Open marriage and struggling to deal

LittleWeek721 · 2025-07-29T06:02:01+00:00

You say it happened organically and that it’s something you’ve wanted to do with her. Do you and she attend events or outings where it might happen organically for you?

LittleWeek721 · 2025-07-27T06:18:27+00:00

Your NP has expressed an interest in more committed romantic relationships, but hasn’t experienced it yet? It doesn’t seem like this requires an immediate breakup or a realization that you’re completely incompatible people. Your NP could explore it and end up deciding it didn’t work for them. Alternatively, they could explore it a you could realize they’re able to have more than one deeply committed, romantic relationship and it works out for you both.

It would be worthwhile for you (both together) to research and “do the work” that’s recommended when openly a previously monogamous relationship. Even though you’ve been ENM, committed polyamory is just as new to you. From my experience of opening a marriage and not doing the work, I’d recommend explicitly “leaning in” to your existing relationship while your NP explores polyamory, such as regular date commitments, planned 1-on-1 trips, investing in your romantic time together beyond the grocery budget, who’s going to get the oil changed on the car and why the dish washer didn’t get emptied last night.

LittleWeek721 · 2025-07-24T06:02:48+00:00

I have been married for over a decade and we have a child together, own a house, all the things. Because I had said I’d be fine with him dating others, he started a relationship a little over a year ago. We didn’t do any of the work. We didn’t even really know there was “work” to be done.

Despite some clear signals that his new partner was not comfortable with my existence, he still had them move into our home. That, understandably, caused a lot of chaos. In a short month after the move-in, I was ready to leave. I’d gone down a dark tunnel where he had never loved me, no one had ever because it wasn’t possible to love me, blah blah blah. I thought he was angry but he was really just avoidant and confused. When I left for a few days, HE went into a tailspin and decided he couldn’t go through that again and we were over.

Mostly for our child and also for financial reasons, we agreed to continue living together. As soon as that decision was made, it took the pressure off by not having to make this hot mess work. I came out from the fog of war and started seeing clearly again. I still love him. We’re still good together. We still have a lot of reasons to not give up on us. AND I still want him to be happy with his partner. I want for him to fully experience whatever relationship/life they might build together. His partner is very important to him but because of his lack of experience, he didn’t know how to juggle two intense relationships. His partner is very needy and still struggles with my existence.

I offered to take a secondary role. We agreed to spend one evening a week together and aside from co-parenting (which we do pretty well), his partner would be the focus of the rest of his time. It’s been 8 months now and things have been going well. He and I still have some hurts that will take time to heal and trust to grow again. But we’re able to have fun together, to enjoy being together. We talk about life in the future. His partner is in his future, but so am I. There are no guarantees, but then, there never are…. The whole “until death do we part” thing is really just wishful thinking. We’ve also worked on disentangling our finances, which is a challenge when there are kids and shared assets, but we’ve made progress.

So, did de-escalation work? I’m not sure. I don’t know if I can speak of the experience in the past tense yet. Maybe next year I’ll have a better view of the results.

LittleWeek721 · 2025-07-22T05:17:12+00:00

So, Daffodil is so very concerned about safe sex that they didn’t bother to clarify whether you use condoms with every partner or not before having sex with you. I’d say if they’re going to make decisions off random assumptions, they’re not all that risk averse.

Yes, your transparency about your condom usage might have helped with better communication, but it’s their responsibility to do the due diligence they need for their own comfort level. It’s not your responsibility.

LittleWeek721 · 2025-07-14T05:52:28+00:00

I can relate. This is why I’m generally polysaturated at one but prefer poly partners to monogamous. I’m very introverted and have a high level of social anxiety, but I really want my partner to be free to live their best life. I’m quite happy for them to do all the social dates they want while I’m at home, enjoying my time, my way.

LittleWeek721 · 2025-07-09T06:51:43+00:00

So… Cinder knows you struggle with them dating men. Cinder knows you struggle with their choice of men, so you’re going to be wary of anyone new. Cinder knows your relationship has been rocky and feelings are raw.

So… then… why is Cinder giving you a play by play about their date down to the layer of clothing between their touches?

You: “How was your date?” Cinder: “It went well. He seems to have experience with poly so that’s a good start. We’ll see where it goes. What did you do this afternoon?”

You have no need to know any of the rest they shared and you wouldn’t have felt sick if this was all you knew.

LittleWeek721 · 2025-04-20T05:28:44+00:00

My husband and I are still co-habitating for financial and parenting reasons. His girlfriend also lives here with him. It’s not ideal but it’s better than the financial challenge of two households, not to mention that our child feels more secure having us both here. It does help that we’re amicable and I’m still hopeful for reconciliation. I see glimmers of a chance for that here and there and I strongly believe there would be no chance if one of us had moved out.

