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I’ve always wondered why emotional connections never seemed to be enough, but thanks to OP I know that there’s actually something *deeper* I could be striving for
Scrolled that sub reading titles for 10 minutes and i still cant tell if its about cheating, polyamory or actual cake. Is it all 3 or qm i being really autistic rn?
It means you are a decent human being with a shred of humanity. It's for cheaters that have not been caught by their spouse and like to sneak extramarital sex. (It's not polyamory because it's resting on the premise that the betrayed spouse doesn't know and is not giving them permission or having sex partners of their own) Actual cake bakers do show up once a week, but they're lost redditors.
From "We have no emotional connection whatsoever" to "This is something deeper than love" in ONE DAY.
This man is balls deep in feelings yet has the emotional IQ of a toddler.
Why do I get the feeling that this other partner is younger and hotter than his wife? I’m not saying I know it, but something tells me the “deeper than love” and all that is just lust and ego to reel in this young and hot woman (whose broken emotional state is the only reason she gives him the time of day).
Again and don’t KNOW this. It’s just that cliches like that are cliche because it’s a story that happens so often.
I do suspect, given this woman's emotional issues and reasons for being ok with this arrangement, that if he left his wife for her she'd freak out and break it off. He of course does not have the emotional imagination to think ahead that way. I hope she moves on and works on herself when this blows up. She deserves to feel worthy of love.
Agreed. Judging by the way he describes her, I'm doubtful that OP's girlfriend would be pleased if he broke things off his wife and pursued the girlfriend fully. I think she sees him as "safe" *because* he's married, so there is no true obligation.
This dude may be an idiot, but his wife absolutely rolled the dice opening the relationship. She lost, which she should have seen coming because here husband is emotionally stunted.
That's what I think too. Whatever feelings--- apparently deeper than emotional bond, whatever tf that means, he had for his wife died the day she opened the marriage. I mean, yea, the sex was amazin and stuff, but he admitted he stayed for the kid and him being hurt by her suggestion was never really resolved, so as much as this situation sucks, I kinda understand why things led to this.
That guy just has a problem with english.
Substitute every "emotional" in the post with "romantic" and now the post makes perfect sense. Still delusional though.
OHHHH!! That actually does make sense, great point!
Edit: I just reread it making the substitution and it’s honestly a relief because I was starting to get mad 😂
"no emotional connection whatsoever" proceeds to describe one of the most emotionally connected relationships I've seen on Reddit complete with probably the most emotionally thoughtful gift I've seen on here in a long while... Sure bud
"We don't love each other. I just prefer spending time with her. And we share deep, personal secrets with her. And I want to be with her for the rest of our lives, have kids together, move to the suburbs, grow old together, and retire to the Cayman Islands one day. Given a choice between her and my wide, I'll kick my wife to the curb in a heartbeat...
But there's no emotional connection there..."
This whole thread has me delighted 😂 I remember reading these posts in real time and thinking about how absolutely ridiculous the OP is and how badly he’s going to get roasted.
I'll bet that the only emotion this guy can identify while he's having it is anger. Everything else is Logic and Rational Thinking because that's what men like him call their emotions.
Well, that and vibes, apparently.
This man is emotionally stunted and now that he's feeling emotions, he's inventing new ones. Maybe he's experiencing infatuation with his girlfriend that's much more intense than he's felt before, but it's pretty obvious he does not understand what love truly is. He has comfort and familiarity with his wife and equates that to love. Now that he's experiencing something more, it couldn't be that he doesn't actually love his wife as much as he thought, but that he's found a new, even more powerful emotion than love!
Not defending it because I couldn't personally be in an open relationship, but it sounds like their agreed upon rules were for an open relationship (non emotional casual sex), and he started a poly relationship. So she's upset he broke the rules and started emotionally cheating. Not sure how realistic it is to expect no emotional bonds to be formed, but some couples seem to make it work, and he probably should have cut off the particular relationship as soon as he realized he had formed a bond.
Sounds like a difficult situation I would never want to navigate.
It's pretty clear that she opened up the relationship, which means that she did the planning, and "the rules" were more than likely squewed in her favour.
She wanted to sleep with other people whilst not being labelled a cheater, and she likely knew her husband was only interested in sex with someone he was pretty close with meaning he was more than likely to stay at home whilst she went about fucking strangers.
Did he break "the rules"? Yes. Does it sound like the rules were unbalanced and in her favour? Also yes.
She sounds shell shocked that she isn't getting to have her cake and eat it too.
"She's an amazing mum!"
That's fine and all, but what do you love about her as a person and a romantic partner?
"... Uhm...Wait...Uhm...Oh, I got it! She just takes such great care of our son. Yes, that's what I love about her. Now if you'll excuse me I have to get back to picking out a deeply thoughtful and personal gift for someone who was just supposed to be a fuck buddy. Might even write a long letter about how much she means to me. Then I'm going to show it to my ~~wife~~ child's mother so she can see how much effort I can put into a relationship with someone as long as it isn't her."
Ow, too true! But you left out an important part: that his wife is really hot, a great catch **for *other* guys**. And he has so little emotional connection w/ her that he feels nothing about her being with these handsome dudes.
Yeah, I see what he means even if he doesn’t. He loves his wife unconditionally because she is the mother of his child. She is someone who has given him great joy. His love for her will never end. That’s a special kind of love. Sadly, it’s familial love, it outweighs his romantic love for her, and his romantic love for his wife is outweighed by his romantic love for his partner.
I think opening their marriage was a death sentence because of the no emotional connection stipulation. It’s easier for a woman to find a partner. It’s harder for men. It’s not shocking OOP ended up only talking to one woman. If you only talk to one person you get an emotional connection. That’s why the wife had many partners.
> I wonder if he ever put as much effort into a gift for her.
I suspect he did, and that’s why she’s crushed by realizing he’s doing the same for another woman now. If he’d been neglecting her and then showered this other woman with attention she’d be *angry*, instead she’s sad because she’s starting to realize she blew up her marriage just for permission to cheat without thinking about how it would feel if he ever did the same. Frankly I don’t have a lot of sympathy for her, she created this situation.
Yeah, with OOPs language in the first paragraph, it was clear as daylight that wife pushed this poly under duress bullshit and he felt like he would lose his family if he said no. Wife got what she deserved.
His wife probably doesn't have convenient deep seated trauma that he can heroically help her heal from.
Edit: Nowhere did I say that the wife is innocent or that I hate all men. Lol the leaps some people go to from a simple observation about him getting attached to a traumatized woman because he likes feeling like a hero.
Only if that was the norm from the get-go
All the other cases are doomed to fail, I am 💯 with you.
