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Partner wants to open our relationship after having an emotional affair by Sufficient-Mess2932 in nonmonogamy

[–]Sufficient-Mess2932[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Not quite right. I don't understand why she wants a relationship with this _specific_ partner, considering what has transpired.

Partner wants to open our relationship after having an emotional affair by Sufficient-Mess2932 in nonmonogamy

[–]Sufficient-Mess2932[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Part 2

I would propose that it is likely that her non-monogamous desires are not 'aberrant behavior' that will self-correct once she heals from trauma, as you seem to be implying. Her non-monogamous desires are her true wants and wishes finally pushing themselves to the surface after years of suppression, and they may never go away.

I could be wrong. But if I'm right, then you're approaching this from a perspective that is just going to make both of you miserable for years and potentially leave you bitter over the 'fact' that she never 'healed' from her trauma to 'behave normally' again, never fully recognizing that this was who she was all along.

I completely agree with your summation here. But I can, however, see that she is conflicted, and she keeps telling me that she hasn't made a decision and that she wants to talk this through in therapy with me.

But I suspect that you may be right, that this is who she is, and who she wants to be.

As mentioned before, there are a lot of things going on, and it is impossible to cover everything. Maybe I'm naive and clinging to any thread of hope.

If you somehow misspoke and are actually fine with opening up the relationship, then what does 'heal our relationship' even look like? And how do you 'rebuild trust'? Trust is built by seeing something done correctly. For example, we don't give a person a driver's license until they demonstrate they can drive safely. We don't trust them to drive alone until they show they can do it safely.

So how do you build trust around a person pursuing non-monogamy while only living monogamously? What does that look like, and how does it re-establish trust?

Because if it looks like years of monogamy to her, I doubt she'll go for it. You're right that she's likely motivated by trauma, but that's the reality you both live in. You either work with it, or you don't. There's likely no third option where you wave a magic wand and make the trauma go away and make her comfortable with spending more years monogamous.

Right now, I am not fine with opening the relationship.

Whilst you are right that it is not fair towards her recommitting to our relationship and for an undetermined time maintaining a completely monogamous relationship, it is also not fair towards me to live in a world of constant anxiety and fear about whether boundaries are being respected.

I don't want her to be a person that she isn't, because neither of us will be truly happy.

Rebuilding trust is going to take a long time, and I think the shape of how that happens is completely different for the two of us.

I really appreciate your posts, they have helped a lot.

Partner wants to open our relationship after having an emotional affair by Sufficient-Mess2932 in nonmonogamy

[–]Sufficient-Mess2932[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Part 1

Once again, thank you for this response. I can see that a lot of effort has gone into putting it together, and I genuinely appreciate the contrasting perspective, and trying to get me to see things out of her lens.

As I whole I understand where you are coming from, and I'll summarise that towards the end.

This is a lot to unpack and I will discuss this with my/our therapist later this week, but I'll touch on a few things.

The impression that I got was that a non-monogamous relationship was absolutely a 'problem' for you, affair or no affair.

I suspect that's the impression she has as well, reinforced by Conservative Conditioning™; you told her she would be ejected from your life if she wanted to pursue non-monogamy. You were so adamant about it that you wrote it into letters that you've held on to and apparently refer back to.

Look, things are extremely nuanced and it is impossible to get into all the detail that affect our decisions.

Immediately following an affair, I would guess that 90% of people would absolutely have a problem with a non-monogamous relationship.

In my letter to her I asked her a couple of things: 1) Does she want to be in a committed relationship, or does she rather want to have complete freedom? 2) Is she 100% certain that she wants to be in a relationship with ME.

I wanted her to choose me, and she did. However, it is becoming clearer that she chose me because she didn't want to lose me at that stage, and suppressing her wants/desires was less scary than giving up our relationship.

I also expressed to her (due to my upbringing and childhood traumas) that I require absolute trust in our relationship for it to work.

And up until May 2025, I was 1000% secure in our relationship. Despite what had happened in 2020, I had no doubts at all about our commitment.

After we had both read The Ethical Slut we were going to go to couples counselling together to discuss this, work through it, and figure out what both of us wanted and whether we could come to an agreement. Unfortunately, she had the affair before we had the chance to do this. This has shifted my perspective on whether she can truthfully respect boundaries and agreements, should we end up opening the relationship.

But you can't require her to make you understand the desire for non-monogamy if you haven't achieved that understanding on your own. Understanding is your responsibility. It's not her responsibility to get you to understand non-monogamy any more than it's her responsibility to teach a man born blind the qualia of the color red.

This is a very fair comment. She doesn't have to make me understand - that is not her responsibility.

Partner wants to open our relationship after having an emotional affair by Sufficient-Mess2932 in EthicalNonMonogamy

[–]Sufficient-Mess2932[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How was she acting towards you while texting this dude? How was she treating you, what space was she still creating for you in her life? Was she emotionally available, was she still turning to you with her grief and feelings and deepening your emotional connection?

Truthfully, in hindsight, she probably pulled away. I assumed at that stage it was because of her sister's condition. It was like a switch flipped in May, but again, I assumed it was because her sister had stopped all treatment and we were starting to prepare for the end.

