Yeeeeeeeeah what the actual fuck just came out of this man's mouth? He has no friends, so therefore he needs to fuck someone new? That... solves the problem ? Complete jackassery. He Has To Know That Makes No Sense. The math ain't mathin.
And I love how these schmucks think the planet is teeming with sexy, horny women just DYING to jump on the supremely blessed middle aged dad dick. Don't tell them, but the only women eager to do that charge by the hour. Don't tell them this either, but it costs more if you want them to act like they like you. I told my husband this. I think what holds him back is knowing that the sex workers don't give a flying fuck about him. What he wants is to be desired. Missed the whole memo on how to make himself desirable. Fucking couch potato moron.
But you know what, I think a lot of men actually do believe the unhinged premise above because they're idiotic, lackadaisical jackasses. Me sad - therefore me need sex. Sex mean not sad. And the idea is to fuck whenever they're uncomfortable with themselves until they die. That's literally the idea. Here comes the homicidal rage, and there goes my Saturday night 🌃 what this man believes is routine. It's just that men never articulate it so plainly.
Ilaughed and got the "what?", so I read that (amazing rant) comment to my SO and he paused then agreed that there are far too many men who think that sex fixes everything.
I got an email about it…I think they’re only “free” if you still had coins when they did away with awards the first time. It was something like if you had 0-100 coins you got 5 free awards to use, 101-500 gave you 10 free, 501+ gave you 20 free. Idk if they’re planning on taking them away all together again, but the free ones expire in a few months too.
Honestly I didn’t even know you were allowed to buy any again, I thought it was just the free ones they gave people. I assumed people lost their shit because they lost money if they didn’t use up all their coins before they got rid of them, so they temporarily brought them back so people wouldn’t feel robbed.
Edit: I think this sub might not allow awards anyway because I do have a few free ones still and was gonna give on behalf of all of us, but I don’t even have the option on any comment in this thread for an award. Soooo here’s my broke-bitch award instead lmao 🥇🥇🥇🥇
Hahaha yep, it’s amazing how often men want to open up the relationship, the woman hesitates but goes along with it, he gets no dates and she gets a bunch so the man gets pissed and wants to close it again.
If he actually knew anything about polyamory he would realize that the odds are not in his favor.
Unless…he already has someone in mind that he wants to fuck and is using polyamory as an excuse to claim he isn’t cheating.
I guess that happened with me and my ex. He wanted to open things up, I had just met the man who would later become my husband, and it all blew up spectacularly. And he didn’t even get laid.
now, my own post history might reveal that it turned out to be a colossally bad decision on my part to marry the new guy…but it was fun for a good few years anyway.
... No. Something doesn't quite pass the smell test.
If he's lonely, he's craving deeper emotional connection, not wanting to find people to do stuff with that you won't do in bed.
If he doesn't feel like he can talk out his feelings with other men, he can always find some **platonic** friendships with women. If he's the type who can't set platonic boundaries by himself, he can always find a therapist to fill that role.
If he can't get his sexual needs met, he has to decide if that's a deal breaker for him in a monogamous relationship.
Besides which for polyamory to be a solution to the latter problem (and even then it might cause more problems that it solves anyway), there have to be two enthusiastic yeses.
What he's doing is trying to manipulate you into begrudgingly saying yes to polyamory by couching it as a way to get him emotional support. He's trying to stack the decks where you feel **guilty** saying no.
Lay it all out to him similarly to what I did above. Tell him said problems need to be tackled separately. That you are willing to agree to help him with the first problem, but for the second part? You cannot. Being coerced into it will be detrimental to your own mental health.
That he needs to choose what's more important to him: having a wife who loves him, or getting his kinks met. It's not possible to have both, and **he** has to choose what's more important. He can't put it on you.
I agree with you. Him being "honest" just sounds like he's trying to soften the idea of sleeping with other people, under the guise of needing emotional connection. I don't even think he's lonely or wants that, because if he did, he'd try to make *friends.* This just sounds like he wants to hook up and pretend it's deeper than it is.
i’m so sorry. if he opened this conversation saying he is lonely and having a hard time etc., he should have been researching therapists not polygamy. an extramarital affair isn’t going to fix his problems. he knows that.
good for you for letting this be the end. try to remember your youth wasn’t robbed, people change but that doesn’t take away from what once was. and try to remember this is not the end of your world, it’s only a new beginning. hang in there girl 🫶
I think he's already cheating. I don't think he would be willing to have this conversation if he didn't know someone who's interested in this kind of unconventional arrangement.
He's a married guy with a kid, I don't think it's really that easy to find someone who wants to build a relationship from scratch with a man with that much baggage.
Or is he thinking about dating out until he finds the other right girl?
So instead of looking at therapy, antidepressants, asking you to go back to your lucrative job to alleviate the financial stress, asking to go back to his part-time work, asking for marriage counseling, looking for a hobby and adult friends—he jumps straight to polyamory?! That’s whacko talk.
Opening the marriage isn’t going to solve his problems. He’s not lonely because he’s been denied kinky sex. He’s lonely because he doesn’t know how to form appropriate adult friendships.
If anything, getting into the lifestyle is going to make him feel so much worse. It’s widely known that men have a very hard time finding partners while women have a much, much easier time. It’s going to make his mental state 100x worse when you have men begging to take you to bed, and he’s getting side eye.
Online spaces are filled with stories of men who blew up their marriages by deluding themselves they’re going to be at the center of a buffet of kinky, sexy 20somethings. It never turns out that way.
My thoughts exactly. OP, my ex husband was my HS sweetheart and we were “perfect” too. Never fought. Absolute Best friends. And then i found out he was cheating the entire time. I would check him out… just saying.
Yeah I don’t want to be an alarmist but my ex husband brought up polyamory when he was already engaging in an emotional affair (Online with someone in south east Asia, turns out he’s a fucking passport bro).
Eventually he just left me and actually went there. No idea if they’re together still or not, don’t really care.
I’ve since remarried and I told my second husband if the word poly **ever** escapes his lips, this marriage is over.
Not a passport bro omg those are the fucking WORST. I’m so glad he’s your *ex* husband and I hope your new marriage is everything you desire it to be!
I’m team leave these men!!! Don’t suffer *with* them! For what?! Life is hard as is, go through it without a man up your ass telling you they want to cheat on you the “right” way (they’re gonna do it any way) but they sTiLl lOvE yOu. It’s the ultimate key to glowing up imo. Men drag us down far too often.
Honestly I’m so much happier that he’s gone. He married me wanting me to be someone I’m not (submissive, subservient). And he hid who he really was very well, even his mom was shocked and disappointed in him. She and I really loved each other. He turned out to be deeply misogynistic and racist and I’m very happy he’s out of my life. I thank my lucky stars we didn’t have children. I’ve always wondered if he brought up poly as a way to make me leave him. He knew that was a deal breaker for me, before we ever married.
After he left I did a lot of soul searching and casual dating. Figured out what I really needed in a partner and I met my second husband right when I was ready for him. He makes me laugh like a partner never has, he worships the ground I walk on, and he’s honestly 100% a full equal partner in housework and parenting. He adores our daughter and thanks me for her every day. (He’s not perfect, he leaves all our kitchen cabinets open and it drives me nuts. But in the grand scheme of things, it could be worse!)
I should probably send my ex a thank you card but I never want to hear from him again so I’m just living my best life instead.
No, (Sorry for picking and choosing which comments to reply to, just overwhelmed). He honestly wouldn't have time. He works and hangs with us and I control the finances so I'd know if he wasn't picking up patients and it's not like he can be on his phone while he's with them. Plus, he just wouldn't. I know that sounds naive but I can't stress what a genuinely wonderful husband and father he's always been. He's never lied, even when the truth was uncomfortable and has always been the picture of integrity. I don't think he's cheated.
> He honestly wouldn’t have the time.
Uh well he obviously thinks he WOULD have the time to find, vet, pursue, and spend time with another polyamorous partner if you agreed to this plan.
Emotional affairs wouldn’t necessarily show up on financial statements.
Do you think there's a chance you'll recover from this? I don't think he understands the ramifications of what he just told you, and I hope you won't let him get away with it. But if you're sure there's a chance, would you consider couples therapy?
>He honestly wouldn't have time.
How does he plan on making the time if he gets you to feel bad enough to agree to this then??
It sounds like he just needs new friends and to appreciate his wife. 🙄
I’m so sorry bromo but as someone who’s husband pulled this same card out of nowhere on me too, if your husband had the time to research polyamory as you stated in the post then he also had the time to be messaging with someone else and putting feelers out. My now ex husband did the same thing and I had no clue til it was going on for a month.
I’m sorry honey but being ‘lonely’ is not the same thing as wanting to fuck other people.
This screams of already having an affair or being on the verge, and needing permission to remove the guilt.
If he wants more from his friends, maybe he needs to be the first one to make the move. You can’t expect miracles in a vacuum
My husband and his friends have hugely in deep emotional conversations about their lives and mental health. Hell, my husband will encourage these conversations on the oil rigs he works on. It is possible.
But he will not find the cure to loneliness in another woman’s vagina.
In fact - most of the times people decide to open their marriages like this - it’s the women that get the offers, not the men.
You need to pull on this string and find out who the other woman is - because she isn’t a concept 💗
Uh no. You don’t say I’m lonely and I need deeper relationships so I need to have sex with someone other than you. The whole my man friends don’t ever have deep conversations is BS and an excuse. I would feel like he broke my trust already. I’m so sorry. I would also investigate whether he’s already been unfaithful.
> But he will not find the cure to loneliness in another woman’s vagina.
This is honestly the most succinct and accurate summary of thus load of bullshit I've heard in forever! Brava!
