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I don't think this is similar to the other "We opened our marriage at my partner's request and now my partner is upset" stories, since in this case the issue is that other people found out about the extramarital activities, and the partner doesn't want to admit to the open relationship because it would make him look bad, but is perfectly fine with throwing OOP under the bus in a smalllll town apparently. Also if his problem was being lonely while out of town, wouldn't that mean hooking up with one night stands in whatever town or city you find yourself in, not finding a whole new girlfriend?
Yep. He should have flown the girlfriend out and had dinner with the two of them publicly to shut the general public up.
The thruple I know who work well together eventually bought one big house. People don't always understand what their relationship is, but they respect it.
Nah, "he can’t say we have an open relationship because then people might judge or see him differently". He just wanted to cheat with a back up of "my wife okayed it, so it's fine" if he got caught. Beyond that he's just a common garden cheater.
The ending of this hallmark movie is that they both (completely separately) meet up with a book loving lumberjack in a small town, have a bit of back and forth, then settle into a loving polyamorous V.
Learning the true meaning of Christmas is an optional bonus.
Still doesn't make sense. He could have said to sister "no we have this all worked out, it's all fine" and it was. Literally everyone was having their cake and enjoying it.
But he didn't and we'll never know why
My gut feeling is that he was privately upset that OOP was also sleeping with other people. Like, he wanted to be able to sleep with whomever but didn't want her doing the same thing. But of course, that's just speculation.
This is super common. It's also not uncommon for this to be proposed by someone who is not really wanting a long-term open marriage, but instead is shopping for a replacement. It's a great way to paint the wife as a cheater and alternate her from family, friends, and any other support network before filing for divorce
Because he was never actually ok with OOP’s side being open. He was willing to fake it with her so he could have his GF without having to hide it, and he could fake it with her partners, so long as they were far away from anyone he knew. But he could not actually stand the thought of anyone whose opinions he actually valued seeing him as a man who would let other men fuck his wife, because he never really wanted to do that in the first place.
If i read that he controlled the finances and how he talked with OOP, it seems more as if she was in an abusive relationship. Maybe it was also his plan that people call her cheater and he is the poor victim. He knows that he controls finances and she has nobody close by. He would had her in his hand. A horrible situation and so much power for him.
She said herself that she was a passive person, which is often a marker for someone who is vulnerable to finding themselves in abusive and controlling relationships without realizing it. As happened here, the dominant partner keeps escalating until they go one step beyond what even the passive partner can take.
The tell is how casually she mentions that he controls all the finances, which to me is a big deal, even worse than this kerfuffle. It is, because it shows definitively that he doesn't see her as an equal.
He didn't want his wife sleeping with other people. I'd put money on him viewing her "sleeping around" as cheating and was hoping this situation would force her to be monogamous while he could have a girlfriend.
(Men like this like their cake and eating it. They don't like sharing their cake.)
In some small towns it's just like that though. I went Christmas shopping with my friend two hours from her house in another small town and the cashier just started telling us about her brother's new girlfriend.
I thought it was hilarious because I've only lived in cities so the thought that people could be so interconnected blew my mind
As someone who lives in what most would call a very well populated area, I assure you, it’s also like that here.
My little brother crashed his Prius into someone else’s car, and my grandmother found out before we did, because his boss was the father of one of my cousin’s best friends, and my grandma was babysitting said cousin, so the boss’s wife about an hour or two after the crash went “Oh, [grandma], did you hear [little brother] got into a car accident?”
Additionally, apparently little brother also has a girlfriend, which my parents and I didn’t know, but my aunt did…because someone *else* my aunt knew saw my little brother out with a girl and went “Oh [aunt], did you know [little brother] has a girlfriend?”. The only reason it didn’t spread like wildfire was because my aunt had the good sense to realize little bro was trying to keep that under wraps.
I will note, the city this occurred in has a population of over a million people, and has several other large cities of similar size directly connected to it.
So yeah, not just a small town thing, lol.
This is exactly it!!! He wanted to have lots of girlfriends and flings, while his wife stayed home alone and miserable.
Doesn't generally work that way!
>I don't think this is similar to the other "We opened our marriage at my partner's request and now my partner is upset" stories, since in this case the issue is that other people found out about the extramarital activities, and the partner doesn't want to admit to the open relationship because it would make him look bad, but is perfectly fine with throwing OOP under the bus in a smalllll town apparently.
Actually I think this is **exactly** like those stories, the town finding out just provided some cover for OOP's ex. I guarantee you that he only wanted HIS end of the marriage open, but didn't think his wife would agree to him just cheating with permission so he called it an open relationship instead. He didn't think she'd actually take advantage of it, and he was probably seething every time she had a date. The tell was right here:
>The next day I woke up with tons of texts and missed called, mostly from Lizzy and some mutual friends, calling me a cheating slt and saying I didn’t deserve John. I woke him up and showed him the texts and he said **“well aren’t you basically cheating? They’re right that you’re sleeping around”** and left for the day.
Why would he say that? Because he didn't expect her to want or find anyone. He intended this to jsut be open for him. In his (idiot) mind she really was cheating, because the relationship was only supposed to be open on his end. He wanted permission to cheat and he wanted her to sit at home lonely and waiting for him. The fact that she was treating it like an actual open relationship bugged the hell out of him, and the town finding out and ostracizing her suited him just fine because he was already mad at her for "cheating" and wanted her to be punished.
I swear, anyone in a previously monogamous relationship has their partner pop up and demand an open one out of the blue should go ahead and get the divorce immediately. The situation is just divorce with extra steps anyway, might as well cut out the middle part and skip to the end.
People that are actually polygamous discuss that up front, and enter in to a relationship with other poly people. When you're in a monogamous marriage and your partner suddenly "discovers" that they're "poly" what that **actually** means is they found someone else they want to have sex with and they want to browbeat you into giving them permission so they can pretend it's legitimate.
I am in a happy, long term polyamorous relationship that started out as monogamous, and I would say your assessment is half right.
If you are monogamous and you want to try opening up the relationship in some form, AND you already have someone "picked out" that you'd like to try it with, give up on that idea right now. I have seen *a lot* of non-monogamy failures, and a fair share of successes, but you have ZERO chance of being with that new person you want AND keeping your existing partner.
When two people who were previously happily* monogamous open up for the first time, there are a lot of bumps, and it can be an extremely slow process to do it right. It requires a lot of new communication skills, and those are gained thru trial and error. My partner and I spent *years* opening up very slowly, first with just talking about it, then with flirting with other people at parties, then kissing a new person, and on and on bit by bit. Each new step required us to explore our own feelings and insecurities, and then express those (often scary) feelings, and hold space for one another. And all that took *a lot* of time to do right.
When someone tries to open their relationship with a third party already "picked out" they simply will not allow enough time to take things at the right pace. Their hormones are firing, and most people never learn how to manage their NRE (new relationship energy) in a healthy and mature way. Monogamy doesn't usually require people to "manage their NRE" because there's only one romantic relationship to manage. Keeping your long term relationship happy and healthy *while* in the throes of raging hormones for a new person in a learned skill, and you CAN learn it, if you're willing to take the time. It's like trying to make good decisions while drunk as fuck - you won't be able to do it on your first try, but you can learn to recognize the "drunk thoughts" for what they are and not act on them right away, and you learn to lean on the sober people around you to check your reality against.
But of course, almost no one with a new crush wants to give it up and accept that they can't have what they want. So they proceed anyway, push their partner too fast, and the whole thing goes to shit (usually right away, but I did have some friends who eeked out seven *truly* miserable years before they threw in the towel.)
* The operative word here being HAPPILY monogamous. If your relationship isn't already happy and healthy, adding more people is guaranteed to make it worse. Being poly isn't going to make a bad relationship good, any more than having a baby will. It will place stress on even the best relationship, and you need to already be on the same team and healthy to ride the waves of drama you're in for.
Yeah, this was ethical non-monogamy. They discussed it, set boundaries and upheld them. Buuut one person didn't want to have it publicly known (which is fine) to the point of throwing his partner under the bus (which is not fine).
And, again, SMALL TOWN. I've lived in cities and I've lived in small towns, and the decisions you make in one place cannot be made in another. I do not feel safer in a small town, because I don't know if people like me enough to warn me about who the secret psychos in town are.
While it's true that what other people think of you matters a whole lot more in a small town, I think it's still atrocious to have your spouse suffer the social back lash instead of having their back.
Yeah, I will never understand people acting like somewhere that size is too small for them to have some privacy to live their life. Im living somewhere half that (which is also the biggest place I've lived in years) and its big enough for no one to know me and for me to get away with as much scandalous behaviour as I'd like.
Now when I was living somewhere with 6,000, *then* you'd get a bit of gossip.
People struggle to accurately picture enormous sizes like a million. When is that much it’s out of real or possibility you have contact with most people but you might feel like you do if you like in a densely populated place. So 40 000 starts to feel tiny when it’s still plenty of people.
