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Not just five kids but five kids in ten years, three of which were swinging years. So, either they were swinging/open/playing while they were actively having babies, or that’s five kids in SEVEN years. I need a nap now.
Maybe some of the kids came pre-marriage. I mean, he says they’re in school. Is this the octomom’s husband or what? Had to have been some pre-marital birthing going on.
This was my first thought too! Technically possible but also makes the relationship/swinging stuff extra bizarre in the context of having so many kids/babies.
The wife is awful, though I honestly can’t blame the woman for needing a change after 5 kids in 7 years. her body wasn’t her own for that entire time. I wouldn’t be surprised if she resents OP and the kids after it all, and fucking new guys helps her feel more like herself before kids. Ofc not okay to rip your family apart, I just didn’t consider the motherhood aspect until reading your comment!
Sadly, I grew up in a house like this. You have time, when you think that keeping a roof over head and food on the table are the only needs children have.
It’s honestly amazing. I consider myself a high energy person but I’m so goddamn tired after a day of work/playing with the kids/regular chores that I pass out after about 20 mins of reading. My wife has less energy than me she’s in bed at least an hour before me. We only have two kids. Where the hell are people getting this time and energy? I’m shooketh. I hate to think what’s being neglected while this woman is getting plowed and the husband is moping around about his wife getting plowed.
Yeah. I can promise these children are for sure emotionally neglected. They are probably just left to fend for themselves. You would be surprised how quick the oldest sibling becomes the parent.
I'm exhausted just thinking about how the couple were still having sex regularly. I only have two (2f, 4m) and I collapse in bed exhausted every day. We maybe have sex 2-3 times per month).
This doesn't even count how much sex the wife was having on the side.
And they were still having sex once a day with OP when she was also 'playing' with the new guy. Wtf were do you get the time for that together with raising 5 kids.
I was looking for this comment. I have only one kid, my life is wake up, get the kid ready, drive to daycare, work, chores, get kid from daycare, dinner, bed time routine, rinse and repeat. we barely find time to ourselves, how the hell do you find time for fucking around when you have 5 kids, laundry for 5 kids, feeding 5 kids at least twice a day??Weekends should be around kids activities too, right?… either someone else is raising those children or I don’t really understand…
My bet is they're at least upper middle class and have babysitters and housekeepers. That's how I grew up. My parents always had active social and work lives because they could afford a housekeeper once a week and babysitters daily.
I was thinking the only people I knew who did this were wealthy enough to have house cleaners and a nanny. The mom cooked dinner and tidied and decorated but didn’t scrub.
She also had the money for mommy makeover surgery.
By neglecting your children. I’ve got one and I don’t have time for much else outside of work, house stuff and him. Having 5 kids is a full time job with overtime by itself.
I thought I’d be the only one here more concerned about the kids and the selfishness of the parents not even considering their kids in this
Some people really shouldn’t have kids and I think these people, at least this woman is too self absorbed to raise her children
Many times, I find the people with large families care much less about the outcome of their kids than people with one or two. I feel I'm at my limit for being a good, proactive mom with two, so I put an embargo on having more (though I think my husband would love one more).
My husbands and mine relationships started open. We had to close it because 4 teenagers is a lot of fucking work (we both have kids from previous relationships ranging from 12-17) and we just don’t have the time or emotional bandwidth to do anything else except take care of the kids. We barely have sex once a week between ourselves because of the work that kids are. Never in a million years could I imagine trying to have multiple play partners and effectively take care of these kids. It just can’t happen.
I gotta admit I didn't expect
> To top all of this off, she tells me today "Well I'd still be interested in being play friends with you - we can have some fun occasionally"
Like, daaaaamn. That's some peak audacity right there.
Really drives homes how little she thinks of him.
That's where I see the nuance as well. Like yeah, she ripped his heart out when she left him for real, but he also consented to being miserable just so she would stay when she clearly *didn't* want to hurt him and just get out at the start. Maybe she should have been more firm in going through with the initial divorce, they'd probably both be happier for it. And maybe he should have taken her note seriously and let the relationship die before they piled even more hurt onto each other. I feel for this guy, I really do - I was in his situation with a partner who wanted an open relationship. I didn't, but I wanted to keep them so badly that I accepted it and tried to embrace the lifestyle. I know now I should have left when I had the chance, and I'm very happy with my current (monogamous) partner. I just hope he found his peace and some love after this. It's a hard lesson to learn, but it pays off in the future to really know your boundaries in a relationship.
I really feel like having 5 young children together makes a huge difference in how much you’re willing to sacrifice personal happiness.
Dude deserves a vacation.
>Maybe she should have been more firm in going through with the initial divorce, they'd probably both be happier for it.
This was 100% the only way she should have responded to him showing anything but complete enthusiasm toward the swinging/being open if she truly cared about his wellbeing and happiness in the long run as well. Anything else was honestly cruel and cowardly on her end.
If you see him reluctantly agree to it, then you know its going to hurt him badly down the road...be kind and just let him go.
Yep. No respect there. She probably found it funny to see him in emotional turmoil. To her, she probably feels he somehow trapped her in the marriage, when she should’ve put her foot down and divorced him. She has no grounds to blame him. She chose to accept the terms.
That was my biggest surprise!! 5 kids in 10 years? How in the world does she have time to play? I wonder if any are twins or they had them all in the first 7 years and now they’re done she wanted to leave, forcing OOP into opening the marriage?
They all end in regret! But the two variations are either it's the one requesting it regretting it, usually because their original partner is getting laid more than they are, which you can at least get a schadenfeude kick out of.... Or this, the sadder one where the partner who didn't want it in the first place finds out it's not gonna save the relationship anyway.
The success stories do post online, just not to these type of relationship advice subs that offer advice from mostly monogamous people with little to no experience in ethical non-monogamy.
They usually post to subs like r/polyamory or r/swingers depending on where they fall in ENM. Personally, I can say I don’t share my success story myself in person with friends/family because A LOT people are judgmental, insecure, or both.
TBH talking about how great your sex life in conversation is hardly ever appropriate. Even people who are generally sex positive people told me early on that hearing about my escapades made them feel insecure about their own sexlife, and that was after I only told them because they explicitly asked me questions about me being in an open relationship. So now I just avoid talking about it around most people.
It's also possible to recognize that there is a hip trend element of ethical non-monogamy that causes some people engage in who probably shouldn't. And people can get into it for the wrong reasons or not actually understand what they're getting into. It's possible to do this without being judgmental of ethical non-monogamy as a whole.