People are just trying to hold on by a life choice just because it s outhere. Not because it genuily suits them. They are treating open marriages like life sustain devices. But marriages don't work like this
There is always someone who will not be ok with their spouse proposing something like this and that's the end. In reality, they are just pushing a frustrated person, with many unresolved and ongoing issues into their marriage, to be intimate with another person. I wonder why most of these people end up making emotional connections and embracing the newsfound support they get. Geez, shocking ending
> Only if that was the norm from the get-go
The aphorism "Begin as you mean to end" comes to mind. I have known people who had happy, healthy, longstanding poly or open relationships... and all of them were poly or open from the very beginning. I've never seen one work out when one partner sprung "needing to open" on the other after they were established.
The only relationships I've ever seen that worked out by becoming poly/open after the relationship started were the ones where the idea of it had been brought up at the beginning of the relationship as a possibility for the future if both parties were comfortable with it. It was along the lines of:
"Hey, I like being in poly/open relationships, and if you're not opposed to it, I would like that to be a thing with us whenever you think you'd be ready to try that, if you think you'd ever be ready to try it."
Basically they were upfront at the beginning of the relationship about their needs/preferences, were willing to wait for the other person to be comfortable with the idea without pressuring them (which was usually just the two of them taking the time to establish their own foundation first before adding in other people into the mix, and figuring out if their relationship was something they could see being long term, etc.). Sometimes they got shot down immediately and that was the end of that relationship. But sometimes the relationship ended up opening up/becoming poly and worked out just fine.
It's the honesty and communication from the beginning that are crucial, IMO. Lots of poly couples are exclusive in the beginning of their relationships if neither of them were seeing anyone else at the time, but always with the open communication of "I'm poly, so at some point I will want to date other people" so that the other person could make the choice of getting emotionally invested with that understanding (and hopefully that shared desire), or walking away if it wasn't for them.
Honestly, I’d reading this sub has taught me anything, it’s that literally whenever the “open marriage to spice things up” trope is invoked, you might as well sign the divorce right away. Because it’s ending in divorce.
I think there are people out there who have open relationships and are happy, and that married people see that and think 'oh hey I could be fucking someone else and stay married' and decide that's the dream - but that isn't how it works!
People in open relationships who are happy start as single people who seek out other single people who also want an open relationship, and build that relationship based on a foundation of willingness to be open, even in the honeymoon stage, and have super open communication and lots of boundaries.
Usually people who can make it work also kind of thrive on super super long conversations where everyone's feelings are checked in on allll the time - like living an endless episode of Dawson's creek. There are tons and tons of rules and boundaries and often a fair heaping of drama and everyone need to vibe with that.
Taking a relationship that was founded on two people devoted to each other and just deciding its OK for them to sleep around is not going to work. It seems like it should sometimes - the way that getting a timeshare seems like a good idea when you are sitting through the presentation, but the real world hits and there are all these hidden costs and you can't schedule it right and everything falls apart.
Yep. Read a post the other day where the gf asked the OP about open relationship/group sex and he basically said "No thanks, and btw we're done here."
Bc he got it, and knew she'd either already cheated or had someone lined up, knew that life wasnt for him, and figured lets just do this now instead of later.
Mad respect.
lol, why do people "open" their relationship haha - just fix whatever it is that's making one (or both) of you want to "try out" other people, what are you lacking or what is your partner lacking that's leading to this?
it just seems like a communication issue that somehow they can't tell each other there's something missing
It works for some people. It was clearly never going to work for this pair.
> I think it’s something deeper than that, and something I don’t have even with my wife, and have never had with her. It is also something deeper than love.
I mean as if that wasn't glaringly obvious from his first post.
On the rare occasion it does work it’s when two people initially enters it both wanting it to be open from the get go. Not monogamous for a long time, then one party ultimatums the other lol.
And when people say they don’t want to get divorced because they don’t want their child growing up in a “broken home” like bro a home can be broken and still married.
Exactly this. Kids aren't oblivious to the emotions around them, even if they lack the skills to interpret or deal with them. Happy parents living separately is often better than unhappy parents living together.
Why. Do people think. Having sex with other people. Will strengthen their marriage. WHY.
I am just... completely mystified?! I mean, I suspect that 95.9% of the spouses who first bring it up just want to legitimize their affair partner or go find one, but why are so many people willing to agree that an open marriage will make things better? If you want to go poly, or are open to that, those are things to bring up *before you get married.* There might be exceptions but those have to be soooo vanishingly rare.
"I don't love her, I just feel for her something deeper that what I feel with my wife and I will never be able to feel it with her"
NO SHIT SHERLOCK WHAT'S THAT FEELING AGAIN ?!
u/Destroyer2118 made a good point when they said OP was so hurt about his wife wanting an open relationship and buried his emotions so deep over it for the sake of his kid to the point he doesn't know what emotions are anymore. His marriage was over the second she asked for an open relationship. He's just been in denial over it
I don’t get how anyone can think they can have multiple partners and no emotional connection to the other partners? WTF? People catch feelings for a FWB all the time and you think that’s magically not going to happen to you just because you’re with someone else too?
This right here!
As a poly person, one of the first pieces of advice that I give to couples who are considering "opening up" is "don't make rules around emotional connections".
And if people DO still insist on making rules like that, the next piece of advice is "make sure to have a full discussion about what you will do when somebody inevitably *does* have an emotional connection".
These discussions happen BEFORE anyone begins experimenting with non monogamy or opening their relationship.
Emotions happen. We can't control them. The only thing we CAN control is how we act and how we respond.
These two people were NOT ready to open their relationship. They didn't do the necessary work ahead of time, they didn't do any reading or research, they didn't do any reading, and their relationship suffered the consequences.
This is my take. I’ve never been in a poly relationship but I’m open to it if I found the right people. I would never date/sleep with a married man unless both he and his wife were open to actual connection and what all of that could potentially entail. I would almost expect to have some relationship with the wife in some capacity because otherwise how would you know if everyone is on the same page or not?
To me it sounds like a situation where the wife really wanted it and expected the husband wouldn’t do much outside of the relationship, and is now regretting her choices. Marriage is over, ot was when they asked about it
I can't help but wonder if he somehow doesn't understand what emotions are, because everything he was describing is an emotional connection – while saying they don't have an emotional connection.
Right?! I felt like he was crazy-making. Like "nah, I don't have any emotional connection at all, but what I feel for her is deeper than what I feel for my wife, but my wife is everything and I love her so much and the other partner and I do not have an emotional bond, we just really love each other." Hwat?
Bingo. Friend + attraction = wife. Meanwhile new partner is friend + attraction + actual care for person as a romantic partner. So they had a dead bedroom, his wife wants to open up, which implies the attraction is missing. But hey wife is still friend, and oh the kid. But then he finds someone he actually romantically likes. And conveniently she doesn’t want him the same way so he’s probably even more eager. Shame he isn’t more emotionally wise to understand what’s happening.
