ewing

Ewing

New member
Hi? Please give me some advise on how to deal with this situation and how avoid trouble moving foward? Thanks


I've been married 6 years and me and my wife recently decided to open our relationship up. I've always kinda thought this was normal and was actually surprised when she came to me about it a couple weeks ago. What prompted it was that she was at the bar the night before and almost kissed a boy. She apparently left the bar and cried in her friends car. The next day we had a conversation about it with the result being an agreement that we can "hook up". My wife who has OCD immediately jumped into the rule structure of this agreement and came up with some things like i cant use our bed etc. A couple days later i had been thinking about everything and i thought of a rule- "you cant hook up with anyone you've had history with prior to the agreement". I just thought one of us finding out about the other with and old boyfriend/girlfriend might set someone off and it wasn't necessary. She then asked me if this applied to the boy she had almost kissed the other week. I said "i think it does". She asked "why". Here is where it starts getting interesting.

Apparently that guy found my wife on facebook the day before (i totally believe this) and she had already made tentative plans. I explained that i didn't like that she had already had an emotional experience that involved him, that her first "hook up" would be follow up, and that i knew about this guy perusing my wife while she was on a weekend pass. I wasn't mad. It just made me feel a little weird. She said OK and that she would call him and cancel. Well, later she brought it up again and starting tying to make it a conversation about trust and relationships in generally and basically tying to twist my feelings until she could get her way. She was kinda relentless and i also felt like she was tying to annoying me into giving her, her way. Now for the first time i am upset. We fight and she agrees again that she will call him and cancel.


The next day is when she is going to visit a friend and was supposed to hang out with this guy. She is acting weird during the day and i know that she is feeling an anxious about the phone call. Like i said before my wife has OCD and the phone can be real tough for her. It just bugs her out. Eventually, she mentions the call and i tell her i understand phone calls bug you out and that you didn't make these plans thinking that you were doing something wrong but sometimes stuff's not fair and that i think she should do it. She says OK i will call him when I stop for coffee.


She leaves and call me a couple mins later from Starbucks. She tells me she called him and that he told her some story about what he did just to get there etc etc. I tell her i am not scared of this guy but i'm pissed at you b/c i feel like your tying to break me down by being annoying so you can get your way with my blessing. Well, eventually i tell her to go if she wants but that im pissed. She thanks me and goes. A little bit later she calls me from the bar. She tells me she meet him at the bar. Went she got there He and his friend wanted to go to another bar and she said no and told them to just go. She expected me to be happy that she decided not to hang out with him but i was still pretty pissed about the way she acted.


She comes home the next day. I put a sizable fist hole in the wall the night before. We talk things out pretty good. I write her a note the next day telling her that we have to respect each others feelings, share things that are coming b/t us, and if we fight that we need to not just be fighting to win and to fight fair.


We talk more the next couple of days and at some point i tell her if she needed to hang out with this boy then its something she should do but that she cant change my feelings and i dont know how we would work it out. The next day she comes to me and tells me that she got another facebook message from the kid that morning telling her "look if things change and you want to hang out let me know". She tells me that she might want to to. I tell her to sit on it for a while, that i think the best thing for us would be if she put him behind her, but that its her decision. The next day we talk again (pretty drunkenly) and she is again tying to manipulate me into flat out giving my blessing. I feel like the first agruement might be repeating itself just on more civil terms.


The next day i get drunk. I'm upset. She can tell that i am upset. Eventually, i blow up. I tell if she does something with a guy knowing that it will hurt me she is cheating. I tell her she is not respecting my feelings. I tell her that if she does this i honestly dont know if ill be living in this house long. I lay into her. We talk a little and go to bed with it unresolved but getting along. The next morning i wake up angry. She can tell its brothering me and asks why im angry (since we had kinda gotten over the anger the night before)? I shrug and ask her what she thinks our options are. She says she doesn't know and ask me the same question. I say "you can stop being an *******, i can kick this guys *** so he is scared to come around you and then we can work on things, and i dont know". She goes in the shower. Eventually she calls me in and tells me she wont see him. I believe her. The next day (yesterday) we hung out and watched football. We have a good time but i feel the fight must be effecting her and i dont like the way i won this fight at all. I guilted her into scariface. I think it was the right decesion for us but i dont like how it went down. I'm glad she choose me but dont like what i had to do to get there and im not sure how to put true closure on this situation.

Additional details: I really dont care if she hooks up, I dont know if i came across as the jealous type but im really not. If she has hooked up with someone else since this started. I dont know or care. I also dont know how much my wife's OCD played into her "need" to keep this going

Anyway, what do you think? Oh and thank you. I'm a little lost
 
Last edited:
I think its completely unreasonable to open your marriage and then go about putting rules on it such as no previous interests or partners. You wouldn't of opened your marriage if it weren't for this guy by the sounds of it so why not call it like it is.

She cheated in you basically. That will take some time to get through. You are justified in asking for the time. Deciding to open your marriage is not going to give you the time. Asking her to let this guy go for awhile until you establish boundaries, recover from here cheating, make sure you have a solid foundation of mutual trust and respect with a whole lot of understanding of what it would mean to be "open" would be more appropriate.

