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?

This is a very strange thread. You are staying together for the sake of staying together. How unbelievably sad. You don’t spend time together and you aren’t intimate and he’s met someone that he actually does this stuff with but won’t leave you for her. It’s a very messed up situation and I feel sorry for all involved. You need to divorce and he needs to be with her clearly all you need to leave either other alone.

I hope that it will give you some relief when you talk to her

I know it's not really the point, but I wonder when you went off sex, or if you've never enjoyed it. I wonder if you have had other sexual partners. If you've been together since school, it doesn't sound like you have. It may be that it is sex with him you don't enjoy. Perhaps he doesn't float your boat in that way, or isn't any good at it. Have you ever wondered what you are missing?

I feel very sad reading this. Your husband broke the ground rules. He now seems to have no care for how he is hurting you. You are worth much more. You have a full and successful business life and could definitely start afresh on your own. This situation will completely destroy your self worth.

@SummerWillow

I feel very sad reading this. Your husband broke the ground rules. He now seems to have no care for how he is hurting you. You are worth much more. You have a full and successful business life and could definitely start afresh on your own. This situation will completely destroy your self worth.

Ground rules? OP is absolutely mad expecting her husband to go out and F**K a woman is not right either. It's very very wrong that OP expected her husband to do that and have no regard for that woman. She has a choice to leave but she would rather stay. OP has to admit responsibility here too.

The blame cannot be solely put on her DH.

@Washeduponthebeach raises some good points.

This is a very sad thread. I'm sorry OP but from what you say, it sounds like your husband is exploring the possibility of having a full and legitimate relationship with this woman, whilst keeping you on the back burner in case it doesn't work out.

Regardless of whether or not he stay with you, he is choosing her over you. He is choosing her every time he walks out that house to meet her. He's said himself he will not stop seeing her, meaning that he is choosing her. You need to see that. He was prepared to potentially have you walk out of his life for good, and he didn't care, he firmly expressed she was number 1 in his life.

It may be difficult to leave him OP, but why would you want to be second best? The worst case scenario here is the relationship keeps blossoming and he leaves you. The best case scenario is he explores what a real relationship with her would be like, it fizzles out and he sticks with you. You are not the winner in either of these scenarios.

Most importantly, in the nicest way possible because I really think you need to hear it, it doesn't sound like your husband loves you. At all. It sounds like you're simply the 'you'll do' if he doesn't find something better

I'm sorry OP

Op have you started getting ducks in a row, copies of all financial stuff.
Once you've done that you can then have a full discussion on where your marriage is going.

Hi OP. I'm coming at this from a polyamorous angle, just for upfront context. I've been in both poly/open and monogamous relationships. Am currently open to either. I also have no negative judgement towards the idea of a non-sexual marriage of any kind.

What I'm hearing is...

• You want to stay in a live-in partnership with him, because you love him. He says he wants the same.

• He wants sexual intimacy but not only sex. He's pursued this - and in doing so, violated the agreement you made together.

• You're hoping it will fizzle out and the thought of him being romantically-sexually in love with someone else is (understandably) painful. Particularly because you feel threatened/replaced/betrayed in specific areas (again understandable).

What worries me is that the boundary violation hasn't been addressed enough (from what I can tell). Even in fully polyamorous relationships, where it's agreed beforehand that love/sex/everything is ok to explore - it's still possible to violate agreements. And when that happens, serious repair work needs to be done.

Also, the fact that he took her to a place that is special to you as a family. That's awful. Incredibly insensitive. There needs to be boundaries. Not unilateral rules that you place on him, but a genuine and deep discussion about what you BOTH agree is fair. Things like not taking her to certain special places would be completely fair. Him requesting privacy in terms of the finer details of their connection would be completely fair.

For any kind of open arrangement to genuinely work, everyone has to own their stuff. Learning to deal with feelings of jealousy, pain, and threat is only ONE side of open relationship. The other side is learning to be sensitive, pace oneself, respect one's existing partnership, and act with immense empathy. Your husband is going to need to majorly step up in this area, from what I can tell. He's in "new relationship energy" right now, and he's allowing it to cloud his judgement.

If I was in your position and I wanted to stay, I'd start reading more about polyamory. Many mono/poly couples exist. This is where one person prefers to just have one partner, while the other person has more than one partner.

I'd go to the forum at polyamory.com and also read MoreThanTwo (the website/book). They are good starting points and they might help you to process all of this. Maybe you're already familiar.

Also, if you're open to finding a poly-friendly couples therapist, I really think this could be very helpful for both of you.