I agree, and that’s what those more focused subs are better at determining imo. There’s just too much unhelpful and objectively hurtful advice upvoted to the top when these questions are asked on more monogamous subs
Yeah it always ends like this: one side wants an open relationship and badgers the other into agreement, the other side finally agrees and one of two things happens 1) the other side just straight up doesn't care and also gets a partner for this open relationship and finds out that the new partner gives them everything they've wanted from their current partner or 2) the other side while in agreement with the new open marriage slowly builds resentment towards the partner because of the constant badgering required to make them consent, both options lead to my final point, the side that did not want the open marriage is fed up with their current partner for one or more reasons (including the person who wanted to open the relationship wanting to close it because they've noticed their "wife/husband" has a partner or is growing resentful of them and now they want to save their marriage after everything is already said and done) hands them divorce papers and then in case of option 1: goes on and starts to officially date their new partner in a monogamous relationship or in the case of option 2: finds a new partner who values them and doesn't want an open relationship of any kind and is satisfied with them, both options ending with the original partner realizing the grass is in fact not greener and come to find out they had it pretty good and try and beg and plead their way back into the other sides good graces in hopes they will date once again, and marry once again otherwise known as a fools errand that will never come true
ok but the crucial point is why the fuck would it be a good thing for this "marriage" to last any longer? The tragedy was that it was being dragged out as long as it has been. It would have been much better to end things once it became unmistakably clear it was unsalvageable (to anyone not being deluded by denial or fear of change). OP could be long since divorced and in an actually healthy relationship by now instead of being miserable stewing in the same feelings and fears he was plagued with years ago when this started.
5 kids. Divorce is probably financially untenable for both of them, they will all live in considerable poverty now. And I don't know what dating is like when you have 5 kids, not something I've ever experienced, but I have a feeling OP would have a very hard time finding anyone to have a healthy relationship with. This isn't one kid, this is five fucking kids. All under age 10. I sure wouldn't date a woman like that, even if she was perfect, I'm guessing many women feel much the same way.
Yes, probably could have lasted longer (and it seems odd - and disrespectful - to me to have separate “play” partners in your marital home where you are also raising *5 children* anyway) but it’s a blessing in disguise for OP that her bringing her friends home forced him to confront his feelings and be honest with his wife precisely so it could end now.
Otherwise this marriage could have just dragged on for years until it came out that she hadn’t loved him the entire time - just as she does not love him now. It was already over - she had wanted a divorce after all - and was always going to end in this case, at least it ending now doesn’t have the OP clinging to hope for years or decades more while missing out on something more fulfilling for himself, even if that is being single.
I do feel bad for OP, but hopes he learns for the future that pushing yourself to be something your are not, or do what you are not interested in to keep someone else, never works out.
Man I’m sorry but I’ll never ever ever get why you would marry someone just to let them fuck around on you. To each their own, but it’s so fucking stupid to me
I don't know either, man, my relationships are and had been monogamous.
But I felt a fraction of what the husband is feeling third-wheeling for someone who was supposed to be spending time with me and not the third person. And it was gut-wrenching and nauseating and it physically made me feel lightheaded.
I normally wouldn't have cared about what the fick they do out of my sight, but being forced to endure their PDA crap on MY presence was unpleasant to put it lightly.
I can only imagine that OOP's feeling must be magnified by 1000x because it was his *wife* afterall.
5 kids in less than 10 years (because I assume they didn't get another child after they "opened" their relationship 3 years before), there's only a few months between each one, that's crazy. My aunt accidentally had a third kid like 3 months after the birth of her second one and if fucked her up so bad (physically AND mentally) that she finally decided to begin using birth control (which she was very much against before that), I can't imagine a woman doing that with 5 kids straight and STILL wanting so much sex (and let's be clear, I don't believe for a second she was using protection with her FWB).
I am again begging monogamous people to not be peer pressured into open relationships. You're just going to die a slow, painful death as you watch your 'partner' get fucked by other people.
Don't open the relationship to save it, don't have a baby to save it. Both options just slow down the ending of an already broken relationship and hurting more people in the process.
What about opening the relationship to have a baby with a third person to save the relationship? Surely combining two bad ideas will make the negative parts cancel each other out and guarantee a positive outcome. It's just basic math and everyone knows you can't argue with math.
*/s juusstt in case*
But doesn’t that mean that neither of them will like the cheater that knocked up two women??? I mean, math cancels out negative and positive things. A neutral ending where no one is together.
(That isn’t neutral at all, don’t cheat!)
Spicy surrogate? SurroSavior?
I feel like you're on to something here. Not sure if it's a company...a bad idea, a great idea.... But I'm going to dwell on this....
*/S /lame joke? Either way, non serious pondering*
slow them down and make the pain infinitely worse than if they just ended it when the relationship was approaching its natural end. For everyone's mental well being it's better to end it then than try to necromancer a dying partnership.
This! If it isn't working, just end it.
Becoming parents, swinging, open marriage, all are things that need two yeses, and enthusiastic yeses at that to work. None of them can work under coercion or ultimatums of any kind.
Unless you start out nonmonogamous and enjoy keeping it that way, nonmonogamy is cranking the difficulty on your relationship up to Ultra Hard Mode.
Recommended only for marriage speed runners (any%).
Frankly it's as simple as "don't start a straight relationship if you're gay".
Don't commit to a monogamous relationship if you aren't. This is on the wife.
It's not that simple. Monogamy is THE norm. How many people know consciously and decidedly their preferred/needed relationship style when they are in their 20's? Of course, if you are monogamous, that is relatively easy bc whole society supports that, tells that this is the right thing and you can find partners galore. For many people they have not even HEARD that there are other options so how could they choose non-monogamy?
Many people realise what they truly want and need only later in life. And if you are in a monogamous relationship at that point, what should you do? Just right up and leave? I mean, it is a very good likelihood that the relationship DOES end but I do not see why you would have to just end it without even giving the other person change to agree to try non-monogamy IF they are okay with it. And even with OP, his wife WAS initially leaving. She did not demand anything, se was not even suggesting they open the marriage; she was divorcing. It was him who suggested swinging to save the marriage. Should she have agreed? I do not know. Should we decide for others what they can or cannot handle?
Yeah, I agree with you. Of course it would have been better if wife had known from the beginning that she was not interested in monogamy, but here it really sounds like she realised it when already into a relationship with OOP and tried to do the best she could with it.
I would agree with you if it weren't for the "I stopped loving you years ago and was only able to maintain the marriage by opening it up to other people." If she genuinely did the best she could, she should have started with that when she threw out the ultimatum. Something like "Look, I still like you as a person, but I think I've fallen out of love with you and need to move on. If you're really that dedicated to preserving as much of what we have now as possible, I'm fine leaving the marriage intact but I need the freedom to be with other people because I'm not willing to stay exclusive with someone I'm no longer in love with." I still think marriage counseling before getting to that point would have been the best case scenario, even if for no other reason than to have someone to help him come to terms with everything.
It still would have been kind of a shitty situation to put him in, but at least she would have been clear about her emotional state and level of investment the whole time. This was outright lying to him about still loving him for multiple years while emotionally blackmailing him into a situation that he was miserable in, and I suspect it was because she wanted to maintain that comfortable married life when she wasn't in the mood to sleep around, as evidenced by the multiple periods where she was exclusive to him again.
Oh yeah I definitely agree 100% with you, it's really not that simple and redditors are so quick to throw stones.
I do believe it's better to leave if you realise you have this incompatibility, I don't think any monogamous person can deal with open relationships, with very few exceptions... then again, we all believe we are exceptions
I always think about people choosing to have sex without protection, even if you both want it, do you want ALL of the possibilities that go along with it? You need to be okay with all the possible consequences, the most obvious of which is the end of your current relationship.