It sounds like she wants more than just sex. This would mean a poly relationship. Generally "open" means open to sex with others, not emotional attachment. It sounds like you are thinking more in terms of sex with others and assume that is what she is after also. That is a whole conversation that it sounds like you haven't had let alone others about the future, relationship dynamics, what you have learned from reading and asking questions. Ya, I think that there is lots to do before even the thought of others being in either of your lives.

If you do a search and look at the tags you will find some intersting threads on "foundations" and "lessons" that might help.
 
I think its completely unreasonable to open your marriage and then go about putting rules on it such as no previous interests or partners. You wouldn't of opened your marriage if it weren't for this guy by the sounds of it so why not call it like it is.

She cheated in you basically. That will take some time to get through. You are justified in asking for the time. Deciding to open your marriage is not going to give you the time. Asking her to let this guy go for awhile until you establish boundaries, recover from here cheating, make sure you have a solid foundation of mutual trust and respect with a whole lot of understanding of what it would mean to be "open" would be more appropriate.

It sounds like she wants more than just sex. This would mean a poly relationship. Generally "open" means open to sex with others, not emotional attachment. It sounds like you are thinking more in terms of sex with others and assume that is what she is after also. That is a whole conversation that it sounds like you haven't had let alone others about the future, relationship dynamics, what you have learned from reading and asking questions. Ya, I think that there is lots to do before even the thought of others being in either of your lives.

If you do a search and look at the tags you will find some intersting threads on "foundations" and "lessons" that might help.


Thank you redpepper. I dont think she cheated. She cheated on her last long term boyfriend before and went home and told him. She told me she wanted to avoid that situation again and that was one of the reasons she wanted to open it. I have come pretty close to meaningless hookups before and really dont see the harm in them so i agreed. I do think she is looking for more then just a night of phyical excitment though. Thanks. I will do some of the reading you suggest.
 
I dont think she cheated. She cheated on her last long term boyfriend before and went home and told him. She told me she wanted to avoid that situation again and that was one of the reasons she wanted to open it.
Ah, sorry, I thought she kissed the guy after hooking up with him on fb and arranging to meet with him. To me that's cheating as there was intent, it wasn't spoken about to you and she had enough passion and connection with him to kiss him. I guess my description of cheating is different than yours. If you are good with that then I guess that's not something to work on. That frees you up to work on all the other stuff then.
 
I am curious, what if you had the conversation about opening up your marriage and she had met this guy the next day, it would've been fine then? As she hadn't cheated with him, or known him in the past, I don't understand why you would keep him off limits. Past partners or friends is one thing to want to have out of bounds, and I can understand wanting that, but does this mean you can't go out with the cute barista you noticed at your coffee shop, or anybody you've ever met before either?

You refer to him as a kid - is he younger? Is there something else going on about him in particular you find threatening?
You were happy with an agreement when it was that you could both "hook up" but now that her "OCD" made her start wanting to discuss rules, boundaries, etc (which is wise IMO, especially as there seem to be some issues brought up by it that need to be dealt with) - I mean...could she have hooked in the couple of days before you thought of the no ex-interests rule and it would've been fine? Are you hoping that she wont meet anybody else she likes? If you can't handle her seeing this guy who she had no investment in other than a couple of hours of chat at a bar, how are you going to deal with her dating anybody else?

The anger, violence, and drinking doesn't have any place in negotiating boundaries. Sounds like you both need to slow down and wait until you've been able to negotiate calmly and are on the same page before either of you goes off and does anything. However, i do want to say, if you tell her she can do something and she does it, don't punish her if you didn't want her to do it. If you don't want her to do something, say it, say it calmly, and hopefully she will be open to listening. It just sounds like you guys are mucking it all up right out of the gate, and you probably want to regroup.
 
Last edited:
I am curious, what if you had the conversation about opening up your marriage and she had met this guy the next day, it would've been fine then? As she hadn't cheated with him, or known him in the past, I don't understand why you would keep him off limits. Past partners or friends is one thing to want to have out of bounds, and I can understand wanting that, but does this mean you can't go out with the cute barista you noticed at your coffee shop, or anybody you've ever met before either?

You refer to him as a kid - is he younger? Is there something else going on about him in particular you find threatening?
You were happy with an agreement when it was that you could both "hook up" but now that her "OCD" made her start wanting to discuss rules, boundaries, etc (which is wise IMO, especially as there seem to be some issues brought up by it that need to be dealt with) - I mean...could she have hooked in the couple of days before you thought of the no ex-interests rule and it would've been fine? Are you hoping that she wont meet anybody else she likes? If you can't handle her seeing this guy who she had no investment in other than a couple of hours of chat at a bar, how are you going to deal with her dating anybody else?

The anger, violence, and drinking doesn't have any place in negotiating boundaries. Sounds like you both need to slow down and wait until you've been able to negotiate calmly and are on the same page before either of you goes off and does anything. However, i do want to say, if you tell her she can do something and she does it, don't punish her if you didn't want her to do it. If you don't want her to do something, say it, say it calmly, and hopefully she will be open to listening. It just sounds like you guys are mucking it all up right out of the gate, and you probably want to regroup.


