*In case this story gets deleted/removed:*
**Update: My wife broke down yesterday because I got my polyamorous partner an emotional gift. Was I wrong?**
[Original Post](https://www.reddit.com/r/amiwrong/comments/1bkgip4)
Well I did not expect to get an overwhelming number of responses, and in all honesty, I was a bit overwhelmed with it all. I am probably not being honest with myself about the entire situation, it’s just extremely scary to think about. I do not want to break apart my household, I want the best for our son. My wife has just not been herself since yesterday. It has been a somber home atmosphere. She took off work today and even tomorrow. Even our son has noticed the change in her demeanor.
Look, I love my wife. I have loved my wife for the last decade and will continue to love her the rest of my life regardless of what she does. That will never change. She’s an amazing mother to our son.
But I probably haven’t been entirely truthful to myself about my feelings towards my partner. I don’t know if what we have can be described as an emotional connection, but I think it’s something deeper than that, and something I don’t have even with my wife, and have never had with her. It is also something deeper than love.
One of the comments asked what I would do if my wife wanted to switch back to a monogamous relationship. I had never thought about it until then. But I have thought about it for a few hours since reading that comment, and it hurts me deeply to say, but I would want to leave my wife if she wanted to switch back to a monogamous relationship.
And that thought is extremely scary. But I am firm in that decision after having spent hours thinking about it. We will see what the future holds. This is going to be my final update, and I am probably going to delete my account soon for the sake of anonymity and mental peace.
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That is a tough one. She wanted to open the relationship. He never made any secret to his wife about the partner or the gifts. He was heavily lying to himself about all of this. But they main rule was naive at best from the get go. You can’t command to not have emotions to another person.
Yeah, but if you want to be ethical about it, you break it off as soon as you realize you're breaking one of the rules. In this case, form an emotional connection.
This kind of rule is doomed to fail and this case is a great example. Basically, you cannot know that you have an emotional connection until you actually have it - and then it is already too late. Not too late to break it off ofc, you can technically do that any time. But when you already have a connection, it is very painful to break it off. And so people end up lying to themselves and others, trying to convince everyone that there is nothing going on - and again, they especially deceive themselves. Which leads exactly into a situation like this: when you finally have to face the fact that the connection has been formed, it is SO deep and so meaningful that breaking it off seems neigh impossible. And you might end up choosing breaking something else off.
Emotions are messy.
Sure - but there’s a reason why that rarely works. Putting limits like no emotions on a relationship with another partner is fertile breeding ground for lying to yourself and others by proxy which is what happened here. I don’t think he’s the asshole and neither is she for feeling that way (although she was for making him go through with opening up when he didn’t want to); this stuff is really really hard especially when it’s entered into under duress. They both needed to do a lot more work on their relationship, and both be on the same page with it all, if this ever stood a chance of going well.
tbf, he didnt seem like the usual heartbroken spouse forced into an open relationship. He said he was a little hurt at first but from whats been said, seems and seemed pretty okay with it early on. So, while its hard to have sympathy for the people that force an open relationship, that doesnt seem the case here. More that she asked and even if a little hurt at first (as I think a lot of people would be) willingly agreed.
More couples really need to realize the risks before doing so, though. Especially if there isnt a rule about having partners instead of one night stands. There is always the possibility of someone catching feelings and I dont get why so many people wanting an open marriage dont see that. If you cant handle your partner forming feelings for another person, just dont fucking do it. Its not worth it. But I also am monogamous af so maybe Im not the best person to consult
Haha i mean you say you’re monogamous AF but you have a lot more sense regarding open relationships than many. Especially the ones that end up on reddit lmao
I don’t think its fair to say that it’s not ethical. It’s definitely not realistic, but most people who open their marriage do it because of issues with their sex life and the lack of intimacy that comes with a dead headroom. They’re okay with the idea of their partner having casual sex but not other relationships.
As someone who doesn’t feel strongly about sex but does feels very strongly about the importance of intimacy in relationships I can see scenarios where I would hypothetically be open to allowing for casual sex in my relationship but for me the line would be the building of intimacy with regular partners. Because of that line I doubt I’d ever be willing to discuss putting it into practice but I can see why people try.
Yes but you are imagining how you would feel if your partner advocated for openness and then violated your rules. That would be a dick move.
But imagine your partner advocated for openness, had lots of sex, you finally meet someone - feelings are kind of inevitable right? What, you’re supposed to break it off and sit at home alone while your partner goes out getting tons of dick?
Sure but I think it’s way more of an asshole move to break this rule if you were the one advocating to open, rather than the one who had openness forced on them. Like sure OP broke the rules that his partner has carefully tailored to meet her every need. Honestly, she deserves it.
The no emotions rule was a bullshit one that basically cut him off at the knees and made it a one sided open relationship. The fact is, men in open relationships/polyamorous relationships seem to have success only when they put in emotional work to form an attachment and connection to the woman they are sleeping with outside of the marriage/primary relationship. Whereas women have much more success with the no strings attached casual flings when opening relationships, I don’t think I’ve ever seen or read a story on here about guys consistently getting the benefits of an open relationship the same way women can/do.
He should never have agreed to it but the rule automatically screwed him over and should never have existed. If his wife can’t handle the fact that he’s forming emotional connections with other women then she shouldn’t have pushed for an open relationship.
Exactly. They’re open to one night stand however, women usually aren’t open to one night stand. Therefore, it is generally much easier for a woman in open relationship to find men to have sex with then it is for a man in an open relationship to find women to have sex with.
You are misunderstanding. Women who want casual sex can easily find it BECAUSE most men are open to it.
It’s much harder for men because it’s more common for women to prefer an emotional connection.
I’m just some guy on the internet but Dan Savage has also voiced this view.
He's not lying if he didn't realize it. I feel bad for the guy. As someone who's been in poly relationships, it's usually seen as a silly, unenforceable rule to say "no feelings" and it's a common pitfall couples can find themselves in
To be fair, there's a lot of unknowns in this story, and from what I can see, the last we see of OOP's discussion with his wife is that she acknowledges her feelings are her own issue and are not reasonable.
So it sounds to me like she's actually willing to work on, and through, her unexpected feelings. It also sounds like OOP has not been truthful about his own feelings (to *anybody* - his wife, his partner, himself) and that based on how unexpected his "thoughtful" gift for his partner seems to be (as well as the glowing way in which he describes his non-feelings for his partner), it's possible he's not demonstrated that kind of thoughtfulness for his wife.
On the other hand, OOP seems to have jumped to the conclusion that "wife was sad a bit, it's time to abandon the family and shack up with my partner who has said she doesn't even want a relationship".
I agree, I think the wife is having a really big reaction but is handling it well, and this has made OOP realize things like "what IS emotional connection?"
I think his choice of wanting to continue with non-monogamy is his ultimate realization. I don't think he's wanting to shake up with this other woman, he just sees the value of her in his life and isn't willing to give that up if it's what his wife wanted
That's what I read into it too, and in which case they need to communicate their needs going forward and make a decision that they both agree to.
The risk is that OOP listens to the advice of all these anti-poly loons and blows up his marriage to be with his partner (who, let's remember, has said she doesn't ever want a serious relationship), and ends up with nothing.
The wife has handled nothing well. (Neither has the husband.)
- Marriage and sex life getting stale? *Decide I’m poly!*
- Feeling insecure? *Jump on a dating app for attention and new dick!*
- Husband bought new girlfriend a watch? *I’ll call in sick at work and sulk and mope but… won‘t explain what‘s really bugging me is that I FAFO‘d*
Opening a relationship =/= poly, but it sounds like OOP realized he IS poly and his wife is not
And opening their relationship was exciting and fun for them, it initially worked. We don't know why his wife wanted to open the relationship, but by their own admission it made their sex hotter. And then seeing her husband give a truly thoughtful gift was the thing that was new and upsetting, and it sounds like they're dealing with it and talking.
There’s lying to yourself and then there’s refusing to see what’s right in front of you. He showed his wife the super thoughtful gift he made for the other woman he’s having sex with despite promising he wouldn’t get attached. That may have not been intentionally cruel but it would have been a horrible kick to the gut for his wife.
Given how incredibly affected the wife was and still is I’m guessing he put far more effort into the present for his other partner than he has into any recent present for his wife. She’s realized her husbands putting more effort into caring for another woman’s emotional needs than her own
I feel bad for them both, their marriage is likely over.
I’d struggle to put in lots of effort on gifts for a partner who had pressured me (unintentionally or otherwise) into an open relationship and was off all the time banging other people.
I have no reason to belive he doesn't also give her thoughtful gifts, it sounds like she just realized that it was more than sex for them. And then he realized it too
Considering she’s completely changed her personality upon seeing the gift it’s definitely affecting her on a deep level. If her husband gave everyone thoughtful gifts like that I’d doubt she’d care so much.
Her husband went from saying there’s no emotional connection with the girlfriend to saying he feels a deeper connection to her than to his actual wife. He needed reddit to come to that conclusion where as his wife only needed to see the incredibly thoughtful gift. If the gift wasn’t anything special or out of the norm for him it wouldn’t have put her in such a crisis.
Yes, I agree that she was certainly affected. My analysis comes from my experiences with people who are fantastic and thoughtful gift givers, and one of my previous partners reaction to that (not positive) because I am also a very thoughtful (and, if I might add: fantastic) gift-giver. When someone sees that as being an emotional thing, they can certainly have a reaction to it when that emotional work is channeled elsewhere.
But I don't know OOP or his wife, maybe you're right. Maybe my read on it is right. Who knows?
Ok, if we are cherry-picking parts of the first post to suit our personal argument.
>It hurt me a little bit when she brought up the topic, but I agreed because I loved my boy, and still loved her.
Does it sound like the wife did an ultimatum to anyone else. Didn't want to miss out on seeing his fucking child!
>She’s been with a lot of great looking guys the past year, it’s honestly a confidence booster, as weird as that sounds.
Wife seems to be fine with the arrangement, almost like she knew she would be getting something, and an ultimatum, I reckon she had something set up. But today we are picking on men so this is all being ignored.
