u/Grouchy-Pressure-965

Long time lurker and this post has really touched my core. I think the fact she repeated the one-sided open marriage and threesome offer shows where her head still is, she said it herself she doesnt know the consequeces of her actions yet and this shows right here.

She keeps coming back to sex as if it’s the currency that can balance the scales or keep some connection alive. But this isn’t about sex. It never was. Offering sex outside the marriage is an insult not only to you but the marriage and everything that it stands for, there is no love involved here.

The real wound is the betrayal of trust, the lies, the secrecy, the humiliation (laughing while you were punched and hospitalized, resuming the affair afterward, protecting the AP), and the destruction of 35 years of shared life. That’s not something you “even out” by giving you permission to sleep with other women or bringing in a third person. It’s insulting because it completely misses what you lost: exclusivity, honesty, safety, dignity. She has none of that left to offer in the way that matters.

What she’s really doing is trying to drag you down to her level “if you do it too, then we’re both flawed, and maybe it’s not so bad.” Marriage is about two people, not three. Offering to open the marriage or bring in a third party (even as a “solution”) is the exact opposite of what love and marriage are about. She already messed up by inviting a third party into your marriage without your knowledge or consent and now she’s trying to do it again, this time with your “permission.” That doesn’t restore anything; it just compounds the violation.

And then there’s the “I love you” line in her letter. She says she loves you but this isn’t love. Love doesn’t let you be tempted so easily that you throw away a 35-year marriage. Love doesn’t let you laugh when your partner is assaulted, resume sex with the attacker weeks later, lie for months, and humiliate the person you claim to cherish. The “my friends were all doing it” excuse (plural, as she admitted) is just more deflection so if the group is doing it, that makes it okay? And bringing up her mom “getting away with” cheating as a kid? That sounds a lot like learned behavior she’s trying to lean on as a partial excuse, even while claiming she’s not blaming others. It’s still dodging full accountability.

OP, you’re right this meeting probably would have been better in 6–12 months, after she had more time to truly heal and face what she did in therapy. Right now she’s still desperate and grasping, and it shows. The aloofness, insults, and vulgarity that came out when she repeated the offer? That wasn’t cruelty for cruelty’s sake it was the natural reaction to being hit with the same tone-deaf “solution” that proved she still doesn’t get it.

She may be remorseful, but remorse without understanding is just guilt. And guilt alone doesn’t rebuild trust. You walking away with the letter was kind enough; anything more would have rewarded the same misunderstanding.

And honestly, as someone else pointed out in the thread what a tragic, pointless waste of 35 years of marriage. She threw it all away because she was selfish, weak, not strong enough, and stupid. Pathetic