Open marriage has gone wrong 😑

[PhillyQueen]

Name change for this as previous posts may be outing.

Sex life with DH dried up completely about 8 years ago. It was never stellar but that didn’t seem particularly important to either of us . Our relationship was otherwise perfect, he is a fine person and a great dad to our (now adult) kids and we used to have sex at most weekly, then over the years went to fortnightly and monthly until it tailed off altogether. Neither of us seemed bothered and it wasn’t a big deal and I just assumed that’s what happened in long-term relationships. Life was good even if any passion was long-gone. We have both always had our own friends as well as mutual ones, we both run businesses, we were busy but always looked forward to time together.

After the sex stopped altogether, we avoided the subject for a couple of years then we had the conversation where we both agreed that we wanted to stay together as we love each other but that DH didn’t want to give up that part of his life forever and that if it wasn’t possible with me, he would like to look elsewhere and would prefer to do it with my blessing. So, good idea or not, we had an open marriage policy for a few years and it seemed to work well. It was reciprocal but I wasn’t up for it with anyone , not just him, I’ve never been very sexual. Even though he had a couple of brief affairs, nothing changed with our family life and I was happy enough knowing we could carry on as we were. All good. Not a perfect love story but a practical way of keeping things going, which is what we both wanted.

Only now things have changed. He has met someone he really likes, by his own admission even loves, and I am worried he is going to leave me and our life for her. She is younger than us and very attractive. If I were standing next to her, I would look like her grandmother. He is absolutely smitten with her and for the first time, I feel our marriage is truly in danger.

I feel that DH has violated the terms of our agreement for an open marriage and should stop seeing this woman but he has said he won’t do that, that she makes him happy, and that we agreed that we could both see other people etc. so it’s me that’s being unreasonable. Falling in love with someone else was never part of the deal I agreed to, though.

So what can I do? Grit my teeth and bear it and hope they break up? Or ask him again to stop seeing her otherwise our marriage will have to end?

@HailAdrian

Loads younger, gross. What on earth does she want with him?

Well from what the op describes of her lifestyle, several businesses etc I would assume money. Not all women in their mid 40’s can go out and get a fabulous job which is often suggested on MN. Realistically more women are plodding along on mw and fed up of scraping along. A wealthy older man might be a good option. Most men in their mid 40’s are either married or looking for a 25 year old.

@PhillMcCann

This was never an open marriage. It was you having a low sex drive and agreeing he could play away.

What would I do now? I'd take up my half of bargain and go out with someone else, including sex. Then see his reaction and go from there.

That's just pointless, immature gameplaying.

Yes, he has given me some detail and it was easy to piece together the rest from other sources so I could find her on Facebook. Not that any of her social media is very revealing. I know what she looks like but little else.

Bloody hell OP have some self respect! What happens when one of your friends sees them together?

I'm sorry OP, but he's in love with her. She's offering the whole package, love, romance and sex. You're offering a convenient normality.

What's going to happen when someone see's him with her? When your children discover what's actually happening behind closed doors?

Op I really feel for you. It sounds like you've been married a very long time. And it's a lot to walk away from that.

He doesn't want to end the marriage either.

I think you should consider couple councilling. Because what's currently happening is hurting you and will result in the end of the marriage.

Try and get the spark back into your marriage. If that means booking a date in a hotel then do it.

@PhillyQueen

Yes, he has given me some detail and it was easy to piece together the rest from other sources so I could find her on Facebook. Not that any of her social media is very revealing. I know what she looks like but little else.

So are you going to start talking properly with your DH, or are you planning on trying to continue trying work this out in your own head?

@PhillyQueen

I’ve read all of your messages, thank you. I cannot possibly respond to every point but I hear everything and don’t disagree with some of the seemingly harsher comments.

He’s already told me he wants to stay in our marriage and that he has no intention of stopping seeing this woman, both for sex and other activities. So yes, you’re right, I want him to stay too, for an awful lot of reasons, so I have to navigate a way of coping with his side-relationship. The sex part is far easier to cope with than the going to restaurants and holding hands in cafes because we agreed the former but not the latter. I have to learn how to deal with that and I don’t know how, hence why I posted here. It was surprisingly easy to deal with him having sex elsewhere. He didn’t devote a lot of time to it and I was happy we had found a solution and we were enjoying our lives.