Good luck to you OP. Not an easy situation at all.

Op your comment about being together since school,raising a family etc really struck a chord with me. My parents met when my mum was 12 and my dad was 14. They married when she was 20. My dad's career was the most important thing and she was responsible for bringing us up and dealing with the management of everything domestic. Over the 50 something years of their marriage my father called the shots . He spent a lot of time at conferences and slept with other women whilst attending them.One of them sent a postcard to our house knowing my mother would see it first. It contained a very personal message. She was very hurt by it. He wasn't physically nasty to my mother but he could be very cruel in his words and attitude to her. She was almost obsessed with the fact that they were married and they would stay married no matter what. I was brought up with this and it affected my attitude to my thoroughly miserable first marriage and I put up with a whole load of rubbish that I didn't need to. My father died a few years ago now and I have spent a lot of time with my mum ; we are friends as well as mother and daughter. She is 82. Over the first lockdown I was the only person she really saw as we wanted to avoid covid so we spent an awful lot of time talking about her life and the things she had realised from being a widow for 4 years. The thing that sticks in my mind most is the day when she suddenly looked up at me and said " Why did I do that . I could have had a life of my own without your father but I stayed .I wasted all those years". Op please don't be my mum.

OP I am the OW where a MM has a discreet ‘arrangement’ with his DW and I can tell you that you do not have an open marriage or a discreet arrangement. Your DH has a girlfriend he is infatuated with and he is parading her around for all to see. What will happen when friends and your children find out as they surely will very soon. Are you going to tell them you are happy with the arrangement? I think you should look up and understand the meaning of exit affairs. The person having the affair is unhappy and wants to leave but instead of doing it they subconsciously leave a trail of clues so that when they are found out they have no option but to leave anyway. I really think you are kidding yourself if you think this is going to turn out well.

On a cursory read this has every appearance of a man who wants to have his cake, eat it, and make trifle out of it as well, while his wife suffers agonies over the situation. The reality emerging from OP's many updates is far more complex and extremely painful and sad.

OP: I'm firmly with the [almost] consensus of the thread that no woman should ever have sex she doesn't want. The comments that you should force yourself into this through therapy are repulsive and Victorian. If you never want sex again, it's your body and you absolutely have the right to decide. Equally, your DH doesn't want celibacy for the remainder of his days. That's just as understandable.

You decided on a solution; it hasn't worked. The outcome of his eventually falling for someone else was sadly probably always inevitable.

The marriage is at an impasse. One party will be perpetually unhappy. Either his relationship 'fizzles out' and he returns to celibacy, and is thus back to his original miserable position, or it flourishes, in which case he's happy and you are the one left bereft.

At present, either the two of you are determined to stay married in these untenable circumstances or he's comforting you by telling you want you want to hear. Either way, I think couples counselling or therapy is worth a shot. NOT to coerce you into sex you don't want, but to unpick a horribly messy situation, the underlying reasons for this, and to lay cards on the table where both of you state exactly what you want out of this marriage. It may be that a compromise can be reached somewhere. Penetration might be impossible for you to contemplate but there are other forms of intimacy and closeness. This would need exploring if you're to have a chance.

If the marriage limps on under the impasse it's now at, it's unrealistic to suspect it will survive.

Mumsnet can't answer how you deal with your feelings in tolerating the new relationship. It's an unreasonable and wholly unrealistic request. Only you and your husband can work your way through this, and it will likely take a good deal of work.

If the impasse remains you might both decide that the best thing all round would be to agree to an amicable separation. But if you both want your marriage to survive - and it seems you both do - continuing with an untenable, unhappy situation without taking decisive steps to address it is probably only going to end one way.

Also why on earth would you think it is appropriate to speak to the OW? I certainly would not speak to my MM’s DW in any circumstances. If you want to stay married you must either tell your DH that he has not kept to the agreement you made and must end things with her now or you must ‘accept’ the situation for what it is. The OW believes you have agreed to this so stalking her on social media or ringing her or trying to interfere with her relationship is completely unacceptable. You cannot control the situation by approaching her, this is between you and your DH.

Further point: some of the husband's behaviour is unconscionable. Introducing her to mutual friends, not pausing to consider the feelings of his children, are actions I find abhorrent.

I hope none of these friends is now agonising over the awful moral dilemma of whether they should tell the wronged wife her husband is being unfaithful, or being complicit in their affair by staying silent. As PPs have pointed out above, they are highly likely to suspect.

In their shoes I'd be furious with him for putting me in this position and he wouldn't be receiving any invitations from me or appearing anywhere on my Christmas card list. This is not the way a 'friend' behaves.

