wife broke down crying and told me what happened. She is blaming herself for not negotiating every boundary more explicitly, but I do not see how “I like dominance” becomes consent to non-consensual anal or condomless sex.

We are stepping away from the ENM indefinitely because this has made something that had been fun and connecting for us feel unsafe.

I’m not asking whether this was okay. It was not. I’m asking how to handle the aftermath.

How would you notify the other wife that condomless sex happened?

How would you request STI testing information without inviting debate or a long defensive explanation?

Would you message both of them in a group chat, or only him?

For those who have dealt with serious consent violations in the LS, is there anything you wish you had done differently in the first few days afterward?

My spouse and I just started dipping our toes into this lifestyle. Last week, I hooked up with someone who isn’t my spouse for the first time in over 15 years. My body responded much more intensely and quickly to the novelty of this person than it does with my spouse.

I’m completely taken aback by this because I love my spouse and love sex with my spouse. But now I’m craving more of the new person nerves and energy of sex with strangers. I love my spouse so much, but I realize I stopped getting that new person energy from my spouse, and didn’t even notice it until I hooked up with this near stranger. I’m nervous now that I won’t find sex with my spouse as exciting because I’ve been reminded what that electric new person energy feels like.

I know my spouse and I can do fun new things to jazz up our sex life, and we often do already, but this new person energy truly seems impossible to manufacture without a new person.

Is this normal? Do you just accept this, and appreciate the other benefits that familiarity brings? Will my spouse and I stop craving each other and keep craving our side hookups if we continue? Maybe I’m overthinking this, but I just didn’t expect this at all. I’d love to hear others’ experiences who have also felt this way.

Didn't realize I had a business link attached, deleted it, and reposting!

TLDR: For context.. husband and I have been together 14 years, married almost 9. We have 3 kids (18, 7, and 3). I have a boyfriend of 3 years. Hubby and I started as sexually enm and over the years, that looked many different ways. In 2023, I had a new FWB that I eventually started catching feelings for. This was new, so I talked to my hubby about it, and he was ok with it continuing and becoming a relationship. We had been ENM, new boyfriend had only ever been monogamous, poly was new to everyone.

Over the years, the boyfriend struggled with feeling like he didn't get enough of my time, so I tried to restructure our schedule. He picked me up after work on Saturdays around 5:30, he took me back home 8-9 on Sunday night (I usually miss kids bedtime). Mondays my husband works, but my boyfriend and I are both off, so I usually spend all day over there until he takes me home between 8-9 (I do sometimes schedule appointments on Mondays and always have a trade out massage 4-5:30). Tuesdays and Wednesdays I go home after work with my husband and kids. Thursdays my boyfriend picks me up from work around 7:30, takes me home, and stays the night. Fridays I go home with husband and kids. My boyfriend also has a job that allows me to go hang out with him while he works, so if I have slow days or large gaps between clients, I'll go up there.

Tuesday, my husband and I had therapy and I brought up a struggle we had over Mother's Day weekend, because it was shared with my boyfriend's birthday. I don't try to practice hierarchy (but I'm learning some things default to that), so after bringing all of this up, our therapist asked my husband how he felt and it blew up. After a very uncomfortable, emotionally hard session, we were walking away with changes needing to be made: we needed to restructure the schedule to allow me to be home more with the family (not about more time for my husband specifically) and my husband and I both need to be more intentional about one on one time together.

This week has been very emotionally rough for me trying to navigate this and my hubby and I didn't have time to really talk until Wednesday night. We had a good talk, came up with solutions, we both were happy with the outcome, and I felt lighter than I had since therapy.

My boyfriend had already gone to bed, but I went ahead and text him the outcome of our convo. That going forward, he will now get me at 5 PM on Sundays, leave to bring me home Mondays at 8 PM (we never had set times before, but I felt it was important). Tuesday-Friday stays the same, with him still bringing me home and staying on Thursdays, and me still going to his work when my schedule allows. This changes it from 3 nights home for bedtime, to 5 nights, and from being gone mostly all weekend, to home most of the weekend. This is all because my hubby was starting to feel taken advantage of timewise and felt he had become manager of the house. I see why he has been feeling this way and agreed that I did need to be present with our family more. My husband also said he is fine with my boyfriend coming over more or joining us for family things, but my boyfriend usually doesn't, because it still makes him uncomfortable to see my husband and I interact as husband and wife (this is a whole separate issue for another time).

I woke up to multiple messages from my boyfriend not liking this new schedule (he has a history of not liking change and it causing him some type of hurt). I needed support from him, but all I got was a literal breakdown of time spent where and with who, him having his feelings hurt that he has to "sacrifice our time to benefit my other relationship" (when again, this is about being present more for my family, mainly kids), and isn't sure if this is sustainable long term for him.

I'm upset, because I've already been saying I feel like a rope in a game of tug of war, even though both say they don't feel like they're competing for my time, yet here I am, yet again feeling like a rope. It's feeling impossible to give enough time to my family and him and it seems impossible to get him to understand that this is for my family, my kids, not necessarily my "other relationship". And maybe for someone who has only ever been monogamous, this isn't sustainable, and I know he is allowed to feel how he feels.