Maybe I do deserve a different life but this is the one I want and I am very sure about that. I’m over 60, I don’t want to start again on my own or with someone else. I’ve had the financial means to leave for decades now had I really wanted to but I just don’t. Everything is fine, even the sex with other women was ok, until he met this one.

Of course I will put up with it, I don’t see an alternative for me, I just want to know how I can deal with it, not if

I actually think it sounds like there's a huge amount of love between you and my reading of this is that he doesn't want to hurt you because he loves you - I don't read it as having his cake and eating it, for example.

I think, now you have the facts and are making a decision with them in mind, if you want to stay with him and make this work, you should look into resources designed for the polyamorous or non-monogamous. Counselling, certainly, with someone experiened in working with non-monogamy - you should go together, and use that time to set boundaries and expectations of one another and your marriage in its new state.

For example: holidays with external partners, yes or no? If things end with this partner, are you okay with him having a different romantic relationship with someone else? What do and don't you want to know? What happens to your finances - if he lived another 20 years in a relationship with you both, do you still inherit everything from him? How much time 'can' he spend with her, and how do you approach the discussions about this? What if she goes through something difficult or traumatic (illness, bereavement) - how much time are you comfortable with him dedicating to supporting her? How open are you to knowing her, or do you want to keep it entirely seperate? Might you feel differently in 5 years, when this woman might be a big and positive part of your husband's life?

These may all seem big and terrifying questions, but you need to go into this with your eyes open and good, honest, loving communication. In an idealistic sense, this is a chance for your husband to have more love and support and happiness in his life, and it does not need to diminish your happiness together - plenty of non-monogamous couples work, but the KEY is excellent, honest communication.

You may find in counselling and working through these issues that you are less okay with it than you think you are in the name of preserving the marriage, and that you aren't comfortable with it. That's okay - NM is not for everyone, and you are just as entitled to have opinions about how your marriage works as he is.

You may also find you actually are happy for your husband and his happiness, and that might bring a deeper and more loving connection between you both - in my opinion, non-monogamy can be an incredibly trusting, loving experience which gives the primary partners (i.e. you and DH) a new way of looking at your own relationship with fresh eyes.

It is possible. It can even be great and fulfilling. But you need to have conversations about it - you can get to a point where you don't want to know X or Y, but first you need to decide together what is and isn't included in this new version of your marriage.

@ElspethFlashman

What has happened, is that he's got himself a bona-fide mistress.

What may be worrying is that a mistress isn't just for sex, but also for emotional comfort.

Traditionally in these tales, the wife is treated more as a colleague. You talk about the events of the day and about your mutual friends and about your indigestion, but that's as deep as it goes.

You will have to see if it progresses that way or not.

At the moment, do you have much emotional intimacy? As in soulful chats?

Agree with this.

OP What would you say/how would you feel if you found out he was buying her gifts/love tokens ?

It's all very unpleasant

If I were still only 62 and my long term prospect with my spouse was nothing more exciting than a comfortable retirement, I’d be reconsidering my options, regardless of sex or lack of it.

@TheAntiGardener

Yours wasn’t one of the comments I was thinking of, lilmishap. If the relationship is incomplete for op’s husband, then it is incomplete for him. That’s a fact. My objection is to comments that describe sexless relationships - in general - as being friendships, etc. There have been a few on here along the lines of ‘it’s really a friendship, isn’t it’, which without the important qualifier ‘for your dh’ or in your words ‘if you aren’t on board with it’, sounds like a sweeping judgement on all sexless relationships. That blanket judgement that these are not proper relationships is what I was reacting to.

I certainly was not suggesting that anyone ought to settle for, be happy in or stay in a relationship without sex if that isn’t what they want.