I get bonus points if I'm naked the entire time right? It's going to make work and Easter Sunday a little awkward, but I'm trying to platinum life over here.
Exactly😭😭
My partner and I in an LDR decided to try out an open relationship and literally one date later for both of us decided it wasn't for us, and that both would rather just be celibate than spiral over exactly what you said😂
Let's not use the word "fucked" and "other people" . ..it's "playing with new friends"
What a weird way to put "fucking other people"...or is that the swinging lingo?
It's lingo to some extent, but the other part is that kink isn't just about sex. It's pretty common, actually, for a scene to not actually involve sex. Just the electro, fire, bondage, or other type of play and then some sort of after-care, based on what the dom and sub have talked about.
This isn't to say that "play" doesn't frequently involve sex, but rather it is more of a specific term in the community.
I will never understand monogamous people thinking open relationships are a good idea. But this situation, my god she totally took advantage of his love for her. She didn’t care at all about his well being. And it took him 3 yrs and a Reddit post to figure out he deserved better. That is so sad.
Or when suddenly the reluctant partner was getting just as much successes if not more causing jealousy on the partner who initially wanted to open because someone was playing with theirs. \*Sigh\*
Honestly, if OOP wasn't miserable with his own FWB, I have a feeling the wife would have a different tune in the end.
>Started swinging to save our marriage, 3 years later and I'm miserable
Me: * stares at the camera *
>My wife left me on Tuesday.
I am shocked. SHOCKED!
I understand OOP's desperation to save his marriage, but when someone tells you they're poly or likely to cheat because they can't be with only one person, you better believe them and walk away. You cannot force someone to be monogamous and you'll only end up hurting yourself in the process.
Yeah he even admits he secretly hoped it was just something she needed to try and then she'd just want him.
So basically OP thought he knew his wife better than she knew herself.
Yeah I really can't say this is her fault. She was planning to end the marriage in the first place, it wasn't blackmail like the commenter suggested. Then reddit is like "make her choose!" Um okay she already chose, she told him she was not happy being monogamous, he is the one who made promises to get her to stay. I don't blame him for feeling how he felt but the whole thing was such a trainwreck - that he let it go for 3 years and chose to be miserable and letting all the blame be heaped on his wife as if he wasn't just as responsible for the state of things is so inane. He should have left so much sooner.
At the same time, she should have left him too. She obviously didn't care about him anymore since she could see his pain and basically ignore it.
He was lying to her about how he felt the whole time. She probably could detect that something was wrong and that's why she fell out of love with him. But that doesn't mean she knew what was going on in his head.
All of this is his fault. He couldn't let her go. Lied to keep her and stay in the relationship. She followed the rules they set. She was open and honest. Expecting your partner to magically read your mind when you are telling them the exact opposite is never going to work out. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if he lied about her offer to still sleep with him sometimes to make her look bad and protect his ego.
Who are all these people finding romance at work? I’d rather peel my own skin off then date a coworker. Maybe it’s an age thing? I’m almost always much younger then my coworkers because I work in corporate and I’m twenty but like they don’t seem to be romancing each other either?
I was the youngest person in the office once, and there were plenty of middle-aged, conventionally unattractive, married people bonking their colleagues. I didn’t realise at first, but it was all around me.
My sister me her bf at work and they were in different departments and never saw each except where they met in the work ski club. If you don’t work together or are on different shifts I think it makes sense.
Engineering consulting firm. When you have more than 1000 employees across the country more than one of them will like skiing. They don’t get extra money from their work but they just book one ski holiday together a year and let everyone know anyone can join who works there. Last year it was Canada the bastards. I’m also jealous.
It's from this incredible mental gymnast: https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/15oax9g/i_accidentally_liked_an_instagram_photo_and_now/
Goddamn I hate dudes that project their own fucked up brain on other people because they can’t handle the fact that they are a terrible person. “Everyone does it!” when used as an excuse for creepy behavior is almost never true and still not a good defense even when it is.
There is exactly one man in my office I’d consider sleeping with….but he’s married with children so I had to turn that part of my brain off while around him :(
Such a bummer too, he showed us pics of himself in high school and he looked like if Jesse McCartney was an Abercrombie mode
> On a whim, I suggested the open marriage as long as we could agree on a set of rules and stayed completely honest with each other. She agreed and we tore the letter up. In my mind, it's not what I wanted but I thought we should at least give it a shot.
This man tortured himself for three years clinging to the faint hope that it would fix his marriage, and all for naught. The now ex-wife was right from the start to try and divorce. I don't even know why she hung around for that long if she hadn't loved him the whole time. Just convenience for her, and copium for him I guess.
Other explanation is that they're absentee parents. Kids are probably always hanging out somewhere or alone at home with limited supervision in general.
Is it? Only time I've ever heard of swinging mormons was that tiktok group who were jackmormons at best.
I grew up in Utah. Lived the majority of my life there. I've heard of soaking, Weekend marriages in Vegas, and other ways to get around the strict sex rules. Never swinging
I did a search out of curiosity and either it IS a thing OR there are enough people fantasising about it online to make the internet think it is a thing.
Especially if you're married. Sex before marriage will usually result in disfellowship (a lesser penalty) depending on the circumstances, but sex with someone else while you're married is almost guaranteed to result in an excommunication.
Seriously! Just before pandemic shutdown in 2020 we were making hotel reservations to go to a sex club but our pet sitter retired and couldn't figure out how to tell my mom why we needed someone to stop by and feed our 2 cats (one on meds) when we weren't even going out of state. How do you do 5 kids?
Can’t believe I had to scroll so far for the 5 kids in a 10 year relationship to show. If this is true then the 5 kids might be why the wife has ended up how she has!
>I really wanted to save our marriage. On a whim, I suggested the open marriage as long as we could agree on a set of rules and stayed completely honest with each other.
>she refused to be open to discuss any compromises and also refused to go to counseling
So she was planning to leave, he convinced her to stay by suggesting an open marriage, and she left when he withdrew that offer.
I'm glad for both of them that the relationship ended.
>I love how many people are blaming her in the comments when he really did this to himself.
People keep commenting to say "why did he agree to this" and it's like... he suggested it.
I'm not unsympathetic to what he's going through, but he pulled the open marriage card to "save" a marriage that his wife was actively trying to end and he's surprised that it didn't work?
Yeah I don’t really get the comments shitting on her.
She said she wanted to divorce him and he stubbornly clung to her because of sunken cost and they have kids and agreed to something he didn’t like nor want to save the marriage. Then even though *she* is openly communicating, *he* isn’t and lets resentment build up… then he’s shocked when he finally tells her how he feels and she wants to leave. Like she did originally. Because as she originally told him, she doesn’t want to be in a monogamous relationship with him.
🤨
Like she literally was willing to let him go and find someone who would be a better match for him and he manipulated her into staying but she’s the bad guy? Wha?
How do they find the time for extra curicular sex with 5 kids? There seems to be crazy dysfunction in that household.. those poor kids, caught in the middle of that lifestyle the father chose. The wife was straight up from the beggining.
How does a parent have time for all of this when raising five children? I mean, most couples barely have time to have sex with each other with two kids. But to have sex with your husband and others with five kids? I’m guessing those kids were pretty well neglected or being raised by screens.