So while I am venting, hoping for validation, but know there will probably be comments I don't like, I'm also looking to get input from others who are married with kids and are a hinge between dyads. How do you split your time? How do you keep it from feeling hierachal? How do you keep your other partner from feeling like they come second to your spouse? And when you are a people pleaser, how do you appease everyone while not losing yourself?

My wife and nesting partner (“Lamb”) and I have been together over 10 years, married for 7, and poly for about 5. Overall, our relationship is stable, affectionate, and emotionally close, but our sexual relationship has declined dramatically over the last several months.

We used to have a very enthusiastic and connected sex life. Now we’ve only been intimate a couple times in recent months, and lately it feels like she has little to no physical desire for me at all outside of our nightly cuddles before bed. Even then, she’s often reading while I spoon her, which leaves me feeling emotionally disconnected and unwanted.

Because we’re poly, I’m not sexually deprived overall. I have other partners and my physical needs are being met. But what I miss is our sex life specifically. I miss feeling desired by my wife. And because we’re poly, there’s also this difficult layer where I assume she may still be experiencing desire elsewhere, which intensifies the feeling that something about us has changed.

We’ve talked about this in couples therapy. Her perspective was essentially that sex changes over time in long-term relationships, and that I need to self-soothe and build a life that doesn’t depend on sexual validation from her.

Intellectually, I understand that nobody owes anyone sex, and that libido changes happen. But emotionally I’m struggling with the feeling that our erotic connection has become unimportant to her while still being very important to me.

Three things I would love to hear from others about: 

1.      how people distinguish between a normal long-term ebb in sexuality vs. a deeper disengagement,

2.      whether others in long-term poly marriages have experienced this asymmetry,

3.      how to cope with feeling romantically/sexually unwanted by a nesting partner even while other relationships are healthy.

I’m especially interested in hearing from people who have navigated this without turning it into blame, coercion, or resentment.

My wife has been listening to books involving threesomes and multiple partners, and a scene involving DP really sparked her interest in an MFM threesome. After talking to a female friend who has done multiple threesomes wife asked me if I would consider it. After a lot of discussion, and after I found the book that originally sparked her interest and listened to it myself, I realized I really want this for her as well. Honestly after listening to the book it’s my new fantasy to try and give her exactly this.

We’ve tried recreating the sensation with toys and she enjoyed it immensely ,but I honestly think she would enjoy the real experience more. I’m 100% on board, and we’ve already discussed some ground rules. Basically, while I’m okay with her drinking, I don’t want her to be overly drunk. I want her to still be able to say no if she becomes uncomfortable, and not be so impaired that she doesn’t fully know what’s going on or gives in because of the alcohol. Also if I get uncomfortable in the moment I can put a stop to it as well.

She agreed and suggested just drinking enough to lightly feel the effects. We may discuss that more because I’m still very nervous about her drinking too much.

The main hurdle she seems stuck on now is the second guy aspect. She said that’s the part she doesn’t know how she’ll get past. She has never considered being with another guy, and we’ve been together since we were both 14 now almost 20 years later. I’ve assured her that I’m okay with it, but I think this may end up being the hard stop for her if she can’t mentally work past it.

I don’t want to be pushy. I’ve just reassured her that if, in the moment, she can’t go through with it, she can back out and nobody will be upset. For now, I’m just going to let things sit and maybe bring it up again in a week or longer.

I’m mostly curious if other couples have dealt with this same issue. Is this usually a hard stop, or is there anything else I should or shouldn’t say or do?

We’ve been each other’s first and only for almost everything, so I know this is a huge step outside the comfort zone for both of us.

UPDATE: Thank you everyone for the helpful comments! I didn’t expect this post to get so much attention and I don’t normally use Reddit so I’m not sure if this is the correct way to do an ‘update.’

So he finally called me after he finished work last night for us to ‘talk.’ I apologised again for the miscommunication and said that I didn’t feel we had a detailed enough conversation to establish boundaries and to define what an open relationship means to us. He agreed but didn’t apologise for his role in that. He then said that he was mostly hurt because I seemed to have developed an emotional connection with this girl which I can understand and I apologised for again. Then he asked me if I felt like I was happy in our relationship. And to my surprise I told him I wasn’t. He said he wasn’t either and so we decided to break up. I haven’t even had a text from him this morning and I haven’t tried to reach out either.

I do feel hurt and a bit lost but after the last few days of crashing out I also feel a huge sense of relief. As well as reading all the comments under this post I also spoke to a couple of my friends and came to the conclusion that if the two of us were truly happy together we wouldn’t have felt the need to open our relationship in the first place. I am going to give it some time to heal but now when I am ready I am free to be a young adult without the pressure of a big future looming over me. It has also opened up new jon opportunities as I don’t just have to look in the same city as him so we could move in together.

I know a lot of people are calling him a piece of shit and a gaslighting liar but I am still very fond of him and so I don’t really care at the moment to argue with him and question his side of the story; whether he changed the terms of our open relationship or did end up sleeping around and didn’t want me to know.
Maybe at some point I will bring him up on this but I think the most important thing is for us to both try and move forwards.

As for the ‘Minecraft girl,’ I sent her a text saying I will give her a call at some point soon to explain and she said that was totally ok and to take my time! So hopefully I have at least made a friend and something good has come out of this.