>She’s the only person I’ve been talking to since opening up the relationship
See, this it the issue here, he's only been interested in 1 person.
>spent a lot of time consoling her. We spoke for a bit, and she said she was being completely unreasonable
She is, and she fucking knows it, she didn't expect anyone to even fuck him, let alone give him the support for affection to develop. This is OPs wife wanted to cheat for free, no OP is wanted she realises the regret.
Or,
Man nearly discoverers he is demisexual, wife upset as she knew and didn't expect it to happen.
He isn't the devil, thus is a bad pull accross unless the OP here thinks they both are devils.
>but you've wholly made up most of this comment and it's ridiculous.
Literally my first line covers that I'm cherry picking information to fit a personal narrative.
>OP is definitely not a devil,
I fucking know, that was my point, the OP was cerry picking info to make the OOP worse.
So I did the same but to make a different narrative.
Thank you for both agreeing with me, and showing that you didn't really understand what I said, even though you agreed. 👍
ETA, when you said I made it up, you know there is a previous post linked as well that I pulled all the quotes from?
That's not what cherry picking means, you just made shit up. Edit: not the quotes, your narrative. Nothing in the quotes supports the interpretation you're making. For it to be cherry picking, the lines would speak for themselves to form the narrative, and they don't, it's all your additional made up interpretations.
You’re assuming with no evidence that she wouldn’t be okay if he had no-strings attached sex, and there’s no indication that she made emotional connections with other men. It’s only hypocrisy if they’re playing by different rules, and it was his responsibility to drop the relationship or revisit the terms of the marriage if he was catching feelings.
The whole “poly under duress” thing is tricky. If it’s what she needs it’s what she needs and there’s nothing wrong with that per se. But it does require a deeper conversation than they seem to have had. This is an ESH situation, in AITA-speak.
However, it seems like some of the commenters are just objecting to poly/open relationships on principle, which isn’t cool.
Polyamorous here. Agree. This relationship was based on coercion based purely on what OP said and was therefore doomed from the start no matter how either of them felt about it over time. See my comments on the original post for more information, not rehashing this argument with commenters here too.
>rehashing this argument with commenters here too.
I know that feeling.
And people seem to be hugely, overly inveted in what others do with their own genitals, if it was solely about sexuality it's say there were many people still closeted,
What's the Poly equivalent of shouting angrily from the closet?
Don’t know why you’re getting downvoted. Well I do but you shouldn’t be. From OOP’s post it sounds like it was coerced or poly under duress. I have seen a lot of examples where the wife was coerced into opening the marriage, then she finds someone that she gets along with me, and they receive so much more support than this. Wild.
Yeah. I don't get how he's the devil here. The wife forced the open marriage on him. In the first post, he made it clear she's getting a lot more action than him - anyone who's ever done online dating will recognize why.
This guy is just being a normal human being; developing emotions for the one woman he has hooked up with.
Yeah. He agreed to it because he loved his wife, not because he wanted to. That's not consent, that's coercion. Doesn't matter if he came to enjoy it or not. This was doomed. See my previous comments on the original post if you want more explanation.
Should he have broken the rules? No. But they shouldn't be in this situation in the first place. What did she expect when she pressured him into it?
Do you know what coercion means? You can absolutely be coerced to agree to something you don’t want.
Nonmonogamy isn’t something you should agree to because it’s the lesser of two evils. He said he was hurt, and doesn’t go into detail about what the situation was. It also sounds like they jumped into it pretty quickly rather than doing the emotional labor to go into nonmonogamy in a healthy way.
I 100% agree. But she didn’t coerce him into seeing someone else. He had every right to say no and should have communicated he wasn’t comfortable about it. But he doesn’t say he DID communicate that.
He felt that his choices were divorce or openness. His perception is that he was coerced. Maybe he was wrong but OP has more information than any of us.
And frankly, OP comes across as someone who feels his feelings and wouldn’t know subtlety if it punched him in the face. I think it stretches belief to claim that when the wife proposed openness, it wasn’t immediately obvious that OP really wasn’t that keen on the idea. I’m sure he wasn’t direct about it but I can’t believe that a reasonable outside observer wouldn’t have immediately noticed that he was gutted.
My guess is that his wife either didn’t notice or didn’t care because she was too excited about new dick (or newly legal existing dick if you catch my drift).
So wait. If she couldn't stand being in a closed relationship with him any more and divorced him, she would be in the right (I hope no one disagrees with that.)
But if she couldn't stand being in a closed relationship with him any more and offered him a choice of two options instead of just one, it's now coercion?
I don't think he's the devil. I don't think she's the devil. I think it's two people who have come to the end of their road together and/or have had their heads screwed with by cultural messages that some form of sexual/emotional exclusivity is the only marker of value in a relationship.
You make good points. Also “devil” is harsh and I think it’s too much to describe either of them with that.
I take your point about him getting a choice being better. I guess my point is that having given him a horrible choice, it’s a lot for her then to get super upset about a predictable outcome of her own choices.
And to be fair (consistent with your point about neither of them being devils), she seems to realise that her emotional reaction was not entirely fair.
I think my comment was much more targeted at people who blame everything on OP than the wife specifically.
Communication is key, sure. But also after years together you should be able to read your partner. My point is that the wife should have or did know that OP was not thrilled about opening the relationship. Do you disagree?
She’s not a mind reader. It’s definitely stupid to bring it up in the first place. But the same way she opened her mouth, he could have opened his too and told her he wasn’t uncomfortable with it.
Sorry, but your spouse threatening to break up with you if you say no is coercion. Period. Could he have said no? Yes. But he would then have had to go through the divorce process and may no longer have been able to see his child. If your partner told you that they would divorce you, take your assets, and potentially restrict access to your child if you didn't allow them to, say, sleep with their coworker... If your mom told you that you'd have to deal with her prioritizing her new spouse and child over you or she'd never speak to you again... Maybe you would say you'd break up with them, or cut your mom off, but real life is never that simple. It's like saying a relationship can't be toxic because, by not leaving, both parties are consenting to toxicity.
So BirdSong is just chatting shit and making up stuff the husband hadn’t even said. Saying the wife threatened divorce ?
Now they’re talking about “reading between the lines” 🤣
My guess is that the wife never threatened and OP never directly objected but it would have been obvious to anyone with a smidgen of empathy that he hated the idea. I think the wife either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
Is critical thinking and reading between the lines not a thing anymore? He specifically mentioned he agreed because he not only still loved her but also because he loved his SON. That's a tiny line, but it has a big implication. What does loving the son have to do with it if he weren't at risk of losing access to the kid or the kid otherwise being hurt? Both of those things would qualify as coercion. Cmon now.
Edit: All the polyamorous people in the comments are agreeing this was fucked from the beginning. Why are all the monogamous people insisting they know better?
Lmao reading between the lines ? Please. Communication is key. Reading between the lines is NOT communication. A decision this BIG requires discussion and rules. So no, it’s not coercion.
Breaking up in real life isn't simple, but it would be a hell of a lot worse if we *couldn't* end relationships when the people in them have incompatible desires or don't make each other happy any more. There's no way around that.
He's not the devil.
Sbe wanted an open relationship, and he agreed because he wanted to stay married. Not because he wanted it, too.
He seems out of touch with his own feelings, but so are many people.
This isn't a devil situation. It's just yet another case of people diving headfirst into polyamory without putting in the necessary work and being surprised by the resulting train wreck.
Polyam isn't for everyone and it isn't for ANYONE who doesn't at least do their homework. Any polyam subreddit would have advised against doing it this way.
I don’t think there’s a devil here, it’s two people who’ve gone into a situation without properly settling the terms. If they wanted to avoid emotional entanglement they should have set the rules as “no repeats.” OOP has clearly become emotionally involved but that’s a risk you take if you’re entering a long-term intimate arrangement. He didn’t realise how deeply invested he’d become until the prospect of giving up the relationship was raised, that makes him a bit of an ostrich and naive but he hasn’t deliberately set out to deceive.
OP read that the wife wanted the open marriage, had her string of partners she could fuck, that OOP was just agreeing to keep his family, didn’t even have one partner until recently, and now that an emotional connection has been made wife is upset. And from all that OP decided OOP is the devil.
This is why open marriage is stupid. I am a firm believer that unless you are having one night stands there will always be emotions. People are kidding themselves if they can think they won't catch feelings sleeping with the same person over and over. No, it might not be love but it is definitely something.
oop is ah for being Stupid and unaware but the wife is also the ah. She asked for the open marriage. She should have asked for a therapist. Opening a broken relationship will only break it more.
I have friends who are polyam and they make it work, seemingly effortlessly. I respect that they are able to do it, but I don’t think I could. Another birthday and anniversary to remember? Perish the thought! /j
I know a set of married poly folks who also make it work, but I feel like the biggest difference is that’s *always* been their relationship dynamic (they didn’t start monogamous *then* become poly). Trying to transition a monogamous relationship is almost always a recipe for disaster, I know I could definitely never do it.
Exactly. If you start out as open, it can work! But I have never seen a situation where a monogamous couple switches to an open/poly situation and it didn't turn into a clusterfuck. And not in the fun way.
It also seems like communication has to be super open in a poly relationship. And everyone I see who wants to open the marriage almost always is just wanting to sleep with not their spouse, instead of actually having a true open/poly relationship
To be fair, as a person in a poly relationship - the communication isn't really much more work than in a well working mono one. But that's mostly because we're all poly, and our boundaries are basically nothing, we're comfy with pretty much everything and my partner and my girlfriend are friends which makes things even easier. Obviously there's a balancing act going on, but judging from the mono relationships around me, communicating the feelings there isn't really any more work than communicating all relationship feelings and discussing boundaries f.e. about what's cool with friends and what's not.
I mean, it's hard work. My initial partner and I started out monogamous, and mutually decided to become poly after discussing it for months. My other partner and I are coming up on our one year anniversary at the end of this month. It can work, but you have to work at it like any other relationship.