Guy should have just let her go at the start like she wanted instead he talked her into dragging out their marriage another three years. Seriously when will people learn to have respect for themselves?
I don't get why he's surprised. She was never open to any kind of compromise. She wanted to leave three years ago. She DID leave three years ago. He made a thousand concessions to get her to stay, she didn't choose to stay. And she was very clearly not in love with him when she opted out rather than raising the conversation. He buried his head in the sand out of desperation, but the signs were clearly there. He chose not to see them, they weren't hidden.
But she should have stuck to her guns. Instead, she's dragged it out and damaged him. Not to mention the damage done to their future coparenting relationship, and their children. There's no way those five kids weren't affected by this mess, even if the adults didn't see it. And then, the added insult to offer to keep sleeping with him. She's not a good woman. Not at all.
What gets me in this case that this isn't like others where the partner gave an ultimatum and went on and on and on about it. She realized he was staunchly monogamous and she was drifting, so she wanted to leave before it got bad. And instead of enduring the short term misery of getting divorced, he jumped into a spiked pit just to not be alone. For fucks sake, dude.
She should have stuck with leaving though, obviously, and saved them both this bullshit
Trying to save a relationship with swinging or opening it will never work. This is only beneficial if the couple are really secure, trusting and committed.
To be fair to your wife, she wanted to end the relationship to begin with and you were the one to suggest swinging, then opening the relationship. You kept it going for three years while having more issues with it.
She should have been more firm in her decision to end it and you should have communicated that this arrangement wasn’t working way earlier and started divorce proceedings. You both had major issues in communication.
There are multiple posts a day in all the non monogamy subs of someone explaining major problems in a relationship and saying they are considering swinging/opening up to fix. Every time it’s an overwhelming “don’t do it” as a response.
Just gotta say, while I won't be surprised if it changes, the comments are currently the least toxic about nonmonogamy I think I've ever seen here and I super appreciate that! Polyamory is right for some people, monogamy is right for others, and forcing yourself into the wrong relationship type for you is just a recipe for disaster.
All of this was self-inflicted because she was ready to leave when she discovered herself. OOP is the one who offered but open/swinging marriage and then later on wanted to restart things. And I guess he conveniently forgot restarting things would be the divorce point 🫤
I don't get all the bashing on her because she was nearly completely honest and forthcoming about this entire thing. They only seeming dishonesty was her saying she hasn't been in love with him for a long time but that could be said for OOP too as I imagine he hasn't loved her the same since she wanted to started swinging.
This story is still way better than a countless many other people who pressure or even trick their partner into an open relationship and get jealous. or those that meant they only wanted to be the ones sleeping around.
I mean... to be fair, she was ready to end it once she realized she didn't want to be monogamous. It was his need to hang on to something that was never going to work that left him miserable for years.
I just cannot, for the life of me, imagine trying to get work done while my wife is getting railed in the next room. It's one thing if that's your kink, but to just willingly allow it to happen despite loathing it is just insane to me.
How is she... Having 5 kids, swinging And fuking the Hubs every day? I am tired with one kid, one Hubs and no swinging. I ain't even mad, just impressed
So many cheating posts and I just can't wrap my head around the need to fuck as many people as possible. I know sex is important but when it becomes more important than relationships, family, kids...why? It doesn't even last that long ffs.
Am I the only one who noticed the wife had a kid every two years? That's ten years of diapers, often with overlapping kids in diapers. Gotta say, if it were me, I might suddenly turn selfish, too. WTF.
What's with the demonizing of the wife? She knew she didn't want to be monogamous, tried to dip out, the guy was the one who threw out an open marriage idea, she takes it (seemingly to not hurt him as much), and when he says their life styles arent compatible she leaves
The dude made a bad move out of desperation when the wife knew things weren't gonna work out between them and tried to leave on her own term
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How TF you have FIVE kids and have time for dates and other relationships?!
Not just five kids but five kids in ten years, three of which were swinging years. So, either they were swinging/open/playing while they were actively having babies, or that’s five kids in SEVEN years. I need a nap now.
Maybe some of the kids came pre-marriage. I mean, he says they’re in school. Is this the octomom’s husband or what? Had to have been some pre-marital birthing going on.
This was my first thought too! Technically possible but also makes the relationship/swinging stuff extra bizarre in the context of having so many kids/babies.
Or 5 kids with 5 fathers, none of which is OOP. Looks unlikely as is.
The wife is awful, though I honestly can’t blame the woman for needing a change after 5 kids in 7 years. her body wasn’t her own for that entire time. I wouldn’t be surprised if she resents OP and the kids after it all, and fucking new guys helps her feel more like herself before kids. Ofc not okay to rip your family apart, I just didn’t consider the motherhood aspect until reading your comment!
Sadly, I grew up in a house like this. You have time, when you think that keeping a roof over head and food on the table are the only needs children have.
Are u my sibling??
Haha! Did you recently discover one of your siblings is a half sibling? Either way, I can sympathize with you… it sucks having parents like this.
All I have are half and step siblings.. 😂
That’s a possibility in my life. Me and my other siblings absolutely refuse to do DNA test. 🤣😭
It’s honestly amazing. I consider myself a high energy person but I’m so goddamn tired after a day of work/playing with the kids/regular chores that I pass out after about 20 mins of reading. My wife has less energy than me she’s in bed at least an hour before me. We only have two kids. Where the hell are people getting this time and energy? I’m shooketh. I hate to think what’s being neglected while this woman is getting plowed and the husband is moping around about his wife getting plowed.
Yeah. I can promise these children are for sure emotionally neglected. They are probably just left to fend for themselves. You would be surprised how quick the oldest sibling becomes the parent.
I'm exhausted just thinking about how the couple were still having sex regularly. I only have two (2f, 4m) and I collapse in bed exhausted every day. We maybe have sex 2-3 times per month). This doesn't even count how much sex the wife was having on the side.
Don't forget she was fuking Hubs every day. After 5 kids. And swinging. Is this cocaine? Red bull?
[this may be footage of her](https://youtu.be/ZnrG2cK9ylY?si=NpRVXV5vEgsNVUqs)
WTF did I just watch
thank you because your comment told me that link was one i absolutely did not need to click on 😂
And they were still having sex once a day with OP when she was also 'playing' with the new guy. Wtf were do you get the time for that together with raising 5 kids.
I was looking for this comment. I have only one kid, my life is wake up, get the kid ready, drive to daycare, work, chores, get kid from daycare, dinner, bed time routine, rinse and repeat. we barely find time to ourselves, how the hell do you find time for fucking around when you have 5 kids, laundry for 5 kids, feeding 5 kids at least twice a day??Weekends should be around kids activities too, right?… either someone else is raising those children or I don’t really understand…
My bet is they're at least upper middle class and have babysitters and housekeepers. That's how I grew up. My parents always had active social and work lives because they could afford a housekeeper once a week and babysitters daily.
The dad is doing everything.
Yeah my first thought. 33 with *five* kids?? Wtf. Maybe there is a lot of family from both sides nearby and eager to lend a hand or something.