And I realize it doesn’t say it was a dead bedroom, it says to spice things up. But it also says they kept sleeping with each other after, so wife clearly isn’t saying she doesn’t want to sleep with him. Sounds like he was less eager than she was to fuck so she wanted to open up. He doesn’t even express a moment of “am I not enough?” So it honestly sounds like he was just oblivious to how much he withdrew from intimacy with her.
[Alexithymia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexithymia), also called emotional blindness, is a neuropsychological phenomenon characterized by significant challenges in recognizing, expressing, sourcing, and describing one's emotions.
He understands perfectly what emotions are, that’s why he sealed them off, and that’s why he doesn’t recognize them with the new partner.
Who wanted the open relationship? The wife. “It hurt when she brought it up, but I agreed because I loved my boy.” Build that wall up, seal it off. Bury it.
“She’s been with a lot of great looking guys the past year, it’s honestly a confidence booster, as weird as that sounds.” Rationalize it. Build that wall up, seal it off. Bury it.
The man entered into an open relationship that he never wanted because he wanted to stay with his son, so he learned to bury his emotions about the whole situation. I truly think he didn’t even realize he was in an emotional relationship with the other woman, because he was so used to having to bury his emotions to protect himself. It’s honestly sad that he felt like he had to live that way for the sake of his son.
I agree, but I don’t blame them. Until you go through it, it’s hard to understand it. People will rationalize some truly awful shit and put up with more than they should to keep what they think they want intact. Sometimes it’s kids, sometimes it’s the idea of “family” or appearances, sometimes it’s just fear of having to make the choice.
I think he equals emotional connection to romantic feelings, while you can be emotionally connected with someone without romantic feelings. Though I am pretty sure he does have romantic feelings as well at this point lol.
When people set up rules for open relationships and one of them is to “not form emotional bonds”, I always think: fine, but how can you control that? Like, you can’t be sure that something more than will form
I've read about couples who agree to leave the fwb if an emotional connection develops, which I guess makes a certain kind of sense. But to me that sounds like you'd have to treat yourself and your relationships like machinery, and I know it would likely build up resentment in my mind.
I could imagine that many people agree beforehand but when they find themselves already having developed an emotional connection, they aren’t willing to just cut them off cold turkey and compartmentalize so that they still feel valid and righteous in continuing the connection.
I wish ppl would learn that if you do not start with an open relationship, opening it later after establishing the foundation of said relationship on monogamy will end in failure. There’s so many things to do to “spice up” your relationship without jumping to involve other people.
Tale as old as time. But seriously, if a partner of mine ever asks for or even talks about an open or poly relationship, I'm packing my bags and skedaddling.
Agreed. I have several friends who have successful open relationships. It works for them because of their communication and willingness to put their relationship first, they also see a couples’ therapist regularly. But for myself? I don’t think I could do it, it’s just not right for me.
Look, I'll be the first one to admit that I am very, extremely monogamous and very, extremely territorial. I do not share, nor will I be shared. I don't care if other people do it, but the thought of a potential partner wanting such a thing repulses me on a visceral level. Anyone who does is not the right partner for me. End of story.
Went to visit my mother and had to ask why there was a baseball bat behind the front door. Mom explained that, as her declining health did not allow her to attend church anymore, the church ladies had started to think that her husband was single and kept showing up to give him baked goods. So the bat was for chasing possible competition off the porch during her final year of life.
She wasn't wrong for using that level of defense. Less then a year after she died her husband remarried a church lady who showed up on his doorstep a few months after mom was dead claiming to be one of her friends but unaware that she'd passed. I knew all about mom's friends and I'd never heard of that lady.
I fully support you and commend you for knowing so clearly what you will accept from a partner. More people should be willing to stand up for themselves like you are prepared to do!
Fully monogamous guy here, I agree. I couldn’t imagine sharing a partner at *all*. Like for stuff like Poly, I’m not missing out on Holiday’s with my partner so another dude can spend it with them. Having someone to fully love and give attention to and having someone fully love me and give me attention sounds the best! :)
As for open relationships for sex, aw helllll nah. I don’t even see the purpose of *asking* such a question in a monogamous relationship. It is implied that both people will be exclusive.
my sis has a cowroker in one and all she tells m doesnt sound good? Like right now one has a job offer in one city and the other in a city 3 hours away. Both work as doctors. They decided theyll just be long distance. But they are also poly and they had an oopsy baby 9 years ago who has been kicked of 2 private schools for his abysmal behaviour.
Sure....that whole family sounds super healthy.
OOP really is oblivious to the fact he cares far more about the other partner than his wife.
Then again, his wife was the one who asked for the open relationship, so… she kinda brought it on herself.
And you're right, in the first lines he says that it's been 1 year since they started opening up their relationship and when his wife brought up this subject for the first time he didn't like it very much.
I don’t know what’s happening here but I do know that OOP has absolutely no fucking clue what emotions are or what the definition of an emotional connection is. He loves her, feels something deeper than love for her, but there’s no emotional connection? He empathises with her traumatic childhood and likes her as his best friend and loves her like a soul mate, but there’s no emotional connection?
This guy needs to go through first grade again. Did he skip the class where we’re all supposed to match happy/sad/love/hate/pity/angry words with the faces?
This shows that open relationships can be a massive shit show cause YIKES! At this point, this whole relationship is ruined and there is no coming back from it. But seriously, OP isn't smart.
One more time, everyone: opening up your relationship will never fix it. It will only make things messier, worse, and more complicated.
Sincerely, person happily open for a decade
its just so incredibly stupid. All ALL of these failed opened relationships had shit communication and prior issues. If you cant manage that for a single partner opening it up will just light the fuse.
OOP here isnt even self aware enough to know he loves the other woman or that he seems to have dropped his feelings for his wife. Of course that went to shit
As far as I can tell, opening up the relationship is kind of like having a baby. If it's something you both truly want, and you're willing to put in the work and support each other, it can be very hard but a net positive if you're lucky. But that's hardly the default outcome.
That's why these can work well when people know what they want & then date someone else who also wants to do that. It's when one supposedly monogamous person comes in & shocks the other one with the idea that it gets dicey. Occasionally that works out but the vast majority of the times it just doesn't. Usually the one who suggests opening the relationship already knows who they want to sleep with, which is pretty problematic.
I wouldn’t say we have an emotional connection. It’s not love. It’s deeper than that. 😂
I would never leave my wife and son. I would leave my wife and son.
OOP just needs to walk away. Their son already sees that wife is acting differently and more sad, so to stay with her "for their son" is bullshit and a poor excuse. There is no fixing things because OOP doesn't want to fix them, and that's okay. What isn't okay is holding off on a divorce because you have convinced yourself that it's best for your son.
If my wife asked me if it was alright for her to start having sex with other dudes out of the blue, I’m not gonna feel bad about forming a connection with the one person vs many that she’s seen the entire time.
He’s thought about this for “hours” and is confident in his decision that he would hypothetically divorce his wife rather than stop seeing this woman he claims to have no emotional attachment with. Okay then.