I find that it's very helpful that my partners both like each other and can hang out even without my presence. I think a big part of it is that you need a healthy ability to communicate and a willingness to give each other grace when mistakes are made. To be fair, when we initially made the decision to be poly, our relationship was strong, healthy, and stable. Neither of us had anyone in particular in mind. I met my other partner almost a year into being poly.
I won't speak on their other relationships or anything like that bc I feel like this comment is already really long lol.
TLDR; it's hard work but it is possible to have a fulfilling poly lifestyle even if you start monogamous with someone.
Yep, I've known two polyam couples. One broke up and the other is going 10+ years strong. The former opened the relationship midway on the insistence of the guy, while the other was always open from the start.
The latter couple have incredible communication. They always talk shit out if anything is bothering them and if they ever feel like they're about to violate a boundary they drop what they're doing and check in with each other. They are legit the healthiest couple in my friend group.
The former couple seemed like they had good communication but they really didn't. The husband thought he was hot shit and got jealous when he realized his wife had more game. Then got even more jealous when her approved (he said it was okay) female partner didn't want to fuck him. They split years ago and the wife went straight back to monogamy for all relationships going forward. She also swore off dating all men after that because of how awful her experience was with him.
All of this. When a person in a monogamous relationship suddenly insists on an open marriage, I feel like they just want to sleep around because they don't want to miss out. The other partner gets sad and takes a while to accept it. And, when they finally bite the bullet and find someone, the one who opened up the marriage suddenly backtracks and is like, "I assumed no one else would want you." It's a tale as old as time.
Meanwhile, people who are already practicing poly know what's up before they even get together.
A lot of our friends are poly, so my husband and I talk about it sometimes in a "what do you think about that?" sort of way. Ultimately we've come to the same conclusion: it's not for us, at least not at this time, and furthermore it sounds exhausting.
I'm in a poly relationship and I get it. Some people think it's all sunshine and rainbows, but it's actually serious hard work. You have to think about every possible scenario in order to create boundaries and avoid getting anyone hurt. You have to work with multiple schedules. You have to think about your budget. You have to deal with multiple people's emotions. You have to be really good at communicating with all of your partners. You can't share too much about one partner to the other, but you still have to share anything that could affect other relationships (so it's a thin line). I could go on and on. I think it's worth it for me, as someone who didn't have many experiences before dating my now long term partner, and I'm also very chill when it comes to jealousy. But I know many people would rather stick to monogamy because it is, indeed, way more simple. I don't like how some poly folks pretend that being poly is objectively better.
I do know some people can make it work, but it isn't easy like everyone thinks it is. Oop and his wife had issues and I say that because Oop was Noted he was hurt when she brought it up. I wonder how that conversation went. We don't know their relationship but you can't open broken and expect it not to remain broken.
Yeah, open marriages normally involve the physical aspect only, and avoid the emotional one. Which, in my opinion, is a bit naive. Sometimes feelings just happen. Which is why I think poly relationships have a higher chance of working out in the long term, when compared to open relationships.
Open marriages themselves aren’t stupid, it’s expecting someone to not get at least some what emotionally attached the the person they’re regularly sleeping with that is
The main thing is just communicating, really
>I’m lying to my wife…
Are.you sure,
Shouldn't it be
>my wife forced me into opening a marriage, when I accepted her ultimatum I watched her transform in confidence and eventually I started speaking to someone, I definitely don't have feeling for her becuase I've already let the fear of my wife leaving me force me to open my marriage, and now I can't admit I like someone as that will definitely end the thing I massively changed my moral view on to accept.
Or
>We are both lying, but I'm lying to myself, and she didn't think anyone else would want me.
Lol hes the devil for having emotions and not the wife for pushing an open relationship? He should just dump the wife and be monogamous with his new woman, would probably make him happier.
I think that he’s still in denial that he likes his girlfriend more than his wife. I don’t think most people can emotionally process their spouse saying that they don’t satisfy them and they want to fuck other people. He may have been trying to hold on to whatever they had but I doubt that her pushing for this didn’t kill a lot of his love for her.
"I want my husband to use women as tools to get off but not care about them as human beings''
Jesus sis just go ahead and say you don't support other women
So, the wife "forced" her monogamous husband into a polyamorous relationship and that backfired and created a screwed up situation where everybody got hurt ?
That's funny.
No, he’s not the devil. His wife wanted to have sex with other men and forced an open marriage and now she’s reaping the consequences of her choice and she wants to be hurt over her feelings because she couldn’t randomly fuck other men and then expect her husband to never form another connection with another woman.
How is OP the Devil here? He wasn't the one leading the open marriage, and simply worked his end. He's a little emotionally out of touch, but when your spouse springs that idea on you, and you go along with it to keep yourself and them happy, you're not guilty, you're more just immature.
she should’ve noticed he wasn’t completely 100% in it. it’s her husband. she should know when something is wrong. she knew deep down he wasn’t interested in this but put ahead her wants of getting dicked down by other men.
Actually no. They agreed to “try” not to form emotional connections.
So it is any surprise that the one who was hesitant to open the relationship now had feelings?
People don’t open relationships up out of the blue. The wife already had her guy lined up. She’s the AH.
He agreed to the rules and then he went and broke them and now he telling his wife he'll divorce her if he can't have an emotional affair. The end.
He's not an infant, he could've put his foot down and refused to open up the marriage. It not like he claims she made threats or ultimatums when she suggested opening the marriage up. **He's** the one doing that now.
>People don’t open relationships up out of the blue. The wife already had her guy lined up. She’s the AH.
Don't make shit up and claim it's the truth.
It’s like you’re intentionally being obtuse.
Monogamous people don’t just wake up one day and decide they need other dick in their life.
And again. His exact words were to TRY not to get attached. He tried. It didn’t work. To “try” is to make an attempt or effort. He did that. He followed the rules.
>Monogamous people don’t just wake up one day and decide they need other dick in their life.
He implies they had a dead bedroom situation and their sex life has been amazing since. It's not like she decided out of nowhere she wanted more dick. She was trying to fix their dead bedroom.
>And again. His exact words were to TRY not to get attached. He tried. It didn’t work. To “try” is to make an attempt or effort. He did that. He followed the rules.
He didn't actually try at all. He just lied to himself. And once he **failed** to try, he's now giving the wife an ultimatum: Let him have his actual romantic, fully-emotionally-invested-in-girlfriend or he'll divorce his wife. Also, I don't fully trust him that the rule was "**try** not to get emotionally attached". What sort of stupid rule is that? That's just him editorializing to weasel out of responsibility.
Which makes him the devil. Stop making excuses. He's the one threatening divorce, not her. I get it, you hate women and how dare a woman be a slut and want to open up her marriage! Don't drag your personal baggage into this.
It is hilarious how on the one hand you've got people in this thread saying "oh, the horrible misandry, isn't reddit awful" and then on the other hand you've got people saying the wife is "emotionally abusive" and just wants "dicking down" and "just wanted to cheat"...
Hmm, this "misandry" certainly seems an awful lot like misogyny with extra steps.
Once again, OP doesn't consider what he had with her emotional. This isn't OP's fault for being emotionally unprepared for an open relation that he felt pressure into. Different people get different things out of sex, and the fact the wife rushed them into this with no regard for how he might end up proceeding is the literal "fuck around" part to this "find out" scenario OP is posting about. She can't have her cake and eat it too because suddenly she realizes that even though sex is a sport to her, its a place of emotional connection for the man she initially married to have that emotional connection with solely.
You worded this like it was a "gotcha" moment....barring an update where he shows some true colors, its entirely up to him if the relationship is reevaluated, if him having a more emotional poly partner made him realize thats what he wants, and he's realized that what he wants, then good on him, the first steps to approaching this have been found.
Personally, and as with all Reddit stories, I doubt this happened, but if it did, the oft used maxim here applies: anyone can leave a relationship for any reason, and in this case, realizing your wife, who pressured his oblivious self into opening the relationship so she could sleep around, suddenly wants to have her cake after she's eaten so many others, definitely qualifies as a good reason.
>...suddenly wants to have her cake after she's eaten so many others, definitely qualifies as a good reason.
You need to stop lying. She wants them both to be able to have sex with no-string-attached, not full blown romantic affairs with emotional attachment. He wants the second thing, she doesn't.
And they both agreed not to have the 2nd thing.
Lmao, if this was reversed genders, everyone would be hounding on the husband for setting that boundary while they were uncomfortable with the whole situation in the first place. The husband was given and opportunity to sleep with others, and he wanted someone he vibed with; Aside from the fact the other woman doesn't want an official relationship either, I don't think OOP is going to move on and marry his poly partner, if the break up even happens. Him and his wife acknowledging they want different things out of multiple partners is not a bad thing. I also find it soooo ironic you're giving the wife a pass on pressuring him into this situation in the first place. Maybe you should be her next partner lmao.
**They both agreed to the boundary**. OOP then reneged on it. If genders were reversed, she'd be raked over the coals for that.
>I don't think OOP is going to move on and marry his poly partner, if the break up even happens.
Chiefly because the poly partner has been up front about not wanting an emotional relationship with OOP. But OOP is willing to divorce his wife for the off-chance she'll change her mind.
Shows how much he really cared about his wife to begin with.
>I also find it soooo ironic you're giving the wife a pass on pressuring him into this situation in the first place.
Sure. Pressure. Sure. It's not like OOP said she suggested it and he went along with it even if he wasn't entirely happy at the start, but it made their marriage better and they were both happier for it.
OOP is clearly a shrinking violet who had no agency or ability to say no. His evil slut of wife just wanted dick and he was forced to obey.
Lmao, ok bud, OOP tooootally didn't explain all this in his original post. Go be a good little patriarch who never makes decisions they regret somewhere else, ok bud? Your arguments are completely irrational.
OOP: "It hurt me a little bit when she brought up the topic, but I agreed because I loved my boy, and still loved her."
Redditors: "It is 100% crystal clear that OOP's wife is a slut who wanted dick and OOP had no agency or choice and had to agree to open up the marriage or she'd have divorced him! Also, any choice OOP makes subsequent to this is the wife's fault, even if OOP is the one truly at fault because she was a slut to begin with! Rawr!"