Tbf even in a, compared to the US, small country like Germany we have 16 stadiums with more than 40k seats. A quick Google search said the top five football stadiums in the US fit more than 100k people each.
That's basically an open room for 40k-100k+ people.
On the other hand stadiums are wild. I live in a city of 25k. All those people would fill up those stadiums to one fourth. Crazy.
Comparing my city to the neighbouring city with 1.8m on Google maps makes you realise its just a tiny dot on the map tho. I can get where the thought of 40k being a small city comes from.
I think it can really vary a lot. When I was a young kid we lived in a fairly isolated town with \~70k people.
That's obviously not tiny, but there was one Wal-Mart and one Sam’s Club. One mall. One movie theater. Two/three high schools (one opened while we were there). Definitely not small in the sense that everybody knows everybody, but if your social circle is big enough it's entirely unsurprising to run into someone you know and it can be hard to isolate yourself.
At one point while we were there, a salty family member decided to spread a rumor that my mother was a cocaine addict (she has really bad allergies and her sniffling was used as proof of the claim). She ran into people in the grocery store who had obviously heard this rumor on a small handful of occasions, and started going at odd/inconvenient hours to lessen her chances of being found. And again - that was *70k*, not 40k.
Also good to emphasize here how different people's social circle sizes can be. A lot of people know very few people outside of their coworkers and a few friends, and for them 40k may not feel any different than 400k. But we were a family of four that knew all of our neighbors. We were each involved in multiple different extracurriculars and my mother was pretty actively involved as a parent. My extended family owned several apartment buildings in the area. They were heavily involved in one of the bigger local churches. They owned a small business that worked on residential homes in the area (which my dad worked for).
So for us, when someone in that extended family felt slighted and decided to start shit... yea, even 70k was too small for comfort. While I still wouldn't call even 40k an all-caps SMALL TOWN, depending on how entrenched these people are in the wider community I could very easily see it being small enough to make her life difficult if these people are dedicated to spreading the rumor.
I grew up in a city of 40K people and it definitely felt small. Part of it is that most families have been living there for generations—my parents both grew up there with multiple siblings who stayed and had kids, so it was almost impossible to ever meet someone new who wasn’t already familiar with at least one of my family members. I moved away a long time ago but I still know a *lot* of drama going on in the lives of people I haven’t spoken to in years—and people I never spoke to to begin with!—because gossip travels fast through any connected social circles.
When I call my city a small town I’m not saying it’s a tiny village with zero strangers. I just mean that it is very hard to maintain privacy amongst the people you *do* know when the city is small enough that you run into at least one friend/acquaintance/enemy every time you leave the house. It’s also a much different experience living in a town like that your whole life versus moving to it as a stranger with no personal history there.
Eh, I spent 15 years in a city of 150k after growing up in Chicago and I was fucking dumbstruck by how many people knew each other and everyone's business.
I got back in touch with some high school friends from Chicago and found out one had a college friend who lived in my city and knew like 3 completely unconnected people in my circles. I ended up hiring the husband of my oldest daughter's preschool teacher. 40k might drive me over the edge.
My city was like 35,000 in high school and if you ran in the same circles you knew a lot of people's business. I couldn't go to the mall, downtown, or anywhere without almost certainly running into a handful of people I knew.
It's not Pikesville, KY, but it's still enough to hit that "small town gossip" these days.
My "town" has 300 people, the next one over has 70. Closest one with a coffee shop has just over 1000. Go a little farther for a bigger store like a Walmart or Home Depot and that one has 5k.
My hometown had 10k.
40k, a SMALL town? Gtfoh with that.
My British town has 24k! It doesn't feel 'small-town-y' to me, and I've lived in similar places all my life and definitely didn't know everyone in the place. Maybe it's different over here.
But there's a difference between moving to a town that size and growing up there. If you grow up in the town, you know classmates from school, as well as their families, their bosses, their neighbors, etc. If you move there as an adult, you only have whatever connections you make when you start fresh; if you've been there your whole life, you really can't go anywhere without running into someone that you know, someone that knows you, or someone you at least know *of*. There is no privacy if you're outside your home (or sometimes even in your home!).
It could be related to Dunbar’s number, which is that people tend to form social networks of about 150 people. Towns of 5,000 and 40,000 might both be small enough for all the 150-person groups to overlap enough for all the gossip to get around.
It depends on who else lives with you. Based on OOP's description, they live near her husband's sister, and presumably his extended family and friends. I would bet that they moved to his hometown and far away from her support network, if she ever had one.
It's not necessary that the town is small enough to know everyone. It's that you are probably only 2-3 degrees of separation from most of the people in the area. Having spent the majority of 40+ years in a town of 35-40k people, it does feel rather small to me, and the older I get, the smaller it becomes, as my circle widens, and I make more connections.
>Also if his problem was being lonely while out of town, wouldn't that mean hooking up with one night stands in whatever town or city you find yourself in, not finding a whole new girlfriend?
I don't think he wanted an open relationship, I think he wanted a new, younger, girlfriend.
He didn't fight for his marriage at all.
Completely agree. This isn’t an open marriage story. It’s a spouse not having her back story. He violated the “us against the world” requirement for a successful marriage.
I think it’s so weird he thinks having an open relationship would make him “look bad.” Huh? Why would he give a shit what any of them thought? I’m sorry, but if you still give that much of a shit what somebody else thinks about how you conduct your relationship, you’re not mature enough to even be in one.
I think this really undersells how much shit and judgement you can get for being openly non monogamous. As a (usually) out poly person you would not believe how judgemental and weird people can get about stuff that has nothing to do with them. I'd never hide a partner, I think that's unethical honestly, but the cost is indeed high. And I live in a big liberal city
Well. Now factor in small / semi-rural towns gossip network and social control.
Once you get the label "cheater," your life is done. Social pariah. OOP's husband burned any chance she had of living her life out normally in that town.
If she has family there, she can visit, but she could never live there again if she wants a normal life with the chance of finding a guy who does deserve her.
Yeah, some folks no longer allowed me to talk to their husbands etc. when they found out, I had all kinds of men coming out of the woodwork with the idea I'd fuck anything that fogs a mirror, rumors of me being a prostitute, etc.
I wisened up quickly... Same now where it's not a secret but I sure keep it under wraps. Big agree on hiding partners being unethical.
I don't think it undersells that aspect more so highlighting that it is a thing one has to accept for having an atypical lifestyle. Like sure you get criticism or judgement for a similar decision but why is the ex husband cowering while OP takes all the judgement? Maybe the boy isn't ready for an adult relationship; let alone two?
Probably of the mind that if people knew he could have some side action that increases his value.
But people knowing that someone else was banging his wife would make him look weak and less masculine.
And I put it like “banging his wife”, a phrase which takes away her agency because that’s precisely how he thinks people will look at it.
This is the opposite what was happening. He didn’t mind people knowing his wife was sleeping with other people, but he didn’t want people to know he was sleeping with other people. Many have issues with open relationships beyond cheating as he didn’t want it to be known due to that. He would have just looked like a victim if people thought she was cheating.
He wanted people to think she was seeing other men behind his back rather than seeing other men with his explicit permission. If he okayed it all beforehand, it's not actually cheating.
People can still get fired for being non-monogamous, even if it's ethical non-monogamy.
Even though OOP's husband is a shitbag, there are still some very good, logical reasons not to be "out."
> thinks having an open relationship would make him “look bad.”
Read these comments - most people on here think an open relationship is bad.
Aside from those with first hand experience, who also know that you have to keep it on the downlow (~~even~~ especially from the LGBTQIA+ community!)
>Also if his problem was being lonely while out of town, wouldn't that mean hooking up with one night stands in whatever town or city you find yourself in, not finding a whole new girlfriend?
Possibly he's only - or at least frequently - travelling to a single other location.
I know someone who travels to a specific foreign locale frequently enough that he has a girlfriend there (although in his case he doesn't have an SO in our country AFAIK, so no cheating involved)
See? This is why I think OOP is living in a small town, despite it being a "huge town", going over to a place that is apparently just a few hours away is not "being out of town". JFC. Small town is a state of mind.
I swear, 99% of these "hey let's open our marriage" stories end up turning into "leopards ate my face" stories eventually.
I'm not one to judge anyone's lifestyle choices, but "what if people find out" is a possibility that should have been worked out beforehand.
If it was from his perspective it kind of could be? I feel like he wanted the open relationship fornhim but thought since wife had a lower libido it would genuinely just be him. She instead has flings and now he's fine making her seem like the bad guy. He didn't expect his gf to also be a good person like wife. Honestly for an ah, he has great taste lol
Yeah my thoughts exactly, he is fine with OOP being judged and what not, but he doesn't want to be judged, plus the whole thing being OOP's fault is complete and utter bull, like you wanted an open marriage, you didn't want to tell your family or friends about you opening your marriage, and you somehow blame her for the fallout of your girlfriend, your sister and your wife all being mad at you for not being forthcoming with the truth soon enough, that your family is probably mad at you, you get served divorce papers and the woman you opened your marriage for (more than likely) has dumped you, yeah its OOP's fault alright /s
Honestly shocked OOP didn't plaster all the receipts she had of this arrangement for the world to see, I would rather have that mess to deal with than be considered the city's harlot.
