Open marriages

[kramerfan86]

I dont really see grovelling to the other guy being a long term fix. Yea maybe he actually has morals, feels bad, and ends it. The root problems that made her cheat though still exist and since she did not choose to end the relationship its not as though she came to some astounding realization or anything.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I dont really see grovelling to the other guy being a long term fix. Yea maybe he actually has morals, feels bad, and ends it. The root problems that made her cheat though still exist and since she did not choose to end the relationship its not as though she came to some astounding realization or anything.

I wouldn't call it grovelling. More like threatening.

"Look dude, I'm gonna cut her loose. Your occasional no strings attached romp is about to turn into a full time needing a place to stay and blaming you for not having one nightmare. Good luck."

...

"What's that? You have another option?"

 

[Tigranes]

I dont really see grovelling to the other guy being a long term fix. Yea maybe he actually has morals, feels bad, and ends it. The root problems that made her cheat though still exist and since she did not choose to end the relationship its not as though she came to some astounding realization or anything.

People do change all the time. They make mistakes, they regret, they want their old life back. Some event, a simple phrase, can trigger a change. Imagine hypothetical gym instructor tells her when she is trying to kiss him hello. "Look Sara, please sit down. I was thinking hard about us, and realized I am doing to your husband something I would not like if he would do it to me, if I were married. Even if he agreed, he hurts and he did it because he was so desperate about you. I like you and all that -- but I am not in love with you. I don't have children with you. I can't enjoy my sex live with you knowing it is hurting someone who didn't do me anything wrong. He needs you more than I do, you did check out grass on the other side, ot is over now, I can't do this anymore, and I think you shouldn't as well."

This leaves wife rejected, she finally drinks her own medicine, she considers degrees of love offered by two men and chooses the one who is there for her even when she cheats vs the one who is likely to switch to younger and cooler trainee in near future.

 

[Kozmos]

Thanks for those barrels of laughs. Both women and men go for overall worse choices simply because they are tired of eating lobster every day.

 

[sophie]

Some say the point of counseling is to feel better about a divorce.
And I remember reading about a statistic according to whish the success of counseling in terms of saving a marriage is extremely low. Personally I don't think I'd ever go to a counselor with my wife in the interest of saving my marriage. Alone.. maybe. I think when attending together this setting really favors finishing a marriage whereas understanding found on personal terms favors the continuation thereof (though as you are a living example - that of course must not be the most desirable thing) Just something about the dynamic of counseling, I think. How it works. Human relationships are I think not really meant to be logically deconstructed and then put together again. That is just not how it works.

Relationships are built on communication and from the sounds of the old OP communication in that marriage has really broken down. It sounds to me like there is a lot more going on that's causing trouble than Mrs. Tenochtitlan wanting sex from other men. The purpose of a marriage counselor isn't necessarily to "save a marriage" but rather to have an open and honest environment where a couple can hash out their feelings and come to an understanding of where they are and what they want. Sometimes that means recognizing that maybe the two of you simply don't work together. Sometimes it's as simple as realizing that you have been bulldozing or ignoring your partner without realizing it. You'll never know unless you talk it out.

I really, REALLY hope OP doesn't take any advice from this thread except to seek professional help. Some of the suggestions offered have been just awful. Getting back at your spouse is not going to help things. Getting even is not going to help things. Being a petty, passive aggressive dick is not going to help things. You are in the marriage because (presumably) you love this woman and she makes you happy, and you do likewise by her. Stewing on your bad feelings is only going to make you irritable and lash out at someone you love for, as far as she knows, acting with your full consent and blessing. Trying to get even is not going to make things better with her and is probably going to make you feel worse, if anything. Nobody is making you be miserable. If you have a problem with what's going on be an adult and use your words.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

FWIW I agree with this, even if my last post read differently...

I think kids should ideally be a priority and something you work for. But only if the relationship is feasible to begin with.

This wife of the OP's hypothetical (or actual situation) cares more about her newfound affair than having a stable family. In that situation, divorce is ideal, simply because the relationship will not work, even if another situation (nuclear family, or heck, an open relationship where the hypothetical husbond is fine with it) would be ideal.

While kids are important, and that sacrifices should ideally be made for those kids, if the sacrifices aren't coming from the heart, they're not worth it, then everyone will be unhappy.

The wife in the OP doesn't care enough about her husbond or her kid to end an affair. This is a premise for divorce: because that's all she values her husbond.

I personally have experience with open relationships and think it's great, much better than normal relationships. But I wouldn't end my current closed relationship because of that; it's too much of a personal sacrifice to lose her. I value her much more than my ability to boink random chicks or guys out in town.

