My wife and I have been married for 5 1/2 years. Things have been going down hill since she told me she wanted an open marriage 2 years ago. To me that was "Hey, I want to go have sex with other people. Is that cool with you?" I have struggled with it and a month ago decided to move out. We have 2 daughters 4 and 2. The hardest thing was leaving them. We've been in marriage counseling and have another meeting tonight. Over the past month, I've had to do a lot of searching and she finally told me some things that have bothered her since we were dating. I've come to realize that my ambitions and dreams did selfishly come first, but I did not hear any objections from her until now. At the time, I believed that I was doing what was best for the family in moving and starting a new job. I am a very private person and do not share my feelings with anyone. She also has been very closed to me. I care for her very much. I want her to be happy and do well, but, and I feel really bad for saying this, I don't want it to be with me. I used to think that she was my soul mate; that we'd spend the rest of our lives together. Now, I just want to move on. She is keeping up the lovey and trying to get me to come back. I don't want to. How do I tell her this without absolutely crushing her?

C80-
How did the meeting go tonight?
Why don't you share your feelings with ANYONE?

Leaving her wont make you less selfish. I think it might be a good idea to work on becoming less selfish first. Otherwise you might just repeat the same behavior in other relationships.


I'm guessing that there is a lot of unfulfilled emotional needs on both sides. It may not be what you want right now, but if you work on meeting her emotional needs now, and you are unsuccessful, you may learn a little. It would be better to try first. You can always leave, but you would be giving up an opportunity to learn how to meet another person's needs in the future.

Try reading everything you can on this site. There is a lot of great informaition here. It's not always easy to put into practice, but its worth the effort.

There was something that you saw in each other at the beginning. What was it? Isn't it still there, just buried under resentment and wrong things said? Divorce is not a great option (in non-abusive situations) unless you turn your life around in doing so, to find out what went wrong and how to do it better. But then, if you do that, aren't you back to where you were in the first place, being attracted to the same woman? You're looking at her through a filter of bad feelings and tons of other stuff, which isn't fair.

Can't you imagine a great place where the two of you actually do share with each other, where you're each other's best friend, and you can share secrets about yourself with the one person who will never judge you and will support you and give you great advice and help you grow in that career of yours? She is the one person you are supposed to be totally intimate with, and she would probably jump at the chance if you'd just let her in. Have you followed all the advice here, taken the questionnaires, asked each other the hard questions, reached some agreements? If not, then leaving and divorcing is a chicken-sh*t way out, and you will just continue to make bad decisions and wreck more potential relationships.

Also, do you really want to do this to your daughters? Daughters who grow up without their fathers have something like a 75% chance of making worse mistakes than you are currently making. Sure, you can say you'll visit them and have them on weekends. But what happens when you remarry? Suddenly, they are priority number 3 or 4, or even lower, if you start another family, and they will know it . I promise you, they will. They will be more likely to have sex at age 11, to try drugs, to drop out of school, and to marry an abusive man.

Think about what you are really wanting. Sounds like you're just still being selfish, to me.

btw, your wife wanting an open marriage? That was a distress signal...two years ago. Did you do anything at the time to try to repair the marriage?

The meeting last night went well. We talked a little more, getting back to friendly. I want to be good friends. I just don't think I can go back to the marriage.

catperson, I'm not sure anymore what it was that first attracted me. I was a geek, still am, and she was a cheerleader. Maybe it was just teenage hormones. I thought, at the time, that I really did love her and wanted to spend the rest of our lives together.

Looking back, I've realized things that I had either ignored or just missed. The open relationship was a shock to me, but I should have seen it coming. She had tried to talk to me before about it and made comments and hints toward that effect. While we were still dating, she went out with friends one night and ended up making out, getting felt up, and dry humped by some guy. A few months later she wanted to put our relationship on "pause" so she could date other people. Like she would go out with other guys and when she was done, I would be there waiting for her. We split for a month over that, but I just put it all behind me. After we got back together, it took 4 times for her to finally say "Yes". I realize now that I pressured her and her family pressured her into marriage before she was ready. I wanted to get married and was ready, so I thought. She was afraid that I would leave if she kept putting me off.

When she sprung the open marriage thing on me, I was working in another city. I thought that being away so much was the problem. I had been trying to save up some money to buy a house there and move the family. The next day, I took her to a realtor and we starting looking for a house. 2 months later, we bought a house and moved in. I was home every night now and we were together more. The open marriage thing kept coming back up. I tried to play it down and not really talk about it. She wanted me to define the relationship and it's borders. I told her that I wasn't comfortable with her having outside relationships but I wasn't going to tell her what she can or can't do. I don't want to put limits on her, but she knew that I wasn't ok with it. I thought I could get past her wanting to have sex with other people. She seemed to become more and more unhappy. She is bisexual and really wanted a girlfriend. I wanted to make her happy and she wasn't. I compromised and agreed that I would be ok with a girlfriend. I don't know what I was thinking. It was last ditch effort fearing that she was going to leave me. She wasn't really satisfied with that. We started having more problems, and I was growing more distant, though not intentionally. One night when having a very emotional discussion, she told me that she wanted to have the open relationship, but I would stay monogamous. I had no desire to have any other partner and told her so. She suggested "wife swapping" so I could participate and have sex too. Umm, no. I did not want to have sex with other women and I didn't want her to have sex with other guys. A few months later she accused me of having an affair and so did her family. I have told my wife nothing other than I wanted only her. I even tried not to look at other women. I never made comments about other women. I hated to answer the "do you think she's sexy?" question we all seem to get. This was confusing since she told me she wanted to have the open relationship and wanted to have outside partners. We had another emotional discussion where she told me that she wasn't wearing her wedding ring to work because there was this new guy. She didn't want him to know she was married. She also told me, and I quote, "I want to f**k him". And 3 weeks later, I left.

She says she wants me back. From conversations we've had, she doesn't seem to realize what just wanting to have sex with other people has done to me. We both are in agreement that she wants more than just me. She is keeping the open relationship option close by.

C80,

Are you still on MB? The reason that I ask is that your situation was so earily similar to mine. After years of marriage, my wife came to me and said she wanted to have an open relationship, etc., etc. Wow! I thought that I was alone in what had happened to me...

For me, her disclosure came out one year ago. I've spent the last year agonizing over what to do and how to proceed. We tried counseling to no avail.

Also, my WW has essetially admitted to being bisexual as well. She disclosed to me that she was sexually attracted to her best friend and that she has also shared this information with her friend.

Not sure where this will end up, but thought we could compare notes and offer each other some advice.

Thanks,
LiesRedux

P.S. My screen-name comes from the fact that this is not her first (covered up by her lies) affair during our marriage.