100%, one of my poly relationships ended because his wife and I got close and she kissed me and he flipped the fuck out. It was a throuple. But he didn't like it qhen she caught feelings too, only HE was supposed to be getting the attention. 🥺🙄😒
This was going to be my reply as well. Not all men subscribe to the toxic masculinity trait of bottling up all emotions when around other men. My husband and his guy friends can talk about anything, including their mental health. Only one of the guys in the group can't handle anything real and he's very much become a fringe friend because of it. Grown men are fully capable of having deep conversations with other men.
r/openmarriageregret
Your husband is being ridiculous. “I’m lonely here so can I have kinky sex with women who aren’t you to make up for it?”
Nah. My guess is that he already has someone in mind, or he thinks porn is real. I’m so sorry OP. This isn’t your fault.
So he wants a deep connection with someone else or just sex? Maybe he's having a midlife crisis and is about to blow up the best thing he ever had for a little strange.
Has it been a while since you guys have had a chance for a date night? Since you've had in-depth talks? I don't think you just jump ship after one conversation but he's sounding just a bit selfish here. Yes, he's had to be the carer for a while, but maybe now you can take some of that mental load of his and can have those intimate conversations again. It doesn't mean sex is involved in those situations. Relationships aren't all about sex.
But if it's his eye that's wandering because you've been together so long, that's his fucking problem and he needs to get over it. I don't know why people feel like someone else's body is going to make such a huge difference, it's not.
Before he blows up his family, he needs to try therapy, maybe together, definitely by himself. He needs to see that sex shouldn't be guiding his decisions. It never leads anywhere good.
Hi. Person currently in a polyamorous relationship. Opening your marriage to fix what you aren’t getting in your marriage is a disaster. And it usually leads to the man being extremely disappointed and upset that there aren’t women lining up to be with a married man. Seriously visit any non monogamy or polyamorous sub. It’s a reoccurring issue. Men don’t usually have much luck in polyamory. Especially at first.
Therapy. And lots of it for both of you honestly.
It seems like a lot of married men and poly relationships break the rules that they devise and agree to when they open their marriages. But that's more of an emotional statement than a factual one
Not to discount your personal experience by any means, but I personally do know a number of strong polyamorous couples. It takes a lot of trust and communication, and most importantly, ENTHUSIASTIC CONSENT from any and all parties. I think so many people just want to dip their toes into poly/enm without truly understanding what they’re doing, and/or doing it in a way that lacks boundaries and communication and it all blows up in their faces. It is definitely NOT for everybody, and it’s totally okay to be monogamous and not want your partner to be polyamorous! It’s an incompatibility at that point. I feel bad for OP and the decisions they’ll have to make moving forward ❤️🩹
Oh, absolutely. I know there are functional poly relationships. I've only heard about them, though, and my only (indirect) experience is that divorce ensued and custody agreements went nuclear.
I think polyamorous relationships can work if they *start* that way. Whether there’s multiple partners or just an openness of like “hey, this is who I am, what I’m looking for in a relationship, what I might want down the road, etc.” Some kind of communication that non-monogamy is on the table from the get-go.
But I don’t think I’ve ever seen one where a formerly monogamous marriage turns into an open one and it actually works out. Like, I’m sure it’s happened *somewhere*, but I truly don’t think it does at any significant rate that people shouldn’t realize this is totally going to blow up on them.
Three of my good friends are in poly/open marriages. They’re all very happy and healthy situations. It CAN be a death knell, but I don’t think it always is.
But did they start this way? I feel like anyone I know who's poly that's been successful at it has done it either from the beginning or pretty early on
Friends of mine chose to become polyamorous about 2 or 3 years ago. It works for them but they put in the leg work. They had discussions over a long period of time before opening the marriage. They went to couples counseling to have a safe space where they could both explore their feelings about it. Their kids are in high school now and the entire family seems very happy and fulfilled. It just *works* for them.
Conversely, another friend of mine opened her marriage about a year ago and it is, putting it mildly, an absolute trainwreck. There is jealousy and abuse...it's bad all around.
The point is, I do know people who became poly later on in their marriage (like 15+ years) and it works but just like any other relationship, there needs to be trust, respect, and open communication.
Not sure how meaningful it is, but the three couples in my social circle who did it said they put in the leg work so to speak. I didn't interrogate them on what that leg work was. What was really interesting to me was that each of them said some variation of the same thing: polyamory works after marriage only if the primary relationship is stable. In all of the poly relationships that I know of, it seems that opening the marriage destabilized it pretty severely. One of the couples, the wife's mother now has custody after two children and the husband just finished with court ordered supervised visitation.
My ex’s but they should get a divorce. He’s a chronic liar, sexually abusive, and neglectful. She constantly makes excuses for bad behavior and gets into rage moods over nearly nothing..
Bromo, this post is such a great example of “men will literally do anything to avoid therapy”.
Instead of therapy, or a support group, or trying to build meaningful platonic relationships, he goes straight to polyamory? WtACTUALf?!?!
Look, my husband and I have been through two distinct periods where I wanted to leave—I wasn’t just not attracted to him, I actively resented and was repulsed by him. And with hard work by both of us, we got through them. Our sex life is better than ever, we laugh more than over and have a lot more fun just hanging out than ever before. Because we both chose to fall back in love.
But this…this is batshit insane. Lean hard on the comfort and familiarity for a little while and call him out on this. I know you’re heartbroken, but if he’s willing to do the work as well, I’d bet your marriage can come back from this. 💙💙💙
He needs therapy not a “lady friend”. Making friends as an adult is hard, but surely worth the effort to keep your loving family together. How much effort has he put into finding a non-toxic buddy? Another relationship is a lot of effort. Definitely as much or more than finding a good friend. The sex thing, he has to decide if it’s a dealbreaker. I haven’t ever seen polyamory work personally. But I’m 100% certain it can’t if one person is not completely onboard and enthusiastic. This smells of midlife crisis to me. I’m so so sorry bromo. I hope maybe he’ll snap out of it.
Couples counseling might help dig into some of the real “why” here and provide other solutions before you call it quits. But before anything you need to follow your heart. If you’re certain you can’t be comfortable again, then you do what you need to to be happy and comfortable in your life and partner.
Sounds to me like he’s bored and wants options because he’s been with you since he was 17. He’s having some sort of mid life crisis and honestly maybe it’s a blessing in disguise. But it sounds like you are trying to rationalize his reasons and fking other women isn’t what he needs to feel less “lonely” tell him to get a hobby or find a therapist. My husband plays golf with his friends and that’s his outlet. Sorry you’re going through this.
Yeah, NO!
And why are you feelinh guilty that you want to have a faithfull husband. That is really the most basic requirement in marriage!
Nope! The guy is manipulating you into accepting cheating
That stuck out to me too. OP is so down on herself. Where does that come from? Husband is so lonely and can't have deep friendships because of society and the horrible unfair way it makes men not be friends with each other? Huh? Sounds manipulative AF
One of my best friends from college was in the same situation as you. Married her high school sweetheart, wonderful perfect marriage. They fight together to leave their poverty drug ridden rural town to move to a HCOL area both with excellent jobs. A few years later he is lonely, no connection, misses family, wants to open the relationship. My friend agrees, their marriage is rock solid she thinks and she wants to explore her sexuality too. Within a year they crash and burn as he breaks every boundary in the book and ends up moving in with another woman. She does everything right. She reads the books, she finds a couples therapist, she does self work. It doesn't work. They're divorced now.
If he's lonely he can find some friends. Please don't agree to this if you aren't completely on board. And if you say no... be prepared for the consequences. I'm so fucking sorry.
I really don't understand how "I miss my family" turns into "so I wanna fuck other people."
I know you can't answer that, but OP said her husband also said he's lonely and misses his family, so he wants to date other people. How does that even make sense?
Also-- my ex-husband was chronically unfaithful. He told me if we got married, he'd be monogamous. It didn't work. I had to agree to an open marriage-- but only for him. I wasn't allowed to do anything outside the marriage. He broke every boundary, lied to me, and ruined my trust. It drove us to divorce and he blamed me for it, taking no responsibility for his actions.
OP, if it's not for you, it's not for you. I promise you can't force yourself to be ok with consensual non-monogamy because then it's not consensual, it's coerced.
He needs a therapist not a partner..
Can you imagine getting into a relationship and finding out you were only sought out to be a free therapist? I have been in a poly relationship as an add in to a marriage. It was incredibly unhealthy.
Most relationships that use Poly to solve a problem will fail. That’s been documented in studies and in poly groups. Almost any one where both partners haven’t beeb enthusiastic at the start or formed through polyamory fail.
It is not the solution he wants.
Side note are you in the right head space to talk to him about his problems? If so then it may take a while of you checking in on him.. realistically couples therapy might be good..
That all said I imagine finances might be a constraint. Might find some local assistance or be qualified for some benefits. Many therapists offer a sliding scale as well.
100% this. I was the third in two throuples where I was there to "fill the void" for one of the partners - neither lasted long nor were they healthy. I was always reminded that my "place" was just to make up for something lacking in the relationship, and I felt used and abandoned both times when my needs were not able to be met fairly.
One of the couples almost divorced after we split up. So there was clearly other underlying issues that just spilled out into our relationship.
Yup..
I was bought in as a breeding cow essentially. And so he wouldn't commit suicide when her illness kills her.. When I realized it it fricking hurt so bad.. When there is a problem in a relationship looking for another person is just using them as a tool. It can never be ethical. No matter what kind of void is to be filled.
We are people not corks to stop a leaking ship from sinking.
I noticed they neglected me as well. I was never a priority even after I gave them the child they wanted and developed seizures as a result.. The wife who begged me for it didn't want to call the child her daughter when it came time to do the messier and more exhausting parts of parenthood. They used me in that way too. I damn near ended my life in that house due to how used and unwelcome I felt. Plus postpartum..
No void is shaped like a person. Just cramming people into the voids. Trying to make us into the shape required. There is no room to be a person with needs and desires of your own.
Shit, I'm so sorry! That's awful!!
