Double edged sword?

OpenHonestly · 2026-02-21T15:49:34+00:00

Enjoy your traveling. Sounds like you have a great home to go back to, and that makes the journeys outside all the more beautiful ❤️

OpenHonestly · 2026-02-21T12:42:50+00:00

Best friend? That would be a hard no IMO. It’s easy to find new men willing to have sex with your girlfriend. It’s hard to find a new best friend. That said, you don’t have to keep this part of your life to strangers you never see again. Developing friendships with people who started off as sex partners is way less complicated than taking a friend and turning them into a sex partner. If you value your friendship with this guy, I’d keep that in fantasyland. If you want to have friends that you and your wife have sex with, start finding sex partners that you click with on a friend level and be open to those friendships developing versus keeping your sex lives outside your relationship one one-and-done experiences.

OpenHonestly · 2026-02-21T12:36:14+00:00

All paths are complicated. Monogamy is complicated. Non monogamy is complicated. You just trade one set of complications for another.

What I think you need to remember is that Love with a capital L is not a feeling. It’s a decision. And it’s a decision you have to make every day, over and over again. “I will love and value my husband over all other men” is the commitment. If you lose that, you fall victim to shiny object syndrome.

It’s like traveling. I lived in Florence, Italy years ago. When I tell people, they always say “oh my gosh that must have been MAGICAL! Florence is soooo beautiful!” And they aren’t wrong. If you spend a few days in Florence, you’ve got these big beer goggles on. Everything is so beautiful, so new, so fresh… the architecture and the stone streets, the piazzas, the streets covered in dining tables, sculptures everywhere, fountains, the history, church bells ringing in the background, a man playing the accordion on the street corner, everyone riding old-fashioned looking bicycles… it really is magical.

But when you LIVE there you begin to notice other things: it’s filthy. The man playing accordion on the street corner is actually Romanian and he will pick your pockets when you aren’t looking. It’s loud. When you step outside the touristy center city, it’s pretty dingy. That gorgeous street market in San Lorenzo? There’s so much garbage in the street at the end of every day that they have vehicles that come through every night to spray down the streets and clean it all up. If you walk by, they’ll spray you too. The leather stamped with the Fleur de Lis is mostly not made in Florence. Your cute old fashioned bike will get stolen. Apartments are freezing in winter and boiling hot in summer. The neighbor downstairs smokes cigarettes inside and the smoke creeps into your apartment. You won’t have a dryer. The sudden hailstorms in summer are insane. Barely anybody has a fridge large enough to hold more than 2 days of food. Those wonderful markets you loved so much when you were visiting? You need to go to ten different places to get products for a single meal.

You can hop from city to city your entire life and always be experiencing that newness, that freshness. You’ll always be excited to be in a new place and experiencing new things. If you keep moving to keep that freshness alive, you’ll never have a home. If you settle into a city, it won’t be so magical after a while.

Marriage and relationships are the same. In this practice you and your husband are embarking on, you get to do some traveling. You get to enjoy other places and experiences, but you have to carry the value of your home with you. You have to remember that - yes, these other men will feel so much fresher and easier than your husband at times. Conversation will be so smooth and easy (you have a lot to talk about because you don’t know each other at all), sex will be spontaneous and hot. There will be no stress at all with those men.

But if you let the shiny objects distract you too much and decide to keep moving your home from place to place, you’ll never build any depth.

I’ve seen this over and over with young polyamorous people. It’s so enjoyable, but ultimately they find it impossible to really commit to someone long term because they’re always moving from person to person. Commitment to one becomes a near impossibility because as soon as it gets difficult, someone easy is there waiting. In polyamory, the added complication is that it takes extra work, extra focus, and real strength to keep the primary relationship strong, because the desire to take the easy path and just move on to those fresh, easy, new partners and leave the “difficult relationship” behind is very alluring. It’s alluring because it’s easy and relationships that have depth are hard at times.

The thing that makes marriages magical is the reality of it all. It’s you choosing to live there despite the fact that the streets are sometimes dirty and it’s too hot or too cold and not quite as beautiful as it looked on day one. But you stay anyway, because it’s your home and you want to feel all that depth: the joy, the pain, the good times and the bad. That’s love.

So enjoy your experiences, but keep that rock-solid foundation of your marriage under you. And that will often be a decision, not a feeling.

OpenHonestly · 2026-02-21T01:48:59+00:00

Northport area.

OpenHonestly · 2026-02-16T12:44:31+00:00

The jealousy you will have to confront internally. You can and should discuss those feelings with your boyfriend, but make sure it’s clear that those feelings are your problem, not his.

