I'm not real sure where to begin.

Let me start with saying that I love my wife.

My wife and I meet back when she was 15 and I was 20. She was in high school and I was just starting college. We were each others real first loves and first sexual partners.

We dated for a couple years then moved in together. We got married after being together almost 4 years. We have now been married 10 years and have two children.

Now our relationship is a bit out of the main normal of marriages. We decided to become swingers (sharing each other sexually with others).

We typically had rules we followed and such. Usually only with couples and with single man with me around. During the early stages of this experience with this lifestyle my wife discovered she is bisexual. I'm ok with that.

After about 5 or so years into our marriage (about 9 years together) we tried her being with a guy alone without me. I didn't really like it. This guy liked to buy gifts for is partners. We never accepted them but my wife thought it was cool and a saw him a view times without my knowledge or permission. I count this as affair one. Also durning this time time she ended up being with the man of a a couple she knew. We as a couple never had meet with them or done anything with them. I count this as affair two.

After I found out about these two we talked and argued a lot. I never could forget about them. They always in the back of my mind. My wife agreed to not ever see or speak with them again (which to my knowledge she has kept up.) We also started an open text and email policy between us and after reading things on this site that sounded like all very correct and wise things.

But we never seemed to be quite the same. My wife at the time worked overnights and I worked day shift. So we rarely see each other. That is hard on me. I love spending time with her and wish for us to do a lot together. During the time after her two affairs she got a girlfriend that I didn't like or approve of but she perused the relationship anyway.

This made things much harder on us and my wife would spend most of her time with her girlfriend and I felt like I was losing time that should be mine to her girlfriend. We would have a lot of fights over her girlfriend and how I didn't like her. After about 9 months my wife and her girlfriend broke up.

We after that her and i would have our good times and bad times but I still couldn't forget her affair or how bad things gotten between us always fighting about her girlfriend.

Now recently in July she met up with another man. I found this by once going in one of her emails. I found this out in like September. I confronted her about it and we got in a fight over it. She said "I was pissed so decided I'd do it"

So that's affair number 3.

She's also gotten a new girlfriend that we've both been with but I don't fully trust the new girlfriend either.

My wife feels she needs privacy and I shouldn't expect to know or have access to all her texts, emails, and facebook to make sure she isn't cheating or lying to me.

She says she feels like she is being controlled, spied on, has no privacy, etc and that isn't right. We should have trust. She's gone as far as to install new programs that I don't know about on her phone in order to chat with her girlfriend (maybe others I'm not sure) that doesn't log and doesn't want me to see.

Now tonight she planned and went out with her girlfriend without even talking to me or asking if I thought it was ok. I'm thinking of this as affair number 4. Since just a week or so ago her and I agreed that cheating (or an affair) is any sexual act or being naked with anyone without each other's knowledge and permission. She doesn't believe this counts since this is her girlfriend she is with and not someone else.

Guess I just don't know how to stop the fighting and get her to stop lying and hiding things from me. I know our marriage is not the typical but I need some advice. I want to get pass all this and make it better for both of us.

I really need some guidance.

Are you willing to give up your swinger lifestyle? With or without "permission" of being with other people, and opposite-sex friendships (and also boundaries of same-sex for her)?

If so, we can help. If you believe sex outside your marriage is okay as long as you both agree to it, then MB principles will not work for your marriage.

Your call, please let us know if you would like our help

I could give it up but I know she feels that she can't just have me. She feels she must also have a woman to be happy.

So I know for her giving it up is not an option without a woman to also be with.

Guess my marriage doesn't work for the info here huh?

Do you want her to give it up?

Are YOU willing to do so? Start with yourself.

Just because she is bisexual does not mean she requires two spouses (or 1 spouse and a girlfriend).

I don't know of any marriage program that produces successful marriages when people are sleeping with others and in love with others, particularly when one person is hurt over it. Maybe TLC reality shows? Even those are unpleasant. Back to reality...

Well since being with her new gf she hasn't wanted anyone but her and I.

I know I've talked to her about stopping and she has said she is bisexual and can love a man as much as a woman and doesn't feel she should be limited. She says if I was bisexual she wouldn't have a problem with me having a boyfriend. (and no I'm not bisexual)

Yes I am willing to give it up if that would fix this marriage but wouldn't that be making demands (being a taker) to try and force that choice on to her?

There is so much wrong here that one hardly knows where to start. As soon as I started reading that you got involved with swinging, I knew exactly where this was going. I have been here for years and when couples do this, the wife usually ends up very involved with someone else and eventually leaves for someone else. But then, it is her husband who literally handed her over. You just handed her over with a set of arbitrary "rules" that do nothing to protect your marriage.


Adultery is the act of having sexual relations with ANYONE other than your spouse. Your marriage is doomed if you agree to more adultery. You have about destroyed your marriage with this tactic and more of the same will not solve the problems.

This tells me you have not learned from your mistakes yet. I don't see much hope here at all unless you commit to ending ALL adultery in your marriage. Your marriage will never survive otherwise.

In order to be successful, marriage has to be a relationship of sexual exclusivity and extraordinary care. Your marriage has none of this. Your philosophy of marriage has all but destroyed your marriage.

Your marriage doesn't work, period. If your wife has to commit adultery in order to be "happy" you don't have a marriage.

And what kind of a husband condones adultery? A husband who DOES NOT CARE, that's who.

Ok. I guess I'll just take my doomed marriage out of here then.

Thanks.

That is your choice. No one can help you if you don't stop allowing adultery in your marriage. It is hopeless. And she will eventually leave you for one of her affair partners.

When you get hit by a car playing chicken the solution is to get out of the road, not to try to become a better chicken player.

Brunoni, we CAN help you, but only if you are able to realize that sleeping around with others while married isn't okay. If you think it's okay, and you are willing to continue to stay in a marriage where it's okay, then the MB principles don't apply.

It is not an unreasonable demand to tell her she can't sleep with others while married to you. You aren't "taking", you are demanding the most basic boundary of marriage. Right now, you've established that there are no boundaries.

The swinger lifestyle has probably tried to tell you that women can sleep around outside their spouse without falling in love. Well, this isn't how women are. It's VERY typical that the swinger wife falls in love outside her marriage (like her girlfriend) and then falls out of love with her husband as a result.

You have two kids, time to step up with the boundaries and take your family back. And this involves stepping up and being her husband, not being 2nd to her girlfriend, which you are allowing her to do right now.

If my husband ever brought up the word "swingers", I would assume our marriage is over and he didn't love me. How did that even come up? Did you bring it up?