Thank you once again everyone for the help and support xx

******

Sorry for the long post, I feel as though this is a very nuanced and unusual situation and so I struggled to explain it briefly.

So my boyfriend and I have been together throughout our times at university, coming up on three years now. He is my first relationship and my first body whereas he has slept with a number of people before we got together. We have spoken before about wanting to have a future together and potentially kids once we both have a stable source of income. For the first time in years we are spending a few months apart as he has a graduate job and I don’t. I have been living in my family home and working in hospitality so we haven’t seen each other in a few weeks.

Prior to this our relationship was a little strained due to academic stress and we were arguing for the first time ever. We also almost entirely stopped having sex for months and the relationship felt like it was getting dry. I have a higher sex drive than he does anyway and so it was mostly me who was finding this difficult. We spoke about it and he suggested we opened up our relationship and allowed each other to see other people until we could move back in together when I found a job in the same city as him. He even implied that the idea of a threesome/ watching me have sex with someone else would excite him. As much as this might seem strange to other people I was quite excited he suggested this as I have never really had the opportunity to explore my sexuality. I was experiencing some anxiety about the fact that I have only ever been in a committed relationship and I was worried I would one day regret not exploring more when I was younger. Despite this I still love him a lot and know he is the one I eventually want to settle down with.

Since we opened our relationship about a month ago I have slept with two people, a girl and a boy. I met them both on dating apps, and I was very open about the fact I had a boyfriend and I just wanted to explore. Both people were very accepting of this. I enjoyed the experiences a lot and I ended up spending a few nights with this girl in her apartment. It was mostly just because I find living at home very frustrating after having the freedom of living with my friends/ boyfriend throughout uni and my parents still treat me like a child. She and I only actually had sex a couple of times after drinking and mostly when we would hang out we would just play Minecraft or go to the pub. It was more like a friends with benefits situation. I was very open about the fact I was staying at her place with my boyfriend and she was totally ok with the fact I had a boyfriend.

So anyway, my boyfriend has been planning to visit me this coming weekend and I have been thinking about what he said that he would like to have a threesome. I asked this girl about it and she said she would be down so I brought it up to my boyfriend and his reaction totally shocked me. He went absolutely nuts after finding out I had had sex with this girl already and said he had no idea. He feels like he has been cheated on because I didn’t explicitly tell him that I had sex with this girl, only that I had been staying at her place occasionally. I was sidelined. I assumed that he had also been seeing other people as there have been a few nights where he has not replied to me in the evening or asked to call like he usually does. However he is saying that when he spoke about opening up our relationship he meant only for threesomes and not for us to explore on my own. This surprised me as I got a completely different impression from our initial conversation where we spoke about us both getting a chance to explore before we settled down and became adults. One of my friends from uni also sent me a screenshot of him on a dating app from a couple of weeks ago which I told her I was completely fine with as we were both using them. He says now he only had the app to look for a third, not for him to do his own thing.

Now he is saying that he isn’t sure if he can look past me ‘cheating on him’ and that he needs some time to think about whether or not he wants to be with me. I am completely devastated. I have deleted the apps from my phone and blocked the two people I slept with no explanation. Although I did want to explore I have always been certain that he is the man for me. We get on so well and he is dependable, caring, driven, everything I could ever want in a partner. My friends and family love him and we also share most of the same friends so our lives are intertwined. We have even decided on our kids names and the street we want to live on one day. I have tried to explain to him that this was just a lack of communication and that I never wanted to hurt him. I have never even looked at another person until we agreed to open the relationship. But he is just saying this changes the way he thinks about me entirely. He has barely spoken to me since finding out and pretty much ignored my apologies.

How do I earn his trust back?

I have been married to my husband for almost a decade and we have a toddler together. I support us working full time while my husband stays home with our toddler and works as a server a few nights a week. We have always been ethically non monogamous but I believed the boundaries were that these were purely friends with benefits connections. After we had our child, I discovered he had been saying I love you with one of these friends with benefits. I was preparing myself to confront him on it, but before i was able to him and his FWB came to me saying they had feelings for each other and would want our relationship to be more polyamourous than just open. I feel like I should have shut this down right then but his partner was there and I was only like 9 months post partum and feeling very vulnerable (its all a bit of a haze) so I said that we could try with strict boundaries see how it went. I found myself consistently uncomfortable with her behavior. She would come to our home after I had gone to sleep to spend time with him without my knowledge. He seemed to want to defer to her because she would be upset if plans changed and is more explosive than me. She consistently asks for more time than he is able to give and makes me feel like she is conspiring against our marriage. I ended up asking for parrellel poly and said I didnt want her around me but I wouldn't make him chose. Not long after that my grandpa i was very close to passed away and my grandma started developing dementia, than a year later my dad died, than 5 month later my grandma died. He left to spend time with this other partner within a week of my dad dying and 3 days after grandma died. I told him that I needed him to prioritize me when im suffering and hanging on by a thread and I didnt want him going over to stay with her every week or constantly texting or talking to her on discord and I was considering separation. He said he understood but then left to see her while myself and my son were sick. While he was gone I saw that she had been sending him zillow links online. While he shut that down it confirmed.my fears that she does not have the interest of our marriage at heart regardless of what she has said to me. That was my last straw. I told him I wanted a separation until he could show he could be a supportive partner and not prioritize someone else. Especially when that person does not have the best interests of our marriage at heart. So I guess im just coming here to tell my story and see what people have to say. Im hurting and just want to feel understood. I dont think im asking for the moon but some reassurance would be helpful.