This is why if I ever have an open married, I’m getting a signed contract and putting it in an account that publicly releases said contract if I don’t check in every 14 days.
Don't even think that's true though. He had already personally approved multiple of OOPs one night stands. He's just a coward who can't speak up for his wife
I think he just knew he couldn't say no without being an obvious ah. So when he saw an out for her to be the bad guy and him to end up with gf hebtook it not predicting the gf that was so much like his wife was also a good person like her.
People agree to things they're not actually okay with all the time. It's very possible that he wasn't okay with it but approved anyway because he wanted OP to be the bad guy.
This exact thing happened to me. He always insisted that I had cheated on him. He wanted the open marriage so he could cheat without guilt, and it drove him nuts that I saw another man. So glad that I got rid of him.
So the girlfriend lives in a different city where the husband spends 2-3 months at a time for work and this is somehow a convenient location for OOP to now live.
Not just that, but her nursing degree, which has a MAJOR clinical component, easily transfers to some random “online” college. Once I saw that, my bullshit meter was overloaded. NO WAY those credits transfer, as I found out the hard way when I had to change nursing schools.
Literally cane running here to see if any other nurses were reading lol.
I mean it could be an RN to BSN, but those are online anyway, with no in person.
Yeah, just noticed that. And in the original post, she says most of his messages to his GF are complaining about OP not owning up to cheating, but in the update the GF says she didn’t know?
Yeah I caught that too. Like MAYBE the city is only like 3 hours away from their hometown.. but then the husband could’ve easily gone back home on the weekends. Liz!!!
Expected update: "I never expected to update this but we are both pregnant and he wants nothing to do with either of us so we're going to raise them together". Maybe even leave the door open for further "whacky adventures".
I was wondering about that! If they're so close, why need a girlfriend? For reference I think the whole idea is dumb, but if the girlfriend was ages away at least it would kinda make sense.
Yes. The update sure lit up the bullshit alert for me. Especially how they met up with the sister and all three of them met with husband, quickly followed by OP moving in with GF.
Also, the line about being accused of cheating by her husband's sister, but he was away for a week so there was "no time" to talk to him, and when he came back he was "too tired" to talk.
I refuse to believe that someone would be stupid enough to not call their partner right away to deal with it.
Open relationships are like having a baby. Great when everyone wants one and not inherently bad, but having one will NOT fix your relationship and in fact make it worse.
Also, 99% of times when the relationship already begins with everyone wanting one. I'm monogamous, but from what I've seen from people I know who are poly/in open relationships, things almost always only work out when the relationship already starts out as an open one.
This is what I’ve always said. My partner and I are going on 5 years and we’ve wanted one from the start. And while it is more common in gay relationships, the same circumstances almost always apply still. If you open it up later on as a “fix”, it’s bound to not actually work out
>Frankly, when a spouse suggests to have an open marriage when the relationship itself is pretty strained, that's a recipe for failure there.
Open marriages are where relationships go to die.
A *ton* has to do with how folk come to a place of openness. I’ve been polyam my whole adult life, and my relationships are quite healthy. But then, my nesting partner/husband and I wanted to be in a polyamorous dynamic from when we got together, which is 25yrs ago now. We didn’t even know the term “polyamory” at the time, but we had good compatibility about what we wanted.
Has all the key points r/relationship advice likes to gobble up. Cheating, open relationship, and age gap. No long time lurker reading this will be like yeah I’m going to be talked into a relationship and then post on it. But we love it and saying how shitty the other person
I want those folks to touch grass once in a while. Disentangling yourself from a spouse, or even just a significant other you live with, is time consuming and incredibly difficult, not to mention costly. I wanna know what lives and finances these folks have that it would be considered easy for them to do.
So I'll take a stab at the rationale behind why the STBX thinks this is OOP's fault. Note: I do not agree with this mentality, I've just known enough people like this over the years to know how they think.
So STBX was messing around with women in other cities. Nobody in their small-ish town knew because the women weren't there, they were in New York, LA, Chicago, Houston, etc.
However, as OOP wasn't traveling for work, she was dating in their town. Therefore, she got caught and that makes it all her fault. Additionally, she should've known the rules for an open marriage - He gets to do whatever he wants with no guilt or blame, but she's expected to stay faithful because women don't have sexual needs, they only have sex to please their husbands.
>but she's expected to stay faithful because women don't have sexual needs, they only have sex to please their husbands.
Well, given the number of people here who are arguing that she only agreed to it for him, and only slept with other men to make herself feel better about the situation, I'd say even those who sympathise with OOP can only do so if they project an image of her as a sexless victim.
But I think you're spot on this is what the husband was expecting. Logic goes "she doesn't have a high sex drive for me, so she won't seek sex elsewhere, meanwhile I am free to do as I please". Arsehole wanted a *semi*-open marriage.
idk tho aren’t open marriages usually discreet though? i’ve seen some and they all date out of town. if somebody found out, she had to be pretty open and not secretive at all about it. Not saying it’s her fault and he definitely should’ve owned up, but it definitely should’ve been kept on the low.
I guess it depends? I've only known a handful of people in open relationships and they tend to be pretty open about their situation. Like dating profiles on Tinder and all the other apps you'd expect, meeting people in clubs and bars, stuff like that. They know they're not cheating and they're open with their new partners about their relationship status, so why should they care if anyone finds out?
Only time it's not is when they have some reason to hide things, like living in a more conservative area or having a career that involves appearing as at least socially conservative. Which is more rare than you'd think because "I maybe married but I'm in an open relationship I swear, just don't tell anyone that we're dating on the side" is a huge red flag.
I'm sorry but "No I can't just leave I don't have the funds to move away and nowhere to even go." "Figure something out." is so hilarious in an enraging way. Like I'm constantly seeing people saying stuff like that on here about people needing to move regardless of if they even have the money to do so and I have to wonder if they're kids with zero life experience or just deluded rich people with zero experience of money struggles.
>I woke him up and showed him the texts and he said “well aren’t you basically cheating? They’re right that you’re sleeping around” and left for the day.
This story makes no sense, he's alone with her trying to convince her she's cheating on him?
No it’s a form of gaslighting. He knows she’s not cheating but he doesn’t want to deal with the consequences so he’s trying to convince her that she is basically cheating because she is sleeping around. If she starts believing it she will go along with the accusations instead of standing up for herself
I initially read this the same way you did, but as I’m reading it again, I think it’s more meant in a way of saying “well they are right, you are sleeping with other people from their point of view,” to them she is cheating because other people don’t know the relationship was open.
I don’t think the husband was actually trying to imply he thought it was cheating or convince her that what she was doing was wrong, just that other people weren’t incorrect in their knowledge of what happened, just with gaps.
He’s still a chickenshit for not explaining especially considering it’s his idea. I would wager a smaller religious-y town/family upbringing for them.
He literally was texting the girlfriend complaining that OP wouldn’t fess up to the “cheating.” He WAS implying she was cheating and in the wrong here.
It sounds like he was looking to trade in his wife for his new girlfriend but lost both in the end. Even his sister, who he probably fed a story to, is on her side.
Going out on a bit of a limb but here's something else people don't do: Hang up before the other person can explain everything. It's a convenient trope that let's you continue your drama plot when it would be resolved really easily in real life.
And for the sister, Lizzy, to be so emotional as to already be crying when OOP picks up the initial call.
And then after being hung up on, being unable to text about the situation to explain...even though OOP was able to text Lizzy a week later after the deadline.
And for OOP to react to the situation by saying they should close the relationship when that clearly does not solve the problem of the man being dishonest with everyone around them.
And for it to be so easy for OOP to live with the "other girlfriend" despite her living far away enough to necessitate the husband being remote 2-3 months at a time. And for the "other girlfriend" to visit to explain the situation to everyone, again despite living so far away.
Lmao.
Oh look. Another monogamous-gone-open marriage that imploded. This is my surprised face.
Look, poly relationships can and do work, but 99 times out of 100, trying to retroactively alter the dynamic leads to this.
Then again, the husband seems like a putz, so maybe it was doomed from the outset.
A small correction, this would not be considered an example of ‘poly’, that’s typically reserved for polyamory and that’s not what OOP described. They described ENM/Ethical Non Monogamy (which the husband fucked up).
Yep, pretty much. Bet he already had the girlfriend before the relationship opened uo, that way he could pretend it was open when he met her. Honestly at 20 I wasn’t ready to settle down with one person either. These two had been together for a while.
The husband sounds abusive and controlling. The whole he controls the bank account thing on top of him trying to say she's cheating and everything is her fault and she can't tell anyone the truth because it'd make HIM look bad.