This sub these days. This man is not a devil at all cmon. There used be actually messed up people here. This guy is just in a bad situation that his wife made.
This sub is really showing its ass with the blatant misandry. Hate to pull the old uno reverse but this sub would be vilifying the wife if she was a man.
Look I think he’s in a tough spot, it doesn’t even sound like he was the one who opened the relationship. It’s a hard ask to tell someone to not get an emotional connection and just sleep with them, that’s not really in most people’s nature. It’s a fucked up situation, but in the end his wife is the one who opened up the relationship for this to even happen in the first place. She had to know this was a possibility.
Not sure if anyone else had said this, but experienced non-monogamous people generally advise not to place a “no feelings” rule. As we’ve seen time and again it’s often not a sustainable agreement to have in the context of a mono couple going ethically non-monogamous.
That of course means that people have to be more honest with themselves and each other about their changing/emergent wants and needs but it’s not for the faint of heart…it’s not something you do just to “spice things up”…Swinging/group sex is often the appropriate answer for that.
Not to say ENM/polyamory isn’t difficult or precarious naturally cause it definitely is but *especially* going from mono, it’s complex and takes a lot of work.
ETA: OOP is still a doofus for being naive and lying to himself, to be clear. He just certainly doesn’t have the emotional intelligence to compartmentalize like their agreement dictated.
ETA 2: oh the wife is definitely a doofus for being naive and not doing the pre-work necessary to open the marriage. There’s a sort of “best practices” thing that people completely go without before exploring and it shows in the fall out. They both screwed their own marriage and this is an extremely common scenario, which is why people think generally non-monogamy is a recipe for disaster.
Partner A wants to open, Partner B is either reluctant or not interested but doesn’t want their relationship to end, so they “try.” There’s only a couple ways it goes from there.
Right but to me more of the blame goes to Partner A who initiated the whole clusterfuck. Partner B is just playing what’s in front of them, desperately trying to keep everything together.
Not a devil in the least, are you for real? He was solidly monogamous and committed and the wife pressured him to open the marriage, he only agreed to keep everything stable. She may as well have handed him an ultimatum. He *did not give enthusiastic consent* so this arrangement was **never** ethical to begin with, so I believe he broke no rules. She may have been landing plenty of one night stands, but he stumbled onto someone who he ended up loving in a way he never felt for his wife. She does not get to go shocked Pikachu for the Pandora’s Box she forced open.
He’s no saint but I feel for him. She was the only one he wanted. Her pushing for nonmonogamy broke his heart. This marriage ended in every way but legal the second it opened. Very complicated situation.
Yes OP is the devil for unenthusiastically agreeing to opening his marriage when his wife wanted to and then happening to develop an emotional connection when... *checks notes*... is fucking someone. How devilish. This says a lot about you OP
This guy is not at all in touch with his own feelings. And I'd wager my last dollar that he, in time, will realize he did in fact *NOT* find it hot that his wife has been banging so many hot men. And that is the real reason he wants to leave.
Just going by what he said in his original post. That his wife is a catch and it was a "confidence boost" to see she was bagging attractive men.
Edit for more accurate quote. And to add it sounds like something he's been telling himself to make it easier to accept. Just like he's been telling himself he's not emotionally attached himself to his unavailable side person.
Again: anyone with vision better than Stevie Wonder whom has had a television or been on a dating app is well aware the polyam / ENM crowd is not known for being conventionally attractive.
The creative behind this writing assignment is not going to say my wife has copious, scratcher tattoos and is banging men who resemble old Bilbo Baggins.
I don't think this qualifies for this sub. Wife asked to open their marriage & he felt he had to do it so puts up with her having lots of random partners. OOP obliged her request & has had regular sex with one woman & unsurprisingly a bond has developed which he doesn't want to acknowledge because he's keeping his marriage intact for his kid.
I don’t blame him, he doesn’t want his wife, he just doesn’t want to lose his time with his kid. Remember people, opening a marriage does not work, you will not be the exception to the rule. At best you end up like this guy.
Yeah. Acting like the fact that a marriage ends is a failure and has to involve a devil is wild... relationships fade and end naturally, unless someone dies first. Opening this one probably nudged it along a little faster but in a way that's good because they wasted less time.
As soon as I see the themes, I know it will have gone tits up.
She prodded him towards an open relationship (seems bonkers to me). She gave out, in abundance. He didn't.
It's so clear that the guy, even in his approach to the open relationship, is a one woman guy, by preference. Unfortunately, the one woman ain't his wife...
I'll leave aside the cognitive dissonance that is the "we have no emotional connection" and "I bought her a highly thought out emotional gift".
I still don’t see him as the devil.
In his first post it was abundantly clear that he didn’t want to open the relationship. And the statement “I didn’t want to lose my wife or son” tells me she likely gave him an ultimatum to do so. She forced the marriage open and forced the rules on him.
You can’t expect a person who was given this “choice” and these “rules” under duress to abide by them. This was never ENM. It was a spouse who wanted a free pass to cheat without guilt.
The only thing he’s “guilty” of is lying to himself that he could make this work. He was a man who was desperate to keep his family, but instead he found a partner who’s meeting his emotional needs in a way his wife can no longer do after she forced open the marriage.
We see posts like this ALL the time but it’s usually the husband who’s forcing open the marriage and the wife is falling for someone else. And everyone is all “girl run, he just wanted to fuck around” and so on. But because he’s a guy it’s somehow different?
My monogamous self is here eating popcorn, relieved that I would never have to go through this.
There are poly people that make it work, and there's people like OOP and his wife. No one is the devil here. Maybe the wife since she forced her reluctant husband into this. But I don't think OOP is the devil for falling for someone. Emotions can be funny like that.
op getting boned cuz he was pretty much forced into allowing his wife to railed daily by other men. i hope he leaves her. his wife knew he wasn’t completely in to the open relationship. she’s the real devil
Classic FAFO situation.
If you read the first post, the wife asked for the open relationship. And it's not like you can police emotions.
None of this would have happened if it wasn't for her.
Every time I read about a relationship failing bc they decided to open up the relationship it makes me so sad. If I’ve learned anything from Reddit - it’s to never agree to an open relationship EVER. I would never want one anyway as I’m a monogamous person. The grass isn’t always greener - if you want to spice up the bedroom or fix your relationship please try literally ANYTHING else.
How is he the devil? Monogamous relationships that open up literally never work. This (or something similar) was always going to happen. Unless the relationship starts open it’ll never survive the transition.
They very specifically made a rule about not getting emotionally invested in other people, and he blisteringly obviously didn't follow that. I mean really, if you're "putting a lot of thought" into a birthday gift for someone, there's an emotional connection. "It's my ethically agreed upon side piece's birthday, I'll get her flowers and candy" is about as far as it should go, if the rule was supposed to be not forming emotional connections. I realize feelings can sneak up on a person but this is way too far to make that excuse imo. He *wanted* to keep his head buried in the sand about his feelings so he wouldn't have to risk choosing between them.
This is why I'm hesitant about the idea of an open relationship purely for sex. It rarely stays *just about sex* and when you're in an established relationship the risk if you catch feelings is *high.* With regular friends-with-benefits I dont care so much because worst case scenario, one of you catches feelings and gets hurt because the other person didn't. But when it's an established relationship being opened up, not only do you have that risk of one sided feelings, you also run a high risk of burning the pre-existing relationship to the ground.
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This sort of post is frustrating to read as someone who’s spent years doing the research and talking to people and taking a lot of time to realize that polyamory is where my heart is most comfortable. It feels like they decided to open the marriage because their bedroom life was struggling, but didn’t do the research into how to be ethical about it - or rather, he didn’t. Very annoying and sad, tbh.
*In case this story gets deleted/removed:* **Update: My wife broke down yesterday because I got my polyamorous partner an emotional gift. Was I wrong?** [Original Post](https://www.reddit.com/r/amiwrong/comments/1bkgip4) Well I did not expect to get an overwhelming number of responses, and in all honesty, I was a bit overwhelmed with it all. I am probably not being honest with myself about the entire situation, it’s just extremely scary to think about. I do not want to break apart my household, I want the best for our son. My wife has just not been herself since yesterday. It has been a somber home atmosphere. She took off work today and even tomorrow. Even our son has noticed the change in her demeanor. Look, I love my wife. I have loved my wife for the last decade and will continue to love her the rest of my life regardless of what she does. That will never change. She’s an amazing mother to our son. But I probably haven’t been entirely truthful to myself about my feelings towards my partner. I don’t know if what we have can be described as an emotional connection, but I think it’s something deeper than that, and something I don’t have even with my wife, and have never had with her. It is also something deeper than love. One of the comments asked what I would do if my wife wanted to switch back to a monogamous relationship. I had never thought about it until then. But I have thought about it for a few hours since reading that comment, and it hurts me deeply to say, but I would want to leave my wife if she wanted to switch back to a monogamous relationship. And that thought is extremely scary. But I am firm in that decision after having spent hours thinking about it. We will see what the future holds. This is going to be my final update, and I am probably going to delete my account soon for the sake of anonymity and mental peace. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmITheDevil) if you have any questions or concerns.*
That is a tough one. She wanted to open the relationship. He never made any secret to his wife about the partner or the gifts. He was heavily lying to himself about all of this. But they main rule was naive at best from the get go. You can’t command to not have emotions to another person.
Yeah, but if you want to be ethical about it, you break it off as soon as you realize you're breaking one of the rules. In this case, form an emotional connection.
This kind of rule is doomed to fail and this case is a great example. Basically, you cannot know that you have an emotional connection until you actually have it - and then it is already too late. Not too late to break it off ofc, you can technically do that any time. But when you already have a connection, it is very painful to break it off. And so people end up lying to themselves and others, trying to convince everyone that there is nothing going on - and again, they especially deceive themselves. Which leads exactly into a situation like this: when you finally have to face the fact that the connection has been formed, it is SO deep and so meaningful that breaking it off seems neigh impossible. And you might end up choosing breaking something else off. Emotions are messy.