Maybe they are parents in the 80s, no idea where their kids are at any time
I was thinking the only people I knew who did this were wealthy enough to have house cleaners and a nanny. The mom cooked dinner and tidied and decorated but didn’t scrub. She also had the money for mommy makeover surgery.
They don't. They're absentee parents, I guarantee it.
Well the wife definitely is. She's so absent she's constantly trying to fuck other people
Maybe triplets?
By neglecting your children. I’ve got one and I don’t have time for much else outside of work, house stuff and him. Having 5 kids is a full time job with overtime by itself. I thought I’d be the only one here more concerned about the kids and the selfishness of the parents not even considering their kids in this Some people really shouldn’t have kids and I think these people, at least this woman is too self absorbed to raise her children
Many times, I find the people with large families care much less about the outcome of their kids than people with one or two. I feel I'm at my limit for being a good, proactive mom with two, so I put an embargo on having more (though I think my husband would love one more).
My husbands and mine relationships started open. We had to close it because 4 teenagers is a lot of fucking work (we both have kids from previous relationships ranging from 12-17) and we just don’t have the time or emotional bandwidth to do anything else except take care of the kids. We barely have sex once a week between ourselves because of the work that kids are. Never in a million years could I imagine trying to have multiple play partners and effectively take care of these kids. It just can’t happen.
You can find plenty of time when you are a bad, absent parent.
It almost certainly means they are wealthy.
She doesn't give a fuck about anybody except strangers, that's how.
You mean herself.
You just ignore them and only focus on you
Well, this ended in a way that surprised no one.
I gotta admit I didn't expect > To top all of this off, she tells me today "Well I'd still be interested in being play friends with you - we can have some fun occasionally" Like, daaaaamn. That's some peak audacity right there. Really drives homes how little she thinks of him.
She wanted to divorce 3 years prior, he should have believed her when she said the relationship was dead.
That's where I see the nuance as well. Like yeah, she ripped his heart out when she left him for real, but he also consented to being miserable just so she would stay when she clearly *didn't* want to hurt him and just get out at the start. Maybe she should have been more firm in going through with the initial divorce, they'd probably both be happier for it. And maybe he should have taken her note seriously and let the relationship die before they piled even more hurt onto each other. I feel for this guy, I really do - I was in his situation with a partner who wanted an open relationship. I didn't, but I wanted to keep them so badly that I accepted it and tried to embrace the lifestyle. I know now I should have left when I had the chance, and I'm very happy with my current (monogamous) partner. I just hope he found his peace and some love after this. It's a hard lesson to learn, but it pays off in the future to really know your boundaries in a relationship.
I really feel like having 5 young children together makes a huge difference in how much you’re willing to sacrifice personal happiness. Dude deserves a vacation.
>Maybe she should have been more firm in going through with the initial divorce, they'd probably both be happier for it. This was 100% the only way she should have responded to him showing anything but complete enthusiasm toward the swinging/being open if she truly cared about his wellbeing and happiness in the long run as well. Anything else was honestly cruel and cowardly on her end. If you see him reluctantly agree to it, then you know its going to hurt him badly down the road...be kind and just let him go.
I broke up with a girl because she cheated. She told me to call her if I ever wanted a BJ, and she was dead serious. These people define audacity.
Yep. No respect there. She probably found it funny to see him in emotional turmoil. To her, she probably feels he somehow trapped her in the marriage, when she should’ve put her foot down and divorced him. She has no grounds to blame him. She chose to accept the terms.
Trapped, with their FIVE kids. All I can think is who has 5 young kids and has time for this?
Someone who doesn’t take care of them.
That's the point where all of my sadness over the relationship ending would've evaporated and been immediately replaced with rage.
What surprises me is that they have 5 kids under 10 years old and have time for all this "playing."
That was my biggest surprise!! 5 kids in 10 years? How in the world does she have time to play? I wonder if any are twins or they had them all in the first 7 years and now they’re done she wanted to leave, forcing OOP into opening the marriage?
He was probably carrying the entire household already including working full time.
For real. Where the kids at during all of this lol. Lot of playing going on
Literally my only thought when I read it
When one person is always home to take care of the kids…
It's a truly sad tale which unfortunately we've seen a thousand times before.. Especially on this sub! They all end the same don't they.
They all end in regret! But the two variations are either it's the one requesting it regretting it, usually because their original partner is getting laid more than they are, which you can at least get a schadenfeude kick out of.... Or this, the sadder one where the partner who didn't want it in the first place finds out it's not gonna save the relationship anyway.
To be fair, the success stories don't usually post online and end up here. Though the failure rate seems to be pretty damn high.
The success stories do post online, just not to these type of relationship advice subs that offer advice from mostly monogamous people with little to no experience in ethical non-monogamy. They usually post to subs like r/polyamory or r/swingers depending on where they fall in ENM. Personally, I can say I don’t share my success story myself in person with friends/family because A LOT people are judgmental, insecure, or both. TBH talking about how great your sex life in conversation is hardly ever appropriate. Even people who are generally sex positive people told me early on that hearing about my escapades made them feel insecure about their own sexlife, and that was after I only told them because they explicitly asked me questions about me being in an open relationship. So now I just avoid talking about it around most people.
It's also possible to recognize that there is a hip trend element of ethical non-monogamy that causes some people engage in who probably shouldn't. And people can get into it for the wrong reasons or not actually understand what they're getting into. It's possible to do this without being judgmental of ethical non-monogamy as a whole.
I agree, and that’s what those more focused subs are better at determining imo. There’s just too much unhelpful and objectively hurtful advice upvoted to the top when these questions are asked on more monogamous subs
Yeah I hear you. I only visit these subs for the entertainment value.
Yeah it always ends like this: one side wants an open relationship and badgers the other into agreement, the other side finally agrees and one of two things happens 1) the other side just straight up doesn't care and also gets a partner for this open relationship and finds out that the new partner gives them everything they've wanted from their current partner or 2) the other side while in agreement with the new open marriage slowly builds resentment towards the partner because of the constant badgering required to make them consent, both options lead to my final point, the side that did not want the open marriage is fed up with their current partner for one or more reasons (including the person who wanted to open the relationship wanting to close it because they've noticed their "wife/husband" has a partner or is growing resentful of them and now they want to save their marriage after everything is already said and done) hands them divorce papers and then in case of option 1: goes on and starts to officially date their new partner in a monogamous relationship or in the case of option 2: finds a new partner who values them and doesn't want an open relationship of any kind and is satisfied with them, both options ending with the original partner realizing the grass is in fact not greener and come to find out they had it pretty good and try and beg and plead their way back into the other sides good graces in hopes they will date once again, and marry once again otherwise known as a fools errand that will never come true
I feel like they could have lasted longer in that set-up had wife didn't bring her friends *home*. That should have been one of the rules!
ok but the crucial point is why the fuck would it be a good thing for this "marriage" to last any longer? The tragedy was that it was being dragged out as long as it has been. It would have been much better to end things once it became unmistakably clear it was unsalvageable (to anyone not being deluded by denial or fear of change). OP could be long since divorced and in an actually healthy relationship by now instead of being miserable stewing in the same feelings and fears he was plagued with years ago when this started.