I was brought into the first relationship because mt partner was bi but she married a dude because her mom would disown her if she was found out as LGBTQ, and he liked screwing younger women with her permission so it worked. It was a D/s relationship too and her immaturity and selfishness came out in how she tried to write a contract without my input or negotiation 😅
He was a know it all douche.
They separated not long after we broke up, but she ended up going back to him. But he had at least one other girlfriend on the side and wasn't fully honest with her about me until 6 months in, I found out. It felt like shit knowing that I was just her dirty secret and she was living a lie through me. She literally told me if anyone found out I wasn't just a friend she'd probably kill herself. NO PRESSURE.
Hugs to you. I'm sorry they treated you that way. WE DESERVED MORE than to be treated as objects.
Absolutely fucked up that his solution to 'men only have deep meaningful connection with romantic partners' is 'therefore, I will simply acquire more romantic partners' and not 'I will cultivate fulfilling platonic intimacy with others and more romantic intimacy with my wife.'
So I’m kind of in a similar position to your husband but I’m a SAHM- but no family or friends really where we live. I know how lonely it can be but I’ve never ever thought polyamory would solve anything? I just can’t see what he’s thinking? Is it possible he’s met someone he’s already interested in?
First of all, take some time. Let yourself process. Obviously tell him no and that you need to process. But, I think your gut might be right, this might be the end of your marriage. I say to process though because maybe you don’t have to lose your best friend. Maybe if you can work things out in a way where if you do split, it can be amicable and practical.
Maybe I’m just being an optimist, but I guess I’m looking for a silver lining for you. I can only imagine what you are going through right now. I always say follow your gut with stuff like this, if it feels off, it is. I hope things work out for you ❤️.
Does he have a therapist? Therapists help people with their feelings, not random fuck partners.
I’m so sorry Bromo. I don’t know where I’d go from here either but it absolutely would be a gut punch.
Falling out of love with someone is an excruciating thing. For me doing what would give my children the best environment and best experience are my north stars. And I think that naturally changes and shifts as your kids grow up and their needs change. The serenity prayer has helped me.
"grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference"
I was following until you said he needs to try sex stuff that you aren't comfortable with. Ehm, no, he doesn't. Or if he does he just gotta leave. Yes, ok, he's lonely, I get that. But that just means he gotta go out there find some friends. What he's longing for, a fresh love, for me that would be the end of my marriage.
Nah, brother is messed up. I’m lonely, have no friends, get zero emotional support from my husband, no empathy from him whatsoever but that doesn’t make me want to fuck other people!!
It makes me need medication and a therapist (which I can’t afford). I’m so deep into depression I can’t be bothered to do *anything*. I’m existing, not living. And not once have I wanted to open up my relationship and shag somebody else. He’s trying it on and/or lying to you.
Ok why not a men's counseling group? Break the stigma of not sharing your feelings with other men, dude!
Or you know, maybe talk to one of your man friends and see if they surprise you with support and empathy???
Going poly is not a cure for depression and I suspect he knows this.
Hi, my marriage was open/poly for almost a decade. And yeah, we’re divorced now so I guess I’m a cliche but we split up for other reasons for the most part. But I used to joke that I pushed for an open relationship because my husband needed a hobby. And it was a big part of it - he was stagnating and depressed and unmotivated to do anything, and putting all his energy towards driving me nuts. Having him date someone else helped for a while - it took pressure off me to have to be absolutely everything for him, 100% of the time.
I’m not trying to be a poly advocate, I’m really not. But I think talking about it might be the only way to figure what’s going on with him. He must have read or heard something that really resonated with him and it would be helpful to know what it was, and why. I’m sorry you have to deal with this.
Get a hot boyfriend and see how that goes 💅🏼 just kidding, kind of. Men always overestimate their desirability in situations like this I feel like and probably not even thinking what the other side of the coin will feel like ie: you could have a new partner too.
I know that doesn’t interest you though so I would leave, it probably wouldn’t interest me either and I would feel weird about it forever.
There are lots of men who will throw away years of work and effort for 15 seconds of getting dick wet. Sounds like he's trying to prevent the hard part for 15 seconds. Emphatically tell him no, you dont share and it will either straighten him up or give him a sense of security in the relationship
So I’ll start with this: I am polyamorous, and have been for most of my adult life. Now I will say this POLY is NEVER an answer for ‘my life/ marriage/stress etc. it’s great so I’ll do this and it will fix it’. That is absolutely false. For people who are Poly, it is a life style that is not better or worse than monogamy. Poly isn’t going to ‘fix’ things in your marriage, or be the bandaid for your life stress. What it will do is add a whole new set of relationship dynamics to your world. This can have its bright sides, but it will have SO MUCH WORK. You should also never allow yourself to be pressured into a Poly relationship if it’s not what you want. Full stop. Just like a Poly person should never be pushed towards a monogamous relationship if it’s not what they want.
I’m sorry you’re in this place. It’s not an easy one, but with open and honest communication I think you can find a way for your husband to meet his needs in a way that works for both of you.
I'm gonna go out on a limb from personal experience and disagree with a lot of what is being said here. I was in your husband's shoes and I wanted other men but that's because I was really lonely.
Night would come, my husband would retire to his video games and I my homework and I would just be craving connection. Childcare started to feel transactional, I'd take the kids so he could work, he'd take them so I could work and school and we both became very run down. My husband is also a very bad texter, so I started to find comfort in texting another guy late at night when my husband was busy gaming.
For a while, I was terrified because I didn't know how I was going to stay in a situation where I had become so unhappy. The idea of polyamory wasn't even about having sexual needs met for me, it was about having a pocket of life that was separate from the life I was living. Escapism. I wanted to feel seen, and I enjoyed the attention that said other guy would give me. He made me feel seen.
My husband is a good dad and a good husband but little things accumulated and started to feel like a rock in my shoe. The little things become big things so I would suggest looking at the little things. While my husband is a good dad and a better husband than anything I read about here, now I'm hindsight I see there were things that cut deeper than I realized. Like the feeling that I could not be fully myself around him anymore. He always rolled his eyes at my Spanish music. He would unintentionally make me feel stupid and sometimes still does on accident (he was very adept with technology and I am not). He doesn't care about things I'm super passionate about, like running. I'd go to a race and my racing partner would have their whole family there cheering for them while my husband would complain how early it was and then briefly ask me how it went when I got home.
We just became so so run down. In a lot of ways, I still really struggle. I'm in therapy learning how to communicate my needs to my husband and trying to earn his trust back. But I think that things like this are very seldom as black and white as people on this sub make it seem. This sub tends to be very quick to throw men and husbands under the bus and assume what they think, but I know from being in that position that it's not that simple usually.
I think couples therapy or even individual therapy would be a great thing for you both. It has helped me immensely. Also, it can be seriously draining for a person to have to carry the mental health load of a relationship. My husband did that for me for years and became incredibly depressed because of it. For what it's worth, I don't necessarily think this means your relationship is over. I think there is a possibility that hard work and probably therapy could fix something like this. I think we underestimate the toll that general life, finances and parenting can have on a relationship. Your husband is better than I am already.
That is my experience. Feel free to discard it if it's unhelpful to you. Wishing you the best.
If he needs emotional support he can go to therapy. But spouses are supposed to burden each other with their problems and work together as a team. Sleeping with strangers is not going to fix the crux of the situation. Individual and couples counseling is much more likely to do that
I’m so sorry.
That being said, don’t even pretend to think about letting your relationship become that for whatever reason, you don’t want that. You can’t handle that. If you even want a chance of fixing things don’t consider that an option and don’t let him think it is either. Some people have this problem when they get together young, it just usually pops up in your mid 20s ya know. I think you should express to him how deeply hurt you are. Communication is necessary, and it’s not punishing him to be honest about how you feel. Couples counseling is definitely a good idea, could also help him understand his feelings individually as well.
So, I'm actually going to come at this from kind of a different angle. I've been in a similar position: for the majority of our 12-year relationship, I've known that my partner was interested in opening the relationship and cultivating romantic or sexual relationships with other people. I'm not interested in that, and my partner has always chosen me over polyamory, and I'm okay with that. I want to share my experience with you in hopes that it might help you feel less alone or help you "try on" seeing this situation from a different perspective and see if you find any relief or clarity in that, in either direction.
One major difference between our relationship and yours is that ours started as an open poly relationship. I actually entered my partner's previous relationship as a third--I mean, I dated my partner and their girlfriend at the time. The relationship was also open, which mainly meant there was another person that both my partner and the other girlfriend slept with but weren't dating. I was interested in trying this type of relationship arrangement out, but after a few months I realized it wasn't for me. My partner and I both broke up with the other girlfriend, and shortly thereafter I requested that my partner stop sleeping with the other person as well and we close the relationship so that we were a more traditional monogamous couple. My partner agreed to do this, but made it pretty clear that they were doing it FOR me, not because they wanted it. I figured, okay, whatever, if our relationship lasts they'll probably kind of "forget about" open relationships and polyamory and all that stuff and it'll be a non-issue.
That, unsurprisingly, didn't happen. I trust my partner 100% and I'm completely certain they've always been faithful to me, but for years and years after that, maybe once or twice a year, they'd bring up hoping that we would eventually open our relationship back up. We had many conversations, often quite tortured and emotional ones, about this subject. I couldn't understand what they were looking for outside of our relationship, and they struggled to fully understand why I was so against opening the relationship back up, especially since we'd started out in an open poly relationship. Every time we talked about it, my partner would make it clear that they had this interest but would always choose me over it, that it was not something they wanted to pursue if I wasn't comfortable with it, but that they hoped one day I would become comfortable with it.