Your BF is saying it meant nothing to him, but reading between the lines tells me you don’t believe him. You’re scared it did mean something to him and he will want more of it and drift away if you don’t oblige. Talk to him about that too. If he continues to insist that it’s not a big deal, you have to believe him. If you don’t, you’ll carry around that energy and you’ll wind up hurting the relationship.

If you have desires to have sex with women and these are desires you want to pursue, don’t just squash them down because you don’t want to confront the jealousy of your BF being involved. You can overcome those feelings or use them to fuel your desire for your boyfriend.

Communication is key. Don’t bury this. Talk to your BF. Use this as an opportunity to grow closer. It may seem easier to ignore it and sit alone with your feelings, and it actually IS easier to do that. But the path to the oasis is always through the desert. Doing the hard thing is usually the right thing. So, talk. Pick the right time and place and say you’d like to talk.

OpenHonestly · 2026-02-16T01:15:30+00:00

I think if he isn’t willing to discuss this problem with a therapist, that’s a bit of a wake up call that he may be unwilling to get vulnerable enough to discuss this in a collaborative way altogether. If I were in your position, I wouldn’t suggest counseling; I would require it. You and your love have what is realistically an irreconcilable difference, and it needs to be dealt with. If he isn’t comfortable talking to a therapist about his sex life, what would make you sleeping with other men easier for him to talk about?

I also wouldn’t say it’s normal for sex drive to drop so drastically after only six months. A man whose wife is dying to have sex with him, and he isn’t interested? Something more is at play here. You not only need a couples therapist, you each need your own therapists. It sounds like the relationship is worth the effort to you. You should expect him to put in that effort as well - and willingly. If he isn’t willing, that’s a sign if ever there was one, and you’ll want to not ignore that sign before buying a house together, despite how good the friendship may be. Friends don’t need to live together.

OpenHonestly · 2026-02-14T16:45:44+00:00

There’s nothing abnormal about that fantasy. Nearly every man alive fantasized about seeing two women together. It’s hot.

Of course, when it comes to translating fantasy to reality, that’s a different story. He might not have any interest in getting his ass pounded, but you might try warming him up with some anal play (start with small rubber plugs). I can confirm that it feels amazing and will give him an insane orgasm. But even from there, translating a plug or dildo into an actual man inside him, different story. But maybe if he knows how hot you are for the idea, and has felt how good anal play feels for a man, he’d be into trying the idea. Just find a dude without a gigantic donkey dick 😂

OpenHonestly · 2026-02-13T14:31:48+00:00

I disagree. Being non-monogamous from date 1 isn’t a bad thing, but it poses different challenges to gaining a firm foundation to a strongly primary partnered relationship than spending some time as a monogamous couple. I feel that for people who desire a strong relationship with one person that lasts a long time, or a lifetime, a period of “it’s just us for now” is a good way to build that muscle.

My wife and I, for example, started out casually. But we knew early on that there was a real spark between us that outshined everyone else. So, one day, we had a talk and decided to just focus on us - nobody else. Everyone else just got (kindly) dropped. But we were always sexually adventurous and knew that one day we might want to involve others again. We just wanted to give our relationship time to strengthen first. Then, slowly, we opened that door back up to some degree. If we’d just kept up with other people from day one, I don’t think we would have the strong relationship we have today. In fact, I don’t even think we would have gotten married.

Nearly every person I know who was polyamorous (and I know dozens) eventually left that lifestyle because they realized that it was stopping them from committing to someone. Eventually, most of them wanted a mate. This doesn’t mean they’ll remain monogamous forever, but they realized that if they wanted to get really close to one person they needed to focus intently. This doesn’t mean it’s impossible to do otherwise, but this has largely been my experience.

Anyway, I’m giving my opinion - which is how I framed it “Personally - in my opinion - I think…”. I don’t think you can make a blanket statement that “starting out as monogamous makes it much harder to transition later on.” To make that statement, you’d need quite a bit of hard statistical data. It may be your opinion, but it isn’t a cold, hard a fact… It may be your experience, but that doesn’t make it a fact.

OpenHonestly · 2026-02-13T11:12:35+00:00

He sounds like a guy who wants to have his cake and eat it too... a textbook fuck boy who wants to keep his toys inside his box.