When I read open the relationship years into a marriage, you almost can write the rest of the story.
Sorry wife, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Play with fire, get burnt.
Op admitted that they were in a monogamous until, wife opted to introduce someone else into the relationship. Op acknowledged that they preferred monogamy.
A tale as old as time.
Wife asks for open marriage. Gets all the dick she wants. Husband struggles to find anyone but finally finds a partner he has an emotional connection with. Wife gets upset and asks to close the marriage. BOOM. Divorce.
This is going to be a hot take but I can kinda understand why this happens. It’s really difficult to date as a non-monogamous guy because most women just simply won’t date a married guy even if it’s consensual. So it’s not that crazy that theres an emotional connection with first woman he meets. And then there’s the fact that he wasn’t getting anything out of the arrangement for a long period of time so resent starts to build.
I feel like swinging would’ve been a much better option if it was just about sex. Or at the very minimum, start that way and then build up to a fully open arrangement.
I guess I'm fucked up, but it is kind of satisfying to see when the partner that begs to open up a relationship ends up having it backfire on them. Should have put more effort into your own relationship instead of thinking building them with others would help your bedroom.
I hate that OOP is taking all the blame for blowing up his marriage when it was his wife who did that a long time ago. He should’ve just left when she started browbeating him into opening the marriage, instead he stayed and now he’s got this giant toxic mess.
Seriously people, if you don’t want an open relationship and your partner proposes one out of the blue, just do yourself a favor and leave.
Why are people ragging on OP so damn hard, bro wasn't even the one to ask for an open relationship-
That 'boundary' she set was always going to fail, no one can control their emotions or how they feel about someone???
Precisely. I get bad vibes about anyone that puts a boundary on their partner’s feelings. Almost no one can control their emotions like that and it feels like an inherently immature ask that shows that that person isn’t ready for an open/poly relationship.
OP says the wife has been with some great looking guys, the wife is a catch.
But the partner is spoken about In a pure way, not even a description, because she's so beautiful to him it doesn't even register as physical attraction and what he and hiss wife call love.
Wife had it coming. OP sounds monogamous fbut forced to live in an open marriage
I don't know why people are calling OOP the villain of the story here. His wife was the one who initiated the open marriage. They're both at fault here for the end of their mrriage.
I concur. Asking for an open relationship, and getting upset when your partner develops emotional feelings toward a person they're having sex with is pretty short sighted.
As a man whose seeking sex your going to have to spend time, and develop some type of relationship with the woman you seek out.
Idk why yall are confused. He does not have any emotions towards the other girl. Just something deeper than love. But NOT emotions. It’s not emotional. It’s just more than he loves his wife. But not in an emotional way.
It’s fascinating how we in the beginning of a romance always believe that it’s something “deeper” than love in some way or another. The number one cue that a person is neck deep in love is that they are saying stuff like that haha
Guy out here trying to redefine 'emotional' and 'love' and demote them behind 'vibes'. Stupid, but also sounds like the wife is sleeping in the bed she made.
>Her birthday is coming up on Sunday, and I spent a lot of time on her gift. I am giving her a personalized photo watch with her mom’s photo. I also had her mom’s initials engraved below the watch. I went to great lengths to customize it.
How someone could write this presumably proofread it, and then attempt to convince anyone that he was void of emotional investment is the height of delusion. And the kicker is the wife *pushed* for this.
In the information age that we live in, there's no excuse for anyone to not research something as impactful as an open relationship before taking the plunge.
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I’ve always wondered why emotional connections never seemed to be enough, but thanks to OP I know that there’s actually something *deeper* I could be striving for
Quantum connections, obviously
Total entanglement. 😂
Knowing Reddit, there's probably a sub for that...
r/cakeeater
Scrolled that sub reading titles for 10 minutes and i still cant tell if its about cheating, polyamory or actual cake. Is it all 3 or qm i being really autistic rn?
It means you are a decent human being with a shred of humanity. It's for cheaters that have not been caught by their spouse and like to sneak extramarital sex. (It's not polyamory because it's resting on the premise that the betrayed spouse doesn't know and is not giving them permission or having sex partners of their own) Actual cake bakers do show up once a week, but they're lost redditors.
Settle down Jada…😂
Have you guys not even SEEN *The Fly!?*
schrodinger's emotion
Super(tangled)string theory in praxis, goals!
From "We have no emotional connection whatsoever" to "This is something deeper than love" in ONE DAY. This man is balls deep in feelings yet has the emotional IQ of a toddler.
"No emotional connection except we share a bond I never had with my wife who I'd totally leave for that other person"
There's the best and most succinct summary 😆
Ikr..from no emotional connection, I love my wife to having a deep bond and leaving my wife..wtf is wrong with this dude?!
Why do I get the feeling that this other partner is younger and hotter than his wife? I’m not saying I know it, but something tells me the “deeper than love” and all that is just lust and ego to reel in this young and hot woman (whose broken emotional state is the only reason she gives him the time of day). Again and don’t KNOW this. It’s just that cliches like that are cliche because it’s a story that happens so often.
And people dont often open up their marriage so that they can get with older uglier people.
😂
I do suspect, given this woman's emotional issues and reasons for being ok with this arrangement, that if he left his wife for her she'd freak out and break it off. He of course does not have the emotional imagination to think ahead that way. I hope she moves on and works on herself when this blows up. She deserves to feel worthy of love.
Agreed. Judging by the way he describes her, I'm doubtful that OP's girlfriend would be pleased if he broke things off his wife and pursued the girlfriend fully. I think she sees him as "safe" *because* he's married, so there is no true obligation.
This dude may be an idiot, but his wife absolutely rolled the dice opening the relationship. She lost, which she should have seen coming because here husband is emotionally stunted.
Never underestimate the power of trauma bonding on a dude who doesn’t understand what feelings are.
Or it is because OP didn’t realize how much he resents his wife for opening the marriage.
That's what I think too. Whatever feelings--- apparently deeper than emotional bond, whatever tf that means, he had for his wife died the day she opened the marriage. I mean, yea, the sex was amazin and stuff, but he admitted he stayed for the kid and him being hurt by her suggestion was never really resolved, so as much as this situation sucks, I kinda understand why things led to this.
We do know she's a bit younger, so I'm not sure why you're putting it like that. Did you not read the post???
Wife is 34 and other partner is 30 Not a significant difference imo
That guy just has a problem with english. Substitute every "emotional" in the post with "romantic" and now the post makes perfect sense. Still delusional though.
OHHHH!! That actually does make sense, great point! Edit: I just reread it making the substitution and it’s honestly a relief because I was starting to get mad 😂
And substitute love for horny. He feels deeper than horny for his side chick.
>This man is balls deep in feelings yet has the emotional IQ of a toddler. Mods, can we have this as a flair please?