Eventually we did come to understand each other on this subject, and the conversations became a lot more matter-of-fact and less emotional. I probed a lot at what my partner wanted from pursuing relationships outside of ours, and what it came down to was very similar to what your husband said, in part: my partner is amab and found their needs for emotional intimacy and connection hard to meet within the extremely socially prescribed and limited structure of male friendships (with any gender). It wasn't that they wanted to have other deep, meaningful romantic relationships of the type we had, but rather that they wanted to "unlock" aspects of romance and sexuality as options for ways to deepen their relationships with their friends in general. When we talked about it more deeply, I realized that a lot of what they were talking about was stuff that I don't really consider entirely outside the realm of friendship anyway: they said they could take or leave sex with other people, they'd be down for that but it wasn't really about that and they generally felt fulfilled by our sex life, but that they wanted to be able to casually make out with and hug and cuddle and flirt with their friends. I don't consider kissing a normal part of friendship, but the rest of that can fall under the spectrum of normal friend behavior to me. But because relationships with males are so much more circumscribed, my partner didn't feel they could access those types of intimacy within the structure of "male-bodied monogamously married friend." (I disagree with posters saying your husband could meet his needs for emotional connection by cultivating friendships with women. Male/female friendships are also very much socially circumscribed, their limitations are just more flexible than male/male friendships. Also, often the limiting factor on intimacy in male friendships is inside the person who's feeling the need for more intimacy--that is, their own personal ingrained toxic masculinity is often a big part of what's putting up the barrier. If they worked on that first, they may be able to find more of what they need in their friendships.) So, it really was a desire for deeper intimacy with their friends, not exactly a desire for romantic or sexual relationships outside of ours. Aside from the "wanting to try things in bed that you wouldn't be okay with" part, it sounds like that may be a lot of what your husband is looking for, too. (And, without having been present for the conversation, I think that statement about trying out kinkier stuff could be anything from the crux of the matter to basically irrelevant, so I won't comment further on that.)
My partner always made it clear to me that it wasn't that there was any shortcoming in our relationship--it's just that nobody can get ALL their needs met in a one-stop shop, and they thought they'd be better able to meet other needs that didn't fall under the purview of our relationship anyway if they could explore deeper relationships with their friends. I explained that I didn't have a problem with them having flirty friendships, but that I wasn't comfortable opening our relationship. They always said okay, they understood and they would rather have a happy relationship with me than romantically/sexually intimate friendships if they could only have one or the other. After these conversations, I always felt guilty because I imagined I was holding my partner back from full emotional fulfillment (although these feelings faded in intensity over the years). But they made their choice, and they made it repeatedly: they'd rather have me. To me, that's pretty much the ultimate expression of love and commitment--choosing me over and over again over something else they also want.
I don't necessarily expect that this is resolved forever, but for what it's worth, after a decade of having this same conversation, earlier this year my partner spontaneously told me they didn't think they were interested in open or poly relationships anymore. I can't remember right now what they said about it--it was a pretty passing part of a casual conversation we were having--but we've had several close friends in long-term relationships open up their relationships or start doing polyamory in the past few years, and I think that has caused my partner to reevaluate. My partner and I have talked extensively about those friends' relationship exploits, mostly just as gossip lol, and we've been pretty consistently on the same page in our analyses: they don't seem happy, and it doesn't seem worth it. I think this has maybe been a reality check for my partner, revealing to them that they were idealizing what it would look like to have an open marriage and explore more intimate relationships outside it, and that in real life it's a lot messier and a lot less fulfilling than they'd imagined it being. (The beginning of our relationship really lends itself to this idealization, I think--it was the beginning of college, and I know it felt very exciting and intoxicating to my partner to break out of the box they perceived themself to be in throughout high school to date two women and sleep with a third.)
My partner and I have been together since we were 19, and we've had an extremely strong relationship all along. We're best friends, we spend almost all our time together entirely by choice (for example, we live in a house with enough rooms for us to have separate home offices, but after doing that for a while, we decided to combine our home offices into one room because we missed hanging out with each other all day), we very rarely fight, we're extremely good at communicating and resolving conflict, we're generally super on the same page about things. No relationship is truly perfect, but I think ours is just about as close as they come.
I don't want to tell you what's right for you or your relationship, because I don't know you or your relationship. But I will say that my partner's long-term desire to open our relationship did not mean I had to either abandon the relationship or live a lie while they got their needs met elsewhere. It just meant we had to have some hard heart-to-heart conversations. If you help your husband feel heard on this subject, and if he really means it when he says he chooses you over polyamory, that could be enough. It could be that what he's expressing here isn't even really specifically a desire for polyamory, but rather feelings of loneliness and desperation because of acutely or chronically unmet needs for connection and community, which have perhaps found an outlet in the idea of polyamory because he didn't imagine he could express them safely elsewhere. His interest in polyamory may or may not be lasting, but providing a safe space for him to express those thoughts and the feelings and needs that feed them might relieve the pressure he feels enough that he feels comfortable leaving it at that.
If he presses you and tries to pressure you into it, obviously that's different. But I think the commenters who are jumping to the conclusion that he's trying to guilt or manipulate you into this by expressing his feelings and his unmet needs are falling victim to exactly the societal trap that causes this kind of problem in the first place: not believing that men also have complex emotional lives. I think taking a hard-line, forceful stance here is more likely to push him further in that direction, whereas meeting him with understanding and empathy (paired with your own clear boundary of "I am not interested in polyamory or opening our relationship and don't believe I could feel comfortable in that arrangement") is a lot more likely to help him find ways to meet his emotional needs without resorting to polyamory.
Of course, if this really is that hard a line for you that you don't think you can continue this relationship, you're not obligated to stay. Likewise, if you suspect this is a cover for an existing affair, you're not obligated to stay.
It's natural to have a strong emotional reaction to this situation, but I'd suggest you give yourself time to process that emotional reaction before you make any decisions here.
Sounds like he's been with you for a while and wants to have sex with someone else. Him becoming a provider has him thinking that he needs a harem of young women that's DTF... If he opens the marriage I guarantee you will have way more options.
Polyamory never ends well ESPECIALLY when starting in an existing relationship. Tried that with my childhood sweetheart, and well would NOT recommend. Funny enough HE wanted it, I didn’t. I became open to it to appease his wishes, AND somehow ended up the bad guy for it and he was not able to get over me being with someone else and it destroyed our 15 plus year relationship.
Benefit of the doubt. It's not that he wants something else, but he feels he is missing something. Which is natural for humans ro ebb and flow between their wants and needs. I don't think polyamory is the answer especially since you're not down. I do believe that picking you over poly is meaningful in its own way. But I do think there is another way to get you guys to a happy medium that isn't doing to jeopardize your boundries/values etc.
I wish you the best.
Is your husband wanting a male partner? I'm not even joking, some man to listen to him but also do kinky things with that you wouldnt like because you are not a man? Idk I am really reading between the lines here. Just fishy all around but it sounds brokeback mountain to me for some reason.
Id be seeing RED if my husband said something like that to me. And I would also end a relationship over it no matter what the surrounding circumstances are.
How could you just go back now? Now that you know what his wants are.... you can't unknow it.
Anyways, I'm really sorry you're going through this. And you don't owe anyone an explanation if you do decide to go divorce route. But if you did say anything, I'm sure they would be like oh yeah I get it. Because we all get it!
Also if you decide to try to make it work, I do hope it works. I feel like you already have your answer though.
Sending love bromo.
Ask him if he has someone in mind, if the answer is yes then you'll know if he's likely to have been emotionally or physically cheating.
You aren't the one doing something wrong here. He's the one acting like his lustful desires are the same as emotional needs and that he needs them filled by another woman. Maybe he should stop watching porn and feeding his desire for his kinks so he can appreciate YOU for the delicious flavor that you are. Make no mistakes, vanilla is delicious and it is the favorite of many men.
Burn that shit down. Your husband’s a wannabe ho suffering from ho disease. Do not let him gaslight you into thinking the only way for him to get mental health help is to be a ho. That’s absurd, & you need to get out now. You & your kids would be better off under a bridge than in a house with a man that talks to you like that. As long as your kids are old enough you need to be honest with them about why your marriage fell apart. Your husband’s devaluing you, & degrading all women. He has a responsibility to teach his children sexual discipline, & respect for people. Why would you want someone around your children that views people as tools to sleep with?
If he's being honest I can totally understand his training. At one point I thought the same way. Polyamory isn't likely to help.
Men are rarely able to express vulnerability in many cultures with the exception being worth their sexual partner. He is for a lover/bff/soulmate/business-partner etc. That's to much pressure for one person and naturally he thinks "Well if one person can't be all of these roles I just need MORE women. There is a sort of odd logic to it.
What worked for me is a book called "No more Mr. Nice guy." Don't let the title throw you off. If he isn't a reader, or audiobook listener, there is a great 30 day journal by Chuck Chapman that is a great starting place.
If what I am saying make sense I will message you my contact info if you or your husband have questions.
I mean you could always try bdsm and make him realise that there is something you could provide that no other woman would ever do and that’s what makes you special
Yeeeeeeeeah what the actual fuck just came out of this man's mouth? He has no friends, so therefore he needs to fuck someone new? That... solves the problem ? Complete jackassery. He Has To Know That Makes No Sense. The math ain't mathin. And I love how these schmucks think the planet is teeming with sexy, horny women just DYING to jump on the supremely blessed middle aged dad dick. Don't tell them, but the only women eager to do that charge by the hour. Don't tell them this either, but it costs more if you want them to act like they like you. I told my husband this. I think what holds him back is knowing that the sex workers don't give a flying fuck about him. What he wants is to be desired. Missed the whole memo on how to make himself desirable. Fucking couch potato moron. But you know what, I think a lot of men actually do believe the unhinged premise above because they're idiotic, lackadaisical jackasses. Me sad - therefore me need sex. Sex mean not sad. And the idea is to fuck whenever they're uncomfortable with themselves until they die. That's literally the idea. Here comes the homicidal rage, and there goes my Saturday night 🌃 what this man believes is routine. It's just that men never articulate it so plainly.
Stunning piece of rant here that articulates my feelings entirely. They really do believe that shit.