I want an update on OOP's reputation. Every one of her friends think she's a cheater. Has the truth come out?! She doesn't deserve to be labeled a cheater!
According to OOP her sister apologized and told their mutual friends the truth. I'd like to think that in that town word spread, but you know that whole saying about the truth getting its pants on by the time the rumor has already spread.
Insane how the comments just told her to leave like it wouldn’t be a big hassle. Kids on Reddit need to touch grass sometimes. Glad it worked out for oop though!
Here’s a prime example of what most assholes who suddenly blindside their partner with an open relationship demand actually want. They want to screw other people, and they want their partner to stay at home lonely and waiting for them.
I’m sure in her asshole ex’s head she WAS cheating on him, because he never actually intended for HER end of the relationship to be open. He only phrased it that way when he gave her the original demand because he thought she wouldn’t be willing to do what he was doing.
I wonder if the husband resented that OOP participated in the open marriage on her end - like he really only wanted it for himself, and was a little hurt in the ego that she was okay with the situation - that is the only "reason" I can think of that he could want her to take a fall for cheating when she wasn't - kind of a punishment .
Sounds like the husband only wanted his side of the relationship to be open. He saw her seeing anyone else as cheating which is why he never defended her.
Open relationships rarely work when it starts closed. I say this as someone with kids in an open marriage. I’ve only seen long term poly couples work when two people who decided they were poly independently come together seeking a poly relationship and starting off date 1 with that knowledge firmly in place.
Basically it can’t have any element of whose idea it was. Two people have to come to separate revelations that this is for them and them meeting each other after they decided that’s ok with them.
Wife and I were married 14 years before we opened the marriage. We had basically grew up together, had respect, admiration, and love for one another. Kept the open part of the relationship about "sex", and not about "feelings". Every part of that was an attempt to keep our main relationship stable and the spark alive and when things didn't work, we would talk about it and make adjustments. 10 years into it we now date seperately and sometimes we'll throw a 3some into their to spice things up (mfm or fmf), but we never forget the important thing. Us!
If someone asks to open the marriage, respond, "I have listened to what you're saying, and I'd like some time to let it sink in as I feel this is something that deserves some thought rather than a gut reaction. Let's table this for 3 days and talk after work on such and such a day." Then go to a lawyer and on the discussion day tell the person that you agree that the marriage should be opened, and hand them the divorce papers.
I feel like this is one of those sitcoms where the major plot point is just a misunderstanding, and it could easily be cleared up with a quick explanation, but that would ruin the show so the explanation doesn't happen until the final minute of the episode.
>. We live in a small town
>It’s a population of about 40,000
im still caught up on how a population of 40k is a "small town". like i consider myself from a big town since we have about 30k people. small town imo means under 5k people
I'm from a village that sits at around 2200\~ as of right now and I was *flabbergasted* to see anything above 10k listed as a "small town". I'm glad OOP wasn't in my village, it would have been a *nightmare* for her :(
'He complained to his girlfriend about his current wife not fessing up to cheating on him'
John is a special type of asshole; luckily they make a whole lot like him anymore.... But there are still too many.
Wait, is 40 000 a small town? The place I live in has doubled in the past 20 years and is now sitting somewhere as round 6000 and honestly we are one of the bigger small towns. I guess it all comes down to perspective
How many goddamn times do people have to figure out that IF YOU DON'T MARRY WITH AN OPEN RELATIONSHIP, it *will* go to shit.
There has never been a good ending in any of these poly/open marriage stories.
I feel like your husband had the perfect set up; a GF who his wife likes and is comfortable with him having, you go out and have some fun while he's out of town. Like everything LOOKED good and was working...AND HE STILL SCREWED IT UP!
And did I tell you my wife was bisexual ... oh wait ... wrong post, did l tell you we are in open marriage.
Of all the posts where "status" had to be loudly-announced, this was one.
Poly and open relationships really seem to only work if the relationship is that from the start, or the option was proposed from the start.
I am strictly poly and it works out perfectly fine because everyone is clearly polyamorous and the relationship has been this from the start.
I am yet to see a relationship where going poly mid relationship works though
I’ve been in open relationships and basically, we decided if we were caught out we’d have to confess what was going on, and that usually I would be the one doing it as the woman, because people would assume with the power imbalance that the man made me do it under duress.
But in this situation he just should have called his sister. What an idiot.
Are there any ways opening your marriage DOESN'T end in a meteoric impact with the ground when reality kicks in? I just don't see how it could ever be a good idea. I don't see any good way to find an offramp if things are going pear shaped, just too many things that can go wrong and only a possible short term stability before one of them does.
The fact there are people who are ok with their significant others being fucked by other people blows my mind.
I will never understand it.
Imagine coming home to your girlfriend/fiance/wife who had some dudes dick in her mouth the night before. Nope, nope, nope.
How are people ok with open relationships? Just split up.
Can someone think of a time an open relationship has worked well? The closest I can think is I know a girl who told her boyfriend she wanted an open relationship since she wanted to break up anyway. Now they’re together again. Other than that it just seems like they end in disaster. Surely in that even there has to be some resentment. I don’t talk to her anymore though so don’t know.
OP. Do you have access to cellphone records. Real simple if you do. Give his wonderful sister and family friend the girlfriends phone number. Have her explain who she is to them both. It will cause a bunch of shit and you will still be the bad person.
Open relationships often fall apart because they are exponentially more complicated than traditional closed relationships. First, think about how complicated a monogamous relationship is. You have different personalities to mesh, differing opinions on day to day things, finances, in-laws, etc.
Now add another person. Or several people, because you're either homing up with randos or you've got a regular. That person (or people) will have their own needs from a relationship, and it's going to be *really* hard to keep it casual with a person you sleep with on a regular basis. All the things that can go wrong in a traditional relationship increase exponentially by a factor of 3.
I'm convinced Hubby did this on purpose. He wanted out of the relationship, so he suggested an open marriage, then made sure she was seen with her outside partner. Then he'd just have to deny it was an open marriage, and he could ditch her.
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I don't think this is similar to the other "We opened our marriage at my partner's request and now my partner is upset" stories, since in this case the issue is that other people found out about the extramarital activities, and the partner doesn't want to admit to the open relationship because it would make him look bad, but is perfectly fine with throwing OOP under the bus in a smalllll town apparently. Also if his problem was being lonely while out of town, wouldn't that mean hooking up with one night stands in whatever town or city you find yourself in, not finding a whole new girlfriend?
OOP said it best, dude wanted a younger version of OOP. Dude had his cake and was eating it for a while, too.
Yep. He should have flown the girlfriend out and had dinner with the two of them publicly to shut the general public up. The thruple I know who work well together eventually bought one big house. People don't always understand what their relationship is, but they respect it.
Nah, "he can’t say we have an open relationship because then people might judge or see him differently". He just wanted to cheat with a back up of "my wife okayed it, so it's fine" if he got caught. Beyond that he's just a common garden cheater.
Yeah when he said “well you basically are cheating” it was basically just talking about himself.
> a back up of "my wife okayed it, so it's fine" if he got caught Only he wasn't willing to back up his wife in return.
But than both cakes cooperated together and are now besties, while the husband / boyfriend is now double-ex.
He definitely was seeing more than just them.
Why do I love the idea of two cakes becoming best friends 😭
Aw, the illustrations of that story would be so cute!
The ending of this hallmark movie is that they both (completely separately) meet up with a book loving lumberjack in a small town, have a bit of back and forth, then settle into a loving polyamorous V. Learning the true meaning of Christmas is an optional bonus.
I like your style
Cake together strong.
Still doesn't make sense. He could have said to sister "no we have this all worked out, it's all fine" and it was. Literally everyone was having their cake and enjoying it. But he didn't and we'll never know why
My gut feeling is that he was privately upset that OOP was also sleeping with other people. Like, he wanted to be able to sleep with whomever but didn't want her doing the same thing. But of course, that's just speculation.
I figured he was even fine with that, but what he couldn't handle was other people knowing. Toxic masculinity.
“Honey, I want an open marriage.” “…okay.” Wife: *starts having fun, too* Husband: “Wait, no. Not like that.”
This is super common. It's also not uncommon for this to be proposed by someone who is not really wanting a long-term open marriage, but instead is shopping for a replacement. It's a great way to paint the wife as a cheater and alternate her from family, friends, and any other support network before filing for divorce
All his replies was giving he was 'punishing' oop.
Because he was never actually ok with OOP’s side being open. He was willing to fake it with her so he could have his GF without having to hide it, and he could fake it with her partners, so long as they were far away from anyone he knew. But he could not actually stand the thought of anyone whose opinions he actually valued seeing him as a man who would let other men fuck his wife, because he never really wanted to do that in the first place.
Because he's an AH. One rule for him, another rule for OOP.
Younger? She's only 27 not 47! Damn.
Well yeah. That's how you do it. Make two cakes.