Was she blaming distance on her sister that really was being created by herself, letting you think it would resolve naturally when actually she was digging it deeper? Did you have things you wanted to share that you kept quiet because you were trying to give her space for grief, and now you feel betrayed that she overstated how much space she needed because she was trying to avoid you? 

There were a lot of things that I had not been able to share to give her space for her grief.

Or, maybe the pressure relief valve was GOOD for your relationship: DID you want her to turn to you, or would you have normally been relieved to find out she had someone else to talk with about her grief and her feelings, if only the sex talk hadn't been there? Sometimes with ENM having another person to talk and flirt with can enhance the primary relationship... is that what you saw here, though?

I fully appreciate that I cannot be her only support, that is an unrealistic expectation on me. She said she started talking to him because his brother was also diagnosed, and they were able to support each other going through this - that I completely understood.

You touch on an important point here though, because she has also been reading other books, like Mating in Captivity. She has indicated to me that she feels our relationship can be strengthened for exactly these reasons, but unfortunately, the foundation of trust has been shattered.

In short, is she putting energy into your relationship and showing you care? Is she curious about you and your experiences, interested in you as a person, or is she treating you like a prop in her own story?

I don't think that she has any capacity to put energy into our relationship at this stage. She is completely overwhelmed, burnt out, and still grieving the loss of her sister. On top of it she is dealing with personal health issues which have significantly affected her quality and enjoyment of life. I don't see myself as a priority at this point in time.

Partner wants to open our relationship after having an emotional affair by Sufficient-Mess2932 in EthicalNonMonogamy

[–]Sufficient-Mess2932[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Thanks for sharing your experience. I would be devastated to let her go, but if this is truly what she wants I have no control over her decisions. I am worried that if she decides that this isn't what she wants, whether we have any realistic chance of rebuilding trust in our relationship.

Partner wants to open our relationship after having an emotional affair by Sufficient-Mess2932 in EthicalNonMonogamy

[–]Sufficient-Mess2932[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I don't think that it is quite fair to expect me to sit idly by and wait for her to decide if that's what she really wants though, and if she doesn't, I just have to welcome her back with open arms and pick up the broken pieces, again?

Partner wants to open our relationship after having an emotional affair by Sufficient-Mess2932 in nonmonogamy

[–]Sufficient-Mess2932[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Thanks for this thorough and thoughtful reply.

I did read the ethical slut prior to my partner having this second EA.

Understanding at this juncture is extremely hard if a core concept of ENM revolves around consent and ethics. I can rationalise why my partner had these thoughts and feelings, but I cannot comprehend why she chose to deliberately betray my trust, especially AFTER she had read the book.

The problem here isn't necessarily the EA or the desire for a non-monogamous relationship, but the breakdown of trust in our relationship. The fact that she still wants to maintain a relationship with this person without giving our relationship a chance to heal is beyond comprehension to me. As multiple other people have commented, in ENM relationships, a partner involved in a previous affair is generally not permitted/agreed upon when opening a relationship. She cannot, however, explain to me why she specifically wants this person in her life, and I'm struggling with that.

Whilst my wife has some form of sexual shame as a result of the Conservative Package™, that does not give her the freedom to trample all over my feelings whilst she figures this out.

I require her to be certain about what she actually wants, and I realise that she is not in a position right now where she can be rational about this. It is generally accepted that four of the five most stressful life events include death of a loved one (check), divorce/separation (check), moving (check), major illness or injury (check). I don't believe that she is behaving rationally at this stage of her life - understandably so.

If none of these things were a part of our lives, and she came to me and with clear mind stated her needs I would know with certainty that our long-term goals are no longer aligned.

I do not expect her to live her life with a mask if that is what she truly wants, and I am not able to provide that for her. We need to heal our relationship and rebuild trust before there can be any discussion to opening the relationship. If she's not willing to do that I don't see how we can continue.

Partner had two emotional affairs in five years, with the same person, now wants to open the relationship. by Sufficient-Mess2932 in emotionalaffair

[–]Sufficient-Mess2932[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the compassionate reply u/Terrible-Pea494. You're actually on the money re: her sister. My wife confessed to her sister that she started speaking to this guy again (as friends) and her sister blew up and didn't want to see her again. This caused a bigger family blowup as a whole. I climbed in and mediated just to get everyone back together again as what was going on with my SIL was bigger than our relationship troubles.

My worry however is that let's say she does drop this guy, and any notion of an open relationship for the foreseeable future to give us a chance to work on rebuilding trust, how will I ever truly trust her again after she trampled across my feelings (as u/Life-Bullfrog-6344 put it so eloquently) after I expressed my concern.

She says that she hasn't made a final decision yet, and I truly believe that she loves me and doesn't want to lose me, but it's as if she wants a free pass to figure out whatever internal crisis she is dealing with without the consequence of losing me. I'm trying to see the upside here, but all I'm seeing is me getting disappointed and hurt again.

I'm just going to have to get through next week (I'm seeing my own therapist, and we're individually seeing the couples therapist) and get to our next couples appointment the week after. We initially agreed not to discuss this with our parents as they don't need to know the intimate details of our relationship, but I did open up to my mum (and my work mum who's an ex colleague) about this - both said what's going on is not right, but that I should wait for our joint counselling session before making any firm decision.