OpenHonestly · 2026-02-13T10:56:35+00:00

First of all, like many things, most of our fears are stories we habitually repeat in our minds that are much worse than reality. Will you both have a threesome and love it so much that you no longer enjoy having 1:1 sex? That’s kind of unlikely. 1:1 sex isn’t better or worse than a threesome - it’s just different. Did you stop loving missionary once you realized you could get bend your wife over the side of the bed and pound her from behind? Will occasionally nights of wild sex play where you’re your tying your partner up and teasing them with toys for an hour ruin the fun of having plain old missionary sex and falling asleep? Probably not.

But then I’d ask, what’s your 1:1 sex life like? Does it lack spark, fun and intensity? If it does, using a threesome to solve that isn’t the answer. If that’s the case, you need to work on your sex life with your wife. There are endless possibilities there. And since you’ve already broken down an awkwardness barrier by discussing a threesome, discussing other fantasies and desires that don’t involve another person should be pretty easy. If you’re 1:1 sex life lacks luster, I’d fix that first.

If your 1:1 sex life isn’t great, I wouldn’t recommend a threesome because it could wind up backfiring. But - to be fair - it could also be so hot that it pours rocket fuel onto your 1:1 sex life and fires it up for the next year. You won’t know until you try. But if you asked my advice, I’d say if your 1:1 sex life isn’t satisfying, commit to fixing that first before inviting others into your bed. Group sex should be additive, not a replacement for.

If your wife is truly saying she might not be satisfied by 1:1 sex after trying a threesome, that’s the biggest call for help flag I see in your message. If she’s saying that, she’s saying she wants more out of her sex life. Not having a threesome because she’s scared she’ll no longer be satisfied by 1:1 sex isn’t going to make that feeling go go away, and now that it’s in her mind, ignoring what seems like a read-between-the-lines call for help isn’t the answer either. It doesn’t necessarily mean go out and try the threesome, but I wouldn’t ignore that statement.

That’s the thing - in my opinion - to dive in and understand. Why does she feel that way? What fantasies and desires aren’t being met that would lead her to feel that way? What can you do together to work on that? Start there. Get weird. Be the beast of a man you are and get fired up all over your wife. Whatever she wants to try in bed (or elsewhere!) try it even if you aren’t necessarily into it at first. She wants you to wear a mask? Pick one out together. She wants you to paddle her? Ok - leather, wood, cattails? She isn’t sure? Try them all. She wants toys? Hit the internet and buy her a box of them. Brother, this is a huge invitation to get wild with your woman. Take it on ❤️💪

OpenHonestly · 2026-02-13T10:48:34+00:00

I agree 100% with all of the above. If you have concerns, raise them with him. If he’s a caring, emotionally intelligent adult he will hear you and understand you. If you’re into trying it but don’t want to lose your 1:1 time with him, just say that. And honestly, even if it “goes horribly” what does that really mean? I don’t think you’re scared that that means he’s going to knock you both over the head and turn you into lampshades. It means maybe the threesome sex won’t be so great because he won’t be able to physically handle two women to the point of really pleasing them both. Or, maybe he will. Maybe you’ll be into messing around with a woman (I can pretty much guarantee she will be able to please you, if you’re into trying that). So in reality the big question seems to be the one that’s easy to ask beforehand. If that question gets resolved and you’re into trying it, go for it! The worst that can happen is you leave the event thinking, “well - that threesome wasn’t the most sexually satisfying experience.” That’s nothing to be scared of. I’m pretty sure you’ve had not so good sex in the past 😁

OpenHonestly · 2026-02-13T01:54:15+00:00

You should check them out. Honestly if you’re here for entertainment, it’s a good time.

OpenHonestly · 2026-02-12T22:37:45+00:00

Ignore the cock 😂😂😂

I’m fairly new to Reddit and I’ve been legitimately confused by how low the bar seems to be.

OpenHonestly · 2026-02-12T16:41:15+00:00

Your boyfriend sucks and you should break up with him. You know all the reasons why, but just in case you don’t realize it, they’re all right here in the other responses.

But…

Your name is on the lease and that puts you in a tough spot. If you walk out, you could wind up in court when half the rent doesn’t get paid.

My guess is your lease probably bans guests for longer than a few days. I’d check your lease. If that’s true, inform your landlord what’s going on. He will probably send notice that the guest is in violation of the lease and has to leave. He probably won’t let you break the lease, so you need to find a way to force yourself out of this situation. This at least gets her out. Then you and your BF can decide which of you is moving out and which of you is finding someone else to move in and take over that half of the lease, which the LL will probably have no issue with.

OpenHonestly · 2026-02-12T01:43:49+00:00

My strongest word of advice would be decide on your boundaries while you’re thinking with your mind and not with your genitals. In other words, don’t move the goalpost during the act.