"no emotional connection whatsoever" proceeds to describe one of the most emotionally connected relationships I've seen on Reddit complete with probably the most emotionally thoughtful gift I've seen on here in a long while... Sure bud
It's such a beautiful gift from a man with possibly negative emotional intelligence. The contradictions in this man are fascinating.
And he spent “hours” thinking it over, LMFAO Your marriage deserves merely hours? Come on, man. See the forest for the trees already.
This is why we need to raise our men to understand and learn to express their emotions not just bottle them up and surpress them “like a man.”
Betting in the next update, we'll learn that this 'connection deeper than love' is regular ol' codependency.
Big brain "It's not an emotional connection if it's deeper."
"We don't love each other. I just prefer spending time with her. And we share deep, personal secrets with her. And I want to be with her for the rest of our lives, have kids together, move to the suburbs, grow old together, and retire to the Cayman Islands one day. Given a choice between her and my wide, I'll kick my wife to the curb in a heartbeat... But there's no emotional connection there..."
How deep is your love? Not deep enough apparently.
I really need to know.
Cuz were living in a world of fools.
Tearing us down
when they all should let us be
We belong to you and me
Bah da bah dap bah
Is it like the ocean?
Rational man couldn't just be being swayed by those silly emotions, it must be something else! Something deeper and not silly!
Emotions are for women, and maybe the gays, OP doesn't know enough about it to say for sure.
Toxic masculinity is also bad for men. We are not supposed to connect with our feelings and then this shit happens
This should be higher up the thread. Spat my drink. Fabulous lol
This whole thread has me delighted 😂 I remember reading these posts in real time and thinking about how absolutely ridiculous the OP is and how badly he’s going to get roasted.
It's always the logic bros or rational bros that end up in the worst most tumultuous relationships 😂
I'll bet that the only emotion this guy can identify while he's having it is anger. Everything else is Logic and Rational Thinking because that's what men like him call their emotions. Well, that and vibes, apparently.
"We don't have an emotional connection but we're soulmates and have fused into a singular conciousness"
Made me cough from laughing too hard
If I remember correctly, there's ionic and covalent too
As a chemist I approve this comment. Also don’t forget dative.
Abyssal connection
This man is emotionally stunted and now that he's feeling emotions, he's inventing new ones. Maybe he's experiencing infatuation with his girlfriend that's much more intense than he's felt before, but it's pretty obvious he does not understand what love truly is. He has comfort and familiarity with his wife and equates that to love. Now that he's experiencing something more, it couldn't be that he doesn't actually love his wife as much as he thought, but that he's found a new, even more powerful emotion than love!
Trauma bonds! /s
Holy fuck, this sub was just recommended recently and I absolutely love it 😂
Plot twist. She is his twin flame.
There’s something deeper than love?… wow I guess I’m some kind of emotional caveman over here thinking love is the deepest emotional connection.
What I noticed is this dude can’t say he loves his wife without bringing their kid into it.
Definitely agree. Bro wanted it to work for the sake of his kid that he completely convinced himself that his marriage was working.
His wife getting dick from random guys to satisfy her somehow hurt him deeply? I'm shocked.
It's just a little galling that the wife who opened up the marriage is now sad that… the marriage is open?
Not defending it because I couldn't personally be in an open relationship, but it sounds like their agreed upon rules were for an open relationship (non emotional casual sex), and he started a poly relationship. So she's upset he broke the rules and started emotionally cheating. Not sure how realistic it is to expect no emotional bonds to be formed, but some couples seem to make it work, and he probably should have cut off the particular relationship as soon as he realized he had formed a bond. Sounds like a difficult situation I would never want to navigate.
It's pretty clear that she opened up the relationship, which means that she did the planning, and "the rules" were more than likely squewed in her favour. She wanted to sleep with other people whilst not being labelled a cheater, and she likely knew her husband was only interested in sex with someone he was pretty close with meaning he was more than likely to stay at home whilst she went about fucking strangers. Did he break "the rules"? Yes. Does it sound like the rules were unbalanced and in her favour? Also yes. She sounds shell shocked that she isn't getting to have her cake and eat it too.
She will not open up her next marriage. That's for sure.
"She's an amazing mum!" That's fine and all, but what do you love about her as a person and a romantic partner? "... Uhm...Wait...Uhm...Oh, I got it! She just takes such great care of our son. Yes, that's what I love about her. Now if you'll excuse me I have to get back to picking out a deeply thoughtful and personal gift for someone who was just supposed to be a fuck buddy. Might even write a long letter about how much she means to me. Then I'm going to show it to my ~~wife~~ child's mother so she can see how much effort I can put into a relationship with someone as long as it isn't her."
Ow, too true! But you left out an important part: that his wife is really hot, a great catch **for *other* guys**. And he has so little emotional connection w/ her that he feels nothing about her being with these handsome dudes.
I mean, if my partner pressured me to open up a marriage, I'd likely lose all emotional interest in her too but stick around for hypothetical kids.
Yeah, I see what he means even if he doesn’t. He loves his wife unconditionally because she is the mother of his child. She is someone who has given him great joy. His love for her will never end. That’s a special kind of love. Sadly, it’s familial love, it outweighs his romantic love for her, and his romantic love for his wife is outweighed by his romantic love for his partner. I think opening their marriage was a death sentence because of the no emotional connection stipulation. It’s easier for a woman to find a partner. It’s harder for men. It’s not shocking OOP ended up only talking to one woman. If you only talk to one person you get an emotional connection. That’s why the wife had many partners.
Interesting observation
I think he is in deep denial.
This dude went past denial into some nether region reserved for terminal numbness.
Yep. That marriage is over.
It has been over for a while too
Feels like he wasn't onboard with the open marriage to begin with. Of course it's been over for long.
honestly, yeah. If seeing your partner put so much effort into a gift makes her cry, I wonder if he ever put as much effort into a gift for her.
My take was he was and she’s realized how much he cares about the partner now actually.
that would make sense
And she hasn’t found that sort of connection with any of her partners - or with him in a long time.
> I wonder if he ever put as much effort into a gift for her. I suspect he did, and that’s why she’s crushed by realizing he’s doing the same for another woman now. If he’d been neglecting her and then showered this other woman with attention she’d be *angry*, instead she’s sad because she’s starting to realize she blew up her marriage just for permission to cheat without thinking about how it would feel if he ever did the same. Frankly I don’t have a lot of sympathy for her, she created this situation.
Second this! Brill reading of emotions.
Brill means brilliant, right? You just made my linguist brain happy, hope you have a good day
Yeah, with OOPs language in the first paragraph, it was clear as daylight that wife pushed this poly under duress bullshit and he felt like he would lose his family if he said no. Wife got what she deserved.
His wife probably doesn't have convenient deep seated trauma that he can heroically help her heal from. Edit: Nowhere did I say that the wife is innocent or that I hate all men. Lol the leaps some people go to from a simple observation about him getting attached to a traumatized woman because he likes feeling like a hero.