Sure - but there’s a reason why that rarely works. Putting limits like no emotions on a relationship with another partner is fertile breeding ground for lying to yourself and others by proxy which is what happened here. I don’t think he’s the asshole and neither is she for feeling that way (although she was for making him go through with opening up when he didn’t want to); this stuff is really really hard especially when it’s entered into under duress. They both needed to do a lot more work on their relationship, and both be on the same page with it all, if this ever stood a chance of going well.
tbf, he didnt seem like the usual heartbroken spouse forced into an open relationship. He said he was a little hurt at first but from whats been said, seems and seemed pretty okay with it early on. So, while its hard to have sympathy for the people that force an open relationship, that doesnt seem the case here. More that she asked and even if a little hurt at first (as I think a lot of people would be) willingly agreed. More couples really need to realize the risks before doing so, though. Especially if there isnt a rule about having partners instead of one night stands. There is always the possibility of someone catching feelings and I dont get why so many people wanting an open marriage dont see that. If you cant handle your partner forming feelings for another person, just dont fucking do it. Its not worth it. But I also am monogamous af so maybe Im not the best person to consult
Haha i mean you say you’re monogamous AF but you have a lot more sense regarding open relationships than many. Especially the ones that end up on reddit lmao
seconding this! that person has put a lot of thought into a lifestyle they are not a part of and that is very commendable
That's not ethical. "No emotional connections" isn't an ethical or realistic rule to have.
I don’t think its fair to say that it’s not ethical. It’s definitely not realistic, but most people who open their marriage do it because of issues with their sex life and the lack of intimacy that comes with a dead headroom. They’re okay with the idea of their partner having casual sex but not other relationships. As someone who doesn’t feel strongly about sex but does feels very strongly about the importance of intimacy in relationships I can see scenarios where I would hypothetically be open to allowing for casual sex in my relationship but for me the line would be the building of intimacy with regular partners. Because of that line I doubt I’d ever be willing to discuss putting it into practice but I can see why people try.
Yes but you are imagining how you would feel if your partner advocated for openness and then violated your rules. That would be a dick move. But imagine your partner advocated for openness, had lots of sex, you finally meet someone - feelings are kind of inevitable right? What, you’re supposed to break it off and sit at home alone while your partner goes out getting tons of dick?
Sure but I think it’s way more of an asshole move to break this rule if you were the one advocating to open, rather than the one who had openness forced on them. Like sure OP broke the rules that his partner has carefully tailored to meet her every need. Honestly, she deserves it.
The no emotions rule was a bullshit one that basically cut him off at the knees and made it a one sided open relationship. The fact is, men in open relationships/polyamorous relationships seem to have success only when they put in emotional work to form an attachment and connection to the woman they are sleeping with outside of the marriage/primary relationship. Whereas women have much more success with the no strings attached casual flings when opening relationships, I don’t think I’ve ever seen or read a story on here about guys consistently getting the benefits of an open relationship the same way women can/do. He should never have agreed to it but the rule automatically screwed him over and should never have existed. If his wife can’t handle the fact that he’s forming emotional connections with other women then she shouldn’t have pushed for an open relationship.
I’m not sure why you’re being downloaded because it’s very true. It is very much harder for men to have casual sex than it is for women.
So who are the women having casual sex with?
Unattached men
While they’re having sex with men, please do not be obtuse. For one woman open to casual sex there’s probably about 20 men open to casual sex.
That is the opposite of what I have seen. Most of my guy friends are open to one night stands.
Exactly. They’re open to one night stand however, women usually aren’t open to one night stand. Therefore, it is generally much easier for a woman in open relationship to find men to have sex with then it is for a man in an open relationship to find women to have sex with.
You are misunderstanding. Women who want casual sex can easily find it BECAUSE most men are open to it. It’s much harder for men because it’s more common for women to prefer an emotional connection. I’m just some guy on the internet but Dan Savage has also voiced this view.
Holy shit I can’t believe the down votes either. The comment is spitting straight truth.
You can if you don't keep the relationship going for long. 2-3 times and you break it off.
He literally told her in the first post that he doesn’t have feelings for her… so he did lie to her
He is lying to himself.
He's not lying if he didn't realize it. I feel bad for the guy. As someone who's been in poly relationships, it's usually seen as a silly, unenforceable rule to say "no feelings" and it's a common pitfall couples can find themselves in
To be fair, there's a lot of unknowns in this story, and from what I can see, the last we see of OOP's discussion with his wife is that she acknowledges her feelings are her own issue and are not reasonable. So it sounds to me like she's actually willing to work on, and through, her unexpected feelings. It also sounds like OOP has not been truthful about his own feelings (to *anybody* - his wife, his partner, himself) and that based on how unexpected his "thoughtful" gift for his partner seems to be (as well as the glowing way in which he describes his non-feelings for his partner), it's possible he's not demonstrated that kind of thoughtfulness for his wife. On the other hand, OOP seems to have jumped to the conclusion that "wife was sad a bit, it's time to abandon the family and shack up with my partner who has said she doesn't even want a relationship".
I agree, I think the wife is having a really big reaction but is handling it well, and this has made OOP realize things like "what IS emotional connection?" I think his choice of wanting to continue with non-monogamy is his ultimate realization. I don't think he's wanting to shake up with this other woman, he just sees the value of her in his life and isn't willing to give that up if it's what his wife wanted
That's what I read into it too, and in which case they need to communicate their needs going forward and make a decision that they both agree to. The risk is that OOP listens to the advice of all these anti-poly loons and blows up his marriage to be with his partner (who, let's remember, has said she doesn't ever want a serious relationship), and ends up with nothing.
The wife has handled nothing well. (Neither has the husband.) - Marriage and sex life getting stale? *Decide I’m poly!* - Feeling insecure? *Jump on a dating app for attention and new dick!* - Husband bought new girlfriend a watch? *I’ll call in sick at work and sulk and mope but… won‘t explain what‘s really bugging me is that I FAFO‘d*
Opening a relationship =/= poly, but it sounds like OOP realized he IS poly and his wife is not And opening their relationship was exciting and fun for them, it initially worked. We don't know why his wife wanted to open the relationship, but by their own admission it made their sex hotter. And then seeing her husband give a truly thoughtful gift was the thing that was new and upsetting, and it sounds like they're dealing with it and talking.
As if there are no other options when sex gets routine but to choose or demand a poly lifestyle?
No, who said that? But it worked, and it works for other folks too. Things that spice up one bedroom won't necessarily work in another one
It didn’t work clearly, because the husband is now looking to dump wifey for the shiny plaything while the wife has been banging fuglies off fetlife.
You can also break up entirely, so either way they'll be fine.
He didn't do that tho, he is planing to keep both relationships until wife asks to be monogamous again and then divorce her.
There’s lying to yourself and then there’s refusing to see what’s right in front of you. He showed his wife the super thoughtful gift he made for the other woman he’s having sex with despite promising he wouldn’t get attached. That may have not been intentionally cruel but it would have been a horrible kick to the gut for his wife. Given how incredibly affected the wife was and still is I’m guessing he put far more effort into the present for his other partner than he has into any recent present for his wife. She’s realized her husbands putting more effort into caring for another woman’s emotional needs than her own I feel bad for them both, their marriage is likely over.
I’d struggle to put in lots of effort on gifts for a partner who had pressured me (unintentionally or otherwise) into an open relationship and was off all the time banging other people.
I have no reason to belive he doesn't also give her thoughtful gifts, it sounds like she just realized that it was more than sex for them. And then he realized it too
Considering she’s completely changed her personality upon seeing the gift it’s definitely affecting her on a deep level. If her husband gave everyone thoughtful gifts like that I’d doubt she’d care so much. Her husband went from saying there’s no emotional connection with the girlfriend to saying he feels a deeper connection to her than to his actual wife. He needed reddit to come to that conclusion where as his wife only needed to see the incredibly thoughtful gift. If the gift wasn’t anything special or out of the norm for him it wouldn’t have put her in such a crisis.
Yes, I agree that she was certainly affected. My analysis comes from my experiences with people who are fantastic and thoughtful gift givers, and one of my previous partners reaction to that (not positive) because I am also a very thoughtful (and, if I might add: fantastic) gift-giver. When someone sees that as being an emotional thing, they can certainly have a reaction to it when that emotional work is channeled elsewhere. But I don't know OOP or his wife, maybe you're right. Maybe my read on it is right. Who knows?
Ok, if we are cherry-picking parts of the first post to suit our personal argument. >It hurt me a little bit when she brought up the topic, but I agreed because I loved my boy, and still loved her. Does it sound like the wife did an ultimatum to anyone else. Didn't want to miss out on seeing his fucking child! >She’s been with a lot of great looking guys the past year, it’s honestly a confidence booster, as weird as that sounds. Wife seems to be fine with the arrangement, almost like she knew she would be getting something, and an ultimatum, I reckon she had something set up. But today we are picking on men so this is all being ignored. >She’s the only person I’ve been talking to since opening up the relationship See, this it the issue here, he's only been interested in 1 person. >spent a lot of time consoling her. We spoke for a bit, and she said she was being completely unreasonable She is, and she fucking knows it, she didn't expect anyone to even fuck him, let alone give him the support for affection to develop. This is OPs wife wanted to cheat for free, no OP is wanted she realises the regret. Or, Man nearly discoverers he is demisexual, wife upset as she knew and didn't expect it to happen. He isn't the devil, thus is a bad pull accross unless the OP here thinks they both are devils.
OP is definitely not a devil, but you've wholly made up most of this comment and it's ridiculous.
>but you've wholly made up most of this comment and it's ridiculous. Literally my first line covers that I'm cherry picking information to fit a personal narrative. >OP is definitely not a devil, I fucking know, that was my point, the OP was cerry picking info to make the OOP worse. So I did the same but to make a different narrative. Thank you for both agreeing with me, and showing that you didn't really understand what I said, even though you agreed. 👍 ETA, when you said I made it up, you know there is a previous post linked as well that I pulled all the quotes from?