Tldr: husband wants to be poly and I feel unsupported in my grief and am considering divorce.

M28/F21: My girlfriend and I started couples therapy today, mostly focusing on issues related to our sex life.

We have had long talks, exchanged letters about our feelings, and have tried increasingly novel and exciting experiences, including a BDSM event and exhibitionism at a sex club/swingers group. All of which was good and very enjoyable, and I feel that I have grown as an individual and also that we have grown as a couple. We feel like we're both extremely good at communicating and that we have definitely done a lot to work on ourselves and our relationship.

Yet she feels unsatisfied. As such, I feel likewise unsatisfied because it matters very much to me that my partner is having her needs met in whatever way I can help her to fulfill her wants and needs (not in a codependent way, but in a healthy supportive way).

She told me early on when we started dating nearly a year and a half ago that she practices ethical non-monogamy. I told her that I'm not interested in doing that, but that we could try monogamy together, and if things don't work out, we can go our separate ways. I fully accepted that things might not work out and that I could get seriously hurt in the process. I told her that she should never feel trapped and that she is allowed to hurt me by walking away; a sentiment I have held strongly to this day. Although I'd do anything within reason to convince her to stay, I'd also be able to accept her final decision if what I do to convince her doesn't work.

And things did work out. We feel deeply in love.

The process was quick because we are extremely emotionally and mentally compatible, and are also both very attracted to each other and enjoy each other physically very much. This has not changed over time and remains true to this day. However, at some point later last year, she started losing interest in sex because the novelty of being with me was wearing off. The honeymoon phase was dying out for her. While mine never really stopped, it did, in fact, burn less brightly as I started to focus on other areas of my life, including my career.

We made a very valiant effort to turn things around in late January of this year, and have been doing more and more since.

At some point, we mutually felt like we were falling in love all over again. But that didn't seem to last too long before the flame dissipated again, despite doing the BDSM and exhibitionism and other things besides. I personally had felt like we were on an upward trajectory and it felt like things were going very well. We'd talked about couples therapy at one point, but the idea eventually dropped. I thought it was because things were going better and we didn't need it anymore, but turns out I was wrong.

She told me that she doesn't think that she will ever be satisfied with just having one partner, and she is afraid of eventually letting herself become complacent with her dissatisfaction. Even if she could theoretically design the "perfect man" (or woman) from scratch, she feels that even he (or she) would not be enough for her in the long term. So it's not a matter of "I'm not good enough," it's more like "no one individual person could ever be enough."

To be very clear, she loves me very much. That has never changed. If anything, our love for each other has sustained or grown progressively over time. This particular issue is purely from the standpoint of sexual satisfaction. The only other issue is her wanting more "whimsy" and spontaneity in our relationship, which I could easily work on and would gladly do for her.

In a perfect world, she would have me as her "one true love" but be free to pursue others on the side, to be able to experience the rush of getting into a new relationship - from flirting to sex, and everything in between. To be clear, she is specifically interested in non-monogamy. She is not interested in polyamory in the sense that she wants another person to be fully involved in our relationship as another partner, but instead to have casual encounters or friends with benefits in addition to me.

I have zero interest in pursuing anyone else in any way whatsoever. I can admire the beauty of other women, but I'd never give any one of them a second glance as long as I'm with my girlfriend. I feel a fierce loyalty to her and the only reason I'd ever even consider having sex with someone else is if it were her specific desire for me to do so, like in a threesome or cuckqueaning or similar.

Funny thing is, she doesn't feel particularly comfortable with the idea of me sleeping with other women. However, she'd happily watch me have sex with another man. But I am strictly heterosexual. If I really pushed myself to do it, and we could find a man that was agreeable to the experience, I think I might be able to go through with it. But purely for the performance of the act, not because I'd choose to seek it out for myself.

Moreover, I think one of the major things that bothers me about this is that she wants the full pursuit of dating, not just sex. I think that, maybe, I could come around on threesomes or swinging because we'd be able to be there *together* and enjoy the experience as a couple. But the idea of her pursing someone else romantically and "falling in love" with them is rather unsettling. Especially because I also have a hard time imagining how that would affect the prospective partners that she may take, and how they might get their feelings hurt in the process, or take it out on me if things don't work out with her.

However, despite my doubts and reservations, I am also fully aware that there is a large amount of sociocultural norms and psychology that may be preventing me from taking part in a new chapter of our sex life and our relationship in general. In each stage of our increasingly kinky sex life, I have often found that my anticipatory fear of doing something is always much worse that doing the thing itself. Once I am in the moment and it is happening, it's a lot easier for me to cope with or, often, learn to enjoy.