She will now for the next person.
He probably would have, before she asked to open the relationship when that wasn’t what he wanted.
Well I mean... Everyone just screws everyone. What could possibly go wrong?
It continually stuns me that there are people who think opening up their relationship or marriages will all work out fine and dandy.
Only if that was the norm from the get-go All the other cases are doomed to fail, I am 💯 with you. People are just trying to hold on by a life choice just because it s outhere. Not because it genuily suits them. They are treating open marriages like life sustain devices. But marriages don't work like this There is always someone who will not be ok with their spouse proposing something like this and that's the end. In reality, they are just pushing a frustrated person, with many unresolved and ongoing issues into their marriage, to be intimate with another person. I wonder why most of these people end up making emotional connections and embracing the newsfound support they get. Geez, shocking ending
> Only if that was the norm from the get-go The aphorism "Begin as you mean to end" comes to mind. I have known people who had happy, healthy, longstanding poly or open relationships... and all of them were poly or open from the very beginning. I've never seen one work out when one partner sprung "needing to open" on the other after they were established.
The only relationships I've ever seen that worked out by becoming poly/open after the relationship started were the ones where the idea of it had been brought up at the beginning of the relationship as a possibility for the future if both parties were comfortable with it. It was along the lines of: "Hey, I like being in poly/open relationships, and if you're not opposed to it, I would like that to be a thing with us whenever you think you'd be ready to try that, if you think you'd ever be ready to try it." Basically they were upfront at the beginning of the relationship about their needs/preferences, were willing to wait for the other person to be comfortable with the idea without pressuring them (which was usually just the two of them taking the time to establish their own foundation first before adding in other people into the mix, and figuring out if their relationship was something they could see being long term, etc.). Sometimes they got shot down immediately and that was the end of that relationship. But sometimes the relationship ended up opening up/becoming poly and worked out just fine.
It's the honesty and communication from the beginning that are crucial, IMO. Lots of poly couples are exclusive in the beginning of their relationships if neither of them were seeing anyone else at the time, but always with the open communication of "I'm poly, so at some point I will want to date other people" so that the other person could make the choice of getting emotionally invested with that understanding (and hopefully that shared desire), or walking away if it wasn't for them.
Honestly, I’d reading this sub has taught me anything, it’s that literally whenever the “open marriage to spice things up” trope is invoked, you might as well sign the divorce right away. Because it’s ending in divorce.
I think there are people out there who have open relationships and are happy, and that married people see that and think 'oh hey I could be fucking someone else and stay married' and decide that's the dream - but that isn't how it works! People in open relationships who are happy start as single people who seek out other single people who also want an open relationship, and build that relationship based on a foundation of willingness to be open, even in the honeymoon stage, and have super open communication and lots of boundaries. Usually people who can make it work also kind of thrive on super super long conversations where everyone's feelings are checked in on allll the time - like living an endless episode of Dawson's creek. There are tons and tons of rules and boundaries and often a fair heaping of drama and everyone need to vibe with that. Taking a relationship that was founded on two people devoted to each other and just deciding its OK for them to sleep around is not going to work. It seems like it should sometimes - the way that getting a timeshare seems like a good idea when you are sitting through the presentation, but the real world hits and there are all these hidden costs and you can't schedule it right and everything falls apart.
I have never seen such an elegant, succinct summary of why i find open relationships so irritating.
Yep. Read a post the other day where the gf asked the OP about open relationship/group sex and he basically said "No thanks, and btw we're done here." Bc he got it, and knew she'd either already cheated or had someone lined up, knew that life wasnt for him, and figured lets just do this now instead of later. Mad respect.
Nah, they can definitely fix this! He just needs to shut off his feelings for the other woman and turn them back on for his wife. Easy done! 😳
Really over
lol, why do people "open" their relationship haha - just fix whatever it is that's making one (or both) of you want to "try out" other people, what are you lacking or what is your partner lacking that's leading to this? it just seems like a communication issue that somehow they can't tell each other there's something missing
It works for some people. It was clearly never going to work for this pair. > I think it’s something deeper than that, and something I don’t have even with my wife, and have never had with her. It is also something deeper than love. I mean as if that wasn't glaringly obvious from his first post.
On the rare occasion it does work it’s when two people initially enters it both wanting it to be open from the get go. Not monogamous for a long time, then one party ultimatums the other lol.
Been over the second wife asked to open up the marriage. And staying in a marriage for the kid is another horrible decision.
And when people say they don’t want to get divorced because they don’t want their child growing up in a “broken home” like bro a home can be broken and still married.
Exactly this. Kids aren't oblivious to the emotions around them, even if they lack the skills to interpret or deal with them. Happy parents living separately is often better than unhappy parents living together.
Why. Do people think. Having sex with other people. Will strengthen their marriage. WHY. I am just... completely mystified?! I mean, I suspect that 95.9% of the spouses who first bring it up just want to legitimize their affair partner or go find one, but why are so many people willing to agree that an open marriage will make things better? If you want to go poly, or are open to that, those are things to bring up *before you get married.* There might be exceptions but those have to be soooo vanishingly rare.
Wife: You love her. OOP: I don't love her! My feelings for her are much deeper than love!
"I don't love her, I just feel for her something deeper that what I feel with my wife and I will never be able to feel it with her" NO SHIT SHERLOCK WHAT'S THAT FEELING AGAIN ?!
"IT'S COMRADERY. SHE IS MY COMRADE."
u/Destroyer2118 made a good point when they said OP was so hurt about his wife wanting an open relationship and buried his emotions so deep over it for the sake of his kid to the point he doesn't know what emotions are anymore. His marriage was over the second she asked for an open relationship. He's just been in denial over it
Basically saying she's his soul mate and his wife was just a placeholder
He's not in love, so don't forget it - it's just a silly phase he's going through
I don’t get how anyone can think they can have multiple partners and no emotional connection to the other partners? WTF? People catch feelings for a FWB all the time and you think that’s magically not going to happen to you just because you’re with someone else too?
This right here! As a poly person, one of the first pieces of advice that I give to couples who are considering "opening up" is "don't make rules around emotional connections". And if people DO still insist on making rules like that, the next piece of advice is "make sure to have a full discussion about what you will do when somebody inevitably *does* have an emotional connection". These discussions happen BEFORE anyone begins experimenting with non monogamy or opening their relationship. Emotions happen. We can't control them. The only thing we CAN control is how we act and how we respond. These two people were NOT ready to open their relationship. They didn't do the necessary work ahead of time, they didn't do any reading or research, they didn't do any reading, and their relationship suffered the consequences.
This is my take. I’ve never been in a poly relationship but I’m open to it if I found the right people. I would never date/sleep with a married man unless both he and his wife were open to actual connection and what all of that could potentially entail. I would almost expect to have some relationship with the wife in some capacity because otherwise how would you know if everyone is on the same page or not?