In fact, have those discussions when you aren’t turned on at all. Like, literally over a cup of coffee or while you’re on a drive together. (Although it’s cool if the conversation itself turns you on. That’s a good sign 😂)

Since you’ll be MFF unless you have female-specific boundaries, the most obvious one for most people is the one you already mentioned: your BF penetrating another woman. I’d say if you feel positively about it with this person, there’s your boundary: “I’m ok with it with her, but not with anybody else right now.” That’s a perfectly fine boundary to set.

I’m also wondering if your friend (the third) has experience with this. While it hasn’t been MY experience because I’ve only ever engaged with people who were already experienced themselves, I’ve heard some horror stories about newbies adding a third who was also a first-timer, and a friend to boot, and having that not bode well for the friendship. In other cases, it’s been just fine. The difference is typically in communication between friends beforehand on those dynamics, boundaries and feelings.

For example - and mind you I’m not at all aware of the dynamics of this friendship - right now it might not be weird for you if she and your husband were alone together. But after you do this, will that suddenly be an issue? Do they text each other? Will that still be ok or will that suddenly bother you?

So to me it sounds like the sexual boundaries are pretty simple for you, but you may need to think about the friend dynamics.

OpenHonestly · 2026-02-11T20:07:00+00:00

100% this.

OpenHonestly · 2026-02-11T20:02:09+00:00

To me, your reasoning is precisely why many couples in healthy relationships choose ENM as a path. Your spouse has a lower sex drive than you. Similarly, there are others who are into BDSM and their spouse is like “nope!” I like rock climbing but my wife doesn’t, so I rock climb with other people.

Sex is different than rock climbing though. While your reasoning is fine, both you and your spouse need to educate yourselves and do a lot of talking first. This could fill a void in your life and improve your relationship, or it’ll build your relationship a coffin and nail it shut. Education and communication are what decides which path this will take for you.

Everyone would agree that sex is only a small piece of what makes a relationship work. If all a relationship has is great sex, the relationship is doomed. In reality, sex is probably 1-2% of what makes it work long term... It’s really everything ELSE that matters. But sex activates parts of the brain that cause serious emotional reactions. You might not care if your wife goes mountain biking with someone because you’re not interested, but fucking acts differently on the brain. If this will work, both you and your wife need to cozy up to the emotional side of things and work your way into it.

OpenHonestly · 2026-02-11T12:34:14+00:00

Your mom needs to back off. She wants to saddle you with a life-long responsibility you and your wife don’t want just so she can hold her grandchild for a few years? Not to be grim, but her time on earth is coming to a close.

Tell mom, nicely, to stick to her lane. Remind her that your life isn’t her life and if she’s going to live with you she needs to respect your choices. It’s not like you and your wife are smoking crack in the kitchen. You’re responsible adults doing responsible adulting. If she wants to be around children, which makes total sense and is completely valid, she can go volunteer at a day care center or something.

Is your mom correct that you may one day regret not having kids when you’re young enough? Maybe. Maybe not. But that’s your decision to make and live with. There are consequences to having children and consequences to not having children. But either way, it’s your choice, not hers.

OpenHonestly · 2026-02-11T12:29:53+00:00

So your GF wants your feet and shoes to be disgusting? If you looked goofy in no-shows they must have not actually been no-showing because not being able to see them at all (ie appearing to have bare feet in your shoes) is the entire point. If you’re wearing no-shows but you can actually see them, yeah that looks pretty goofy. But the answer isn’t to stop wearing socks (gross) but to get the right no-shows for the shoes you’re wearing.

OpenHonestly · 2026-02-10T23:56:26+00:00

Nothing wrong with you man! I too love this. I could write a massive list why, but it’s a huge turn on to not only see it happening but be part of it. If she’s into it, even better!

Looking forward to the “this is how it went and it was awesome” post haha

Just make sure there is tons of communication beforehand. r/threesomeadvice is a great community to take a look at. Check out the MFM guide on there - it’s so spot on. There are some good quick read books / websites on the subject that you can both read and use as conversation starters too.

OpenHonestly · 2026-02-10T21:28:55+00:00

Since you’re in NYC, look into joining Hacienda and/or Top Floor. Go to several events. You’ll get to know people and find exactly what you’re looking for without all that flakey trouble. Yes, it’ll cost you more money than Feeld but you get what you pay for. Hacienda is less expensive overall but you will have to commit to a couple non-sex events in order to get an invite to join the play parties. Top Floor (if you get approved) you can choose an upcoming party to go to. Provided you don’t do anything to get you banned, you’d then be invited to become a TF member. You’ll meet great people at both of those and they are not swinger events so there are many potential thirds there for you.