I totally agree, and I'm sorry if my comment was one of those. Lord knows I can't remember the last time we had sex 😋 but we are super-happy! But you have to match on that, not have one person longing for an intimacy that isn't there and is repeatedly denied.

Of all the interests to have outside a marriage, sex is not the ideal thing to rely on someone else for. It can forge a deep bond. It's not like playing a round of golf.

OP, when you say:
I feel that DH has violated the terms of our agreement for an open marriage
...the trouble is that the brutal separation of body from heart and soul can be hard to sustain.

This is easier said than done, but try not to focus on the "youth and beauty" aspects. They might not be as important as you think, and you can get sucked into comparisons that make you feel crap about ageing when there's no need for that on top of everything else.

@scarpa that's a very good response. @PhillyQueen I'd suggest you read it carefully, there's a lot of really good advice in her post.

Another point to consider here is that OP has become so used to the status quo of her marriage that she is not seeing things the way we are.

I feel her husband has devalued her as a person and to some extent she has endorsed this by turning a blind eye until it's too late when he has moved the goalposts.

To most of us reading this it is not acceptable. OP I hate to say this but please give your head a big wobble

The emotional connection, I see that’s what’s really hurting you.
Being thought of and considered is the number one most important thing in a marriage. So many problems stem from not considering how an action makes a partner feel.

From the men that spend too much money or time on their hobbies or go out drinking and then miss the last train home and disappear for hours. Over the years there have been hundreds of posts like this on MN.

He didn’t consider your feelings at all, if he had as soon as he felt even the smallest connection he should have backed away so that your agreement stood. Whilst many here don’t understand nor would want an agreement such as yours you did both make it and stick to it for a number of years.

The contract is broken and I do not see you marriage recovering from this. Sort out the financial side especially as he has his own business interests as they appear excellent at hiding stuff during divorces. He has willingly broken the terms so don’t trust him or think he wouldn’t do that to me if we divorced.

You need to go hardcore and push all sentimentality aside for the time being. Protect yourself financially.

@Anordinarymum I don't think there is a "we" here - it's not like the OP is getting an unanimous take on the situation from the MN cohort.

And that's because it's not simple or straightforward. I think it would really help the OP if people would stop pretending it is.

It's nuanced, and complex, and difficult. 'Giving her head a wobble' isn't going to help anything - it just suggesting she's being stupid - which she isn't. It's an incredibly insulting thing to say.

She's trying to work out what she has, what she doesn't have and what she wants. The only way forward with that is with open and honest communication. My worry is that there doesn't seem to be any.

I know this will appear to be judgemental, but I really can’t see the point of open marriages? Basically it just appears to be two mates co habiting together, but either party able to just come and go as they please with other partners too. I wouldnt describe it as any kind of relationship, but just a marriage of convenience. Once you enter into this sort of agreement, surely you’re letting go of your partner, because the potential for him to get feelings for one of his sexual partners is big. I feel really sad for you, but only because you seem to have wasted so many years on this, when you could have found both an emotional and sexual connection with someone else.

Falling in love certainly wasn’t part of the deal

Falling in love - or making it forbidden - can’t be contractually controlled. Your perplexity seems to be ‘hang on - I never said you could do that’.

But actually, as he’s had sex with a few women and not fallen in love with them, it’s not the open marriage arrangement that’s caused this, is it? It’s simply that he’s met someone.

Thing is, companionship and getting along may be enough for you, but what if it’s not enough for him? You speak as if the relationship he has with her is the precise equivalent of the one he has with you, except that one has sex on top.

I doubt that’s it. For a start, sex or no sex, he feels fancied. And that means ‘valued’, ‘appreciated’, ‘important’ as well as ‘desired’. All of us, male and female, enjoy that.

You’d like it too, sex or no sex. Get out there in the world, and perhaps you’ll find it.

This was always going to happen. Or at least there was always a huge risk that it would. You now have to accept that if one of you wants a sexual relationship and the other doesn't, then you are no longer compatible, and haven't been for a long time. You tried to find a solution to that problem but ultimately it was only a sticking plaster. Now it's time to face up to the realities of being in a marriage where one of you is feeling unfulfilled and unhappy with the situation.