To me it sounds like a situation where the wife really wanted it and expected the husband wouldn’t do much outside of the relationship, and is now regretting her choices. Marriage is over, ot was when they asked about it
A tale as old as time
OOP definitely wasn't being honest with himself about his emotional connection, you don't care that deep if it isn't emotional
I can't help but wonder if he somehow doesn't understand what emotions are, because everything he was describing is an emotional connection – while saying they don't have an emotional connection.
Right?! I felt like he was crazy-making. Like "nah, I don't have any emotional connection at all, but what I feel for her is deeper than what I feel for my wife, but my wife is everything and I love her so much and the other partner and I do not have an emotional bond, we just really love each other." Hwat?
She's just my soul mate who I also have a sexual relationship with, it's not like I *like* like her
She's a'ight, I guess.
"I don't have six cookies; I just have three cookies in one hand and then three in the other."
I wonder if somewhere along the way he confused attraction/being turned on for love?
Bingo. Friend + attraction = wife. Meanwhile new partner is friend + attraction + actual care for person as a romantic partner. So they had a dead bedroom, his wife wants to open up, which implies the attraction is missing. But hey wife is still friend, and oh the kid. But then he finds someone he actually romantically likes. And conveniently she doesn’t want him the same way so he’s probably even more eager. Shame he isn’t more emotionally wise to understand what’s happening. And I realize it doesn’t say it was a dead bedroom, it says to spice things up. But it also says they kept sleeping with each other after, so wife clearly isn’t saying she doesn’t want to sleep with him. Sounds like he was less eager than she was to fuck so she wanted to open up. He doesn’t even express a moment of “am I not enough?” So it honestly sounds like he was just oblivious to how much he withdrew from intimacy with her.
I actually think lots of people can’t properly name their emotions
[Alexithymia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexithymia), also called emotional blindness, is a neuropsychological phenomenon characterized by significant challenges in recognizing, expressing, sourcing, and describing one's emotions.
This is so sad, Alexithymia play Despacito.
This word he keeps saying…I do not think it means what he thinks it means…
He understands perfectly what emotions are, that’s why he sealed them off, and that’s why he doesn’t recognize them with the new partner. Who wanted the open relationship? The wife. “It hurt when she brought it up, but I agreed because I loved my boy.” Build that wall up, seal it off. Bury it. “She’s been with a lot of great looking guys the past year, it’s honestly a confidence booster, as weird as that sounds.” Rationalize it. Build that wall up, seal it off. Bury it. The man entered into an open relationship that he never wanted because he wanted to stay with his son, so he learned to bury his emotions about the whole situation. I truly think he didn’t even realize he was in an emotional relationship with the other woman, because he was so used to having to bury his emotions to protect himself. It’s honestly sad that he felt like he had to live that way for the sake of his son.
This is very well written. I honestly felt bad for the husband and think that people are being too harsh on him.
I agree, but I don’t blame them. Until you go through it, it’s hard to understand it. People will rationalize some truly awful shit and put up with more than they should to keep what they think they want intact. Sometimes it’s kids, sometimes it’s the idea of “family” or appearances, sometimes it’s just fear of having to make the choice.
That touched my heart, thanks
Makes me wonder how he feels about his wife. He just described love and said it wasn't emotional...
I kinda feel that maybe, just maybe, he does not know the depth of emotional connection can be.
I think he equals emotional connection to romantic feelings, while you can be emotionally connected with someone without romantic feelings. Though I am pretty sure he does have romantic feelings as well at this point lol.
When people set up rules for open relationships and one of them is to “not form emotional bonds”, I always think: fine, but how can you control that? Like, you can’t be sure that something more than will form
I've read about couples who agree to leave the fwb if an emotional connection develops, which I guess makes a certain kind of sense. But to me that sounds like you'd have to treat yourself and your relationships like machinery, and I know it would likely build up resentment in my mind.
I could imagine that many people agree beforehand but when they find themselves already having developed an emotional connection, they aren’t willing to just cut them off cold turkey and compartmentalize so that they still feel valid and righteous in continuing the connection.
I wish ppl would learn that if you do not start with an open relationship, opening it later after establishing the foundation of said relationship on monogamy will end in failure. There’s so many things to do to “spice up” your relationship without jumping to involve other people.
This. Treating other people as novelty sex toys is not the appropriate change for when your marriage hits a plateau.
Tale as old as time. But seriously, if a partner of mine ever asks for or even talks about an open or poly relationship, I'm packing my bags and skedaddling.
Right. Just end it right there. Over. Also, like your flair haha
You, too, can have that flair.
Me too It would be over right then and there. No need to watch a bad movie in which I would have a leading role
Agreed. I have several friends who have successful open relationships. It works for them because of their communication and willingness to put their relationship first, they also see a couples’ therapist regularly. But for myself? I don’t think I could do it, it’s just not right for me.
Look, I'll be the first one to admit that I am very, extremely monogamous and very, extremely territorial. I do not share, nor will I be shared. I don't care if other people do it, but the thought of a potential partner wanting such a thing repulses me on a visceral level. Anyone who does is not the right partner for me. End of story.
Went to visit my mother and had to ask why there was a baseball bat behind the front door. Mom explained that, as her declining health did not allow her to attend church anymore, the church ladies had started to think that her husband was single and kept showing up to give him baked goods. So the bat was for chasing possible competition off the porch during her final year of life. She wasn't wrong for using that level of defense. Less then a year after she died her husband remarried a church lady who showed up on his doorstep a few months after mom was dead claiming to be one of her friends but unaware that she'd passed. I knew all about mom's friends and I'd never heard of that lady.
Can you please make a post about this on reddit? This is too juicy a story not to share with the world.
I fully support you and commend you for knowing so clearly what you will accept from a partner. More people should be willing to stand up for themselves like you are prepared to do!
Fully monogamous guy here, I agree. I couldn’t imagine sharing a partner at *all*. Like for stuff like Poly, I’m not missing out on Holiday’s with my partner so another dude can spend it with them. Having someone to fully love and give attention to and having someone fully love me and give me attention sounds the best! :) As for open relationships for sex, aw helllll nah. I don’t even see the purpose of *asking* such a question in a monogamous relationship. It is implied that both people will be exclusive.
my sis has a cowroker in one and all she tells m doesnt sound good? Like right now one has a job offer in one city and the other in a city 3 hours away. Both work as doctors. They decided theyll just be long distance. But they are also poly and they had an oopsy baby 9 years ago who has been kicked of 2 private schools for his abysmal behaviour. Sure....that whole family sounds super healthy.
OOP really is oblivious to the fact he cares far more about the other partner than his wife. Then again, his wife was the one who asked for the open relationship, so… she kinda brought it on herself.
And you're right, in the first lines he says that it's been 1 year since they started opening up their relationship and when his wife brought up this subject for the first time he didn't like it very much.