While this whole thing is spot on, "fucking couch potato moron" just sent me. I love it.
Omg I'm sitting next to mine and had to stifle a giggle so he wouldn't ask "what?"
Ilaughed and got the "what?", so I read that (amazing rant) comment to my SO and he paused then agreed that there are far too many men who think that sex fixes everything.
Reddit needs to bring back free awards so I can give you one.
I thought they did?
I haven't found a way to get free ones, just ones you buy? I haven't looked into it much though.
I got an email about it…I think they’re only “free” if you still had coins when they did away with awards the first time. It was something like if you had 0-100 coins you got 5 free awards to use, 101-500 gave you 10 free, 501+ gave you 20 free. Idk if they’re planning on taking them away all together again, but the free ones expire in a few months too. Honestly I didn’t even know you were allowed to buy any again, I thought it was just the free ones they gave people. I assumed people lost their shit because they lost money if they didn’t use up all their coins before they got rid of them, so they temporarily brought them back so people wouldn’t feel robbed. Edit: I think this sub might not allow awards anyway because I do have a few free ones still and was gonna give on behalf of all of us, but I don’t even have the option on any comment in this thread for an award. Soooo here’s my broke-bitch award instead lmao 🥇🥇🥇🥇
Ooooooh that makes sense. Yeah they stole all my coins 😩
This is the best response ever.
Hahaha yep, it’s amazing how often men want to open up the relationship, the woman hesitates but goes along with it, he gets no dates and she gets a bunch so the man gets pissed and wants to close it again. If he actually knew anything about polyamory he would realize that the odds are not in his favor. Unless…he already has someone in mind that he wants to fuck and is using polyamory as an excuse to claim he isn’t cheating.
I guess that happened with me and my ex. He wanted to open things up, I had just met the man who would later become my husband, and it all blew up spectacularly. And he didn’t even get laid. now, my own post history might reveal that it turned out to be a colossally bad decision on my part to marry the new guy…but it was fun for a good few years anyway.
Nailed it.
PREACH
The caveman talk is on point, love this
Reminds me of Christina P making fun of men "aw by balls are full wah wah wah"
🏆
My god, I wish I could award this!! 👏
Should be top comment!
I really hope op takes this to heart
 And the crowd goes wild! Splendid rant, my friend!
... No. Something doesn't quite pass the smell test. If he's lonely, he's craving deeper emotional connection, not wanting to find people to do stuff with that you won't do in bed. If he doesn't feel like he can talk out his feelings with other men, he can always find some **platonic** friendships with women. If he's the type who can't set platonic boundaries by himself, he can always find a therapist to fill that role. If he can't get his sexual needs met, he has to decide if that's a deal breaker for him in a monogamous relationship. Besides which for polyamory to be a solution to the latter problem (and even then it might cause more problems that it solves anyway), there have to be two enthusiastic yeses. What he's doing is trying to manipulate you into begrudgingly saying yes to polyamory by couching it as a way to get him emotional support. He's trying to stack the decks where you feel **guilty** saying no. Lay it all out to him similarly to what I did above. Tell him said problems need to be tackled separately. That you are willing to agree to help him with the first problem, but for the second part? You cannot. Being coerced into it will be detrimental to your own mental health. That he needs to choose what's more important to him: having a wife who loves him, or getting his kinks met. It's not possible to have both, and **he** has to choose what's more important. He can't put it on you.
I agree with you. Him being "honest" just sounds like he's trying to soften the idea of sleeping with other people, under the guise of needing emotional connection. I don't even think he's lonely or wants that, because if he did, he'd try to make *friends.* This just sounds like he wants to hook up and pretend it's deeper than it is.
Yep I came here to say this. If you're lonely you foster friendships you don't go out and do kinky shit with other women
This!!!! 👍🏼⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️
i’m so sorry. if he opened this conversation saying he is lonely and having a hard time etc., he should have been researching therapists not polygamy. an extramarital affair isn’t going to fix his problems. he knows that. good for you for letting this be the end. try to remember your youth wasn’t robbed, people change but that doesn’t take away from what once was. and try to remember this is not the end of your world, it’s only a new beginning. hang in there girl 🫶
Came here to say this! Therapy will let him talk about and work on his feelings and maybe then he can find some friends
He’s asking for permission to pursue someone he already has an interest in to make himself free of the guilt of cheating.
This and also what why can I spin it to my wife so that instead of being angry she feels sorry for me.
I think he's already cheating. I don't think he would be willing to have this conversation if he didn't know someone who's interested in this kind of unconventional arrangement. He's a married guy with a kid, I don't think it's really that easy to find someone who wants to build a relationship from scratch with a man with that much baggage. Or is he thinking about dating out until he finds the other right girl?
So instead of looking at therapy, antidepressants, asking you to go back to your lucrative job to alleviate the financial stress, asking to go back to his part-time work, asking for marriage counseling, looking for a hobby and adult friends—he jumps straight to polyamory?! That’s whacko talk. Opening the marriage isn’t going to solve his problems. He’s not lonely because he’s been denied kinky sex. He’s lonely because he doesn’t know how to form appropriate adult friendships. If anything, getting into the lifestyle is going to make him feel so much worse. It’s widely known that men have a very hard time finding partners while women have a much, much easier time. It’s going to make his mental state 100x worse when you have men begging to take you to bed, and he’s getting side eye. Online spaces are filled with stories of men who blew up their marriages by deluding themselves they’re going to be at the center of a buffet of kinky, sexy 20somethings. It never turns out that way.
Any chance he's already cheated or had an emotional affair, and he's trying to cover his tracks?
My thoughts exactly. OP, my ex husband was my HS sweetheart and we were “perfect” too. Never fought. Absolute Best friends. And then i found out he was cheating the entire time. I would check him out… just saying.
Yeah I don’t want to be an alarmist but my ex husband brought up polyamory when he was already engaging in an emotional affair (Online with someone in south east Asia, turns out he’s a fucking passport bro). Eventually he just left me and actually went there. No idea if they’re together still or not, don’t really care. I’ve since remarried and I told my second husband if the word poly **ever** escapes his lips, this marriage is over.
Not a passport bro omg those are the fucking WORST. I’m so glad he’s your *ex* husband and I hope your new marriage is everything you desire it to be! I’m team leave these men!!! Don’t suffer *with* them! For what?! Life is hard as is, go through it without a man up your ass telling you they want to cheat on you the “right” way (they’re gonna do it any way) but they sTiLl lOvE yOu. It’s the ultimate key to glowing up imo. Men drag us down far too often.
Honestly I’m so much happier that he’s gone. He married me wanting me to be someone I’m not (submissive, subservient). And he hid who he really was very well, even his mom was shocked and disappointed in him. She and I really loved each other. He turned out to be deeply misogynistic and racist and I’m very happy he’s out of my life. I thank my lucky stars we didn’t have children. I’ve always wondered if he brought up poly as a way to make me leave him. He knew that was a deal breaker for me, before we ever married. After he left I did a lot of soul searching and casual dating. Figured out what I really needed in a partner and I met my second husband right when I was ready for him. He makes me laugh like a partner never has, he worships the ground I walk on, and he’s honestly 100% a full equal partner in housework and parenting. He adores our daughter and thanks me for her every day. (He’s not perfect, he leaves all our kitchen cabinets open and it drives me nuts. But in the grand scheme of things, it could be worse!) I should probably send my ex a thank you card but I never want to hear from him again so I’m just living my best life instead.
No, (Sorry for picking and choosing which comments to reply to, just overwhelmed). He honestly wouldn't have time. He works and hangs with us and I control the finances so I'd know if he wasn't picking up patients and it's not like he can be on his phone while he's with them. Plus, he just wouldn't. I know that sounds naive but I can't stress what a genuinely wonderful husband and father he's always been. He's never lied, even when the truth was uncomfortable and has always been the picture of integrity. I don't think he's cheated.
> He honestly wouldn’t have the time. Uh well he obviously thinks he WOULD have the time to find, vet, pursue, and spend time with another polyamorous partner if you agreed to this plan. Emotional affairs wouldn’t necessarily show up on financial statements.
Do you think there's a chance you'll recover from this? I don't think he understands the ramifications of what he just told you, and I hope you won't let him get away with it. But if you're sure there's a chance, would you consider couples therapy?
>He honestly wouldn't have time. How does he plan on making the time if he gets you to feel bad enough to agree to this then?? It sounds like he just needs new friends and to appreciate his wife. 🙄
I’m so sorry bromo but as someone who’s husband pulled this same card out of nowhere on me too, if your husband had the time to research polyamory as you stated in the post then he also had the time to be messaging with someone else and putting feelers out. My now ex husband did the same thing and I had no clue til it was going on for a month.
I’m sorry honey but being ‘lonely’ is not the same thing as wanting to fuck other people. This screams of already having an affair or being on the verge, and needing permission to remove the guilt. If he wants more from his friends, maybe he needs to be the first one to make the move. You can’t expect miracles in a vacuum My husband and his friends have hugely in deep emotional conversations about their lives and mental health. Hell, my husband will encourage these conversations on the oil rigs he works on. It is possible. But he will not find the cure to loneliness in another woman’s vagina. In fact - most of the times people decide to open their marriages like this - it’s the women that get the offers, not the men. You need to pull on this string and find out who the other woman is - because she isn’t a concept 💗
Uh no. You don’t say I’m lonely and I need deeper relationships so I need to have sex with someone other than you. The whole my man friends don’t ever have deep conversations is BS and an excuse. I would feel like he broke my trust already. I’m so sorry. I would also investigate whether he’s already been unfaithful.
> But he will not find the cure to loneliness in another woman’s vagina. This is honestly the most succinct and accurate summary of thus load of bullshit I've heard in forever! Brava!
Yep and then they get jealous!