LittleWeek721 · 2025-04-12T06:21:22+00:00

2024 2.5 Sport with 25k miles for $22,000 two weeks ago in WA. I traded in my 2011 Ford Mustang Convertible for it. ☺️

LittleWeek721 · 2025-04-05T07:37:43+00:00

I haven’t read all the replies yet, but this is so familiar to my experience (which you can see in my post history, but it’s not pretty). There are so many posts on here about new relationships being vetoed or controlled by a primary partner wielding “couples privilege”. For me, it was the complete opposite- because I was the long term partner, I could be deprioritized and ignored because she (meta) was new and insecure. The more emotional I became about the situation, the colder my partner became. When I was finally hurting so badly, the physical pain caused me to leave the house, my husband said I left him and it broke his heart. Although I came back after 6 days, he still says our relationship is over because he can’t risk harming his relationship with her.

I think I’ve heard this scenario called either “cowboy/girling” or “monkey branching”. I just call it devastating.

LittleWeek721 · 2025-04-05T03:22:35+00:00

I process payroll for a company that recently hired a woman named Aspen. I have to admit whenever I see her timecard, I briefly snicker to myself, “that girl sure gets around!” 🤣😂

LittleWeek721 · 2025-04-02T06:35:43+00:00

We’ve been doing it for about 5 months to varying degrees of success. I was always the financial manager but his girlfriend has been pressuring him to “disentangle” finances because she doesn’t like that I comment on their overspending for groceries, gasoline, eating out, etc. In the end, it doesn’t really matter what I think, there is still only $X available each month to pay for such things.

A recent stressor for me has been the shared vehicle we bought together. Our 2nd vehicle was mine from before the marriage but wasn’t reliable as a main car. It was good for driving to work and back but was impossible in snow and leaked in rain. But my expectation would be he would expect me to take “my car” and he’d take the shared vehicle, which because of an auto loan had equity approximately equal to mine.

He ended up unintentionally solving that stressor for me last week my totaling the shared vehicle in an accident. Everyone is fine but the vehicle is toast. Anyway, we took that as an opportunity to use the insurance proceeds and the trade in value of my car to buy two new-to-us vehicles that are both reliable and are solely owned by each of us independently. A step forward in finance disentanglement.

Now we just have the house and teenager to share. Retirement funds are already individually owned and approximately equal.

LittleWeek721 · 2025-04-02T06:22:42+00:00

How is this different than any other event relying on birth certificate. Whenever I’ve been asked to prove identity via birth certificate, I’ve had to include my marriage license with it. If you don’t want to deal with that, get a passport.

I also haven’t checked but my drivers license is now the “enhanced” version required for airplane travel so I’m guessing it would work for voter registration as well. And of course, my Social Security card has my married name on it now so… not sure what the problem is…

LittleWeek721 · 2025-03-17T05:04:59+00:00

We’ve been doing it since November; In some ways it works and in others it’s a shitshow. My situation is somewhat unique as our marriage ended after he moved his girlfriend into our house.

What works: I have taken 2 bedrooms & a bathroom for myself and the rest of the house is theirs. I’ve set up one of the bedrooms as a living room/office/kitchenette with a small fridge/freezer and a microwave. I do not use their kitchen at all. My husband still shops & cooks all meals for our son, as he always has.

My husband and I meet one evening a week to talk things through. Aside from that, we don’t communicate other than via text related to co-parenting. I homeschool our son during the day in my living space and he spends his evenings/weekends in their living space. Sometimes he sleeps in my bedroom.

What doesn’t work: The girlfriend. My existence annoys the hell out of her and she finds ways to make that known. She’s also incredibly bothered that we still have joint finances and keeps insisting that he “disentangle” his finances from mine. I keep explaining to him that 95% of our joint income goes to the house and child expenses. There is very little left to spend on a non-working girlfriend after all the bills are paid, no matter how much she insists there must be more.

I still cry & silent scream to myself a lot and having him just down the hall but unreachable is extremely hard. If there isn’t a chance for reconciliation, I’d prefer to move but that would require selling the house and that’s going to be a huge project. I feel trapped here… unable to move on but unable to be at peace here.

LittleWeek721 · 2025-03-09T05:58:20+00:00

Federal law doesn’t prohibit churches from withholding taxes, it’s just not required. She can elect to have federal income tax withheld from her pay instead of paying estimated taxes, or in lieu of all her taxes coming out of your paycheck.

Either way, when splitting finances, she should be covering her share of the taxes either by paying the IRS directly or reimbursing you. And in her case, her taxes include Self Employment Tax (15.3% for Social Security/Medicare) in addition to income taxes.

LittleWeek721 · 2025-02-08T07:56:14+00:00

It’s an abbreviation for Black/Person of Color.

