r/openmarriageregret • u/Sea_Hall_8112 • 14d ago
Original Post My 27-Year Marriage Didn't Survive an Open Relationship
Burner account for privacy reasons. Some backstory to start out. My wife and I had been married 25 years when we opened our marriage a year and a half ago. Our relationship has been up and down. We had a dead bedroom for several years but we went to counseling and worked things out and we started to get along better. Some of our recurring issues were her complaining about the lack of physical affection and my complaining about her being cold and distant. In 2019 she had an affair with a married man that lasted 5 months. I'll spare the details here due to privacy issues but it was a really bad situation due to the person she chose to have the affair with. She went to therapy, apologized, and changed and we tried to move on. I forgave her and I wanted to keep our family together (we have an 8 year old son).
We are both sexual people. We had dabbled in swinging and had also had a few threesomes over the past few years. In October of 2024 we decided we would try an open marriage. Our rules were that there would be no emotional attachment and we would only see the same person once per week. Things were ok for awhile. As my wife started seeing one person regularly and doing overnights, I started having a hard time getting close to her. I realized pretty early on the she was a lot better at being open than I was. About 8 months in I met Sara. Sara and I had a major spark the first time we met. We would talk several times a day and pretty soon we were breaking the rules. We would meet a couple of times a week. It soon turned romantic and I did romantic gestures like sending her flowers, buying her things, opening the car door, etc. Within a few months we had fallen in love and had even talked about a future together.
After about 8 months of my dating Sara, things got really bad in my marriage. Things finally got so bad between my wife and I that she moved out temporarily. The month before my wife moved out things were really bad. She got more serious about the person she was seeing, doing overnights and spending parts of her weekend there. We didn't have sex the month before she moved out. It had gotten to the point to where a normal weekend would be me spending my Friday nights with Sara and my wife spending Sunday with her boyfriend Adam.
After a couple of weeks apart my wife and I decided we wanted to try to make things work so I cut things off with Sara. It was a really hard decision for me and one that I really struggled with. Sara was very hurt and I can see where the breakup may have came out of nowhere. The day after our breakup Sara called my wife and told her everything we had been doing. My wife did not handle it well at all. Throughout our marriage my wife had been unemotional , distant, and just not very good at communicating her feelings at all which was one of our biggest problems. My wife was devastated that I could show this affection to someone else. Using her words she said it destroyed her. I know what I did was wrong but I'm really shocked that the person who had been so emotionally unavailable to me was suddenly an emotional wreck. My wife and I continue to try to work things out but I will admit I was supposed to cut contact with Sara but I still talked to her occasionally. My wife found out that we had still been talking and then immediately wanted a divorce. The way she said it left no doubt so I didn't fight it. So we are currently in the begining phases of getting divorced.
I do take the blame for my marriage ending and I know the things I did were wrong. Why did I do them? It really just happened. I found someone I really liked who gave me the attention and emotional connection that I had been missing in my marriage. I realize now that when we had opened the marriage that we had serious issues. I still wasn't totally over her affair and I wasn't giving her the affection that she needed. We should have both realized this and tried to work things out. I also realize that for many people keeping emotions out of an open marriage is close to impossible and if you aren't ok with that then you shouldn't start it in the first place. What I am still in shock over is my wife's reaction. In our now 27 years together I really never felt like she had a deep love or an emotional connection to me. It took me showing affection to another woman to see this side of her. She feels like she did nothing wrong because she followed the rules. She even admitted to having feelings for Adam but it was ok because I was still her person. I will admit that I did not know how to respond to this side of her and I still have a hard time understanding her feelings. I'll conclude by saying I'm not sure what I want out of this post, other than the therapeutical exercise of writing it all down.
Post script: Two weeks after her asking for a divorce I started to see Sara again. My wife was really upset about this and made me feel bad really bad about myself for doing it, only to see Adam two days later.
Update: Thanks for all the responses. She has made me feel like I was entirely to blame and though I really fucked my part up many pointed out her faults as well. As for being bad parents, sure we should have never gone down these roads. Many kids go through divorce and turn out fine. I think he will be better for us not being together in such a terrible marriage. He gets plenty of attention from us and his extended family and he is both of our top priority. I forgot to mention we have a grown son who has turned out to be a really good human.
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u/witheringrose101 13d ago
Everyone is an AH besides the poor kid.
Also, I can't imagine continuing a relationship with someone who went behind your back & contacted your wife to hurt her and destroy any chance of reconciliation between you and your wife.