The BDSM event was a bar/club with lots of onlookers, including her friends. But I did fine. The exhibitionism at the sex club was fine. I felt neither excited by it or fearful of it; just a neutral "interesting, there are other people watching nearby." There is a chance that this might be a similar experience, where I am getting all worked up in my head over something that we might both be able to enjoy if only I overcome my fears and the societal pressures that make ENM so taboo.

It's also possible that I'm trying to convince myself into doing something I will later seriously regret simply to make sure that she is happy. It is a very real risk that, just as much as she is afraid of becoming reluctantly complacent with one partner, I will have to become complacent with her having multiple partners.

I love her very much, and she loves me very much. I just want us both to be happy.

I wanted to share this not as a "My way or the highway" or to soapbox, but as a polite cautionary tale about how polyamory is not for some.

A little background. My husband and I were married for five years when we started ENM, which was mostly just swinging with some threesomes and orgies mixed in over that 12 year span. Then we opened for two years and finally progressed to poly for a little over three years.

Swinging's most difficult part for us was finding four-way connections and avoiding toxic couples.

We moved to opening our marriage to dating separately, without romantic involvement, just for fun. When we opened, our main complaints revolved around avoiding unicorn hunters and keeping our private lives separate from our fun lives.

At this point, our marriage, our family life, and our friendships were as perfect as they could be. So why not polyamory? We had so much to give, why wouldn't we share?

However, when we moved onto poly, our whole world flipped.

• We learned quickly that you can't be closeted poly. Everyone, including our kids, family, and friends eventually found out. Lots of them said that they supported us, but always with a side-eye of judgement or just a downright, "you're crazy" comment. I stopped counting all the ways others told us that 'you're just going through a fad before the divorce.' Divorce had never been a topic or thought between us but everyone sure thought they knew more than us.

• We had to become self-reliant. We had a marriage that was built on a foundation where we worked together and relied on each other; I guess this is like every other marriage. But with poly, we became like roommates, each in charge of their own areas. Parenting even became a chore and felt towards the end like we were just constantly exchanging nights so we could be with our secondaries. I was told by every partner, in so many words and ways, not to rely on my husband, even for basic things, and he was being told and taught the same. For a while this worked and I felt that I was being good to him by not bringing my issues or wants or needs to him. However, as I stopped all of that, he felt that he too had to stop. A wall was slowly being built between us, and by the time we recognized it, it was a big freaking wall. The symbiotic relationship we had was almost entirely gone in just over a year's time.

• We had to become selfish. I started to pick and choose who I wanted to be there for and who I didn't want to be bothered by; this wasn't just with partners, but with everyone around me. I became a me-first gal. When I'd meet new people, even those far removed from poly, I started looking at them with a focus on 'what can they do for me.' This is something I have never felt that I have done in my 40+ years on earth, yet, up until the point of realization, it seemed totally natural and the norm for me.

It really took a turn for me a year ago when I started to view polyamory people as insufferable. I was the toxic person I had always hated. There I was, this pretentious relationship guru who was completely self-reliant, incredibly selfish, and filled with animosity. I hated myself. I really did. This wasn't me. In two years time I flipped 180-degrees in every way possible.

I wanted to remove myself and distance myself from everyone new in my life, which at this point was almost entirely made up of poly friends. However, I couldn't just leave because I was taught that it was unfair to treat my husband this way. And you can't have one-sided rules or boundaries or whatever the buzzword is today. I was just reminded over and over that I don't own him; which is true. He's not my property; again, true. It's not my life to control; again, true. So I started fantasizing about leaving him and returning to monogamy with someone else. I sat on that for months. The thought of someone else though gutted me. How did I get here? Why was I now thinking I needed to leave him and start over? I broke down. I hit rock bottom. I found support in those around me, but it was the same, tired, advice that just pushed me further into being this self-reliant, self-absorbed, selfish a-hole. I did not like myself. I did not like what I had become.

I got myself a therapist, an ENM-friendly therapist, and she worked with me to unravel the mess I was in.

So here it is: I recognize that poly is really good for some, especially those prone to being self-reliant and even those who, dare I say, are selfish. But after three years, this is all I came to see it as for me. Polyamory is taught from the perspective of "I have soooo much love to give!" but all I saw came down to 'what can you do for me?' and 'how can I push people away while shitting rainbow unicorn dust over all around me.'

Fortunately, after my husband had two breakups occur almost simultaneously, with the support of my therapist, I confessed all that I had been feeling to my husband. When I did, he opened up that he had felt very similar to me. He was afraid to tell me because he felt that he would be too controlling to ask us to stop. There is certainly a cult-like feeling to it all for us now.

We get why some do polyamory, but for those like us, who are happily married, happily ENM, and happy to be reliant on others while they are reliant on us, polyamory can be a death pill.

I know that I will receive downvotes and there will be no shortage of those telling me that we did poly wrong. I was in r/polyamory sub for years, too, but I'm okay with this. If that one person who was like me is starting to see their world fold in on them, and this helps them have that tough conversation with themself and/or their spouse/partner, then it was worth it. My husband I have been taking a break from ENM and rebuilding our marriage to where it was pre-poly, and things are going great. A lot of discussions revolve around, "I didn't know you felt that way too!" which is great.