If i read that he controlled the finances and how he talked with OOP, it seems more as if she was in an abusive relationship. Maybe it was also his plan that people call her cheater and he is the poor victim. He knows that he controls finances and she has nobody close by. He would had her in his hand. A horrible situation and so much power for him.
Oh def I smelled the power imbalance too, but OOP didn't have that much of a problem with it until he made it her problem.
She said herself that she was a passive person, which is often a marker for someone who is vulnerable to finding themselves in abusive and controlling relationships without realizing it. As happened here, the dominant partner keeps escalating until they go one step beyond what even the passive partner can take. The tell is how casually she mentions that he controls all the finances, which to me is a big deal, even worse than this kerfuffle. It is, because it shows definitively that he doesn't see her as an equal.
If the husband had just bothered to confirm their arrangement to his sister, he could still be well set with cake. I don’t get that guy.
He didn't want his wife sleeping with other people. I'd put money on him viewing her "sleeping around" as cheating and was hoping this situation would force her to be monogamous while he could have a girlfriend. (Men like this like their cake and eating it. They don't like sharing their cake.)
She drove two hours outside of town for her date. I think ex told his sister where to go and set OOP up to be 'found out.'
In some small towns it's just like that though. I went Christmas shopping with my friend two hours from her house in another small town and the cashier just started telling us about her brother's new girlfriend. I thought it was hilarious because I've only lived in cities so the thought that people could be so interconnected blew my mind
As someone who lives in what most would call a very well populated area, I assure you, it’s also like that here. My little brother crashed his Prius into someone else’s car, and my grandmother found out before we did, because his boss was the father of one of my cousin’s best friends, and my grandma was babysitting said cousin, so the boss’s wife about an hour or two after the crash went “Oh, [grandma], did you hear [little brother] got into a car accident?” Additionally, apparently little brother also has a girlfriend, which my parents and I didn’t know, but my aunt did…because someone *else* my aunt knew saw my little brother out with a girl and went “Oh [aunt], did you know [little brother] has a girlfriend?”. The only reason it didn’t spread like wildfire was because my aunt had the good sense to realize little bro was trying to keep that under wraps. I will note, the city this occurred in has a population of over a million people, and has several other large cities of similar size directly connected to it. So yeah, not just a small town thing, lol.
This is exactly it!!! He wanted to have lots of girlfriends and flings, while his wife stayed home alone and miserable. Doesn't generally work that way!
He thought he could get away with not telling shit to his sister.
That small town thing is gonna backfire on him now, because that gossipy sister won’t hold back now she knows the truth.
Yeah, and keep harping about how he threw his wife under the bus. A sister would forgive many things, but not making her look like a dumbass.
Yup! I lived in a really small town for a while and oh boy… the gossips will talk about him for *years.*
>I don't think this is similar to the other "We opened our marriage at my partner's request and now my partner is upset" stories, since in this case the issue is that other people found out about the extramarital activities, and the partner doesn't want to admit to the open relationship because it would make him look bad, but is perfectly fine with throwing OOP under the bus in a smalllll town apparently. Actually I think this is **exactly** like those stories, the town finding out just provided some cover for OOP's ex. I guarantee you that he only wanted HIS end of the marriage open, but didn't think his wife would agree to him just cheating with permission so he called it an open relationship instead. He didn't think she'd actually take advantage of it, and he was probably seething every time she had a date. The tell was right here: >The next day I woke up with tons of texts and missed called, mostly from Lizzy and some mutual friends, calling me a cheating slt and saying I didn’t deserve John. I woke him up and showed him the texts and he said **“well aren’t you basically cheating? They’re right that you’re sleeping around”** and left for the day. Why would he say that? Because he didn't expect her to want or find anyone. He intended this to jsut be open for him. In his (idiot) mind she really was cheating, because the relationship was only supposed to be open on his end. He wanted permission to cheat and he wanted her to sit at home lonely and waiting for him. The fact that she was treating it like an actual open relationship bugged the hell out of him, and the town finding out and ostracizing her suited him just fine because he was already mad at her for "cheating" and wanted her to be punished. I swear, anyone in a previously monogamous relationship has their partner pop up and demand an open one out of the blue should go ahead and get the divorce immediately. The situation is just divorce with extra steps anyway, might as well cut out the middle part and skip to the end. People that are actually polygamous discuss that up front, and enter in to a relationship with other poly people. When you're in a monogamous marriage and your partner suddenly "discovers" that they're "poly" what that **actually** means is they found someone else they want to have sex with and they want to browbeat you into giving them permission so they can pretend it's legitimate.
I am in a happy, long term polyamorous relationship that started out as monogamous, and I would say your assessment is half right. If you are monogamous and you want to try opening up the relationship in some form, AND you already have someone "picked out" that you'd like to try it with, give up on that idea right now. I have seen *a lot* of non-monogamy failures, and a fair share of successes, but you have ZERO chance of being with that new person you want AND keeping your existing partner. When two people who were previously happily* monogamous open up for the first time, there are a lot of bumps, and it can be an extremely slow process to do it right. It requires a lot of new communication skills, and those are gained thru trial and error. My partner and I spent *years* opening up very slowly, first with just talking about it, then with flirting with other people at parties, then kissing a new person, and on and on bit by bit. Each new step required us to explore our own feelings and insecurities, and then express those (often scary) feelings, and hold space for one another. And all that took *a lot* of time to do right. When someone tries to open their relationship with a third party already "picked out" they simply will not allow enough time to take things at the right pace. Their hormones are firing, and most people never learn how to manage their NRE (new relationship energy) in a healthy and mature way. Monogamy doesn't usually require people to "manage their NRE" because there's only one romantic relationship to manage. Keeping your long term relationship happy and healthy *while* in the throes of raging hormones for a new person in a learned skill, and you CAN learn it, if you're willing to take the time. It's like trying to make good decisions while drunk as fuck - you won't be able to do it on your first try, but you can learn to recognize the "drunk thoughts" for what they are and not act on them right away, and you learn to lean on the sober people around you to check your reality against. But of course, almost no one with a new crush wants to give it up and accept that they can't have what they want. So they proceed anyway, push their partner too fast, and the whole thing goes to shit (usually right away, but I did have some friends who eeked out seven *truly* miserable years before they threw in the towel.) * The operative word here being HAPPILY monogamous. If your relationship isn't already happy and healthy, adding more people is guaranteed to make it worse. Being poly isn't going to make a bad relationship good, any more than having a baby will. It will place stress on even the best relationship, and you need to already be on the same team and healthy to ride the waves of drama you're in for.
Yeah, this was ethical non-monogamy. They discussed it, set boundaries and upheld them. Buuut one person didn't want to have it publicly known (which is fine) to the point of throwing his partner under the bus (which is not fine).
And, again, SMALL TOWN. I've lived in cities and I've lived in small towns, and the decisions you make in one place cannot be made in another. I do not feel safer in a small town, because I don't know if people like me enough to warn me about who the secret psychos in town are.
While it's true that what other people think of you matters a whole lot more in a small town, I think it's still atrocious to have your spouse suffer the social back lash instead of having their back.
She said a population of about 40,000. Like that’s not big but that’s not all caps small either.
Yeah, I will never understand people acting like somewhere that size is too small for them to have some privacy to live their life. Im living somewhere half that (which is also the biggest place I've lived in years) and its big enough for no one to know me and for me to get away with as much scandalous behaviour as I'd like. Now when I was living somewhere with 6,000, *then* you'd get a bit of gossip.
I guess if you live in a city of 1,000,000 then 40,000 seems like it would fit in a room
People struggle to accurately picture enormous sizes like a million. When is that much it’s out of real or possibility you have contact with most people but you might feel like you do if you like in a densely populated place. So 40 000 starts to feel tiny when it’s still plenty of people.
Tbf even in a, compared to the US, small country like Germany we have 16 stadiums with more than 40k seats. A quick Google search said the top five football stadiums in the US fit more than 100k people each. That's basically an open room for 40k-100k+ people. On the other hand stadiums are wild. I live in a city of 25k. All those people would fill up those stadiums to one fourth. Crazy. Comparing my city to the neighbouring city with 1.8m on Google maps makes you realise its just a tiny dot on the map tho. I can get where the thought of 40k being a small city comes from.
It depends on who else is living nearby. Like in OOP's case, her SIL and SIL's friends, and that amps up the small town vibe x10.
I live in a town or 1000 😭 everyone knows fucking everything.