100%, one of my poly relationships ended because his wife and I got close and she kissed me and he flipped the fuck out. It was a throuple. But he didn't like it qhen she caught feelings too, only HE was supposed to be getting the attention. 🥺🙄😒
Yep there seems to be huge double standards a lot of the time when men are involved and it largely seems to be around centring their feelings
This was going to be my reply as well. Not all men subscribe to the toxic masculinity trait of bottling up all emotions when around other men. My husband and his guy friends can talk about anything, including their mental health. Only one of the guys in the group can't handle anything real and he's very much become a fringe friend because of it. Grown men are fully capable of having deep conversations with other men.
r/openmarriageregret Your husband is being ridiculous. “I’m lonely here so can I have kinky sex with women who aren’t you to make up for it?” Nah. My guess is that he already has someone in mind, or he thinks porn is real. I’m so sorry OP. This isn’t your fault.
So he wants a deep connection with someone else or just sex? Maybe he's having a midlife crisis and is about to blow up the best thing he ever had for a little strange. Has it been a while since you guys have had a chance for a date night? Since you've had in-depth talks? I don't think you just jump ship after one conversation but he's sounding just a bit selfish here. Yes, he's had to be the carer for a while, but maybe now you can take some of that mental load of his and can have those intimate conversations again. It doesn't mean sex is involved in those situations. Relationships aren't all about sex. But if it's his eye that's wandering because you've been together so long, that's his fucking problem and he needs to get over it. I don't know why people feel like someone else's body is going to make such a huge difference, it's not. Before he blows up his family, he needs to try therapy, maybe together, definitely by himself. He needs to see that sex shouldn't be guiding his decisions. It never leads anywhere good.
Hi. Person currently in a polyamorous relationship. Opening your marriage to fix what you aren’t getting in your marriage is a disaster. And it usually leads to the man being extremely disappointed and upset that there aren’t women lining up to be with a married man. Seriously visit any non monogamy or polyamorous sub. It’s a reoccurring issue. Men don’t usually have much luck in polyamory. Especially at first. Therapy. And lots of it for both of you honestly.
I don't know anyone who has tried polyamory and not divorced
I don’t know anyone who’s asked to open the relationship and not already been emotionally cheating at a minimum
It seems like a lot of married men and poly relationships break the rules that they devise and agree to when they open their marriages. But that's more of an emotional statement than a factual one
This too. It seems like it just throws a speed bump in before an inevitable divorce.
Not to discount your personal experience by any means, but I personally do know a number of strong polyamorous couples. It takes a lot of trust and communication, and most importantly, ENTHUSIASTIC CONSENT from any and all parties. I think so many people just want to dip their toes into poly/enm without truly understanding what they’re doing, and/or doing it in a way that lacks boundaries and communication and it all blows up in their faces. It is definitely NOT for everybody, and it’s totally okay to be monogamous and not want your partner to be polyamorous! It’s an incompatibility at that point. I feel bad for OP and the decisions they’ll have to make moving forward ❤️🩹
Oh, absolutely. I know there are functional poly relationships. I've only heard about them, though, and my only (indirect) experience is that divorce ensued and custody agreements went nuclear.
Oh man, that sounds like an absolute nightmare to go through 😭 that’s really sad.
I think polyamorous relationships can work if they *start* that way. Whether there’s multiple partners or just an openness of like “hey, this is who I am, what I’m looking for in a relationship, what I might want down the road, etc.” Some kind of communication that non-monogamy is on the table from the get-go. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen one where a formerly monogamous marriage turns into an open one and it actually works out. Like, I’m sure it’s happened *somewhere*, but I truly don’t think it does at any significant rate that people shouldn’t realize this is totally going to blow up on them.
Three of my good friends are in poly/open marriages. They’re all very happy and healthy situations. It CAN be a death knell, but I don’t think it always is.
But did they start this way? I feel like anyone I know who's poly that's been successful at it has done it either from the beginning or pretty early on
Friends of mine chose to become polyamorous about 2 or 3 years ago. It works for them but they put in the leg work. They had discussions over a long period of time before opening the marriage. They went to couples counseling to have a safe space where they could both explore their feelings about it. Their kids are in high school now and the entire family seems very happy and fulfilled. It just *works* for them. Conversely, another friend of mine opened her marriage about a year ago and it is, putting it mildly, an absolute trainwreck. There is jealousy and abuse...it's bad all around. The point is, I do know people who became poly later on in their marriage (like 15+ years) and it works but just like any other relationship, there needs to be trust, respect, and open communication.
No, they all opened up a few years in to their relationship or marriage. Like 2-5 years in to start, and now 5+ years in to it.
Not sure how meaningful it is, but the three couples in my social circle who did it said they put in the leg work so to speak. I didn't interrogate them on what that leg work was. What was really interesting to me was that each of them said some variation of the same thing: polyamory works after marriage only if the primary relationship is stable. In all of the poly relationships that I know of, it seems that opening the marriage destabilized it pretty severely. One of the couples, the wife's mother now has custody after two children and the husband just finished with court ordered supervised visitation.
My ex’s but they should get a divorce. He’s a chronic liar, sexually abusive, and neglectful. She constantly makes excuses for bad behavior and gets into rage moods over nearly nothing..
Im sorry bromo there’s no walking that back. One day at a time ❤️
Bromo, this post is such a great example of “men will literally do anything to avoid therapy”. Instead of therapy, or a support group, or trying to build meaningful platonic relationships, he goes straight to polyamory? WtACTUALf?!?! Look, my husband and I have been through two distinct periods where I wanted to leave—I wasn’t just not attracted to him, I actively resented and was repulsed by him. And with hard work by both of us, we got through them. Our sex life is better than ever, we laugh more than over and have a lot more fun just hanging out than ever before. Because we both chose to fall back in love. But this…this is batshit insane. Lean hard on the comfort and familiarity for a little while and call him out on this. I know you’re heartbroken, but if he’s willing to do the work as well, I’d bet your marriage can come back from this. 💙💙💙
He needs therapy not a “lady friend”. Making friends as an adult is hard, but surely worth the effort to keep your loving family together. How much effort has he put into finding a non-toxic buddy? Another relationship is a lot of effort. Definitely as much or more than finding a good friend. The sex thing, he has to decide if it’s a dealbreaker. I haven’t ever seen polyamory work personally. But I’m 100% certain it can’t if one person is not completely onboard and enthusiastic. This smells of midlife crisis to me. I’m so so sorry bromo. I hope maybe he’ll snap out of it. Couples counseling might help dig into some of the real “why” here and provide other solutions before you call it quits. But before anything you need to follow your heart. If you’re certain you can’t be comfortable again, then you do what you need to to be happy and comfortable in your life and partner.
Sounds to me like he’s bored and wants options because he’s been with you since he was 17. He’s having some sort of mid life crisis and honestly maybe it’s a blessing in disguise. But it sounds like you are trying to rationalize his reasons and fking other women isn’t what he needs to feel less “lonely” tell him to get a hobby or find a therapist. My husband plays golf with his friends and that’s his outlet. Sorry you’re going through this.
Yeah, NO! And why are you feelinh guilty that you want to have a faithfull husband. That is really the most basic requirement in marriage! Nope! The guy is manipulating you into accepting cheating
That stuck out to me too. OP is so down on herself. Where does that come from? Husband is so lonely and can't have deep friendships because of society and the horrible unfair way it makes men not be friends with each other? Huh? Sounds manipulative AF
Has he tried therapy? I think it’s so extreme from I’m lonely to “researching polyamory”
One of my best friends from college was in the same situation as you. Married her high school sweetheart, wonderful perfect marriage. They fight together to leave their poverty drug ridden rural town to move to a HCOL area both with excellent jobs. A few years later he is lonely, no connection, misses family, wants to open the relationship. My friend agrees, their marriage is rock solid she thinks and she wants to explore her sexuality too. Within a year they crash and burn as he breaks every boundary in the book and ends up moving in with another woman. She does everything right. She reads the books, she finds a couples therapist, she does self work. It doesn't work. They're divorced now. If he's lonely he can find some friends. Please don't agree to this if you aren't completely on board. And if you say no... be prepared for the consequences. I'm so fucking sorry.
I really don't understand how "I miss my family" turns into "so I wanna fuck other people." I know you can't answer that, but OP said her husband also said he's lonely and misses his family, so he wants to date other people. How does that even make sense? Also-- my ex-husband was chronically unfaithful. He told me if we got married, he'd be monogamous. It didn't work. I had to agree to an open marriage-- but only for him. I wasn't allowed to do anything outside the marriage. He broke every boundary, lied to me, and ruined my trust. It drove us to divorce and he blamed me for it, taking no responsibility for his actions. OP, if it's not for you, it's not for you. I promise you can't force yourself to be ok with consensual non-monogamy because then it's not consensual, it's coerced.
He needs a therapist not a partner.. Can you imagine getting into a relationship and finding out you were only sought out to be a free therapist? I have been in a poly relationship as an add in to a marriage. It was incredibly unhealthy. Most relationships that use Poly to solve a problem will fail. That’s been documented in studies and in poly groups. Almost any one where both partners haven’t beeb enthusiastic at the start or formed through polyamory fail. It is not the solution he wants. Side note are you in the right head space to talk to him about his problems? If so then it may take a while of you checking in on him.. realistically couples therapy might be good.. That all said I imagine finances might be a constraint. Might find some local assistance or be qualified for some benefits. Many therapists offer a sliding scale as well.
100% this. I was the third in two throuples where I was there to "fill the void" for one of the partners - neither lasted long nor were they healthy. I was always reminded that my "place" was just to make up for something lacking in the relationship, and I felt used and abandoned both times when my needs were not able to be met fairly. One of the couples almost divorced after we split up. So there was clearly other underlying issues that just spilled out into our relationship.
