my husband and i have been discussing all weekend if we should serparate. we tried marraige counseling but it only worked for a little bit. he told me tonight that he loves me and wants to be with me but wants an open marriage temporaly to see if this is the life he really wants. am i crazy to go along with it? i told him he has 6 months to do what he needs to do and then he needs to make a final decision. any advice???

What would happen if you didn't go along with it?

we would separate.

Then I recommend separating. Let him see what he'll be doing without.

Jenn...

I hope you are reading Harley's articles, like the Basic Concepts, Coping with Infidelity, Love Busters, which are on this website.

In your first post on your other thread, I didn't see what you learned in MC, what new tools you acquired which helped your marriage when your H wanted to separate before.

I believe Open Marriages is infidelity. What matters is what you think. What you believe. Do not betray your own beliefs to get or keep someone else...that's participating in fantasy and blame-shifting. You can stand for your vows (which were exclusively between you and your WH) and let go the outcome.

Your H sounds like he's in a wayward state of mind. Learn about it...a poster here said than affair is the embodiment of entitlement, fueled by resentment and lack of respect. See it as a formula.

We create and maintain our own resentments...we can feel overwhelmed by the responsibilities we take on in reality, and soothe with fantasy (pretending we didn't choose). Up to you to know these are choices...the responsibilities remain.

Find out on your own what your H has been up to since January...go through cell phone bills, check his email accounts...see the history in the browser. You can independently find out the truth of actions...helps with clarity on your own decisions.

Choose not to see him as staying with you only for your child as a put down. Your child is real...often is the only tether to reality when in a wayward state of mind. Whatever justification one uses to do the right thing...focus on the right thing, 'k?

Don't rob your own love bank...your (W)H sounds like he's more than capable of making withdrawals. Don't add to it, 'k?

Love is a choice you made...and you chose to love H and have children together. Know you love, your own choice, even when you don't have those loving feelings...we get those as a result of our actions...rely on knowing you both can fall in love with each other again and again.

You know what creates distance, resentment and conflict in a marriage? Going along to get along...it's a form of manipulation and gives us the experience we are enemies, not allies, in our marriage.

Your choices matter...you are half the marriage.

LA

Greetings Newbie & welcome to the site

On the Infidelity General Questions forum II (GQII) I have a thread where I store all the "notable posts" that have caught my eye, so I can easily reference them when I need to.

I have a favorite post by Star*fish that discusses her views on "open marriage", or "open infidelity" as I like to call it.

Anyway, please heed our words of warning. We've seen this disaster over and over on these boards.



* here is the link *


Pep

Thanks for all the advice. I keep going back and forth. should i stay or go. part of me want to leave him and move on and the other part wants to give it one more shot so that i dont have any doubts. i dont want to go back and forth. leaving him would be a final decison and i dont want to make the wrong one. i feel if i give him the 6 months to get his "crap" figured out,then at least i know i did everything in my power to stay together. this august would be three years of marriage. i feel like if he is unsure of me, i should leave. i think he should be sure of me by now. we have a 2 year old daughter together. i want to do what is best for her. i want to be a family but i cant stay with him if he doesnt truly love me. =(

That doesn't make any sense. Loves you/wants to be with you, wants open marriage to see IF he wants you/wants to be with you?

This isn't even swinging together as a couple. Scratching head. This is like ok, honey, let me run around and decide what I want - you sit tight, I might be back. Well. Isn't that nice of him. And IF he comes back ("to the marriage") he'll have his mind all made up forever and ever and not want to block out some more "play time" while you wait on the bench??

I'm totally with you on the trying hard and giving it one more shot. It shows your commitment to the marriage and I think that is exactly what it required of married persons. If you aren't sure you're ready to leave, and have the strength TO keep trying, you have your answer. However, I urge you to rethink allowing him six-months to make up his mind...at least in the fashion it's been proposed. Smacks too much of "cake-walking" (having his cake and eating it too, at your expense entirely).


Yeah, I think you're right.


Ok, let's angle this around for a different view. How is it best for your D that your home has a revolving front door for daddy? What presents might he bring home today, a pretty assortment of STD's to share with mommy and make her sick? A little half sister or brother for your D with another woman? Less income for YOUR family while he's required to pay child support for THAT child? Then, ultimately, if you decide to separate/divorce, now he's got TWO orders for support, one to you, one to that other woman, and somebody's gonna get stiffed 'cause there isn't enough money to go around.

What if he messes around with a psycho woman? Fatal Attraction - rabbit in the pot kinda stuff. Too extreme? Do you want to take the chance of finding out??