This isn't a marriage, it's a friendship. Let him go be with someone that can meet all of his needs.

OP - have you ever explored why you don’t want to be intimate with your husband? Is it hormones (menopause)? Asexual? Don’t fancy him?

You refer to sex and intimacy as this ‘little’ unimportant thing, but that’s patently not true for your DH and hasn’t been for years.

You come across as very fearful at even the idea of splitting up, to the point you’ll suck up anything he decides just to keep him. Why is that? Why is this man so unbelievably amazing?!!

The wider picture you describe of both of you running separate businesses, engaged in your own activities and with separate friends, I do wonder how close you actually are .. The fact that he has been seeing this other woman, spending time with her doing all sorts of things he should be doing with you , and you didn't know where he was or what he was doing. Do you not discuss your day , talk about what's been going on for you etc? It's not just the sex that's missing, it's companionship in the sense most of us would understand it. You sound like passing ships in the night.

I don't get why so many people think this is a "sad" situation.

There's nothing sad about it at all. It's two adults, both with the advantage of adequate financial resource (and therefore control over their lives) who have made a choice about how their marriage will be run. The fact the husband is smiling from ear to ear is because he's loved-up with an OW and comes back like a Tom Cat when he's had enough of playing away. The fact the OP never once considered that as a risk is astounding.

And now the OP wants to find coping strategies to soldier on with a compromise existence while the husband decides whether to be with one woman or the other is 100% the OPs choice as well.

The fact is, life is short, way too short for this complexity and hassle. But it doesn't sound like the OP is in the mindset to think of a future outside this nightmare. People can make their heaven or their hell.

@AngelinaFibres

Op your comment about being together since school,raising a family etc really struck a chord with me. My parents met when my mum was 12 and my dad was 14. They married when she was 20. My dad's career was the most important thing and she was responsible for bringing us up and dealing with the management of everything domestic. Over the 50 something years of their marriage my father called the shots . He spent a lot of time at conferences and slept with other women whilst attending them.One of them sent a postcard to our house knowing my mother would see it first. It contained a very personal message. She was very hurt by it. He wasn't physically nasty to my mother but he could be very cruel in his words and attitude to her. She was almost obsessed with the fact that they were married and they would stay married no matter what. I was brought up with this and it affected my attitude to my thoroughly miserable first marriage and I put up with a whole load of rubbish that I didn't need to. My father died a few years ago now and I have spent a lot of time with my mum ; we are friends as well as mother and daughter. She is 82. Over the first lockdown I was the only person she really saw as we wanted to avoid covid so we spent an awful lot of time talking about her life and the things she had realised from being a widow for 4 years. The thing that sticks in my mind most is the day when she suddenly looked up at me and said " Why did I do that . I could have had a life of my own without your father but I stayed .I wasted all those years". Op please don't be my mum.

This is so moving @AngelinaFibres. Thanks for sharing it.

It's sad because Op is hurting but unlike most people who are cheated on she doesn't hate and nor does she want to walk away.

I'm on the view couple counselling has to be worth a go. I'm not suggesting jumping into the Kamasutra but more putting effort into getting the closeness and intimacy back, bit of romance, concentrate on each other, weekend away, romantic dinner, a few hugs and the other things may follow.

They have to start somewhere. And without any 'extras' or distractions in the wings.

OP you said you H told you he’d only known this woman her 6 weeks. In that time he’s taken her to your family’s special restaurant, chosen some underwear for her and taken her to a house where he knows family and friends would be “popping in” all day.

What the heck has he got in store for the next six weeks?!

So basically, you are like a brother and sister...............................................

Sorry I keep popping up with stories! My mum and dad were a bit like this, without the open relationship bit, but living separate lives pretty much while married. My mum met someone else and said she felt married but not married. She left my dad for the other man. It did fizzle out after a few years. Her and my dad are still best friends and help each other out/go out for meals etc, despite living separate lives. Neither would get back together!