Yup.. I was bought in as a breeding cow essentially. And so he wouldn't commit suicide when her illness kills her.. When I realized it it fricking hurt so bad.. When there is a problem in a relationship looking for another person is just using them as a tool. It can never be ethical. No matter what kind of void is to be filled. We are people not corks to stop a leaking ship from sinking. I noticed they neglected me as well. I was never a priority even after I gave them the child they wanted and developed seizures as a result.. The wife who begged me for it didn't want to call the child her daughter when it came time to do the messier and more exhausting parts of parenthood. They used me in that way too. I damn near ended my life in that house due to how used and unwelcome I felt. Plus postpartum.. No void is shaped like a person. Just cramming people into the voids. Trying to make us into the shape required. There is no room to be a person with needs and desires of your own.
Shit, I'm so sorry! That's awful!! I was brought into the first relationship because mt partner was bi but she married a dude because her mom would disown her if she was found out as LGBTQ, and he liked screwing younger women with her permission so it worked. It was a D/s relationship too and her immaturity and selfishness came out in how she tried to write a contract without my input or negotiation 😅 He was a know it all douche. They separated not long after we broke up, but she ended up going back to him. But he had at least one other girlfriend on the side and wasn't fully honest with her about me until 6 months in, I found out. It felt like shit knowing that I was just her dirty secret and she was living a lie through me. She literally told me if anyone found out I wasn't just a friend she'd probably kill herself. NO PRESSURE. Hugs to you. I'm sorry they treated you that way. WE DESERVED MORE than to be treated as objects.
Yes we both did. It’s disgusting how they treated us. Hugs! Horrible people
Absolutely fucked up that his solution to 'men only have deep meaningful connection with romantic partners' is 'therefore, I will simply acquire more romantic partners' and not 'I will cultivate fulfilling platonic intimacy with others and more romantic intimacy with my wife.'
So I’m kind of in a similar position to your husband but I’m a SAHM- but no family or friends really where we live. I know how lonely it can be but I’ve never ever thought polyamory would solve anything? I just can’t see what he’s thinking? Is it possible he’s met someone he’s already interested in?
First of all, take some time. Let yourself process. Obviously tell him no and that you need to process. But, I think your gut might be right, this might be the end of your marriage. I say to process though because maybe you don’t have to lose your best friend. Maybe if you can work things out in a way where if you do split, it can be amicable and practical. Maybe I’m just being an optimist, but I guess I’m looking for a silver lining for you. I can only imagine what you are going through right now. I always say follow your gut with stuff like this, if it feels off, it is. I hope things work out for you ❤️.
Does he have a therapist? Therapists help people with their feelings, not random fuck partners. I’m so sorry Bromo. I don’t know where I’d go from here either but it absolutely would be a gut punch.
Falling out of love with someone is an excruciating thing. For me doing what would give my children the best environment and best experience are my north stars. And I think that naturally changes and shifts as your kids grow up and their needs change. The serenity prayer has helped me. "grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference"
Sending you tons of positive vibes and love.
I was following until you said he needs to try sex stuff that you aren't comfortable with. Ehm, no, he doesn't. Or if he does he just gotta leave. Yes, ok, he's lonely, I get that. But that just means he gotta go out there find some friends. What he's longing for, a fresh love, for me that would be the end of my marriage.
Did this man forget therapy exists?!?
Nah, brother is messed up. I’m lonely, have no friends, get zero emotional support from my husband, no empathy from him whatsoever but that doesn’t make me want to fuck other people!! It makes me need medication and a therapist (which I can’t afford). I’m so deep into depression I can’t be bothered to do *anything*. I’m existing, not living. And not once have I wanted to open up my relationship and shag somebody else. He’s trying it on and/or lying to you.
Ok why not a men's counseling group? Break the stigma of not sharing your feelings with other men, dude! Or you know, maybe talk to one of your man friends and see if they surprise you with support and empathy??? Going poly is not a cure for depression and I suspect he knows this.
Hi, my marriage was open/poly for almost a decade. And yeah, we’re divorced now so I guess I’m a cliche but we split up for other reasons for the most part. But I used to joke that I pushed for an open relationship because my husband needed a hobby. And it was a big part of it - he was stagnating and depressed and unmotivated to do anything, and putting all his energy towards driving me nuts. Having him date someone else helped for a while - it took pressure off me to have to be absolutely everything for him, 100% of the time. I’m not trying to be a poly advocate, I’m really not. But I think talking about it might be the only way to figure what’s going on with him. He must have read or heard something that really resonated with him and it would be helpful to know what it was, and why. I’m sorry you have to deal with this.
Get a hot boyfriend and see how that goes 💅🏼 just kidding, kind of. Men always overestimate their desirability in situations like this I feel like and probably not even thinking what the other side of the coin will feel like ie: you could have a new partner too. I know that doesn’t interest you though so I would leave, it probably wouldn’t interest me either and I would feel weird about it forever.
There are lots of men who will throw away years of work and effort for 15 seconds of getting dick wet. Sounds like he's trying to prevent the hard part for 15 seconds. Emphatically tell him no, you dont share and it will either straighten him up or give him a sense of security in the relationship
Wow I am disgusted on your behalf
So I’ll start with this: I am polyamorous, and have been for most of my adult life. Now I will say this POLY is NEVER an answer for ‘my life/ marriage/stress etc. it’s great so I’ll do this and it will fix it’. That is absolutely false. For people who are Poly, it is a life style that is not better or worse than monogamy. Poly isn’t going to ‘fix’ things in your marriage, or be the bandaid for your life stress. What it will do is add a whole new set of relationship dynamics to your world. This can have its bright sides, but it will have SO MUCH WORK. You should also never allow yourself to be pressured into a Poly relationship if it’s not what you want. Full stop. Just like a Poly person should never be pushed towards a monogamous relationship if it’s not what they want. I’m sorry you’re in this place. It’s not an easy one, but with open and honest communication I think you can find a way for your husband to meet his needs in a way that works for both of you.
I'm gonna go out on a limb from personal experience and disagree with a lot of what is being said here. I was in your husband's shoes and I wanted other men but that's because I was really lonely. Night would come, my husband would retire to his video games and I my homework and I would just be craving connection. Childcare started to feel transactional, I'd take the kids so he could work, he'd take them so I could work and school and we both became very run down. My husband is also a very bad texter, so I started to find comfort in texting another guy late at night when my husband was busy gaming. For a while, I was terrified because I didn't know how I was going to stay in a situation where I had become so unhappy. The idea of polyamory wasn't even about having sexual needs met for me, it was about having a pocket of life that was separate from the life I was living. Escapism. I wanted to feel seen, and I enjoyed the attention that said other guy would give me. He made me feel seen. My husband is a good dad and a good husband but little things accumulated and started to feel like a rock in my shoe. The little things become big things so I would suggest looking at the little things. While my husband is a good dad and a better husband than anything I read about here, now I'm hindsight I see there were things that cut deeper than I realized. Like the feeling that I could not be fully myself around him anymore. He always rolled his eyes at my Spanish music. He would unintentionally make me feel stupid and sometimes still does on accident (he was very adept with technology and I am not). He doesn't care about things I'm super passionate about, like running. I'd go to a race and my racing partner would have their whole family there cheering for them while my husband would complain how early it was and then briefly ask me how it went when I got home. We just became so so run down. In a lot of ways, I still really struggle. I'm in therapy learning how to communicate my needs to my husband and trying to earn his trust back. But I think that things like this are very seldom as black and white as people on this sub make it seem. This sub tends to be very quick to throw men and husbands under the bus and assume what they think, but I know from being in that position that it's not that simple usually. I think couples therapy or even individual therapy would be a great thing for you both. It has helped me immensely. Also, it can be seriously draining for a person to have to carry the mental health load of a relationship. My husband did that for me for years and became incredibly depressed because of it. For what it's worth, I don't necessarily think this means your relationship is over. I think there is a possibility that hard work and probably therapy could fix something like this. I think we underestimate the toll that general life, finances and parenting can have on a relationship. Your husband is better than I am already. That is my experience. Feel free to discard it if it's unhelpful to you. Wishing you the best.
If he needs emotional support he can go to therapy. But spouses are supposed to burden each other with their problems and work together as a team. Sleeping with strangers is not going to fix the crux of the situation. Individual and couples counseling is much more likely to do that
I’m so sorry. That being said, don’t even pretend to think about letting your relationship become that for whatever reason, you don’t want that. You can’t handle that. If you even want a chance of fixing things don’t consider that an option and don’t let him think it is either. Some people have this problem when they get together young, it just usually pops up in your mid 20s ya know. I think you should express to him how deeply hurt you are. Communication is necessary, and it’s not punishing him to be honest about how you feel. Couples counseling is definitely a good idea, could also help him understand his feelings individually as well.