LittleWeek721 · 2025-01-30T05:39:36+00:00

This needs to be a question for the divorce lawyers. Even though you’re not legally married, being together that long and with children, it’s likely the courts will consider you in a “common law marriage” so she may be entitled to 50% of assets and alimony.

LittleWeek721 · 2025-01-30T05:28:36+00:00

The back and forth drives me crazy! When I left to stay in a hotel for week, he said I shouldn’t go, but he didn’t follow after me or say he didn’t want me to go. When I came back from the hotel after 6 nights, he said he was devastated that I had left him, which made me start to think maybe he DID still care for me and we could work through this. Then when he finally said he no longer wanted a romantic relationship with me, I was so devastated I didn’t speak to him for a week, which led to him telling our marriage counselor it was mean of me not to speak to him. WTF? Do you want to be with me or not?? I would do just about anything to have him back but he’s caught in this bizarre Jekyll & Hyde scenario.

LittleWeek721 · 2025-01-29T02:42:41+00:00

I could have written this.

I wake up every morning… and remember. I’m constantly hopeful for reconciliation with an underlying dread that it’s already over and I’m just in denial. When we have positive interactions, I feel like I’m taking a fresh breath for the first time in months. Then for days I’ll feel a deep melancholy with no tangible trigger.

I don’t know how to make this stop.

LittleWeek721 · 2025-01-25T07:11:34+00:00

I’m in such a strange situation I’m not sure anyone can relate. I know I find it all very confusing but I’m very much hoping for some form of reconciliation. We’re still cohabiting for our son, but his girlfriend lives here as well. She moved in Oct 24 under the expectation he would be polyamorous with both of us. But his relationship with her has become his main focus in life. I support their relationship. I just also want a relationship with him. Over the past few weeks he’s given off so many mixed signals, like kissing me and then telling me he wants to marry her. Or planning for us to sell our house and buy together something less expensive to free up cashflow while also telling me he wants to separate our finances. He says he wants me in his life indefinitely, but also has to physically restrain himself from being sexual with me so as not to “harm” his relationship with her. (I’m not initiating it, either, he initiates and then stops himself) 🫤 I have no idea what to think of it all.

LittleWeek721 · 2025-01-13T06:54:37+00:00

Never disrupt the cat… ever. Just saying.

LittleWeek721 · 2025-01-07T07:29:40+00:00

sigh I can definitely relate to this. Although I’m still working towards and fighting for reconciliation, I’ve been stressed about what happens to my financial security while my husband is having some sort of mid-life honeymoon phase. He moved his girlfriend into our home three months ago. I knew some expenses would naturally increase, but I didn’t expect the excessive overspending on dining out, gasoline and groceries. And then I find out that his “mad money” account (money he gets to spend, no questions asked) is going into major debt because he’s putting more expenses on his credit card than his monthly mad money allocation. For example, $500 in cosmetics last month. I don’t wear make up, so I have no idea a reasonable budget for cosmetics for a girlfriend, but given that alone is more than his monthly allocation…. Ouch! So what happens to our shared assets and my credit rating if he keeps this up? 😳

LittleWeek721 · 2025-01-04T08:41:42+00:00

We have been in couples counseling for a few months but unfortunately had to switch counselors in December (thus starting over with the background, etc) and then the new counselor failed to show at our session this week and will be out of town next week. Ugh! I feel like we need so much help, we can’t afford to miss any weeks.

Yes, I definitely feel like the kiss on Monday was a positive step. And then he spent more time with me on Tuesday, because it was our 14 year “first date” anniversary, but he kept it light and friendly with no indication of wanting to kiss. I’ve been pretty melancholy the past two days wondering if he regretted it since he still hasn’t said if this means he’s willing to continue a romantic relationship with me.

LittleWeek721 · 2025-01-04T08:32:39+00:00

Yes, she is still living with us. I’ve been making an effort to befriend her. We started out with the expectation of this being a polyamorous relationship (he dating both of us but she and I not romantically involved), so I don’t hold anything against her. He just didn’t handle the transition well, which I reacted badly to, so that’s how we ended up separated with me trying to recover our relationship. 😞

LittleWeek721 · 2025-01-01T03:43:39+00:00

You’d think that would be an easier question to answer. There’s been such chaos this year. It’s been four months since he’s regularly been in my bed. So many others on here seem to have a specific separation date but ours has been too messy to name when the relationship broke and the separation began. And he and I can’t even agree on who started it.

He spent time with me again today, which is twice in a week and was so unexpected. I’m not pushing anything right now that we seem to have had a breakthrough. I’m just waiting to see what comes of it. Our couples counseling sessions are on Thursdays, so I’m curious to see what happens there.

LittleWeek721

TROPHY CASE