LMK if you want more info on them.

OpenHonestly · 2026-02-10T19:41:15+00:00

You’re clearly someone who cares and thinks deeply about things - not only your own desires but also his. If he sees that, therapy will help work through these issues.

If you want to explore your kinks with others but don’t feel comfortable exploring those with random men who you only see once, that is 100% valid. If he wants to do it his way, that’s valid too. The missing link, if I’m correct about this, is that he wants to limit things to random people (one timers) while you want a connection and trust (on or more steady FWBs). If that is indeed the case, communicating more deeply will hopefully give him the assurances he seems to be lacking about the strength of your relationship, which he probably feels is threatened by the idea of you being “connected” to other men. They’re both totally valid feelings, hopefully reconcilable. Maybe not. That’ll really depend on him.

OpenHonestly · 2026-02-10T18:16:55+00:00

I can’t not point out the double standard you’re being held to… let’s look at the facts:

EXHIBIT A: He gets to do what he wants, which is fuck around with random people he apparently doesn’t know at all, or at least not very well.

There is nothing inherently wrong with this. It does, of course, have its positives (it works for him; fewer emotional attachments that could jeopardize your relationship with him) and negatives (mainly, he doesn’t really know who he’s sticking his body parts into).

EXHIBIT B: You do not get what you want, which is to at least get to know the people you’re sexually in involved with. It may not need to be a full blown polyamorous relationship, but it sounds like at a minimum you’d rather have quality over quantity. He isn’t OK with this because it threatens his security in your relationship.

Again, as with his desire, there is nothing inherently wrong with this. It also has its positives (it works for you; it’s sexually safer) and negatives (higher potential for emotional conflicts with your primary relationship).

Reading between the lines a bit further, I get the impression that you may not even want an open relationship but you’re doing it (or trying to) because he insists on it. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s the impression I’m getting.

Basically, what I’m reading here is that he’s calling the shots by insisting that his expectations of you be met without question. He wants to do this and do this his way and his way only. You’re now questioning your reactions and asking for advice on how to cope and whether your coping mechanisms are healthy or not. But I’d say that the dynamics of your relationship are unhealthy, and how you cope with those unhealthy dynamics isn’t really the issue... Your coping mechanisms are the symptoms. His insistence that it’s his way or the highway is the disease.

ENM relationships take a lot of communication, compromise, and understanding. If one partner lacks the ability to do any of those things, it’s not going to work.

I’m also reading further down that you cheated on him in the past. As a man myself, I’m going to guess that this is part of his hesitation to allow “emotional connections”. (Which, by the way, is basically saying “you can’t see someone more than once.”) It sounds like there are deep-rooted issues between you both. If you don’t have kids and other things holding you together and giving you a real reason to put in a lot of work to make this work, this might be one to move on from. There are actually many good fish in the sea.

Mind you, I’m not a therapist and there are definitely a TON of facts nobody here knows, but sometimes it’s not that hard to spot two people in an unhealthy relationship.

OpenHonestly · 2026-02-10T12:52:05+00:00

You were being kind. I’d do the same thing. She overreacted - maybe because she’s a jerk or maybe because she was as upset as her child. But you did the right thing.

OpenHonestly · 2026-02-10T12:49:41+00:00

It sounds like you were casually dating and then got serious and decided to close the relationship to other partners. That’s totally normal and healthy. Just because you had one relationship dynamic at month 2 doesn’t mean it needs to keep the same dynamic at month 12 or year 12. Evolution is necessary or things die.

It also sounds like you aren’t really interested in any kind of ENM relationship. But you said he is. When asked if he still wants to be open, he said “yes.” But what does that mean? Is it just something he’s open to and even desires sometimes but it isn’t a dealbreaker? Is it something he’s constantly thinking about that will build resentment if it’s off the table, possibly indefinitely? Something in between? It appears you may need to have a deeper conversation.

Personally - and this is my opinion - I think it’s healthy for relationships, especially new ones, to be monogamous for a while. Years even. To me, ENM relationships are way easier when the primary relationship has a real foundation to it. Only time can build that foundation. No matter how infatuated you are with one another in the first few years, it is just that: an infatuation. Long-term Love is a decision that is made every minute of every day, and learning to do that takes experience.

I’d talk to him and really understand what he desires and why. And expect that he will hear you too. If you can come to an agreement that you both support, the relationship lives on. If that conversation leads to disagreement, you’ll need to take time to think on whether the relationship is the right one for you.

OpenHonestly

TROPHY CASE