Sexless marriages can work, but only when you are both completely at peace with it. That is clearly not the case here and never has been.

[quote whycantwegoonasthree]@Anordinarymum I don't think there is a "we" here - it's not like the OP is getting an unanimous take on the situation from the MN cohort.

And that's because it's not simple or straightforward. I think it would really help the OP if people would stop pretending it is.

It's nuanced, and complex, and difficult. 'Giving her head a wobble' isn't going to help anything - it just suggesting she's being stupid - which she isn't. It's an incredibly insulting thing to say.

She's trying to work out what she has, what she doesn't have and what she wants. The only way forward with that is with open and honest communication. My worry is that there doesn't seem to be any.[/quote]
I do not think it is simple at all for OP but for me as someone who would not tolerate this it is simple and that is my take on it. I can only speak from my own stance.

When I say give your head a wobble, I mean stop thinking within the box she is in and look at it differently to be able to work out what she wants to gain from this if anything

Sorry OP but how on earth did you think this was going to work out? When you have mismatched sex drives it’s frustrating for both of you. He’s satisfied himself in a way that you don’t want to and has now seen that things can be more fulfilling in that area of his life. Maybe this is for the best.

Are your assets protected? If he were to change his will and leave all to her, do you still have the financial ability to support yourself?

I'm not sure that there is a step by step guide for how you cope with your husband being in love with someone else. All you can do is try to live with it if that's what you want.

OP I really feel for you and fear you may have many months ahead of living life on an emotional rollercoaster.

The ‘remember the rules’ comment works both ways and you should remind him of that.

If you don’t want to leave reinforce the boundaries that were set when this arrangement first started. He cannot have it all on his terms.

@Livelovebehappy

I know this will appear to be judgemental, but I really can’t see the point of open marriages? Basically it just appears to be two mates co habiting together, but either party able to just come and go as they please with other partners too. I wouldnt describe it as any kind of relationship, but just a marriage of convenience. Once you enter into this sort of agreement, surely you’re letting go of your partner, because the potential for him to get feelings for one of his sexual partners is big. I feel really sad for you, but only because you seem to have wasted so many years on this, when you could have found both an emotional and sexual connection with someone else.

There are so many variables - just for sex, actual relationships in addition to the marriage, both parties to the marriage having a shared third partner... it's not as simple as it only happens when the marriage is 'just friends'.

I know a couple who've been married for 8 years - he has a girlfriend, she has a boyfriend.

They are still very much in love with one another, have sex, own a house together, take holidays together etc etc. Everything you'd expect from a 'normal' marriage. But they also both have other people they love, and their description of it is that there's more love and support and happiness in their lives because of it. Romantic love is the only one we sequester off and assume cannot possibly be shared - yet we expect people to love both parents, or all their children, or all their friends equally, without issue. But why not? If you can have two amazing friends who you love very much, but one is the friend you go out for dancing and drinks with, and the other is the one you love to spend quiet evenings watching TV with, why not romantic partners who offer you different things?

It's fine if you're someone who wants to dedicate your romantic love to one person only and wants the same in return, of course it is. That's your decision. But it's not that huge of a leap to see how someone could love two people romantically at the same time, and how - with very good communication - it wouldn't need to diminish from either of them. Or that not everybody needs or wants their romantic partner to offer 100% of their emotional, sexual or romantic needs.

The heart wants what the heart wants, and having sex with someone is a sure way to get your heart entangled, sooner or later. Forget the sanctimonious twits on here who piously spout, if you love someone, you should let them go. You should let him go, not for his sake, but for your own. Staying in a relationship like this over time will leave you feeling unloved and humiliated, and in constant fear that he will leave you. You can be much happier, even on your own.

I don't think your DH is at fault. I think from the point your relationship was sexless you should of worked on it OP.

Falling in love is not a crime and it was a risk from the get go.

Your DH is taking advantage of you currently though you need to be firm. Tbh it's gone so far at this stage I would get rid of him no debate.