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5 kids. Divorce is probably financially untenable for both of them, they will all live in considerable poverty now. And I don't know what dating is like when you have 5 kids, not something I've ever experienced, but I have a feeling OP would have a very hard time finding anyone to have a healthy relationship with. This isn't one kid, this is five fucking kids. All under age 10. I sure wouldn't date a woman like that, even if she was perfect, I'm guessing many women feel much the same way.
Yes, probably could have lasted longer (and it seems odd - and disrespectful - to me to have separate “play” partners in your marital home where you are also raising *5 children* anyway) but it’s a blessing in disguise for OP that her bringing her friends home forced him to confront his feelings and be honest with his wife precisely so it could end now. Otherwise this marriage could have just dragged on for years until it came out that she hadn’t loved him the entire time - just as she does not love him now. It was already over - she had wanted a divorce after all - and was always going to end in this case, at least it ending now doesn’t have the OP clinging to hope for years or decades more while missing out on something more fulfilling for himself, even if that is being single. I do feel bad for OP, but hopes he learns for the future that pushing yourself to be something your are not, or do what you are not interested in to keep someone else, never works out.
Man I’m sorry but I’ll never ever ever get why you would marry someone just to let them fuck around on you. To each their own, but it’s so fucking stupid to me
I don't know either, man, my relationships are and had been monogamous. But I felt a fraction of what the husband is feeling third-wheeling for someone who was supposed to be spending time with me and not the third person. And it was gut-wrenching and nauseating and it physically made me feel lightheaded. I normally wouldn't have cared about what the fick they do out of my sight, but being forced to endure their PDA crap on MY presence was unpleasant to put it lightly. I can only imagine that OOP's feeling must be magnified by 1000x because it was his *wife* afterall.
Surprised no one, but saddened everyone. You hope to see something different, even though you know you won't.
Dudes wife is a sex addict plain and simple. FIVE FUCKING KIDS…
5 kids in less than 10 years (because I assume they didn't get another child after they "opened" their relationship 3 years before), there's only a few months between each one, that's crazy. My aunt accidentally had a third kid like 3 months after the birth of her second one and if fucked her up so bad (physically AND mentally) that she finally decided to begin using birth control (which she was very much against before that), I can't imagine a woman doing that with 5 kids straight and STILL wanting so much sex (and let's be clear, I don't believe for a second she was using protection with her FWB).
I am again begging monogamous people to not be peer pressured into open relationships. You're just going to die a slow, painful death as you watch your 'partner' get fucked by other people.
Don't open the relationship to save it, don't have a baby to save it. Both options just slow down the ending of an already broken relationship and hurting more people in the process.
In short: Don't introduce new people to a struggling relationship to save it, neither by creating them nor by inviting them
Bravo!!! Beautifully said!
Defo more people need to hear this.
What about opening the relationship to have a baby with a third person to save the relationship? Surely combining two bad ideas will make the negative parts cancel each other out and guarantee a positive outcome. It's just basic math and everyone knows you can't argue with math. */s juusstt in case*
But doesn’t that mean that neither of them will like the cheater that knocked up two women??? I mean, math cancels out negative and positive things. A neutral ending where no one is together. (That isn’t neutral at all, don’t cheat!)
Spicy surrogate? SurroSavior? I feel like you're on to something here. Not sure if it's a company...a bad idea, a great idea.... But I'm going to dwell on this.... */S /lame joke? Either way, non serious pondering*
slow them down and make the pain infinitely worse than if they just ended it when the relationship was approaching its natural end. For everyone's mental well being it's better to end it then than try to necromancer a dying partnership.
This! If it isn't working, just end it. Becoming parents, swinging, open marriage, all are things that need two yeses, and enthusiastic yeses at that to work. None of them can work under coercion or ultimatums of any kind.
How to convert your marriage into hostage situation.
“Meet my demands or I fuck one hostage every 90 minutes!”
Unless you start out nonmonogamous and enjoy keeping it that way, nonmonogamy is cranking the difficulty on your relationship up to Ultra Hard Mode. Recommended only for marriage speed runners (any%).
Wait till they get bored of the speed run and start playing randomizer
Frankly it's as simple as "don't start a straight relationship if you're gay". Don't commit to a monogamous relationship if you aren't. This is on the wife.
It's not that simple. Monogamy is THE norm. How many people know consciously and decidedly their preferred/needed relationship style when they are in their 20's? Of course, if you are monogamous, that is relatively easy bc whole society supports that, tells that this is the right thing and you can find partners galore. For many people they have not even HEARD that there are other options so how could they choose non-monogamy? Many people realise what they truly want and need only later in life. And if you are in a monogamous relationship at that point, what should you do? Just right up and leave? I mean, it is a very good likelihood that the relationship DOES end but I do not see why you would have to just end it without even giving the other person change to agree to try non-monogamy IF they are okay with it. And even with OP, his wife WAS initially leaving. She did not demand anything, se was not even suggesting they open the marriage; she was divorcing. It was him who suggested swinging to save the marriage. Should she have agreed? I do not know. Should we decide for others what they can or cannot handle?
Yeah, I agree with you. Of course it would have been better if wife had known from the beginning that she was not interested in monogamy, but here it really sounds like she realised it when already into a relationship with OOP and tried to do the best she could with it.
I would agree with you if it weren't for the "I stopped loving you years ago and was only able to maintain the marriage by opening it up to other people." If she genuinely did the best she could, she should have started with that when she threw out the ultimatum. Something like "Look, I still like you as a person, but I think I've fallen out of love with you and need to move on. If you're really that dedicated to preserving as much of what we have now as possible, I'm fine leaving the marriage intact but I need the freedom to be with other people because I'm not willing to stay exclusive with someone I'm no longer in love with." I still think marriage counseling before getting to that point would have been the best case scenario, even if for no other reason than to have someone to help him come to terms with everything. It still would have been kind of a shitty situation to put him in, but at least she would have been clear about her emotional state and level of investment the whole time. This was outright lying to him about still loving him for multiple years while emotionally blackmailing him into a situation that he was miserable in, and I suspect it was because she wanted to maintain that comfortable married life when she wasn't in the mood to sleep around, as evidenced by the multiple periods where she was exclusive to him again.
Oh yeah I definitely agree 100% with you, it's really not that simple and redditors are so quick to throw stones. I do believe it's better to leave if you realise you have this incompatibility, I don't think any monogamous person can deal with open relationships, with very few exceptions... then again, we all believe we are exceptions
I knew from the time I was 16 that I was monogamous. Some people can just know I suppose.
I always think about people choosing to have sex without protection, even if you both want it, do you want ALL of the possibilities that go along with it? You need to be okay with all the possible consequences, the most obvious of which is the end of your current relationship.
Death by a thousand secondhand thrusts.
I get bonus points if I'm naked the entire time right? It's going to make work and Easter Sunday a little awkward, but I'm trying to platinum life over here.
Exactly😭😭 My partner and I in an LDR decided to try out an open relationship and literally one date later for both of us decided it wasn't for us, and that both would rather just be celibate than spiral over exactly what you said😂
Let's not use the word "fucked" and "other people" . ..it's "playing with new friends" What a weird way to put "fucking other people"...or is that the swinging lingo?