Marriage is a lot about routine and habit. People play golf , take their children to stuff, go food shopping etc etc. No matter how exciting and glamorous anyone's lifestyle appears there are always habits that form a secure and binding scaffold. It's just a shinier scaffold. My first husband went to work early and came home late. I did the domestic stuff ; the toddler groups, the play dates with mum friends and their children. I expect Op you and your husband have lots of scaffolding habits that come with a long marriage and they worked just fine before she came along. You could still celebrate birthdays and your wedding anniversary with a sort of 'date night' because you could convince yourself that he was having meaningless 'practical' sex with someone who you needn't even think about. But it's different now. You can't go to that restaurant you love because the thought of the waiters talking about what a cheeky sod he is to sit with her across a candlelit table and then to do precisely the same with you will taint it and make it grubby and embarrassing . My 2nd husband will write lovely ,personal messages in birthday and anniversary cards that I want to keep because they are written from his heart. In the end ,with my first husband, I dreaded special events. Friends would ask what he was planning for my 30th, did we need a babysitter because obviously we would be going somewhere special. I didn't want to go. It was a lie. I knew his mind was elsewhere and if he was going to leave we were better off not spending money I would desperately need in the future. What will you do when friends ask what he did for your birthday , where you are going to celebrate a significant anniversary. I remember well our last wedding anniversary, standing in the kitchen staring at the blank card and feeling sick. I knew I was supposed to write something heartfelt but actually, laughably now , the thing that came into my head was....warmest regards. I just couldn't write what I knew I was supposed to if I had been in a happy marriage because deep down I knew I absolutely wasn't.You can bury your head in routine and domestic trivia most of the time but at those times you know deep down in your soul that it's all such a hollow sham. I hung on to him because a big part of me didn't want anyone else to have him. It was awful and ultimately pointless. Honestly Op if I could have looked into the future and seen the lovely life that awaited me I would have got some boxes and helped him pack.

I hope you will put your foot down and set some boundaries, PhillyQueen.

OW should not have been anywhere near your friends. It says a lot about H that he felt entitled to bring her there. Your BF’s husband has now met your H’s girlfriend. Whether or not he and the others were unaware, this was an appalling breach of trust. H has self-justified this and his other reprehensible behaviors.

He isn’t even trying to be discreet. His agenda appears to be immersing OW in his world, which of course means intersecting with yours. She has already begun to walk in your path. He may assume that the more she is publicly by his side, the more their relationship will be normalized and your open arrangement accepted by others. OW obviously doesn’t care if her Partner knows. They may eventually want more permanency. I wouldn’t be putting my future in the hands of these two.

I agree with others that if you stay, you need to express your feelings, assert your boundaries, and clearly tell H what you find unacceptable. He needs to dig deep and find some empathy and sensitivity for you, his wife of 40 years.

@AngelinaFibres

Marriage is a lot about routine and habit. People play golf , take their children to stuff, go food shopping etc etc. No matter how exciting and glamorous anyone's lifestyle appears there are always habits that form a secure and binding scaffold. It's just a shinier scaffold. My first husband went to work early and came home late. I did the domestic stuff ; the toddler groups, the play dates with mum friends and their children. I expect Op you and your husband have lots of scaffolding habits that come with a long marriage and they worked just fine before she came along. You could still celebrate birthdays and your wedding anniversary with a sort of 'date night' because you could convince yourself that he was having meaningless 'practical' sex with someone who you needn't even think about. But it's different now. You can't go to that restaurant you love because the thought of the waiters talking about what a cheeky sod he is to sit with her across a candlelit table and then to do precisely the same with you will taint it and make it grubby and embarrassing . My 2nd husband will write lovely ,personal messages in birthday and anniversary cards that I want to keep because they are written from his heart. In the end ,with my first husband, I dreaded special events. Friends would ask what he was planning for my 30th, did we need a babysitter because obviously we would be going somewhere special. I didn't want to go. It was a lie. I knew his mind was elsewhere and if he was going to leave we were better off not spending money I would desperately need in the future. What will you do when friends ask what he did for your birthday , where you are going to celebrate a significant anniversary. I remember well our last wedding anniversary, standing in the kitchen staring at the blank card and feeling sick. I knew I was supposed to write something heartfelt but actually, laughably now , the thing that came into my head was....warmest regards. I just couldn't write what I knew I was supposed to if I had been in a happy marriage because deep down I knew I absolutely wasn't.You can bury your head in routine and domestic trivia most of the time but at those times you know deep down in your soul that it's all such a hollow sham. I hung on to him because a big part of me didn't want anyone else to have him. It was awful and ultimately pointless. Honestly Op if I could have looked into the future and seen the lovely life that awaited me I would have got some boxes and helped him pack.

So poignant so true and so beautifully written.

I had the same with anniversary cards. Ironcially he would get very cross if I didnt bother, despite him spending most of our marriage balls deep in someone (anyone) else. So I would just sign it "P" for Pyong with a kiss and it would be one of those blank cards as I couldnt bring myself to buy a "On Our Anniversary" cards with the inevitable drivel that I didnt mean in it.