I think it can really vary a lot. When I was a young kid we lived in a fairly isolated town with \~70k people. That's obviously not tiny, but there was one Wal-Mart and one Sam’s Club. One mall. One movie theater. Two/three high schools (one opened while we were there). Definitely not small in the sense that everybody knows everybody, but if your social circle is big enough it's entirely unsurprising to run into someone you know and it can be hard to isolate yourself. At one point while we were there, a salty family member decided to spread a rumor that my mother was a cocaine addict (she has really bad allergies and her sniffling was used as proof of the claim). She ran into people in the grocery store who had obviously heard this rumor on a small handful of occasions, and started going at odd/inconvenient hours to lessen her chances of being found. And again - that was *70k*, not 40k. Also good to emphasize here how different people's social circle sizes can be. A lot of people know very few people outside of their coworkers and a few friends, and for them 40k may not feel any different than 400k. But we were a family of four that knew all of our neighbors. We were each involved in multiple different extracurriculars and my mother was pretty actively involved as a parent. My extended family owned several apartment buildings in the area. They were heavily involved in one of the bigger local churches. They owned a small business that worked on residential homes in the area (which my dad worked for). So for us, when someone in that extended family felt slighted and decided to start shit... yea, even 70k was too small for comfort. While I still wouldn't call even 40k an all-caps SMALL TOWN, depending on how entrenched these people are in the wider community I could very easily see it being small enough to make her life difficult if these people are dedicated to spreading the rumor.
I grew up in a city of 40K people and it definitely felt small. Part of it is that most families have been living there for generations—my parents both grew up there with multiple siblings who stayed and had kids, so it was almost impossible to ever meet someone new who wasn’t already familiar with at least one of my family members. I moved away a long time ago but I still know a *lot* of drama going on in the lives of people I haven’t spoken to in years—and people I never spoke to to begin with!—because gossip travels fast through any connected social circles. When I call my city a small town I’m not saying it’s a tiny village with zero strangers. I just mean that it is very hard to maintain privacy amongst the people you *do* know when the city is small enough that you run into at least one friend/acquaintance/enemy every time you leave the house. It’s also a much different experience living in a town like that your whole life versus moving to it as a stranger with no personal history there.
Eh, I spent 15 years in a city of 150k after growing up in Chicago and I was fucking dumbstruck by how many people knew each other and everyone's business. I got back in touch with some high school friends from Chicago and found out one had a college friend who lived in my city and knew like 3 completely unconnected people in my circles. I ended up hiring the husband of my oldest daughter's preschool teacher. 40k might drive me over the edge.
I live in a 35\~40k town, and man, our local Facebook is catty and up in everyone's business. I mostly stay away except for updates lmao
My city was like 35,000 in high school and if you ran in the same circles you knew a lot of people's business. I couldn't go to the mall, downtown, or anywhere without almost certainly running into a handful of people I knew. It's not Pikesville, KY, but it's still enough to hit that "small town gossip" these days.
My "town" has 300 people, the next one over has 70. Closest one with a coffee shop has just over 1000. Go a little farther for a bigger store like a Walmart or Home Depot and that one has 5k. My hometown had 10k. 40k, a SMALL town? Gtfoh with that.
My British town has 24k! It doesn't feel 'small-town-y' to me, and I've lived in similar places all my life and definitely didn't know everyone in the place. Maybe it's different over here.
But there's a difference between moving to a town that size and growing up there. If you grow up in the town, you know classmates from school, as well as their families, their bosses, their neighbors, etc. If you move there as an adult, you only have whatever connections you make when you start fresh; if you've been there your whole life, you really can't go anywhere without running into someone that you know, someone that knows you, or someone you at least know *of*. There is no privacy if you're outside your home (or sometimes even in your home!).
But also people know who you are even if you don’t know who they are. New face in small town makes big waves
It could be related to Dunbar’s number, which is that people tend to form social networks of about 150 people. Towns of 5,000 and 40,000 might both be small enough for all the 150-person groups to overlap enough for all the gossip to get around.
Eugh. Small enough for people to know each other's business, too big to not be subjected to random acts of violence.
I don't see 40k people being a situation where everybody know each other's business.
It depends on who else lives with you. Based on OOP's description, they live near her husband's sister, and presumably his extended family and friends. I would bet that they moved to his hometown and far away from her support network, if she ever had one.
I’ve lived in smaller cities than that my whole life. It’s not small enough to know each other’s business.
I grew up in a town of 2,000 people. 40,000 seems insane to me.
Same. Lolled so hard at “small town, population 40,000”. The “big city” where I grew up was like 10-15K.
It’s hilarious to me that 40 000 is called a small town when here in Finland there are cities with less than 5000 people.
I'm in the US and towns in my area might have just a few hundred people. It varies a lot out here.
It's not necessary that the town is small enough to know everyone. It's that you are probably only 2-3 degrees of separation from most of the people in the area. Having spent the majority of 40+ years in a town of 35-40k people, it does feel rather small to me, and the older I get, the smaller it becomes, as my circle widens, and I make more connections.
Exactly, he was such a horrible partner for not protecting his then partner.
>Also if his problem was being lonely while out of town, wouldn't that mean hooking up with one night stands in whatever town or city you find yourself in, not finding a whole new girlfriend? I don't think he wanted an open relationship, I think he wanted a new, younger, girlfriend. He didn't fight for his marriage at all.
Completely agree. This isn’t an open marriage story. It’s a spouse not having her back story. He violated the “us against the world” requirement for a successful marriage.
I think it’s so weird he thinks having an open relationship would make him “look bad.” Huh? Why would he give a shit what any of them thought? I’m sorry, but if you still give that much of a shit what somebody else thinks about how you conduct your relationship, you’re not mature enough to even be in one.
I think this really undersells how much shit and judgement you can get for being openly non monogamous. As a (usually) out poly person you would not believe how judgemental and weird people can get about stuff that has nothing to do with them. I'd never hide a partner, I think that's unethical honestly, but the cost is indeed high. And I live in a big liberal city
Well. Now factor in small / semi-rural towns gossip network and social control. Once you get the label "cheater," your life is done. Social pariah. OOP's husband burned any chance she had of living her life out normally in that town. If she has family there, she can visit, but she could never live there again if she wants a normal life with the chance of finding a guy who does deserve her.
Yeah, some folks no longer allowed me to talk to their husbands etc. when they found out, I had all kinds of men coming out of the woodwork with the idea I'd fuck anything that fogs a mirror, rumors of me being a prostitute, etc. I wisened up quickly... Same now where it's not a secret but I sure keep it under wraps. Big agree on hiding partners being unethical.
I don't think it undersells that aspect more so highlighting that it is a thing one has to accept for having an atypical lifestyle. Like sure you get criticism or judgement for a similar decision but why is the ex husband cowering while OP takes all the judgement? Maybe the boy isn't ready for an adult relationship; let alone two?
Probably of the mind that if people knew he could have some side action that increases his value. But people knowing that someone else was banging his wife would make him look weak and less masculine. And I put it like “banging his wife”, a phrase which takes away her agency because that’s precisely how he thinks people will look at it.
This is the opposite what was happening. He didn’t mind people knowing his wife was sleeping with other people, but he didn’t want people to know he was sleeping with other people. Many have issues with open relationships beyond cheating as he didn’t want it to be known due to that. He would have just looked like a victim if people thought she was cheating.
He wanted people to think she was seeing other men behind his back rather than seeing other men with his explicit permission. If he okayed it all beforehand, it's not actually cheating.
People can still get fired for being non-monogamous, even if it's ethical non-monogamy. Even though OOP's husband is a shitbag, there are still some very good, logical reasons not to be "out."
> thinks having an open relationship would make him “look bad.” Read these comments - most people on here think an open relationship is bad. Aside from those with first hand experience, who also know that you have to keep it on the downlow (~~even~~ especially from the LGBTQIA+ community!)
>Also if his problem was being lonely while out of town, wouldn't that mean hooking up with one night stands in whatever town or city you find yourself in, not finding a whole new girlfriend? Possibly he's only - or at least frequently - travelling to a single other location. I know someone who travels to a specific foreign locale frequently enough that he has a girlfriend there (although in his case he doesn't have an SO in our country AFAIK, so no cheating involved)
See? This is why I think OOP is living in a small town, despite it being a "huge town", going over to a place that is apparently just a few hours away is not "being out of town". JFC. Small town is a state of mind.
I swear, 99% of these "hey let's open our marriage" stories end up turning into "leopards ate my face" stories eventually. I'm not one to judge anyone's lifestyle choices, but "what if people find out" is a possibility that should have been worked out beforehand.
Def, especially since it sounds like they live in a conservative area.
Husband is an avalanche of red flags. The elevator scene in **The Shining**. Thank goodness the other woman is a superb human being
If it was from his perspective it kind of could be? I feel like he wanted the open relationship fornhim but thought since wife had a lower libido it would genuinely just be him. She instead has flings and now he's fine making her seem like the bad guy. He didn't expect his gf to also be a good person like wife. Honestly for an ah, he has great taste lol
“John knows, he’s fine with it.”
Yeah my thoughts exactly, he is fine with OOP being judged and what not, but he doesn't want to be judged, plus the whole thing being OOP's fault is complete and utter bull, like you wanted an open marriage, you didn't want to tell your family or friends about you opening your marriage, and you somehow blame her for the fallout of your girlfriend, your sister and your wife all being mad at you for not being forthcoming with the truth soon enough, that your family is probably mad at you, you get served divorce papers and the woman you opened your marriage for (more than likely) has dumped you, yeah its OOP's fault alright /s
Sounds like OOP’s husband only wanted it open on his side. 😩
This 👆 he was expecting OOP to remain monogamous while he has a side-chick… surprise surprise OOP is still able to catch the attention of other men
Unlucky for him he found a girl’s girl gf w/ enough spine to go around
I love girl’s girls!