Yes if she had hooked up with him in day or two prior to our discussion i think it would have been ok. I brought up eliminating exs and we had already agreed that we would not ask or tell. she then brought up the kid (yes he is younger) and asked if it would brother me. I said i think would can you not assuming it would end their. Maybe i am worried about her dating someone else which was not something i dont think we agreed too but i might fear. Thank you
 
Ah, sorry, I thought she kissed the guy after hooking up with him on fb and arranging to meet with him. To me that's cheating as there was intent, it wasn't spoken about to you and she had enough passion and connection with him to kiss him. I guess my description of cheating is different than yours. If you are good with that then I guess that's not something to work on. That frees you up to work on all the other stuff then.



She hasn't kissed him just almost :). Anyway, we talked again last night. She told me that she didn't intend to come off as tring to get my blessing/explain away my feelings. I explained that i would have perfered after so much prior conversation if she had said im going to do this and i am sorry if it hurts you but were going to have to figure it out. I had made it clear that i didn't like this idea and i thought it was time to move on to compromise or scariface. She asked if i wanted her to be more of a bitch? i guess i did. I think am chalking that up to an emotional misunderstanding and something to learn from.

Anyway, this is what i am tring to figure out now. Our first rule was a dont ask dont tell policy. When she made her plans i was unawear of them and that was OK. When i ask about exs she brought this guy up and asked if it would brother me if she went out with him that weekend. I told her i think it might. She asked if i would perfer she not and i answered yes.

It seems a good part of her reasoning for being upset is that this could have gone down a different way i would never have viewed it as her doing something wrong and that she had to change plans when they were acceptable at the time she made them.

She actually told me this orginally and i kind of shuged it off. I assumed since i knew and had concerns she would drop a meaningless hook up and the fact that she had made legal plans was made irrevelent by the fact that i now knew. She thought since it would have been totally legal if things went down a little differently that something is unfair. I still think that once i had knowledge and concern that my feelings should have carried more weight but im tying. My only real goal at this point is to get past this fight. I know the only reason she didn't do this was b/c she feels i made her not. I dont like that and i want to reach agreement or at least understanding.
 
Last edited:
This is why DADT makes no sense to me, frankly. Like your wife, the idea that something could be ok if acknowledged but bad once spoken of is completely counterintuitive. That said, it wouldn't have been hard for her to just respect your request and not see this guy.
 
I think the rules you came up with... are the problem.

Also, be mature enough to have a conversation without punching walls, yelling, and threatening to beat people up. What is this, high school? Geez. If you can't have a conversation without getting all fucked up and pissy about it, how are you going to manage the complexities of polyamorous relationships?
 
I think the rules you came up with... are the problem.

Also, be mature enough to have a conversation without punching walls, yelling, and threatening to beat people up. What is this, high school? Geez. If you can't have a conversation without getting all fucked up and pissy about it, how are you going to manage the complexities of polyamorous relationships?


Im tring to figure that out or at leadt figure this out. I shared my worst behavoior on purpose as i wanted honest reactions from people who might know best. i know some of my actions were wrong.
 
With the drinking and the random sex hookup I'd be more concerned about a safe sex rule more than which bed someones allowed to use or if said hook up was with an old partner or partners. Maybe trim back the rules to concentrate on health and safety and trust that your partners choices in hook ups won't be done to intentionally hurt or trigger you.

If you going to swing on a defenseless wall you should scan it an know where the stud are ....you could of broken your hand. I put my fist through a glass shower door once....learned that lesson the hard way....I don't hit shower doors anymore.
 
Did I suggest yet that you read other threads, do a tag search for "lessons" "foundations" and perhaps, now that you have mentioned it.. "DADT" It seems that part of the problem is lack of knowledge. Maybe if you both took some time to educate yourselves on what has worked for others and some of the theory of poly then there would be less flying by the seat of your pants and things working out better next time.

Hell I'll do the leg work for you. I often wonder if people actually take the advice to look at other threads... I wonder sometimes if I should bother... I never have time to do searches for people, but in this case I think you really need to get about reading.

foundations

lessons

There are many other interesting threads if you start doing tag searches. Just so you know.
 
Did I suggest yet that you read other threads, do a tag search for "lessons" "foundations" and perhaps, now that you have mentioned it.. "DADT" It seems that part of the problem is lack of knowledge. Maybe if you both took some time to educate yourselves on what has worked for others and some of the theory of poly then there would be less flying by the seat of your pants and things working out better next time.

Hell I'll do the leg work for you. I often wonder if people actually take the advice to look at other threads... I wonder sometimes if I should bother... I never have time to do searches for people, but in this case I think you really need to get about reading.

foundations

lessons

There are many other interesting threads if you start doing tag searches. Just so you know.


Thank you so much. I think i cleared a hurdle with your help already. I will gladly take your advice i hope you don't mind if i ask you a question if i need too. Thanks again
 
Back
Top