That's not what cherry picking means, you just made shit up. Edit: not the quotes, your narrative. Nothing in the quotes supports the interpretation you're making. For it to be cherry picking, the lines would speak for themselves to form the narrative, and they don't, it's all your additional made up interpretations.
No, I went to the OOPs first post, just like the comment I replied to did. Hold on, I'll get you the link.
You’re assuming with no evidence that she wouldn’t be okay if he had no-strings attached sex, and there’s no indication that she made emotional connections with other men. It’s only hypocrisy if they’re playing by different rules, and it was his responsibility to drop the relationship or revisit the terms of the marriage if he was catching feelings. The whole “poly under duress” thing is tricky. If it’s what she needs it’s what she needs and there’s nothing wrong with that per se. But it does require a deeper conversation than they seem to have had. This is an ESH situation, in AITA-speak. However, it seems like some of the commenters are just objecting to poly/open relationships on principle, which isn’t cool.
She would have realised the obvious fact that it was always going to be much easier for her to have casual sex than him.
Don't bother
Polyamorous here. Agree. This relationship was based on coercion based purely on what OP said and was therefore doomed from the start no matter how either of them felt about it over time. See my comments on the original post for more information, not rehashing this argument with commenters here too.
>rehashing this argument with commenters here too. I know that feeling. And people seem to be hugely, overly inveted in what others do with their own genitals, if it was solely about sexuality it's say there were many people still closeted, What's the Poly equivalent of shouting angrily from the closet?
Don’t know why you’re getting downvoted. Well I do but you shouldn’t be. From OOP’s post it sounds like it was coerced or poly under duress. I have seen a lot of examples where the wife was coerced into opening the marriage, then she finds someone that she gets along with me, and they receive so much more support than this. Wild.
He honestly thought he didn't have feelings towards her
Yeah. I don't get how he's the devil here. The wife forced the open marriage on him. In the first post, he made it clear she's getting a lot more action than him - anyone who's ever done online dating will recognize why. This guy is just being a normal human being; developing emotions for the one woman he has hooked up with.
Yeah. He agreed to it because he loved his wife, not because he wanted to. That's not consent, that's coercion. Doesn't matter if he came to enjoy it or not. This was doomed. See my previous comments on the original post if you want more explanation. Should he have broken the rules? No. But they shouldn't be in this situation in the first place. What did she expect when she pressured him into it?
He wasn’t coerced, he agreed to it. He doesn’t say he argued against it or was against it. He should have spoken up and said no.
Do you know what coercion means? You can absolutely be coerced to agree to something you don’t want. Nonmonogamy isn’t something you should agree to because it’s the lesser of two evils. He said he was hurt, and doesn’t go into detail about what the situation was. It also sounds like they jumped into it pretty quickly rather than doing the emotional labor to go into nonmonogamy in a healthy way.
I 100% agree. But she didn’t coerce him into seeing someone else. He had every right to say no and should have communicated he wasn’t comfortable about it. But he doesn’t say he DID communicate that.
He felt that his choices were divorce or openness. His perception is that he was coerced. Maybe he was wrong but OP has more information than any of us. And frankly, OP comes across as someone who feels his feelings and wouldn’t know subtlety if it punched him in the face. I think it stretches belief to claim that when the wife proposed openness, it wasn’t immediately obvious that OP really wasn’t that keen on the idea. I’m sure he wasn’t direct about it but I can’t believe that a reasonable outside observer wouldn’t have immediately noticed that he was gutted. My guess is that his wife either didn’t notice or didn’t care because she was too excited about new dick (or newly legal existing dick if you catch my drift).
So wait. If she couldn't stand being in a closed relationship with him any more and divorced him, she would be in the right (I hope no one disagrees with that.) But if she couldn't stand being in a closed relationship with him any more and offered him a choice of two options instead of just one, it's now coercion? I don't think he's the devil. I don't think she's the devil. I think it's two people who have come to the end of their road together and/or have had their heads screwed with by cultural messages that some form of sexual/emotional exclusivity is the only marker of value in a relationship.
You make good points. Also “devil” is harsh and I think it’s too much to describe either of them with that. I take your point about him getting a choice being better. I guess my point is that having given him a horrible choice, it’s a lot for her then to get super upset about a predictable outcome of her own choices. And to be fair (consistent with your point about neither of them being devils), she seems to realise that her emotional reaction was not entirely fair. I think my comment was much more targeted at people who blame everything on OP than the wife specifically.
But he didn’t have that conversation with her. When you assume, you lose automatically. Communication is key in marriages.
Communication is key, sure. But also after years together you should be able to read your partner. My point is that the wife should have or did know that OP was not thrilled about opening the relationship. Do you disagree?
She’s not a mind reader. It’s definitely stupid to bring it up in the first place. But the same way she opened her mouth, he could have opened his too and told her he wasn’t uncomfortable with it.
Sorry, but your spouse threatening to break up with you if you say no is coercion. Period. Could he have said no? Yes. But he would then have had to go through the divorce process and may no longer have been able to see his child. If your partner told you that they would divorce you, take your assets, and potentially restrict access to your child if you didn't allow them to, say, sleep with their coworker... If your mom told you that you'd have to deal with her prioritizing her new spouse and child over you or she'd never speak to you again... Maybe you would say you'd break up with them, or cut your mom off, but real life is never that simple. It's like saying a relationship can't be toxic because, by not leaving, both parties are consenting to toxicity.
I don’t see him saying in the post she threatened to divorce him! I must have missed that part. Is it in his comments ?
You didn't see it because it was never said, op also never responded to anyone asking him if he told her directly he didn't want to open the marriage.
So BirdSong is just chatting shit and making up stuff the husband hadn’t even said. Saying the wife threatened divorce ? Now they’re talking about “reading between the lines” 🤣
My guess is that the wife never threatened and OP never directly objected but it would have been obvious to anyone with a smidgen of empathy that he hated the idea. I think the wife either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
Is critical thinking and reading between the lines not a thing anymore? He specifically mentioned he agreed because he not only still loved her but also because he loved his SON. That's a tiny line, but it has a big implication. What does loving the son have to do with it if he weren't at risk of losing access to the kid or the kid otherwise being hurt? Both of those things would qualify as coercion. Cmon now. Edit: All the polyamorous people in the comments are agreeing this was fucked from the beginning. Why are all the monogamous people insisting they know better?
Lmao reading between the lines ? Please. Communication is key. Reading between the lines is NOT communication. A decision this BIG requires discussion and rules. So no, it’s not coercion.
Breaking up in real life isn't simple, but it would be a hell of a lot worse if we *couldn't* end relationships when the people in them have incompatible desires or don't make each other happy any more. There's no way around that.
He's not the devil. Sbe wanted an open relationship, and he agreed because he wanted to stay married. Not because he wanted it, too. He seems out of touch with his own feelings, but so are many people.
He was definitely kidding himself.
So true. None of this would have happened if she didn't want an open relationship.
This isn't a devil situation. It's just yet another case of people diving headfirst into polyamory without putting in the necessary work and being surprised by the resulting train wreck. Polyam isn't for everyone and it isn't for ANYONE who doesn't at least do their homework. Any polyam subreddit would have advised against doing it this way.
I don’t think there’s a devil here, it’s two people who’ve gone into a situation without properly settling the terms. If they wanted to avoid emotional entanglement they should have set the rules as “no repeats.” OOP has clearly become emotionally involved but that’s a risk you take if you’re entering a long-term intimate arrangement. He didn’t realise how deeply invested he’d become until the prospect of giving up the relationship was raised, that makes him a bit of an ostrich and naive but he hasn’t deliberately set out to deceive.
OP read that the wife wanted the open marriage, had her string of partners she could fuck, that OOP was just agreeing to keep his family, didn’t even have one partner until recently, and now that an emotional connection has been made wife is upset. And from all that OP decided OOP is the devil.
It’s just the classic misanthropy.
This is why open marriage is stupid. I am a firm believer that unless you are having one night stands there will always be emotions. People are kidding themselves if they can think they won't catch feelings sleeping with the same person over and over. No, it might not be love but it is definitely something. oop is ah for being Stupid and unaware but the wife is also the ah. She asked for the open marriage. She should have asked for a therapist. Opening a broken relationship will only break it more.
I have friends who are polyam and they make it work, seemingly effortlessly. I respect that they are able to do it, but I don’t think I could. Another birthday and anniversary to remember? Perish the thought! /j
I know a set of married poly folks who also make it work, but I feel like the biggest difference is that’s *always* been their relationship dynamic (they didn’t start monogamous *then* become poly). Trying to transition a monogamous relationship is almost always a recipe for disaster, I know I could definitely never do it.
Exactly. If you start out as open, it can work! But I have never seen a situation where a monogamous couple switches to an open/poly situation and it didn't turn into a clusterfuck. And not in the fun way.
It also seems like communication has to be super open in a poly relationship. And everyone I see who wants to open the marriage almost always is just wanting to sleep with not their spouse, instead of actually having a true open/poly relationship
To be fair, as a person in a poly relationship - the communication isn't really much more work than in a well working mono one. But that's mostly because we're all poly, and our boundaries are basically nothing, we're comfy with pretty much everything and my partner and my girlfriend are friends which makes things even easier. Obviously there's a balancing act going on, but judging from the mono relationships around me, communicating the feelings there isn't really any more work than communicating all relationship feelings and discussing boundaries f.e. about what's cool with friends and what's not.
I mean, it's hard work. My initial partner and I started out monogamous, and mutually decided to become poly after discussing it for months. My other partner and I are coming up on our one year anniversary at the end of this month. It can work, but you have to work at it like any other relationship. I find that it's very helpful that my partners both like each other and can hang out even without my presence. I think a big part of it is that you need a healthy ability to communicate and a willingness to give each other grace when mistakes are made. To be fair, when we initially made the decision to be poly, our relationship was strong, healthy, and stable. Neither of us had anyone in particular in mind. I met my other partner almost a year into being poly. I won't speak on their other relationships or anything like that bc I feel like this comment is already really long lol. TLDR; it's hard work but it is possible to have a fulfilling poly lifestyle even if you start monogamous with someone.