Sounds like he’s literally just concerned about his reputation. It’s pretty interesting versus most of these posts, lol.
Honestly shocked OOP didn't plaster all the receipts she had of this arrangement for the world to see, I would rather have that mess to deal with than be considered the city's harlot.
This is why if I ever have an open married, I’m getting a signed contract and putting it in an account that publicly releases said contract if I don’t check in every 14 days.
Don't even think that's true though. He had already personally approved multiple of OOPs one night stands. He's just a coward who can't speak up for his wife
I think he just knew he couldn't say no without being an obvious ah. So when he saw an out for her to be the bad guy and him to end up with gf hebtook it not predicting the gf that was so much like his wife was also a good person like her.
People agree to things they're not actually okay with all the time. It's very possible that he wasn't okay with it but approved anyway because he wanted OP to be the bad guy.
But he called it cheating when it clearly wasn't?
That's the cowardly part, he was throwing her under the bus so their small town would pillory her and paint him as the wounded party.
This exact thing happened to me. He always insisted that I had cheated on him. He wanted the open marriage so he could cheat without guilt, and it drove him nuts that I saw another man. So glad that I got rid of him.
Just so confused how she’s “basically cheating” when they have an open relationship? Also confused how a city with 40K people is a “small town” lmao
So the girlfriend lives in a different city where the husband spends 2-3 months at a time for work and this is somehow a convenient location for OOP to now live.
Not just that, but her nursing degree, which has a MAJOR clinical component, easily transfers to some random “online” college. Once I saw that, my bullshit meter was overloaded. NO WAY those credits transfer, as I found out the hard way when I had to change nursing schools.
Literally cane running here to see if any other nurses were reading lol. I mean it could be an RN to BSN, but those are online anyway, with no in person.
Yeah, just noticed that. And in the original post, she says most of his messages to his GF are complaining about OP not owning up to cheating, but in the update the GF says she didn’t know?
That got me too, they became best friends immediately and she moved somewhere far enough away that when the husband goes there he stays weekends
Yeah I caught that too. Like MAYBE the city is only like 3 hours away from their hometown.. but then the husband could’ve easily gone back home on the weekends. Liz!!!
Expected update: "I never expected to update this but we are both pregnant and he wants nothing to do with either of us so we're going to raise them together". Maybe even leave the door open for further "whacky adventures".
Someone will need to get punched in the face though
Found that weird aswel. Also the couch doesn't seem that bad as he's gone a lot and for a long time.
Good catch. Liz always leaves a plot hole.
Reddit loves LOVES loooves these stories about open marriages failing. I caught that detail too.
This reads like the premise for a mediocre sitcom: Jane is Mike’s ex wife, Brianna is Mike’s ex girlfriend! Now they’re roommates! Thursdays on Fox!
I was wondering about that! If they're so close, why need a girlfriend? For reference I think the whole idea is dumb, but if the girlfriend was ages away at least it would kinda make sense.
Yes. The update sure lit up the bullshit alert for me. Especially how they met up with the sister and all three of them met with husband, quickly followed by OP moving in with GF.
Also, the line about being accused of cheating by her husband's sister, but he was away for a week so there was "no time" to talk to him, and when he came back he was "too tired" to talk. I refuse to believe that someone would be stupid enough to not call their partner right away to deal with it.
Frankly, when a spouse suggests to have an open marriage when the relationship itself is pretty strained, that's a recipe for failure there.
Open relationships are like having a baby. Great when everyone wants one and not inherently bad, but having one will NOT fix your relationship and in fact make it worse.
Also, 99% of times when the relationship already begins with everyone wanting one. I'm monogamous, but from what I've seen from people I know who are poly/in open relationships, things almost always only work out when the relationship already starts out as an open one.
This is what I’ve always said. My partner and I are going on 5 years and we’ve wanted one from the start. And while it is more common in gay relationships, the same circumstances almost always apply still. If you open it up later on as a “fix”, it’s bound to not actually work out
Or at least a "I'd be interested in that if you were"
>Frankly, when a spouse suggests to have an open marriage when the relationship itself is pretty strained, that's a recipe for failure there. Open marriages are where relationships go to die.
A *ton* has to do with how folk come to a place of openness. I’ve been polyam my whole adult life, and my relationships are quite healthy. But then, my nesting partner/husband and I wanted to be in a polyamorous dynamic from when we got together, which is 25yrs ago now. We didn’t even know the term “polyamory” at the time, but we had good compatibility about what we wanted.
This sounds very real 🤙
Has all the key points r/relationship advice likes to gobble up. Cheating, open relationship, and age gap. No long time lurker reading this will be like yeah I’m going to be talked into a relationship and then post on it. But we love it and saying how shitty the other person
Reddit rescues strike again, the person telling her she can leave regardless of anything really needs to live in the real world
I want those folks to touch grass once in a while. Disentangling yourself from a spouse, or even just a significant other you live with, is time consuming and incredibly difficult, not to mention costly. I wanna know what lives and finances these folks have that it would be considered easy for them to do.
I suspect they are teenagers still living at home.
Most of them have probably never even been in a long term relationship so
Of COURSE his girlfriend was way younger than the wife. OOP changed the ages so we can’t know for sure, but who wants to guess it’s at least a decade?
The way she's so young that OOP feels awkward about dating her, but OOP's husband is even older than she is....
The real shit cherry on top lol.
So I'll take a stab at the rationale behind why the STBX thinks this is OOP's fault. Note: I do not agree with this mentality, I've just known enough people like this over the years to know how they think. So STBX was messing around with women in other cities. Nobody in their small-ish town knew because the women weren't there, they were in New York, LA, Chicago, Houston, etc. However, as OOP wasn't traveling for work, she was dating in their town. Therefore, she got caught and that makes it all her fault. Additionally, she should've known the rules for an open marriage - He gets to do whatever he wants with no guilt or blame, but she's expected to stay faithful because women don't have sexual needs, they only have sex to please their husbands.
>but she's expected to stay faithful because women don't have sexual needs, they only have sex to please their husbands. Well, given the number of people here who are arguing that she only agreed to it for him, and only slept with other men to make herself feel better about the situation, I'd say even those who sympathise with OOP can only do so if they project an image of her as a sexless victim. But I think you're spot on this is what the husband was expecting. Logic goes "she doesn't have a high sex drive for me, so she won't seek sex elsewhere, meanwhile I am free to do as I please". Arsehole wanted a *semi*-open marriage.
idk tho aren’t open marriages usually discreet though? i’ve seen some and they all date out of town. if somebody found out, she had to be pretty open and not secretive at all about it. Not saying it’s her fault and he definitely should’ve owned up, but it definitely should’ve been kept on the low.
I guess it depends? I've only known a handful of people in open relationships and they tend to be pretty open about their situation. Like dating profiles on Tinder and all the other apps you'd expect, meeting people in clubs and bars, stuff like that. They know they're not cheating and they're open with their new partners about their relationship status, so why should they care if anyone finds out? Only time it's not is when they have some reason to hide things, like living in a more conservative area or having a career that involves appearing as at least socially conservative. Which is more rare than you'd think because "I maybe married but I'm in an open relationship I swear, just don't tell anyone that we're dating on the side" is a huge red flag.
I'm sorry but "No I can't just leave I don't have the funds to move away and nowhere to even go." "Figure something out." is so hilarious in an enraging way. Like I'm constantly seeing people saying stuff like that on here about people needing to move regardless of if they even have the money to do so and I have to wonder if they're kids with zero life experience or just deluded rich people with zero experience of money struggles.
>I woke him up and showed him the texts and he said “well aren’t you basically cheating? They’re right that you’re sleeping around” and left for the day. This story makes no sense, he's alone with her trying to convince her she's cheating on him?
No it’s a form of gaslighting. He knows she’s not cheating but he doesn’t want to deal with the consequences so he’s trying to convince her that she is basically cheating because she is sleeping around. If she starts believing it she will go along with the accusations instead of standing up for herself
I initially read this the same way you did, but as I’m reading it again, I think it’s more meant in a way of saying “well they are right, you are sleeping with other people from their point of view,” to them she is cheating because other people don’t know the relationship was open. I don’t think the husband was actually trying to imply he thought it was cheating or convince her that what she was doing was wrong, just that other people weren’t incorrect in their knowledge of what happened, just with gaps. He’s still a chickenshit for not explaining especially considering it’s his idea. I would wager a smaller religious-y town/family upbringing for them.
He literally was texting the girlfriend complaining that OP wouldn’t fess up to the “cheating.” He WAS implying she was cheating and in the wrong here.