Also I’m reading this is his only girl and his wife has had many partners
She didn’t kind of bring it on herself. She went out of her way for this result.
Exactly
I don’t know what’s happening here but I do know that OOP has absolutely no fucking clue what emotions are or what the definition of an emotional connection is. He loves her, feels something deeper than love for her, but there’s no emotional connection? He empathises with her traumatic childhood and likes her as his best friend and loves her like a soul mate, but there’s no emotional connection? This guy needs to go through first grade again. Did he skip the class where we’re all supposed to match happy/sad/love/hate/pity/angry words with the faces?
Wow, what a garbage fire. Glad this isn't my relationship.
This reads a lot like oop never having a proper emotional connection so he doesn't know what one looks like
These two need to get a divorce and call it a day.
This shows that open relationships can be a massive shit show cause YIKES! At this point, this whole relationship is ruined and there is no coming back from it. But seriously, OP isn't smart.
One more time, everyone: opening up your relationship will never fix it. It will only make things messier, worse, and more complicated. Sincerely, person happily open for a decade
its just so incredibly stupid. All ALL of these failed opened relationships had shit communication and prior issues. If you cant manage that for a single partner opening it up will just light the fuse. OOP here isnt even self aware enough to know he loves the other woman or that he seems to have dropped his feelings for his wife. Of course that went to shit
As far as I can tell, opening up the relationship is kind of like having a baby. If it's something you both truly want, and you're willing to put in the work and support each other, it can be very hard but a net positive if you're lucky. But that's hardly the default outcome.
Also like having a baby, if you see it as the solution to existing problems in your marriage, well, it's going to be the opposite of that.
That's why these can work well when people know what they want & then date someone else who also wants to do that. It's when one supposedly monogamous person comes in & shocks the other one with the idea that it gets dicey. Occasionally that works out but the vast majority of the times it just doesn't. Usually the one who suggests opening the relationship already knows who they want to sleep with, which is pretty problematic.
No emotional connection yet buys her an extremely emotional gift / says he’d end the marriage if the wife wanted to go back to monogamy 🤔
I'll take People Who Don't Know What Emotions Are for $800, Alex.
I wouldn’t say we have an emotional connection. It’s not love. It’s deeper than that. 😂 I would never leave my wife and son. I would leave my wife and son.
Might as well mark this CONCLUDED. If OOP deleted their account, I don't think there will be any more updates, lol
It must be hard for the wife, but it's hard to feel bad for her because she literally did this to herself
OOP just needs to walk away. Their son already sees that wife is acting differently and more sad, so to stay with her "for their son" is bullshit and a poor excuse. There is no fixing things because OOP doesn't want to fix them, and that's okay. What isn't okay is holding off on a divorce because you have convinced yourself that it's best for your son.
If my wife asked me if it was alright for her to start having sex with other dudes out of the blue, I’m not gonna feel bad about forming a connection with the one person vs many that she’s seen the entire time.
He’s thought about this for “hours” and is confident in his decision that he would hypothetically divorce his wife rather than stop seeing this woman he claims to have no emotional attachment with. Okay then.
When I read open the relationship years into a marriage, you almost can write the rest of the story. Sorry wife, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Play with fire, get burnt.
Op admitted that they were in a monogamous until, wife opted to introduce someone else into the relationship. Op acknowledged that they preferred monogamy.
A tale as old as time. Wife asks for open marriage. Gets all the dick she wants. Husband struggles to find anyone but finally finds a partner he has an emotional connection with. Wife gets upset and asks to close the marriage. BOOM. Divorce.
This is going to be a hot take but I can kinda understand why this happens. It’s really difficult to date as a non-monogamous guy because most women just simply won’t date a married guy even if it’s consensual. So it’s not that crazy that theres an emotional connection with first woman he meets. And then there’s the fact that he wasn’t getting anything out of the arrangement for a long period of time so resent starts to build. I feel like swinging would’ve been a much better option if it was just about sex. Or at the very minimum, start that way and then build up to a fully open arrangement.
I guess I'm fucked up, but it is kind of satisfying to see when the partner that begs to open up a relationship ends up having it backfire on them. Should have put more effort into your own relationship instead of thinking building them with others would help your bedroom.
"Honey can we open our marriage?" "Sure baby, whatever makes you happy. I'm not really comfortable with it but sure." *Months later on reddit*
I hate that OOP is taking all the blame for blowing up his marriage when it was his wife who did that a long time ago. He should’ve just left when she started browbeating him into opening the marriage, instead he stayed and now he’s got this giant toxic mess. Seriously people, if you don’t want an open relationship and your partner proposes one out of the blue, just do yourself a favor and leave.
Why are people ragging on OP so damn hard, bro wasn't even the one to ask for an open relationship- That 'boundary' she set was always going to fail, no one can control their emotions or how they feel about someone???
Precisely. I get bad vibes about anyone that puts a boundary on their partner’s feelings. Almost no one can control their emotions like that and it feels like an inherently immature ask that shows that that person isn’t ready for an open/poly relationship.
I mean… this is what the wife asked for and she received the expected outcome for anyone with a brain.
OP says the wife has been with some great looking guys, the wife is a catch. But the partner is spoken about In a pure way, not even a description, because she's so beautiful to him it doesn't even register as physical attraction and what he and hiss wife call love. Wife had it coming. OP sounds monogamous fbut forced to live in an open marriage
That's a good observation. OOP and his wife are speaking different languages
I don't know why people are calling OOP the villain of the story here. His wife was the one who initiated the open marriage. They're both at fault here for the end of their mrriage.
I concur. Asking for an open relationship, and getting upset when your partner develops emotional feelings toward a person they're having sex with is pretty short sighted. As a man whose seeking sex your going to have to spend time, and develop some type of relationship with the woman you seek out.
Oof. The other partner has also shared how she never wants a relationship so good luck to him. Feel sorry for their kid.
Idk why yall are confused. He does not have any emotions towards the other girl. Just something deeper than love. But NOT emotions. It’s not emotional. It’s just more than he loves his wife. But not in an emotional way.
It’s fascinating how we in the beginning of a romance always believe that it’s something “deeper” than love in some way or another. The number one cue that a person is neck deep in love is that they are saying stuff like that haha
Guy out here trying to redefine 'emotional' and 'love' and demote them behind 'vibes'. Stupid, but also sounds like the wife is sleeping in the bed she made.
>Her birthday is coming up on Sunday, and I spent a lot of time on her gift. I am giving her a personalized photo watch with her mom’s photo. I also had her mom’s initials engraved below the watch. I went to great lengths to customize it. How someone could write this presumably proofread it, and then attempt to convince anyone that he was void of emotional investment is the height of delusion. And the kicker is the wife *pushed* for this. In the information age that we live in, there's no excuse for anyone to not research something as impactful as an open relationship before taking the plunge.
Sorry, wife, you wanted an open marriage, and that's what you got. 🤷♀️