There's another aspect to this. Jenni, how can he respect you if you allow him to DO this? We talk a lot here on these forums about not being a doormat (research Plan A). To me, this proposal is being a doormat. Duh, ok, walk all over me going out, and walk all over me coming back....I'll be here...hanging around...don't worry about tracking in any mud on me, I'm just a freakin' door mat to be used.....!!!!

Can you "make" him stay? Of course not. The choice is his (as well as yours). But you also don't have to make it so horribly easy for him to cheat on you. You are endorsing it AS OKAY with this 6-month thing. Is it okay? Are you just as enthusiastic about it as he is?

What to do? I would suggest you tell him you've thought about it, and this isn't a good solution. It he wants to leave, you certainly don't want him to, but you will accept his decision. Leaving doesn't grant him the guarantee that you will be waiting when and if he changes his mind later. What you'd rather do now is marriage counseling, and trying to fulfill his needs. See if he will fill out the EN questionnaire with you, get to the bottom of what the problems are and start working on improving the marriage....rather than the path to resentment, distrust, and probably even (more) loss of love. Tell him to consider your daughter and both of you trying your very best to do what's best for your marriage, and for her. I think if it were me, I'd worry less about making the wrong decision by presenting this speech, than offering a 6-month get out of jail free card while he keeps wandering around the board...stopping by his own property while he keeps buying others. Know what I mean? What do you think?

There is NO such thing as an OPEN MARRIAGE. A marriage is a convenant, a comittment to each other. It sounds like there may be some infidelity here. Why else would he want to have his cake and eat it too? Sorry, it's hard for you to hear but you need to be strong and tell him NO. He can not have an open marriage. He needs to work on your marriage and seek counseling!

Sounds to me like he's already cheating on you. Be diligent and find out.

I hope he's not, but I'll bet he is...

You will hate yourself if you do this. Absolutely loathe and detest the person you become. If you are willing to throw away your morals to satisfy your husband's sick whim, what kind of wife and mother are you?

Short version: Don't even think about it!

My WW suggested the same thing a little over a year ago. I've spent the last several months coming to understand what her statement really represents, at the bottom-line level: it means she is a coward. I did not like that realization, but it is what it is. She really doesn't want to be married anymore, but is too chicken to just come out and say such a difficult thing.

So....she sought out some twisted and simpler version of marriage (in her mind, LOL) in which we don't have to confront the really difficult issues between us. Then she pitched it to me. My response was the same as the previous posters on this thread (STDs, fatal attraction, our kids being exposed, etc.).

None of it really registered with her. She is too busy listening to the bizarre little scripts and competing voices inside her head to really pay attention and to think clearly about it. She simply continued to try to rationalize her course and, when I refused to accept it, went back to pretending that everything was okay between us.

Tonight, I saw the previews/trailers/commercials for the new major network series entitled "SwingTown". Made me want to puke... It (the commercial) dredged up my own feelings about her proposition and further strengthened my resolve to find a way to end this (non-)marriage between us. It's so sad to see a major network glamorize the swinging lifestyle...Hollywood will do anything for a buck!

Good luck. Be true to yourself. Get clear with what you value in life. You will survive this episode in your life and you will find someone who will respect and honor you.

We were switching channels last night and that show came on, and it literally made me nauseous. The one couple was urging the woman of the other couple to go in the bedroom, but the husband, you could tell, really didn't want to, but he did. I made my H turn the channel.

There are some people who would welcome an open marriage. I have at least one friend who chose to enter an open marriage, and he has been very happy and together with his wife for over 10 years now. The key was that they entered into the marriage with certain expectations, and they have set rules for themselves about what "open" is going to mean. If either one of them violated those rules, I'm sure there would be just as much trouble as if someone in a traditional "closed" marriage had an affair.

Here, the key is that temporarily "opening" the marriage is a violation of your marriage in personal expectations, religiously (if applicable), and possibly legally. To change the rules of a marriage, both parties have to be enthusiastically agreeable to it. Think of it like amending the Constitution: you have to have nigh 100% acceptance for it to happen. Same thing with changing marital rules.

You must stand up for yourself and not allow him to make decisions about the marriage you share with them on his own. My guess is that he has made other, smaller changes to the rules that you may not have even really noticed because he didn't ask you, but has placed you in a relationship different from the one you wanted and given him reason to believe that he can make such a big change now.

He is the one making you feel like you are forcing him to leave if you don't allow it. He is choosing to leave because he doesn't want to play by the rules you agreed on. Allowing the marriage to continue while he does whatever he wants can only lead to him abusing you emotionally. I had a friend who let her husband do the same sort of thing, and consequently he had numerous simultaneous affairs (that produced children!). She kept forgiving him and only got free when he committed suicide. As a result of all this she is severally depressed, paranoid, and delusional. Don't let something like this happen to you.