I (f) have a meta (f) with HSV2. They’ve had two outbreaks in the past 6 months. She and our shared partner (m) have sex without condoms a couple times per week without condoms. He and I exclusively use condoms (this is at my request, mainly due to the known hsv2). This has been the arrangement for about 4 months. Today, my partner told me they’d had sex a few days into one of her outbreaks. I am really trying not to react based on stigma, but that made me uncomfortable. I would be far more comfortable if the two of them wore condoms, but I am unsure if it’s an overstep to ask them to de-escalate their relationship in that way. I would be comfortable enough continuing as we have been, but it almost feels unfair, that we are taking this precaution and they are not. Thoughts?

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/Makosharkin

Fiancé (27m) wanted to try an open relationships, not my first choice but I agreed. Now he's throwing a tantrum that my "bodycount" is 20x his and wants to add rules. Is it time to just cut my losses and move on? (I'm 25)

Originally posted to r/relationship_advice

TRIGGER WARNING: >!physical violence, controlling behavior, verbal abuse!<

Original Post - rareddit Nov 13, 2018

I've been with my fiancé for 4 years, I love him and used to respect him but his recent fixation on this dumb subject has really hurt my respect.

So he proposed 1,5 years ago. I said yes. About a year ago he found out his friend had slept with 100 women prior to getting engaged and som how this affected his psyche and purposed an open relationship. At first I was disgusted by the thought but I agreed after he threw a major meltdown.

So I started going out with friends, the first few guys I was so nervous because I'd been with 2 guys (including my fiancé) prior. But after I got over the nerves I realized when there's no pressure to start a relationship, I'm really good at picking up dudes and sending vibes that I'm DTF (I've actually met several off Reddit as well). I've been with 42 guys in the past year. I never thought it would happen but I've enjoyed myself immensely. But honestly I'd be ready to stop.

But as if turns out my fiancé is not good at if and he's had 2 really bad hookups from dating apps. When we were having the "where are we" discussion he had another melt down when he found out how many guys I've been with. He kept repeating "you've slept with 20 times the number I have? 20 TIMES"

I said maybe we should just stop. He said no that he wasn't ready hut now he wants to impose a "rule" that I have to take a break until he gets to 10 and then I can go out and meet someone new every five new girls he sleeps with.

To me this is goddamn ridiculous. Part of the fun of this was the independence and not checking in. Now he literally wants me to keep a log and then when he hits like an achievement then I can do my thing. How shifty is that?

And in all honesty, I don't want a relationship where we have to compare numbers, let alone fuck other people. I want a normal life with kids and a house and dog. What are we supposed to say "I watch the the kids until you fuck five women then it's my night!"

Is it time to just say enough is enough and move on? Is there any hope here?

Tl;dr: fiancé is not happy with the open relationship he started and instead of just stopping it, he wants to add crazy invasive rules.

Edit: rip my inbox with people calling me a whore.

guys wow, glad my best karma every has to do with my sleeping around. I have 1400 unread messages (exactly) and 17 chat requests. I'm almost certainly not going to bang anyone from this thread! and this isn't even my real account! Find my real account on r/needlepoint or r/mma and I'm down. Just kidding...don't do that. my new fav:

[Edited out]

edit 2: holy shit, this just wont die. Wow. Goodnight everyone. fiancé is at his place after a very tense hour or so where he basically called me every name in the book and I just sort of took it. I've gotten the advice I need, it's just the idea of dumping four years of history makes it hard to pull the trigger. I know he wont do it even though he thinks I'm the worst person alive. I hate him but love him. Life sucks. It really sucks.

TOP COMMENTS

rugby_shirt

>Move on

~

Maxxmz

>Honestly, the meltdown at the open relationship was already a pretty big red flag

KING_JELLYB3AN

>>All because some guy said he slept with a 100 girls, probably lying or exaggerating. So he HAS to sleep with more girls... The kid doesn't know what he wants, why would he even propose, what a child. @OP dodged a bullet, but honestly there was probably more signs than this one

~

ExistingSecond1

>It’s pretty well known in the ethical non-monogamy community that women fair much better than guys. A previous partner would meet five guys for every one person I’d meet. It’s a pretty common discrepancy. He should have done his homework first.

Can I post an update? I (25f) am the now infamous "whore" from the post that blew up yesterday. Just broke things off with fiancé (27m). Nov 14, 2018 (Next Day)

So yeah, I guess I made the front page yesterday. I've been on reddit for years and I think my "normal" account has maybe 500 karma and I make the front page for my sex life...yay!

Whatever, well I read responses well into the morning yesterday while my now ex-fiancé absolutely blew up my shit alternating between calling me a whore and cunt, asking me why I disgraced myself and him like that. He also peppered the barrage with things like "what's going to happen to us after this?" I finally fell asleep at like 3 am and should have worked but after finally admitting that I needed to break things off with him, called in sick to work.

Went to finances house, asked to come in, told him we had to talk. He said we did. But as a testament to his fucking out of control ego he prefaced his part of the conversation with "I want you to know in advance, I MAY not be ready to accept your apology." Fuck him.