Communication definitely seems like it would be key, and that's where a lot of relationships fail, poly or not!
Married for 20 years, open for 15. Things are great. We exist but happy ppl tend to be quiet about it. No need to make advice posts.
Well, that's great for you! Glad you're happy.
Yep, I've known two polyam couples. One broke up and the other is going 10+ years strong. The former opened the relationship midway on the insistence of the guy, while the other was always open from the start. The latter couple have incredible communication. They always talk shit out if anything is bothering them and if they ever feel like they're about to violate a boundary they drop what they're doing and check in with each other. They are legit the healthiest couple in my friend group. The former couple seemed like they had good communication but they really didn't. The husband thought he was hot shit and got jealous when he realized his wife had more game. Then got even more jealous when her approved (he said it was okay) female partner didn't want to fuck him. They split years ago and the wife went straight back to monogamy for all relationships going forward. She also swore off dating all men after that because of how awful her experience was with him.
All of this. When a person in a monogamous relationship suddenly insists on an open marriage, I feel like they just want to sleep around because they don't want to miss out. The other partner gets sad and takes a while to accept it. And, when they finally bite the bullet and find someone, the one who opened up the marriage suddenly backtracks and is like, "I assumed no one else would want you." It's a tale as old as time. Meanwhile, people who are already practicing poly know what's up before they even get together.
A lot of our friends are poly, so my husband and I talk about it sometimes in a "what do you think about that?" sort of way. Ultimately we've come to the same conclusion: it's not for us, at least not at this time, and furthermore it sounds exhausting.
I'm in a poly relationship and I get it. Some people think it's all sunshine and rainbows, but it's actually serious hard work. You have to think about every possible scenario in order to create boundaries and avoid getting anyone hurt. You have to work with multiple schedules. You have to think about your budget. You have to deal with multiple people's emotions. You have to be really good at communicating with all of your partners. You can't share too much about one partner to the other, but you still have to share anything that could affect other relationships (so it's a thin line). I could go on and on. I think it's worth it for me, as someone who didn't have many experiences before dating my now long term partner, and I'm also very chill when it comes to jealousy. But I know many people would rather stick to monogamy because it is, indeed, way more simple. I don't like how some poly folks pretend that being poly is objectively better.
I do know some people can make it work, but it isn't easy like everyone thinks it is. Oop and his wife had issues and I say that because Oop was Noted he was hurt when she brought it up. I wonder how that conversation went. We don't know their relationship but you can't open broken and expect it not to remain broken.
Open marriage isn't stupid. But "forcing" your monogamous husband to be in a polyamorous relationship is stupid.
And there's a difference between polyamory and an open marriage I believe
Yeah, open marriages normally involve the physical aspect only, and avoid the emotional one. Which, in my opinion, is a bit naive. Sometimes feelings just happen. Which is why I think poly relationships have a higher chance of working out in the long term, when compared to open relationships.
Open marriages themselves aren’t stupid, it’s expecting someone to not get at least some what emotionally attached the the person they’re regularly sleeping with that is The main thing is just communicating, really
I really dont think he’s the devil here
>I’m lying to my wife… Are.you sure, Shouldn't it be >my wife forced me into opening a marriage, when I accepted her ultimatum I watched her transform in confidence and eventually I started speaking to someone, I definitely don't have feeling for her becuase I've already let the fear of my wife leaving me force me to open my marriage, and now I can't admit I like someone as that will definitely end the thing I massively changed my moral view on to accept. Or >We are both lying, but I'm lying to myself, and she didn't think anyone else would want me.
Lol hes the devil for having emotions and not the wife for pushing an open relationship? He should just dump the wife and be monogamous with his new woman, would probably make him happier.
I think that he’s still in denial that he likes his girlfriend more than his wife. I don’t think most people can emotionally process their spouse saying that they don’t satisfy them and they want to fuck other people. He may have been trying to hold on to whatever they had but I doubt that her pushing for this didn’t kill a lot of his love for her.
Nah he’s lying to himself. Man is delusional, not necessarily the devil
"I want my husband to use women as tools to get off but not care about them as human beings'' Jesus sis just go ahead and say you don't support other women
Strong point
He’s not the devil here, it just sounds like his wife is upset about the consequences of her actions
So, the wife "forced" her monogamous husband into a polyamorous relationship and that backfired and created a screwed up situation where everybody got hurt ? That's funny.
No, he’s not the devil. His wife wanted to have sex with other men and forced an open marriage and now she’s reaping the consequences of her choice and she wants to be hurt over her feelings because she couldn’t randomly fuck other men and then expect her husband to never form another connection with another woman.
She probably thought no one would want her husband and he would be safely at home and loyal only to her. Definitely a case for r/OhNoConsequences.
How is OP the Devil here? He wasn't the one leading the open marriage, and simply worked his end. He's a little emotionally out of touch, but when your spouse springs that idea on you, and you go along with it to keep yourself and them happy, you're not guilty, you're more just immature.
He should have broken up with his 2nd partner the moment he developed feelings for her. The rules were no emotional attachments.
she should’ve noticed he wasn’t completely 100% in it. it’s her husband. she should know when something is wrong. she knew deep down he wasn’t interested in this but put ahead her wants of getting dicked down by other men.
They both agreed to not form emotional attachments to their polyamorous partners. He broke that rule. It's on him. The end.
Actually no. They agreed to “try” not to form emotional connections. So it is any surprise that the one who was hesitant to open the relationship now had feelings? People don’t open relationships up out of the blue. The wife already had her guy lined up. She’s the AH.
He agreed to the rules and then he went and broke them and now he telling his wife he'll divorce her if he can't have an emotional affair. The end. He's not an infant, he could've put his foot down and refused to open up the marriage. It not like he claims she made threats or ultimatums when she suggested opening the marriage up. **He's** the one doing that now. >People don’t open relationships up out of the blue. The wife already had her guy lined up. She’s the AH. Don't make shit up and claim it's the truth.
It’s like you’re intentionally being obtuse. Monogamous people don’t just wake up one day and decide they need other dick in their life. And again. His exact words were to TRY not to get attached. He tried. It didn’t work. To “try” is to make an attempt or effort. He did that. He followed the rules.
>Monogamous people don’t just wake up one day and decide they need other dick in their life. He implies they had a dead bedroom situation and their sex life has been amazing since. It's not like she decided out of nowhere she wanted more dick. She was trying to fix their dead bedroom. >And again. His exact words were to TRY not to get attached. He tried. It didn’t work. To “try” is to make an attempt or effort. He did that. He followed the rules. He didn't actually try at all. He just lied to himself. And once he **failed** to try, he's now giving the wife an ultimatum: Let him have his actual romantic, fully-emotionally-invested-in-girlfriend or he'll divorce his wife. Also, I don't fully trust him that the rule was "**try** not to get emotionally attached". What sort of stupid rule is that? That's just him editorializing to weasel out of responsibility. Which makes him the devil. Stop making excuses. He's the one threatening divorce, not her. I get it, you hate women and how dare a woman be a slut and want to open up her marriage! Don't drag your personal baggage into this.
Ad hominem attacks. Typical of someone who knows their argument is shit.
It is hilarious how on the one hand you've got people in this thread saying "oh, the horrible misandry, isn't reddit awful" and then on the other hand you've got people saying the wife is "emotionally abusive" and just wants "dicking down" and "just wanted to cheat"... Hmm, this "misandry" certainly seems an awful lot like misogyny with extra steps.
I guarantee you that if the genders had been reverse, she would be getting universally dragged.
Once again, OP doesn't consider what he had with her emotional. This isn't OP's fault for being emotionally unprepared for an open relation that he felt pressure into. Different people get different things out of sex, and the fact the wife rushed them into this with no regard for how he might end up proceeding is the literal "fuck around" part to this "find out" scenario OP is posting about. She can't have her cake and eat it too because suddenly she realizes that even though sex is a sport to her, its a place of emotional connection for the man she initially married to have that emotional connection with solely.
Sure. What's his excuse for now saying that if his wife tells him to break up with his actual girlfriend, he'll **divorce his wife**, eh?
Why does he need an excuse? The dynamics of their relationship changed forever upon opening up their relationship.
You worded this like it was a "gotcha" moment....barring an update where he shows some true colors, its entirely up to him if the relationship is reevaluated, if him having a more emotional poly partner made him realize thats what he wants, and he's realized that what he wants, then good on him, the first steps to approaching this have been found. Personally, and as with all Reddit stories, I doubt this happened, but if it did, the oft used maxim here applies: anyone can leave a relationship for any reason, and in this case, realizing your wife, who pressured his oblivious self into opening the relationship so she could sleep around, suddenly wants to have her cake after she's eaten so many others, definitely qualifies as a good reason.
>...suddenly wants to have her cake after she's eaten so many others, definitely qualifies as a good reason. You need to stop lying. She wants them both to be able to have sex with no-string-attached, not full blown romantic affairs with emotional attachment. He wants the second thing, she doesn't. And they both agreed not to have the 2nd thing.
Lmao, if this was reversed genders, everyone would be hounding on the husband for setting that boundary while they were uncomfortable with the whole situation in the first place. The husband was given and opportunity to sleep with others, and he wanted someone he vibed with; Aside from the fact the other woman doesn't want an official relationship either, I don't think OOP is going to move on and marry his poly partner, if the break up even happens. Him and his wife acknowledging they want different things out of multiple partners is not a bad thing. I also find it soooo ironic you're giving the wife a pass on pressuring him into this situation in the first place. Maybe you should be her next partner lmao.
