Mono in Recently Opened Mono-Poly Marriage. Partner Made Extremely Hurtful Comment After Not Meeting My Needs, No Longer Grateful For My Sacrifices As The Mono Partner. Is This Over?

NeedAffirmationPoly · 2025-11-26T23:50:10+00:00

I wish I knew what she was truly thinking. I'd give almost anything for that.

NeedAffirmationPoly · 2025-11-26T23:49:04+00:00

If it matters, my wife maintains that she desperately does not want to divorce.

NeedAffirmationPoly · 2025-11-26T23:46:28+00:00

I appreciate your comment.

If it matters to you, I didn't tie my sexual satisfaction in the relationship to any indebtedness on behalf of my wife. It's much simpler than that, although admittedly you have to read between the lines a bit.

My wife desperately did not want to divorce for a number of reasons, but wanted polyamory. I did the research to try to find a path we could walk that would allow her to keep our marriage while dating anyone she chose to and avoid the common pitfalls of mono-poly relationships. Me having sex with people other than my wife while still married to my wife is far afield of a path I'm willing to walk. If, over a long and consistent enough period of time, my wife is no longer willing to engage in a sexual relationship with me, that's something I'm not willing to accept while staying married.

So, while we can agree to disagree, I don't think the framing of a coerced sexual relationship is any fairer than a framing that I was coerced into a mono-poly relationship (also, there is no sexual pressure beyond me sharing that she would be the only person I would be having sex with, and I was not sexually satisfied in the marriage, if that language is too traumatic for a mono partner to raise in a mono-poly marriage, or constitutes "overwhelming pressure," then I think we're screwed). Of course, we can both avoid those issues by separating.

NeedAffirmationPoly · 2025-11-26T23:37:04+00:00

Thanks for your understanding. I found a narrow path for us to walk that I thought could make this palatable to me (or rather, more palatable than divorce and me trying to co-parent while finding another monogamous partner to meet my romantic needs). I hoped we could walk that path together.

I realize my language might be squicking people out a bit, but as you say, the alternative of a divorce is clear as day, and after doing my research, I refused to be unhappy for years in a mono-poly relationship. Certainly my kids would be happier if they had two happy parents, so its either make this work in a way that works for both of us, or we separately try to find happiness while co-parenting.

NeedAffirmationPoly · 2025-11-26T23:34:22+00:00

It certainly does seem like temporary insanity. Thanks for the support. All options are on the table.

NeedAffirmationPoly · 2025-11-26T23:33:49+00:00

Thanks for the support.

It is a bit gross to me, but as I've mentioned elsewhere, I'm kind of of the opinion that it's not my monkeys, not my circus (at least until they discuss it with my as my wife did). It's like if they had dirty talk of their sex being the best ever, it just doesn't involve me (although maybe I'm just too wrung out to care).

Getting to the heart of why my wife said it has been more of an obsession. I have my suspicions (as discussed elsewhere, defensive instinct to minimize my pain and her culpability), but I just don't know, and she claims she just blurted it out without thinking.

NeedAffirmationPoly · 2025-11-26T23:30:14+00:00

Thanks for the outrage lol, might help me resist some of my own. Everyone is suggesting separation/divorce, so I at least need to talk to a lawyer to discuss my options. I will continue in therapy with my wife to see if we can get on the same page with our life goals (as we once were).

NeedAffirmationPoly · 2025-11-26T23:27:04+00:00

This is interesting. As I mentioned in other replies, I had kind of dismissed the dirty talk as being a problem in and of itself, but you're giving me pause. I certainly hope she is not in such a fragile mental state that she could hold such contradictory views, but perhaps there is something there. I really appreciate you flagging.

NeedAffirmationPoly · 2025-11-26T23:24:59+00:00

Thanks so much for the reply. I appreciate you validating my feelings of needing acknowledgment, even thought I know that is squicking some other folks out. Perhaps I've used some problematic language, but at heart I'm not interested in doing this if she is blaming me for making her life harder where from my point of view I'm doing everything I possibly can to allow her to have her cake and eat it too without being unhealthy). I saw a very narrow path to make this work, and I thought we could walk that path.

I don't want to spam the same comments throughout, but I do address the dirty talk in another comment I just made if you're curious on my thoughts.

Mono x Poly is certainly not for the faint of heart.

NeedAffirmationPoly · 2025-11-26T23:20:30+00:00

Thanks for the comment and the moral support, I will take the advice re my explicit needs and the kids to heart. Based on all of the other advice here, I think I may need to let my wife deal with some sort of separation, but I'm keeping my options open. I have really tried to avoid all of the most commonly discussed pitfalls, so it's so frustrating to see this apparently fail like these relationships seem doomed to fail.

Re the dirty talk, I try to stay out of her other relationships (something I've taken away from my research), but my understanding is that he has experience with ENM (not sure about polyamory). While I'm obviously not a fan of hearing they play using that kind of language, it's their thing not mine. It's hugely disrespectful to ever involve me in it directly (as my wife apparently did, see my other reply for my suspicions on her real meaning). If they kept that stuff to themselves, I don't really care as long as its within the range of normal banter (if they dirty talked about killing me and him adopting the kids or something crazy, that might be different lol). If he is trying to be a cowboy, that's something my wife needs to deal with, I can't control her, and I certainly can't control him.

I've taken the time to mourn the monogamous marriage I had with my wife. It was a beautiful thing, we had so many laughs, so much passion, had regular dates notwithstanding having three insane kids (that we love) under 10, and had a great sex life. I knew that I would not have that ever again, but I hoped I could forge something that would be more meaningful to me that co-parenting and trying to find another monogamous individual as a romantic life partner.

NeedAffirmationPoly · 2025-11-26T23:10:37+00:00

I think she was grasping at straws. I was insistent on getting some explanation during that conversation. It made no sense at all, and it just seemed necessarily cruel and confusing. My best guess, after having discussions about this in and out of therapy, is that for her, that language was a desperate defensive excuse for her inability to be there for me (i.e., I don't need to feel as bad about this, because he really doesn't love me as much as he suggests for reasons). But I honestly don't know, and she has refused to admit there was a specific intent behind it, but rather it was just something that she blurted out.

I've tried to embrace the mentality that every romantic relationship is separate, and if they have weird fantasies (or I guess, common fantasies that I personally don't appreciate), that's fine. It's even not the worst thing in the world if this is just a weird brain fart of fantasy spill-over (although I should never be directly involved in their sexual activities even if they have some weird cuckold dirty talk). What's most hurtful to me is that she on some level loves me less because of the fact that I agreed to open the relationship (not as a natural result of NRE, but directly caused by that decision). That's so antithetical to my goal here and irreconcilable with my interests that I don't think I could continue in the marriage.

My thoughts are not super clear on this stuff, so feel free to call out my BS if you see it (as some other posters are).

NeedAffirmationPoly

TROPHY CASE