The op's wife, however...

(Well, I'm sure she'll be able to parent well even if divorced. This is not intended as woman-blaming)

The point is that she does not like the husbond's idea of relationship anymore, and he doesn't like hers, so they should probably end it.

God damn it I'm rambling a lot right now.

Of course some divorced parents don't parent all that well, either. And sometimes it's the mother who is the one who is lacking. I'm thankful my dad got custody.

 

[Commodore]

People do change all the time. They make mistakes, they regret, they want their old life back. Some event, a simple phrase, can trigger a change. Imagine hypothetical gym instructor tells her when she is trying to kiss him hello. "Look Sara, please sit down. I was thinking hard about us, and realized I am doing to your husband something I would not like if he would do it to me, if I were married. Even if he agreed, he hurts and he did it because he was so desperate about you. I like you and all that -- but I am not in love with you. I don't have children with you. I can't enjoy my sex live with you knowing it is hurting someone who didn't do me anything wrong. He needs you more than I do, you did check out grass on the other side, ot is over now, I can't do this anymore, and I think you shouldn't as well."

This leaves wife rejected, she finally drinks her own medicine, she considers degrees of love offered by two men and chooses the one who is there for her even when she cheats vs the one who is likely to switch to younger and cooler trainee in near future.

Or, more realistically given my experience with human behavior, she just goes out and finds another guy to carry on an affair with; and this time she might not tell her husband about it to avoid the potential conflict.

 

[classical_hero]

Yeah, this is a good point.Marriage is whatever those who marry want it to be.

My advice, try your damndest to find your own on the side.

So you are basically say that marriage is meaningless if can have so many different meanings.

 

[Narz]

So you are basically say that marriage is meaningless if can have so many different meanings.

I think you need to consult a dictionary.

If something can have many meanings to many different people does not mean it is meaningless. It just means not everyone has to do things your way.

 

[aelf]

I didn't know that words that have many different meanings become meaningless. The wonders of ancient 'learning'.

 

[Raijan]

I don't think the obvious has been said. You're being ****olded, plain and simple. Cut off all contact with this women. This is not a dignified relationship at all.

She probably is using open marriage as a front to ****old you, because she can count on you being faithful. Don't even try being unfaithful, just divorce her and move on. Nothing good can come from her that you cannot find in another woman anyhow.

Oh and try to take the child. I wouldn't dare allow a child to be raised by a woman like that.

 

[warpus]

Unfortunately I think in most cases in the U.S. at least, the courts would give the children to the woman.

 

[Farm Boy]

But don't get too annoyed about the rates, lest you become considered M.R.A.

 

[warpus]

Well at least I'm not a W.R.A. either

 

[aelf]

But don't get too annoyed about the rates, lest you become considered M.R.A.

That's not what an M.R.A. is.

 

[Farm Boy]

But it is something that gets people called that. Umbrella guilt. Or suspicion, if one prefers.

 

[aelf]

Depends on how they talk about it. If they raise it as a kind of objection to feminism, then, yeah, that's M.R.A. stuff.

 

[Farm Boy]

Dunno. It's weird. I have an acquaintance who wound up on almost non-speaking terms with a professor during his master's program. Transgression? She asked at the beginning of one of her introductory lectures if anyone had experienced structural sexism in their day to day lives. After one of those awkwardly long pauses where no student is being forthcoming he volunteered that he had to spend a decade in the care of his mother, who was largely inept and disengaged as a parent, before finally being sent to live with his father, who was a far superior and significantly more invested parent. Professor looked awkward, brushed it off, then started providing her own more appropriate examples. It was a weird, tense, and clearly unpleasant moment. The arguments over child support obligations and rights to custody are still not entirely appropriate to focus on for some reason. At least here.

 

[warpus]

Well you know, there is nothing inherently wrong with being a Men's Right's activist either. Only some of them are extremists - much like not all Women's Right's activists (aka feminists) are extremists either.

 

[aelf]

Of course, the proverbial bad anti-free speech liberal academic.

People have their pet causes and pet peeves. That applies to M.R.A.s too. It's just that some are more justified than others in a sense that they actually better reflect the realities of the situation.

That's really the issue. Trying to equate male rights with feminism is missing the point and prone to devolve into pure navel-gazing. It's not to say that women don't have certain advantages. But these 'advantages' are also things that feminism traditionally frowns upon as one of those things that entrench the patriarchal gender divide. Courts tending to favour women for custody of the child is one of those things.