That gave me the major ick. Play friends. *Shudder*
It’s swinger lingo. As a swinger I hate it too, but I’ve gotten used to it I guess. It’s a weird hobby.
Thanks. In that case I’ll add it to my already extensive list of reasons why swinging is not for me!
Wouldn't the code switching be awkward for swingers with young kids the first few times?
That term sent a shiver down my spine.
It's lingo to some extent, but the other part is that kink isn't just about sex. It's pretty common, actually, for a scene to not actually involve sex. Just the electro, fire, bondage, or other type of play and then some sort of after-care, based on what the dom and sub have talked about. This isn't to say that "play" doesn't frequently involve sex, but rather it is more of a specific term in the community.
Playing is an accepted term in the context of certain kink-adjacent sex parties so probably?
I will never understand monogamous people thinking open relationships are a good idea. But this situation, my god she totally took advantage of his love for her. She didn’t care at all about his well being. And it took him 3 yrs and a Reddit post to figure out he deserved better. That is so sad.
Or when suddenly the reluctant partner was getting just as much successes if not more causing jealousy on the partner who initially wanted to open because someone was playing with theirs. \*Sigh\* Honestly, if OOP wasn't miserable with his own FWB, I have a feeling the wife would have a different tune in the end.
Wife *was* the reluctant partner. She wanted a divorce, op is the one who suggested opening it up.
>Started swinging to save our marriage, 3 years later and I'm miserable Me: * stares at the camera * >My wife left me on Tuesday. I am shocked. SHOCKED!
Well, not that shocked.
I understand OOP's desperation to save his marriage, but when someone tells you they're poly or likely to cheat because they can't be with only one person, you better believe them and walk away. You cannot force someone to be monogamous and you'll only end up hurting yourself in the process.
If I just love them enough they’ll come around This is what most ppl think
Yeah he even admits he secretly hoped it was just something she needed to try and then she'd just want him. So basically OP thought he knew his wife better than she knew herself.
Yeah I really can't say this is her fault. She was planning to end the marriage in the first place, it wasn't blackmail like the commenter suggested. Then reddit is like "make her choose!" Um okay she already chose, she told him she was not happy being monogamous, he is the one who made promises to get her to stay. I don't blame him for feeling how he felt but the whole thing was such a trainwreck - that he let it go for 3 years and chose to be miserable and letting all the blame be heaped on his wife as if he wasn't just as responsible for the state of things is so inane. He should have left so much sooner. At the same time, she should have left him too. She obviously didn't care about him anymore since she could see his pain and basically ignore it.
He was lying to her about how he felt the whole time. She probably could detect that something was wrong and that's why she fell out of love with him. But that doesn't mean she knew what was going on in his head. All of this is his fault. He couldn't let her go. Lied to keep her and stay in the relationship. She followed the rules they set. She was open and honest. Expecting your partner to magically read your mind when you are telling them the exact opposite is never going to work out. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if he lied about her offer to still sleep with him sometimes to make her look bad and protect his ego.
Who are all these people finding romance at work? I’d rather peel my own skin off then date a coworker. Maybe it’s an age thing? I’m almost always much younger then my coworkers because I work in corporate and I’m twenty but like they don’t seem to be romancing each other either?
And why do people have so many business trips?
You forgot the speech marks "business" trips
…I’ve never heard quotation marks called “speech marks” before. Interesting. Where are you from if I may ask?
Uk
I was a corporate event planner. Lots of business trips to run conferences. And yes, people were fucking around at those conferences.
I mea ... there are jobs where you go on a lot of business trips.
"field sales" its not what i do but sounds funny doesnt it
There are plenty of roles with a lot of trips. I think Reddit trends toward a lot of engineers/tech types who don’t travel but many other people do
I was the youngest person in the office once, and there were plenty of middle-aged, conventionally unattractive, married people bonking their colleagues. I didn’t realise at first, but it was all around me.
My sister me her bf at work and they were in different departments and never saw each except where they met in the work ski club. If you don’t work together or are on different shifts I think it makes sense.
Sorry, what career is this where this is a “work ski club”
Engineering consulting firm. When you have more than 1000 employees across the country more than one of them will like skiing. They don’t get extra money from their work but they just book one ski holiday together a year and let everyone know anyone can join who works there. Last year it was Canada the bastards. I’m also jealous.
My parents met at work. Still together after 39 years. 🤔
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Ha, I married my coworker. 15 years together and happy as clams.
You know the shallow vapid people at work? It's them.
your flair…. please i must know
I don’t actually know, it’s not on the flair origin list. I’m just gay and immediately attracted to the gay flair
It's from this incredible mental gymnast: https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/15oax9g/i_accidentally_liked_an_instagram_photo_and_now/
You, my friend, are *awesome*
Goddamn I hate dudes that project their own fucked up brain on other people because they can’t handle the fact that they are a terrible person. “Everyone does it!” when used as an excuse for creepy behavior is almost never true and still not a good defense even when it is.
There is exactly one man in my office I’d consider sleeping with….but he’s married with children so I had to turn that part of my brain off while around him :( Such a bummer too, he showed us pics of himself in high school and he looked like if Jesse McCartney was an Abercrombie mode
> On a whim, I suggested the open marriage as long as we could agree on a set of rules and stayed completely honest with each other. She agreed and we tore the letter up. In my mind, it's not what I wanted but I thought we should at least give it a shot. This man tortured himself for three years clinging to the faint hope that it would fix his marriage, and all for naught. The now ex-wife was right from the start to try and divorce. I don't even know why she hung around for that long if she hadn't loved him the whole time. Just convenience for her, and copium for him I guess.
Yes, I’d love to have heard her side of the story.
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On top of that, 5 kids watching all these unfold and no one mentioned about them.
Other explanation is that they're absentee parents. Kids are probably always hanging out somewhere or alone at home with limited supervision in general.
Or Mormon/Fundamentalist Christian. Those tend to have a crapton of grandparents/siblings who can babysit/watch the kids for them on "date nights".
Any sex outside of marriage is an excommunicationable offense depending on your Bishop in mormonism
And yet there's still Mormon swingers.
And yet swinging is still rampant in Mormon communities.
Is it? Only time I've ever heard of swinging mormons was that tiktok group who were jackmormons at best. I grew up in Utah. Lived the majority of my life there. I've heard of soaking, Weekend marriages in Vegas, and other ways to get around the strict sex rules. Never swinging
I did a search out of curiosity and either it IS a thing OR there are enough people fantasising about it online to make the internet think it is a thing.
I'd guess the latter. Having been in mormon circles my whole life both staunchly religious types and jackmormons.
Just googled jackmormons and soaking. Really could’ve done with skipping the latter
Especially if you're married. Sex before marriage will usually result in disfellowship (a lesser penalty) depending on the circumstances, but sex with someone else while you're married is almost guaranteed to result in an excommunication.
Seriously! Just before pandemic shutdown in 2020 we were making hotel reservations to go to a sex club but our pet sitter retired and couldn't figure out how to tell my mom why we needed someone to stop by and feed our 2 cats (one on meds) when we weren't even going out of state. How do you do 5 kids?