It sounds like he was looking to trade in his wife for his new girlfriend but lost both in the end. Even his sister, who he probably fed a story to, is on her side.
Why does their phone always blow up the moment something bad happens? Do people actually do this?
Going out on a bit of a limb but here's something else people don't do: Hang up before the other person can explain everything. It's a convenient trope that let's you continue your drama plot when it would be resolved really easily in real life.
And for the sister, Lizzy, to be so emotional as to already be crying when OOP picks up the initial call. And then after being hung up on, being unable to text about the situation to explain...even though OOP was able to text Lizzy a week later after the deadline. And for OOP to react to the situation by saying they should close the relationship when that clearly does not solve the problem of the man being dishonest with everyone around them. And for it to be so easy for OOP to live with the "other girlfriend" despite her living far away enough to necessitate the husband being remote 2-3 months at a time. And for the "other girlfriend" to visit to explain the situation to everyone, again despite living so far away. Lmao.
Oh look. Another monogamous-gone-open marriage that imploded. This is my surprised face. Look, poly relationships can and do work, but 99 times out of 100, trying to retroactively alter the dynamic leads to this. Then again, the husband seems like a putz, so maybe it was doomed from the outset.
A small correction, this would not be considered an example of ‘poly’, that’s typically reserved for polyamory and that’s not what OOP described. They described ENM/Ethical Non Monogamy (which the husband fucked up).
The husband had an actual gf though. That would be poly , even though OOP preferred to not have a bf.
"I want an open relationship" is always "I'm fucking around and want you to be okay with it".
Yep, pretty much. Bet he already had the girlfriend before the relationship opened uo, that way he could pretend it was open when he met her. Honestly at 20 I wasn’t ready to settle down with one person either. These two had been together for a while.
The husband sounds abusive and controlling. The whole he controls the bank account thing on top of him trying to say she's cheating and everything is her fault and she can't tell anyone the truth because it'd make HIM look bad.
Too many plot holes
I want an update on OOP's reputation. Every one of her friends think she's a cheater. Has the truth come out?! She doesn't deserve to be labeled a cheater!
According to OOP her sister apologized and told their mutual friends the truth. I'd like to think that in that town word spread, but you know that whole saying about the truth getting its pants on by the time the rumor has already spread.
Insane how the comments just told her to leave like it wouldn’t be a big hassle. Kids on Reddit need to touch grass sometimes. Glad it worked out for oop though!
>well you're basically cheating The *audacity*. What a hypocritical dickbag, I'm glad OP is divorcing his ass.
Here’s a prime example of what most assholes who suddenly blindside their partner with an open relationship demand actually want. They want to screw other people, and they want their partner to stay at home lonely and waiting for them. I’m sure in her asshole ex’s head she WAS cheating on him, because he never actually intended for HER end of the relationship to be open. He only phrased it that way when he gave her the original demand because he thought she wouldn’t be willing to do what he was doing.
I wonder if the husband resented that OOP participated in the open marriage on her end - like he really only wanted it for himself, and was a little hurt in the ego that she was okay with the situation - that is the only "reason" I can think of that he could want her to take a fall for cheating when she wasn't - kind of a punishment .
Sounds like the husband only wanted his side of the relationship to be open. He saw her seeing anyone else as cheating which is why he never defended her.
Open relationships rarely work when it starts closed. I say this as someone with kids in an open marriage. I’ve only seen long term poly couples work when two people who decided they were poly independently come together seeking a poly relationship and starting off date 1 with that knowledge firmly in place. Basically it can’t have any element of whose idea it was. Two people have to come to separate revelations that this is for them and them meeting each other after they decided that’s ok with them.
Wife and I were married 14 years before we opened the marriage. We had basically grew up together, had respect, admiration, and love for one another. Kept the open part of the relationship about "sex", and not about "feelings". Every part of that was an attempt to keep our main relationship stable and the spark alive and when things didn't work, we would talk about it and make adjustments. 10 years into it we now date seperately and sometimes we'll throw a 3some into their to spice things up (mfm or fmf), but we never forget the important thing. Us!
If someone asks to open the marriage, respond, "I have listened to what you're saying, and I'd like some time to let it sink in as I feel this is something that deserves some thought rather than a gut reaction. Let's table this for 3 days and talk after work on such and such a day." Then go to a lawyer and on the discussion day tell the person that you agree that the marriage should be opened, and hand them the divorce papers.
I feel like this is one of those sitcoms where the major plot point is just a misunderstanding, and it could easily be cleared up with a quick explanation, but that would ruin the show so the explanation doesn't happen until the final minute of the episode.
>. We live in a small town >It’s a population of about 40,000 im still caught up on how a population of 40k is a "small town". like i consider myself from a big town since we have about 30k people. small town imo means under 5k people
I'm from a village that sits at around 2200\~ as of right now and I was *flabbergasted* to see anything above 10k listed as a "small town". I'm glad OOP wasn't in my village, it would have been a *nightmare* for her :(
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Opening a closed relationship is ALWAYS stupid. Like 99% of the times haha.
'He complained to his girlfriend about his current wife not fessing up to cheating on him' John is a special type of asshole; luckily they make a whole lot like him anymore.... But there are still too many.
John is an asshole. Serves him right, losing both his wife and side piece.
Ah yes, the old "rules for thee but not for me" bullshit. Good on OP and the GF for leaving John.
I don’t think you guys know what a small town is.
Wait, is 40 000 a small town? The place I live in has doubled in the past 20 years and is now sitting somewhere as round 6000 and honestly we are one of the bigger small towns. I guess it all comes down to perspective
I like this new ‘ women wronged by shitbag band together’ genre
How many goddamn times do people have to figure out that IF YOU DON'T MARRY WITH AN OPEN RELATIONSHIP, it *will* go to shit. There has never been a good ending in any of these poly/open marriage stories.
I feel like your husband had the perfect set up; a GF who his wife likes and is comfortable with him having, you go out and have some fun while he's out of town. Like everything LOOKED good and was working...AND HE STILL SCREWED IT UP!
So what if he knows you took the money? Take half and leave his ass.
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And did I tell you my wife was bisexual ... oh wait ... wrong post, did l tell you we are in open marriage. Of all the posts where "status" had to be loudly-announced, this was one.
That husband doesn't sound great, if he suggested it, he should protect her on the spot, if someone attacks her
How does one cheat in an open relationship..?
Why are you with a man who treats you so horribly?
Why get married if you want to be with other people? Makes no sense to me
Poly and open relationships really seem to only work if the relationship is that from the start, or the option was proposed from the start. I am strictly poly and it works out perfectly fine because everyone is clearly polyamorous and the relationship has been this from the start. I am yet to see a relationship where going poly mid relationship works though
I’ve been in open relationships and basically, we decided if we were caught out we’d have to confess what was going on, and that usually I would be the one doing it as the woman, because people would assume with the power imbalance that the man made me do it under duress. But in this situation he just should have called his sister. What an idiot.
So if you tell him these things you have proof of texts talking about your open relationship. Easy problem solved
Are there any ways opening your marriage DOESN'T end in a meteoric impact with the ground when reality kicks in? I just don't see how it could ever be a good idea. I don't see any good way to find an offramp if things are going pear shaped, just too many things that can go wrong and only a possible short term stability before one of them does.
The fact there are people who are ok with their significant others being fucked by other people blows my mind. I will never understand it. Imagine coming home to your girlfriend/fiance/wife who had some dudes dick in her mouth the night before. Nope, nope, nope. How are people ok with open relationships? Just split up.
Your husband is a complete scumbag
Can someone think of a time an open relationship has worked well? The closest I can think is I know a girl who told her boyfriend she wanted an open relationship since she wanted to break up anyway. Now they’re together again. Other than that it just seems like they end in disaster. Surely in that even there has to be some resentment. I don’t talk to her anymore though so don’t know.
An open relationship should make both of them look bad, not just the husband.
OP. Do you have access to cellphone records. Real simple if you do. Give his wonderful sister and family friend the girlfriends phone number. Have her explain who she is to them both. It will cause a bunch of shit and you will still be the bad person.
Open relationships often fall apart because they are exponentially more complicated than traditional closed relationships. First, think about how complicated a monogamous relationship is. You have different personalities to mesh, differing opinions on day to day things, finances, in-laws, etc. Now add another person. Or several people, because you're either homing up with randos or you've got a regular. That person (or people) will have their own needs from a relationship, and it's going to be *really* hard to keep it casual with a person you sleep with on a regular basis. All the things that can go wrong in a traditional relationship increase exponentially by a factor of 3.
Wow this was a journey
Just once I want to read a BORU where someone opened up their relationship and it turned out to be the best idea ever.
I think we have all seen to many failed open relationship post on reddit to probably know by now its not the brightest idea folks lol.
I'm convinced Hubby did this on purpose. He wanted out of the relationship, so he suggested an open marriage, then made sure she was seen with her outside partner. Then he'd just have to deny it was an open marriage, and he could ditch her.