I planned on being nice but that was too much. I just told him "its over between us." His look of surprise was a combination of pathetic and amusing because even after calling me all sorts of gendered slurs for the better part of a few hours, he still wasn't expecting me to break up with him. He begged me to know "why" I think I told him he had to know why and tried to leave. I had no desire to talk to him so I tried to leave and he kept trying to block me and grab my arm. I finally told him that if he didn't fucking let me go I was going to call the police. He finally relented but as I was trying to drive away he came out and starting punching my drivers side window. It was terrifying but it didn't break. Between leaving his place and getting to mine he texted and called at dozens of times. I just blocked him and deleted the whole conversation without reading it.

Fuck him too because I had the ring in my pocket and planned on giving it back but now I'm too scared to go see him to give it back so I'm selling the mother fucker or getting it melted down.

So that's that. I don't know this will probably get removed but its all good. I don't know whether I'm coming or going at this point. It's been a crazy couple of days

One last update from me (I was the 25f who went a little overboard when fiancé wanted open relationship). Mailed the ring back, started therapy, looking at starting over single for a long time. Nov 17, 2018 (3 days after previous post)

Editors Note: the text is unrecoverable but the title says she sent the ring back

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP

DO NOT CONTACT THE OOP's OR COMMENT ON LINKED POSTS, REMEMBER - RULE 7

This is something I have been ashamed to admit for a long time, because it's painfully obvious that I had self-esteem issues that played into this problem, and autism that made me struggle with the "grey" areas that were treading on.

My wife and I tried nonmonogamy for a year or so a while back. We had several polyamorous friends, and I had become convinced that this structure was more 'evolved' and healthy. I also had a deep rooted fear of not being 'enough', which was made worse since my wife had been in a poly relationship before and had engaged in several nonmonogamous events at parties during college, and had asked me for a threesome one time. I started worrying constantly that I wasn't enough for her, and I ended up asking her if she wanted an open relationship, and she said yes.

I tried sex with others a few times and it made me depressed because it made me feel disconnected from my wife. Meanwhile, my wife had began to develop feelings for someone she claimed to only want sex with. I spent a lot of nights alone in bed, while I listened to her giggle with him until 4am in the morning on voice calls. She bought him expensive gifts, but had stopped buying me gifts because I'm "hard to buy gifts for and [she's] not good at getting gifts." She would get mad at me when I called their relationship into question. And then only admitted to being obsessed with him after he made it clear that he wasn't going to have sex with her.

I was heartbroken. She was the very first person I fell in love with and loved me back. For a while she didn't want me to talk about it, but she eventually seemed genuinely remorseful, and admitted she had "got carried away" with the nonmonogamy. I feel like an absolute idiot who did literally anything aside get therapy. But nowadays, I have such bad anxiety surrounding the topic of nonmonogamy/polyamory. I feel that there's only a matter of time before she wants to leave me, that I'm no longer enough for her, even though she tells me she is sure that she wants monogamy with me now.

Every day I wake up, I remember that several month stretch where she woke up and immediately texted him. When she was usually only in 'the mood' after talking to him. When she would stay up late for hours talking to him. Nowadays, when she is 'in the mood,' it's hard to trust that she actually wants *me*. It's hard to trust that she isn't just closing her eyes imagining she was with him, or another new, novelty someone.

I remember her asking me at some point during that time, "why should sex be treated differently than any other activity you might do with friends?" and it still destroys me. She still sees it that way too. It makes me feel like she doesn't think I'm special at all. It makes me feel like she's taking advantage of my willingness to provide income and housing, while she remains a stay at home spouse, that she's taking advantage of my autism and my struggles with grey areas. It is so difficult to trust her now.

I am still heartbroken after this and I'm just now accepting how horribly this has messed me up. I don't know what to say or do. I love her to death and she gets me on so many other levels and our connection is so much deeper than any I've ever had. I can't give up on this relationship but I have no idea how to move on from this pain that consumes me every goddamn day.

Sorry for the long rant, I didn't know where else to put this.

We’ve been together for 10 years (31f & 40m) and I met him when I was young and didn’t have much experience with other men. I’ve always been pretty sexually open and always interested in open relationships but never brought it up bc I know he’s not.

We have a strong relationship and a pretty good sex life. I casually mentioned the idea of an open relationship and he took it personally even though I assured him it’s not personal. After we calmly talked about it I let him know I wouldn’t bring it up again because it upset him but then he started joking about it here and there the next day.

I’m hoping I planted the seed for it to be something he’s interested in bc I really want it but I’m not going to bring it up again or push it.

Has this happened to anyone and their partner eventually came around to the idea? I’m hopeful but not sure he would ever be ok “sharing” me.

** I should’ve worded the post differently I guess but what I’m asking is if every single monogamous couple who has brought this up to their spouse is immediately met with acceptance for the idea? What does opening a monogamous relationship ACTUALLY look like?

I want to emphasize it’s not something I will bring up to him again

&#x200B;

Sorry for the long post, I feel as though this is a very nuanced and unusual situation and so I struggled to explain it briefly.

So my boyfriend and I have been together throughout our times at university, coming up on three years now. He is my first relationship and my first body whereas he has slept with a number of people before we got together. We have spoken before about wanting to have a future together and potentially kids once we both have a stable source of income. For the first time in years we are spending a few months apart as he has a graduate job and I don’t. I have been living in my family home and working in hospitality so we haven’t seen each other in a few weeks.