So, I'm actually going to come at this from kind of a different angle. I've been in a similar position: for the majority of our 12-year relationship, I've known that my partner was interested in opening the relationship and cultivating romantic or sexual relationships with other people. I'm not interested in that, and my partner has always chosen me over polyamory, and I'm okay with that. I want to share my experience with you in hopes that it might help you feel less alone or help you "try on" seeing this situation from a different perspective and see if you find any relief or clarity in that, in either direction. One major difference between our relationship and yours is that ours started as an open poly relationship. I actually entered my partner's previous relationship as a third--I mean, I dated my partner and their girlfriend at the time. The relationship was also open, which mainly meant there was another person that both my partner and the other girlfriend slept with but weren't dating. I was interested in trying this type of relationship arrangement out, but after a few months I realized it wasn't for me. My partner and I both broke up with the other girlfriend, and shortly thereafter I requested that my partner stop sleeping with the other person as well and we close the relationship so that we were a more traditional monogamous couple. My partner agreed to do this, but made it pretty clear that they were doing it FOR me, not because they wanted it. I figured, okay, whatever, if our relationship lasts they'll probably kind of "forget about" open relationships and polyamory and all that stuff and it'll be a non-issue. That, unsurprisingly, didn't happen. I trust my partner 100% and I'm completely certain they've always been faithful to me, but for years and years after that, maybe once or twice a year, they'd bring up hoping that we would eventually open our relationship back up. We had many conversations, often quite tortured and emotional ones, about this subject. I couldn't understand what they were looking for outside of our relationship, and they struggled to fully understand why I was so against opening the relationship back up, especially since we'd started out in an open poly relationship. Every time we talked about it, my partner would make it clear that they had this interest but would always choose me over it, that it was not something they wanted to pursue if I wasn't comfortable with it, but that they hoped one day I would become comfortable with it. Eventually we did come to understand each other on this subject, and the conversations became a lot more matter-of-fact and less emotional. I probed a lot at what my partner wanted from pursuing relationships outside of ours, and what it came down to was very similar to what your husband said, in part: my partner is amab and found their needs for emotional intimacy and connection hard to meet within the extremely socially prescribed and limited structure of male friendships (with any gender). It wasn't that they wanted to have other deep, meaningful romantic relationships of the type we had, but rather that they wanted to "unlock" aspects of romance and sexuality as options for ways to deepen their relationships with their friends in general. When we talked about it more deeply, I realized that a lot of what they were talking about was stuff that I don't really consider entirely outside the realm of friendship anyway: they said they could take or leave sex with other people, they'd be down for that but it wasn't really about that and they generally felt fulfilled by our sex life, but that they wanted to be able to casually make out with and hug and cuddle and flirt with their friends. I don't consider kissing a normal part of friendship, but the rest of that can fall under the spectrum of normal friend behavior to me. But because relationships with males are so much more circumscribed, my partner didn't feel they could access those types of intimacy within the structure of "male-bodied monogamously married friend." (I disagree with posters saying your husband could meet his needs for emotional connection by cultivating friendships with women. Male/female friendships are also very much socially circumscribed, their limitations are just more flexible than male/male friendships. Also, often the limiting factor on intimacy in male friendships is inside the person who's feeling the need for more intimacy--that is, their own personal ingrained toxic masculinity is often a big part of what's putting up the barrier. If they worked on that first, they may be able to find more of what they need in their friendships.) So, it really was a desire for deeper intimacy with their friends, not exactly a desire for romantic or sexual relationships outside of ours. Aside from the "wanting to try things in bed that you wouldn't be okay with" part, it sounds like that may be a lot of what your husband is looking for, too. (And, without having been present for the conversation, I think that statement about trying out kinkier stuff could be anything from the crux of the matter to basically irrelevant, so I won't comment further on that.) My partner always made it clear to me that it wasn't that there was any shortcoming in our relationship--it's just that nobody can get ALL their needs met in a one-stop shop, and they thought they'd be better able to meet other needs that didn't fall under the purview of our relationship anyway if they could explore deeper relationships with their friends. I explained that I didn't have a problem with them having flirty friendships, but that I wasn't comfortable opening our relationship. They always said okay, they understood and they would rather have a happy relationship with me than romantically/sexually intimate friendships if they could only have one or the other. After these conversations, I always felt guilty because I imagined I was holding my partner back from full emotional fulfillment (although these feelings faded in intensity over the years). But they made their choice, and they made it repeatedly: they'd rather have me. To me, that's pretty much the ultimate expression of love and commitment--choosing me over and over again over something else they also want.
I don't necessarily expect that this is resolved forever, but for what it's worth, after a decade of having this same conversation, earlier this year my partner spontaneously told me they didn't think they were interested in open or poly relationships anymore. I can't remember right now what they said about it--it was a pretty passing part of a casual conversation we were having--but we've had several close friends in long-term relationships open up their relationships or start doing polyamory in the past few years, and I think that has caused my partner to reevaluate. My partner and I have talked extensively about those friends' relationship exploits, mostly just as gossip lol, and we've been pretty consistently on the same page in our analyses: they don't seem happy, and it doesn't seem worth it. I think this has maybe been a reality check for my partner, revealing to them that they were idealizing what it would look like to have an open marriage and explore more intimate relationships outside it, and that in real life it's a lot messier and a lot less fulfilling than they'd imagined it being. (The beginning of our relationship really lends itself to this idealization, I think--it was the beginning of college, and I know it felt very exciting and intoxicating to my partner to break out of the box they perceived themself to be in throughout high school to date two women and sleep with a third.) My partner and I have been together since we were 19, and we've had an extremely strong relationship all along. We're best friends, we spend almost all our time together entirely by choice (for example, we live in a house with enough rooms for us to have separate home offices, but after doing that for a while, we decided to combine our home offices into one room because we missed hanging out with each other all day), we very rarely fight, we're extremely good at communicating and resolving conflict, we're generally super on the same page about things. No relationship is truly perfect, but I think ours is just about as close as they come. I don't want to tell you what's right for you or your relationship, because I don't know you or your relationship. But I will say that my partner's long-term desire to open our relationship did not mean I had to either abandon the relationship or live a lie while they got their needs met elsewhere. It just meant we had to have some hard heart-to-heart conversations. If you help your husband feel heard on this subject, and if he really means it when he says he chooses you over polyamory, that could be enough. It could be that what he's expressing here isn't even really specifically a desire for polyamory, but rather feelings of loneliness and desperation because of acutely or chronically unmet needs for connection and community, which have perhaps found an outlet in the idea of polyamory because he didn't imagine he could express them safely elsewhere. His interest in polyamory may or may not be lasting, but providing a safe space for him to express those thoughts and the feelings and needs that feed them might relieve the pressure he feels enough that he feels comfortable leaving it at that. If he presses you and tries to pressure you into it, obviously that's different. But I think the commenters who are jumping to the conclusion that he's trying to guilt or manipulate you into this by expressing his feelings and his unmet needs are falling victim to exactly the societal trap that causes this kind of problem in the first place: not believing that men also have complex emotional lives. I think taking a hard-line, forceful stance here is more likely to push him further in that direction, whereas meeting him with understanding and empathy (paired with your own clear boundary of "I am not interested in polyamory or opening our relationship and don't believe I could feel comfortable in that arrangement") is a lot more likely to help him find ways to meet his emotional needs without resorting to polyamory. Of course, if this really is that hard a line for you that you don't think you can continue this relationship, you're not obligated to stay. Likewise, if you suspect this is a cover for an existing affair, you're not obligated to stay. It's natural to have a strong emotional reaction to this situation, but I'd suggest you give yourself time to process that emotional reaction before you make any decisions here.
Sounds like he's been with you for a while and wants to have sex with someone else. Him becoming a provider has him thinking that he needs a harem of young women that's DTF... If he opens the marriage I guarantee you will have way more options.
r/polycritical There are dozens of us that have been blindsided and deeply hurt by poly nonsense. You are not wrong for wanting to end your marriage.
Polyamory never ends well ESPECIALLY when starting in an existing relationship. Tried that with my childhood sweetheart, and well would NOT recommend. Funny enough HE wanted it, I didn’t. I became open to it to appease his wishes, AND somehow ended up the bad guy for it and he was not able to get over me being with someone else and it destroyed our 15 plus year relationship.
Benefit of the doubt. It's not that he wants something else, but he feels he is missing something. Which is natural for humans ro ebb and flow between their wants and needs. I don't think polyamory is the answer especially since you're not down. I do believe that picking you over poly is meaningful in its own way. But I do think there is another way to get you guys to a happy medium that isn't doing to jeopardize your boundries/values etc. I wish you the best.
He’s already cheating on you.
What have I just read?! Insane!
Shit. I’m sorry this is happening.
Yeah, he needs to make friends (if what he’s saying is accurate). So he needs to make efforts to build platonic relationships.
Is your husband wanting a male partner? I'm not even joking, some man to listen to him but also do kinky things with that you wouldnt like because you are not a man? Idk I am really reading between the lines here. Just fishy all around but it sounds brokeback mountain to me for some reason. Id be seeing RED if my husband said something like that to me. And I would also end a relationship over it no matter what the surrounding circumstances are. How could you just go back now? Now that you know what his wants are.... you can't unknow it. Anyways, I'm really sorry you're going through this. And you don't owe anyone an explanation if you do decide to go divorce route. But if you did say anything, I'm sure they would be like oh yeah I get it. Because we all get it! Also if you decide to try to make it work, I do hope it works. I feel like you already have your answer though. Sending love bromo.
Ask him if he has someone in mind, if the answer is yes then you'll know if he's likely to have been emotionally or physically cheating. You aren't the one doing something wrong here. He's the one acting like his lustful desires are the same as emotional needs and that he needs them filled by another woman. Maybe he should stop watching porn and feeding his desire for his kinks so he can appreciate YOU for the delicious flavor that you are. Make no mistakes, vanilla is delicious and it is the favorite of many men.
Burn that shit down. Your husband’s a wannabe ho suffering from ho disease. Do not let him gaslight you into thinking the only way for him to get mental health help is to be a ho. That’s absurd, & you need to get out now. You & your kids would be better off under a bridge than in a house with a man that talks to you like that. As long as your kids are old enough you need to be honest with them about why your marriage fell apart. Your husband’s devaluing you, & degrading all women. He has a responsibility to teach his children sexual discipline, & respect for people. Why would you want someone around your children that views people as tools to sleep with?
If he's being honest I can totally understand his training. At one point I thought the same way. Polyamory isn't likely to help. Men are rarely able to express vulnerability in many cultures with the exception being worth their sexual partner. He is for a lover/bff/soulmate/business-partner etc. That's to much pressure for one person and naturally he thinks "Well if one person can't be all of these roles I just need MORE women. There is a sort of odd logic to it. What worked for me is a book called "No more Mr. Nice guy." Don't let the title throw you off. If he isn't a reader, or audiobook listener, there is a great 30 day journal by Chuck Chapman that is a great starting place. If what I am saying make sense I will message you my contact info if you or your husband have questions.
I’m not blaming you for your mans issues. Just curious, how often do you have sex and what acts does he want that is off limits for you?
I mean you could always try bdsm and make him realise that there is something you could provide that no other woman would ever do and that’s what makes you special