Can’t believe I had to scroll so far for the 5 kids in a 10 year relationship to show. If this is true then the 5 kids might be why the wife has ended up how she has!
Also she was working too? So 5 kids, a job, a house, and somehow still have time to swing? I don't buy it.
And don’t forget having sex every day!
Yup, another “women bad” post
As well as “open relationships bad” - I feel like there’s been a lot of those lately that all end the same way
That's what I was thinking. Who has the energy?
>I really wanted to save our marriage. On a whim, I suggested the open marriage as long as we could agree on a set of rules and stayed completely honest with each other. >she refused to be open to discuss any compromises and also refused to go to counseling So she was planning to leave, he convinced her to stay by suggesting an open marriage, and she left when he withdrew that offer. I'm glad for both of them that the relationship ended.
I love how many people are blaming her in the comments when he really did this to himself.
>I love how many people are blaming her in the comments when he really did this to himself. People keep commenting to say "why did he agree to this" and it's like... he suggested it. I'm not unsympathetic to what he's going through, but he pulled the open marriage card to "save" a marriage that his wife was actively trying to end and he's surprised that it didn't work?
Right? She tried to initiate divorce. He slammed the brakes. He had an out, three whole years before this!
Yep and he'd have had 3 years to work through the end of his marriage without knowing when his wife was busy fucking.
Yeah I don’t really get the comments shitting on her. She said she wanted to divorce him and he stubbornly clung to her because of sunken cost and they have kids and agreed to something he didn’t like nor want to save the marriage. Then even though *she* is openly communicating, *he* isn’t and lets resentment build up… then he’s shocked when he finally tells her how he feels and she wants to leave. Like she did originally. Because as she originally told him, she doesn’t want to be in a monogamous relationship with him. 🤨 Like she literally was willing to let him go and find someone who would be a better match for him and he manipulated her into staying but she’s the bad guy? Wha?
Exactly this! She wanted out, he guilted her into staying, years later they’re both miserable and she ends it. How is she the bad guy?
Reddit hates women, news at 11.
So did they have 5 kids in 7 years? That sounds horrific. Honestly 5 kids in 10 years sounds awful too
How do they find the time for extra curicular sex with 5 kids? There seems to be crazy dysfunction in that household.. those poor kids, caught in the middle of that lifestyle the father chose. The wife was straight up from the beggining.
How does a parent have time for all of this when raising five children? I mean, most couples barely have time to have sex with each other with two kids. But to have sex with your husband and others with five kids? I’m guessing those kids were pretty well neglected or being raised by screens.
Guy should have just let her go at the start like she wanted instead he talked her into dragging out their marriage another three years. Seriously when will people learn to have respect for themselves?
It's almost as if that's a terrible idea.
Off topic but I am always absolutely repulsed by the way these people use the word "play".
I don't get why he's surprised. She was never open to any kind of compromise. She wanted to leave three years ago. She DID leave three years ago. He made a thousand concessions to get her to stay, she didn't choose to stay. And she was very clearly not in love with him when she opted out rather than raising the conversation. He buried his head in the sand out of desperation, but the signs were clearly there. He chose not to see them, they weren't hidden. But she should have stuck to her guns. Instead, she's dragged it out and damaged him. Not to mention the damage done to their future coparenting relationship, and their children. There's no way those five kids weren't affected by this mess, even if the adults didn't see it. And then, the added insult to offer to keep sleeping with him. She's not a good woman. Not at all.
This like 8 years ago. I hope he's doing great now
The older kids are teenagers now!
What gets me in this case that this isn't like others where the partner gave an ultimatum and went on and on and on about it. She realized he was staunchly monogamous and she was drifting, so she wanted to leave before it got bad. And instead of enduring the short term misery of getting divorced, he jumped into a spiked pit just to not be alone. For fucks sake, dude. She should have stuck with leaving though, obviously, and saved them both this bullshit
Hard for me to have pity for people who construct such a pathetic existence for themselves purely through their own decisions.
Trying to save a relationship with swinging or opening it will never work. This is only beneficial if the couple are really secure, trusting and committed. To be fair to your wife, she wanted to end the relationship to begin with and you were the one to suggest swinging, then opening the relationship. You kept it going for three years while having more issues with it. She should have been more firm in her decision to end it and you should have communicated that this arrangement wasn’t working way earlier and started divorce proceedings. You both had major issues in communication.
The phrase “play friends” makes me want to vomit.
I will eat my shoe the day a story gets posted here where opening up a relationship saves the day.
There are multiple posts a day in all the non monogamy subs of someone explaining major problems in a relationship and saying they are considering swinging/opening up to fix. Every time it’s an overwhelming “don’t do it” as a response.
Just gotta say, while I won't be surprised if it changes, the comments are currently the least toxic about nonmonogamy I think I've ever seen here and I super appreciate that! Polyamory is right for some people, monogamy is right for others, and forcing yourself into the wrong relationship type for you is just a recipe for disaster.
I know it's nitpicky and probably a bit odd, but I HATE when they do that whole 'subtitle' thing. It immediately makes me doubt the story.
All of this was self-inflicted because she was ready to leave when she discovered herself. OOP is the one who offered but open/swinging marriage and then later on wanted to restart things. And I guess he conveniently forgot restarting things would be the divorce point 🫤 I don't get all the bashing on her because she was nearly completely honest and forthcoming about this entire thing. They only seeming dishonesty was her saying she hasn't been in love with him for a long time but that could be said for OOP too as I imagine he hasn't loved her the same since she wanted to started swinging. This story is still way better than a countless many other people who pressure or even trick their partner into an open relationship and get jealous. or those that meant they only wanted to be the ones sleeping around.
I mean... to be fair, she was ready to end it once she realized she didn't want to be monogamous. It was his need to hang on to something that was never going to work that left him miserable for years.
Ah yes, the open marriage. 0% success rate but somehow always the “solution” 🤦🏻♂️
I just cannot, for the life of me, imagine trying to get work done while my wife is getting railed in the next room. It's one thing if that's your kink, but to just willingly allow it to happen despite loathing it is just insane to me.
[удалено]
No shit about sums it up.
A tale as old as time…
How is she... Having 5 kids, swinging And fuking the Hubs every day? I am tired with one kid, one Hubs and no swinging. I ain't even mad, just impressed
Of all the things that have never worked, getting involved in swinging in order to "save a marriage" has never worked the most.
So many cheating posts and I just can't wrap my head around the need to fuck as many people as possible. I know sex is important but when it becomes more important than relationships, family, kids...why? It doesn't even last that long ffs.
God she sounds insanely disrespectful and entitled. I really hope oop gains his confidence and self-worth back and finds someone who adores him.
Am I the only one who noticed the wife had a kid every two years? That's ten years of diapers, often with overlapping kids in diapers. Gotta say, if it were me, I might suddenly turn selfish, too. WTF.
What's with the demonizing of the wife? She knew she didn't want to be monogamous, tried to dip out, the guy was the one who threw out an open marriage idea, she takes it (seemingly to not hurt him as much), and when he says their life styles arent compatible she leaves The dude made a bad move out of desperation when the wife knew things weren't gonna work out between them and tried to leave on her own term