Prior to this our relationship was a little strained due to academic stress and we were arguing for the first time ever. We also almost entirely stopped having sex for months and the relationship felt like it was getting dry. I have a higher sex drive than he does anyway and so it was mostly me who was finding this difficult. We spoke about it and he suggested we opened up our relationship and allowed each other to see other people until we could move back in together when I found a job in the same city as him. He even implied that the idea of a threesome/ watching me have sex with someone else would excite him. As much as this might seem strange to other people I was quite excited he suggested this as I have never really had the opportunity to explore my sexuality. I was experiencing some anxiety about the fact that I have only ever been in a committed relationship and I was worried I would one day regret not exploring more when I was younger. Despite this I still love him a lot and know he is the one I eventually want to settle down with.

Since we opened our relationship about a month ago I have slept with two people, a girl and a boy. I met them both on dating apps, and I was very open about the fact I had a boyfriend and I just wanted to explore. Both people were very accepting of this. I enjoyed the experiences a lot and I ended up spending a few nights with this girl in her apartment. It was mostly just because I find living at home very frustrating after having the freedom of living with my friends/ boyfriend throughout uni and my parents still treat me like a child. She and I only actually had sex a couple of times after drinking and mostly when we would hang out we would just play Minecraft or go to the pub. It was more like a friends with benefits situation. I was very open about the fact I was staying at her place with my boyfriend and she was totally ok with the fact I had a boyfriend.

So anyway, my boyfriend has been planning to visit me this coming weekend and I have been thinking about what he said that he would like to have a threesome. I asked this girl about it and she said she would be down so I brought it up to my boyfriend and his reaction totally shocked me. He went absolutely nuts after finding out I had had sex with this girl already and said he had no idea. He feels like he has been cheated on because I didn’t explicitly tell him that I had sex with this girl, only that I had been staying at her place occasionally. I was sidelined. I assumed that he had also been seeing other people as there have been a few nights where he has not replied to me in the evening or asked to call like he usually does. However he is saying that when he spoke about opening up our relationship he meant only for threesomes and not for us to explore on my own. This surprised me as I got a completely different impression from our initial conversation where we spoke about us both getting a chance to explore before we settled down and became adults. One of my friends from uni also sent me a screenshot of him on a dating app from a couple of weeks ago which I told her I was completely fine with as we were both using them. He says now he only had the app to look for a third, not for him to do his own thing.

Now he is saying that he isn’t sure if he can look past me ‘cheating on him’ and that he needs some time to think about whether or not he wants to be with me. I am completely devastated. I have deleted the apps from my phone and blocked the two people I slept with no explanation. Although I did want to explore I have always been certain that he is the man for me. We get on so well and he is dependable, caring, driven, everything I could ever want in a partner. My friends and family love him and we also share most of the same friends so our lives are intertwined. We have even decided on our kids names and the street we want to live on one day. I have tried to explain to him that this was just a lack of communication and that I never wanted to hurt him. I have never even looked at another person until we agreed to open the relationship. But he is just saying this changes the way he thinks about me entirely. He has barely spoken to me since finding out and pretty much ignored my apologies.

How do I earn his trust back?

link

Update: Thank you all for your thoughtful responses and discussion points. You have given me a lot to consider. I appreciate that so many of you have shared your experiences with similar situations.

There has been a second wave of responses [perhaps my post has reached the general public (i.e. less open-minded) outside of this sub] that have assumed malicious intent on my part, and are assuming that I'm trying to trick or manipulate my husband or create a situation that would harm him for my benefit. Some even say that I have cheated and want his permission to continue. That is completely incorrect. I have never cheated and would never cheat.

The entire reason I posed this question is to see how to best handle this situation in a respectful and ethical manner, so that all parties are leading a fulfilling life. My husband and I are both very open-minded people, so I thought it would be beneficial to consider possibilities outside the societal norm of simply separating.

A big thing I'm realizing thanks to some thoughtful commenters is that my husband may feel forced to make a decision that he is not actually comfortable with just to prevent the separation. I think couples therapy with an open-minded counselor that is accepting of ENM and/or non-traditional relationships may be the best way to work through all of this.

--

Original post:

Has anyone here opened their marriage, but no longer has a sexual relationship with their spouse?

ETA: I would love to hear from others that have experience with this type of non-traditional relationship dynamic - whether it went well or went badly

I am interested in staying with my husband and remaining partners in running a household and raising our two young children together, but I am no longer sexually attracted to him and do not want to continue that part of our partnership. [Redacted info about my own sexuality as I don't think it's necessary to have the discussion]. I am not interested in seeking new to sexual partners for the foreseeable future.

I want him to have the great sex life that he deserves. The thought of him being in a sexual or even emotional relationship with another person does not bother me at all.

Has anyone been successful (or not) with this dynamic and would like to share some insight?

This discussion assumes he would want to stay in a relationship like this. Obviously I know that he may not be comfortable with this and may simply want a divorce when I bring it up. I'm just curious if something like this has worked for others.

ETA: I'd really love to hear from people who have tried something similar (successfully or not) or have other insights into open relationship dynamics. Disrespectful comments from those who have no interest in discussing the dynamics of an open relationship are not adding anything of value to this conversation and will be reported/blocked.