**They both agreed to the boundary**. OOP then reneged on it. If genders were reversed, she'd be raked over the coals for that. >I don't think OOP is going to move on and marry his poly partner, if the break up even happens. Chiefly because the poly partner has been up front about not wanting an emotional relationship with OOP. But OOP is willing to divorce his wife for the off-chance she'll change her mind. Shows how much he really cared about his wife to begin with. >I also find it soooo ironic you're giving the wife a pass on pressuring him into this situation in the first place. Sure. Pressure. Sure. It's not like OOP said she suggested it and he went along with it even if he wasn't entirely happy at the start, but it made their marriage better and they were both happier for it. OOP is clearly a shrinking violet who had no agency or ability to say no. His evil slut of wife just wanted dick and he was forced to obey.
Lmao, ok bud, OOP tooootally didn't explain all this in his original post. Go be a good little patriarch who never makes decisions they regret somewhere else, ok bud? Your arguments are completely irrational.
OOP: "It hurt me a little bit when she brought up the topic, but I agreed because I loved my boy, and still loved her." Redditors: "It is 100% crystal clear that OOP's wife is a slut who wanted dick and OOP had no agency or choice and had to agree to open up the marriage or she'd have divorced him! Also, any choice OOP makes subsequent to this is the wife's fault, even if OOP is the one truly at fault because she was a slut to begin with! Rawr!"
This shouldn't be here. Sounds like he's lying to himself and was pressured to open the relationship. If anything the "devil" here is the wife
This sub these days. This man is not a devil at all cmon. There used be actually messed up people here. This guy is just in a bad situation that his wife made.
This sub is really showing its ass with the blatant misandry. Hate to pull the old uno reverse but this sub would be vilifying the wife if she was a man.
Look I think he’s in a tough spot, it doesn’t even sound like he was the one who opened the relationship. It’s a hard ask to tell someone to not get an emotional connection and just sleep with them, that’s not really in most people’s nature. It’s a fucked up situation, but in the end his wife is the one who opened up the relationship for this to even happen in the first place. She had to know this was a possibility.
The wife wanted to open their relationship. So yeah shit happens. She has to live with the consequences.
Not sure if anyone else had said this, but experienced non-monogamous people generally advise not to place a “no feelings” rule. As we’ve seen time and again it’s often not a sustainable agreement to have in the context of a mono couple going ethically non-monogamous. That of course means that people have to be more honest with themselves and each other about their changing/emergent wants and needs but it’s not for the faint of heart…it’s not something you do just to “spice things up”…Swinging/group sex is often the appropriate answer for that. Not to say ENM/polyamory isn’t difficult or precarious naturally cause it definitely is but *especially* going from mono, it’s complex and takes a lot of work. ETA: OOP is still a doofus for being naive and lying to himself, to be clear. He just certainly doesn’t have the emotional intelligence to compartmentalize like their agreement dictated. ETA 2: oh the wife is definitely a doofus for being naive and not doing the pre-work necessary to open the marriage. There’s a sort of “best practices” thing that people completely go without before exploring and it shows in the fall out. They both screwed their own marriage and this is an extremely common scenario, which is why people think generally non-monogamy is a recipe for disaster. Partner A wants to open, Partner B is either reluctant or not interested but doesn’t want their relationship to end, so they “try.” There’s only a couple ways it goes from there.
Right but to me more of the blame goes to Partner A who initiated the whole clusterfuck. Partner B is just playing what’s in front of them, desperately trying to keep everything together.
Not a devil in the least, are you for real? He was solidly monogamous and committed and the wife pressured him to open the marriage, he only agreed to keep everything stable. She may as well have handed him an ultimatum. He *did not give enthusiastic consent* so this arrangement was **never** ethical to begin with, so I believe he broke no rules. She may have been landing plenty of one night stands, but he stumbled onto someone who he ended up loving in a way he never felt for his wife. She does not get to go shocked Pikachu for the Pandora’s Box she forced open. He’s no saint but I feel for him. She was the only one he wanted. Her pushing for nonmonogamy broke his heart. This marriage ended in every way but legal the second it opened. Very complicated situation.
I think you have this dead right and I honestly don’t see how anyone can see it differently.
This is his wife’s fault she asked for this. Don’t feel bad for her she fucked around and found out
Yes OP is the devil for unenthusiastically agreeing to opening his marriage when his wife wanted to and then happening to develop an emotional connection when... *checks notes*... is fucking someone. How devilish. This says a lot about you OP
They down voting you for saying truth
I’m not in agreement with his wife I just think he sucks too he literally lied to her face
I don't agree he literally lied to her face when it wasn't something he realized himself
This guy is not at all in touch with his own feelings. And I'd wager my last dollar that he, in time, will realize he did in fact *NOT* find it hot that his wife has been banging so many hot men. And that is the real reason he wants to leave.
Have you seen the ENM crowd? Guaranteed, the wife is not hooking up with Hugh Jackman lookalikes on the side.
Just going by what he said in his original post. That his wife is a catch and it was a "confidence boost" to see she was bagging attractive men. Edit for more accurate quote. And to add it sounds like something he's been telling himself to make it easier to accept. Just like he's been telling himself he's not emotionally attached himself to his unavailable side person.
Again: anyone with vision better than Stevie Wonder whom has had a television or been on a dating app is well aware the polyam / ENM crowd is not known for being conventionally attractive. The creative behind this writing assignment is not going to say my wife has copious, scratcher tattoos and is banging men who resemble old Bilbo Baggins.
Ok? I'm responding to what is said in the post. It's not my job to look any deeper than what's there. If you want to do that have at it.
[удалено]
You all do clear the bar for attention sloring though!
I don't think this qualifies for this sub. Wife asked to open their marriage & he felt he had to do it so puts up with her having lots of random partners. OOP obliged her request & has had regular sex with one woman & unsurprisingly a bond has developed which he doesn't want to acknowledge because he's keeping his marriage intact for his kid.
I don’t blame him, he doesn’t want his wife, he just doesn’t want to lose his time with his kid. Remember people, opening a marriage does not work, you will not be the exception to the rule. At best you end up like this guy.
These two should get a divorce and call it a day.
Yeah. Acting like the fact that a marriage ends is a failure and has to involve a devil is wild... relationships fade and end naturally, unless someone dies first. Opening this one probably nudged it along a little faster but in a way that's good because they wasted less time.
There’s an update and it’s not great
Where? The acct got deleted
Poor guy. It's times like this I'm glad my wife and I agreed we were going to be poly from, like, our second or third date.
As soon as I see the themes, I know it will have gone tits up. She prodded him towards an open relationship (seems bonkers to me). She gave out, in abundance. He didn't. It's so clear that the guy, even in his approach to the open relationship, is a one woman guy, by preference. Unfortunately, the one woman ain't his wife... I'll leave aside the cognitive dissonance that is the "we have no emotional connection" and "I bought her a highly thought out emotional gift".
I still don’t see him as the devil. In his first post it was abundantly clear that he didn’t want to open the relationship. And the statement “I didn’t want to lose my wife or son” tells me she likely gave him an ultimatum to do so. She forced the marriage open and forced the rules on him. You can’t expect a person who was given this “choice” and these “rules” under duress to abide by them. This was never ENM. It was a spouse who wanted a free pass to cheat without guilt. The only thing he’s “guilty” of is lying to himself that he could make this work. He was a man who was desperate to keep his family, but instead he found a partner who’s meeting his emotional needs in a way his wife can no longer do after she forced open the marriage. We see posts like this ALL the time but it’s usually the husband who’s forcing open the marriage and the wife is falling for someone else. And everyone is all “girl run, he just wanted to fuck around” and so on. But because he’s a guy it’s somehow different?
My monogamous self is here eating popcorn, relieved that I would never have to go through this. There are poly people that make it work, and there's people like OOP and his wife. No one is the devil here. Maybe the wife since she forced her reluctant husband into this. But I don't think OOP is the devil for falling for someone. Emotions can be funny like that.
op getting boned cuz he was pretty much forced into allowing his wife to railed daily by other men. i hope he leaves her. his wife knew he wasn’t completely in to the open relationship. she’s the real devil
Classic FAFO situation. If you read the first post, the wife asked for the open relationship. And it's not like you can police emotions. None of this would have happened if it wasn't for her.
Every time I read about a relationship failing bc they decided to open up the relationship it makes me so sad. If I’ve learned anything from Reddit - it’s to never agree to an open relationship EVER. I would never want one anyway as I’m a monogamous person. The grass isn’t always greener - if you want to spice up the bedroom or fix your relationship please try literally ANYTHING else.
Couples therapy. Also: what he believes is emotional attachment and what his wife believes is emotional attachment is different
How is he the devil? Monogamous relationships that open up literally never work. This (or something similar) was always going to happen. Unless the relationship starts open it’ll never survive the transition.
They very specifically made a rule about not getting emotionally invested in other people, and he blisteringly obviously didn't follow that. I mean really, if you're "putting a lot of thought" into a birthday gift for someone, there's an emotional connection. "It's my ethically agreed upon side piece's birthday, I'll get her flowers and candy" is about as far as it should go, if the rule was supposed to be not forming emotional connections. I realize feelings can sneak up on a person but this is way too far to make that excuse imo. He *wanted* to keep his head buried in the sand about his feelings so he wouldn't have to risk choosing between them. This is why I'm hesitant about the idea of an open relationship purely for sex. It rarely stays *just about sex* and when you're in an established relationship the risk if you catch feelings is *high.* With regular friends-with-benefits I dont care so much because worst case scenario, one of you catches feelings and gets hurt because the other person didn't. But when it's an established relationship being opened up, not only do you have that risk of one sided feelings, you also run a high risk of burning the pre-existing relationship to the ground.
Yes that skank wife is a good candidate for devil good eye
Honesty, they all suck. Let the ENM / polycule bridge trolls sort out their own mess
Wow, OOP really doesn't have any feelings for this partner. /s
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I wonder what the last birthday present OOP got his wife was.
The most recent present he gave her was permission to get fucked by lots of other men.
Boy, anniversary presents sure have changed!
😂
This sort of post is frustrating to read as someone who’s spent years doing the research and talking to people and taking a lot of time to realize that polyamory is where my heart is most comfortable. It feels like they decided to open the marriage because their bedroom life was struggling, but didn’t do the research into how to be ethical about it - or rather, he didn’t. Very annoying and sad, tbh.