My wife and I have been together for twelve years, eight of which we’ve been married, and we have a ten-year-old daughter. Three months ago, she confessed to me that she had been sleeping with her ex-boyfriend for almost a year.
She didn’t confess to apologize or try to save our marriage. On the contrary. She wanted to convince me that we should switch to something she calls an “open marriage.”
For some context: my wife works full-time as a nurse, and I work part-time as a paramedic. I switched to part-time mainly for the family, since she earns more and it made sense for me to have more time for the household and our daughter.
In practice, I do most things at home. I cook, clean, take care of the garden, handle everyday chores around the house, and of course, I spend a lot of time with our daughter. I’ve turned down some job opportunities in the past precisely so I could be home more.
I never had a problem with it. I saw it as our joint decision and a way we divided our lives.
But according to my wife, it wasn’t enough.
She claims that our marriage hadn’t been working the way she wanted for some time, and that something was missing for her. Instead of talking to me about these problems, she started seeing her ex.
When she told me, she also said she wanted to stay with me and continue as a family. But, according to her, nothing should change about her relationship with him. That’s why she came up with the idea of an open marriage.
She said it might even be the best thing for our daughter.
I told her I didn’t agree with it.
The following month was probably the worst period of my life. She tried to convince me to accept her proposal, while I felt like my whole life was falling apart in a matter of weeks. I barely slept, had anxiety, and at times, I couldn’t function normally.
What hurt the most was the feeling that everything I had done for our family suddenly didn’t matter at all.
I know our relationship wasn’t perfect. Our sex life wasn’t the same as it was ten years ago, and we definitely had things we could have worked on. But we weren’t just two strangers living side by side.
If she had come to me earlier and said she was unhappy, I would have gone to counseling with her. I would have been willing to work on our marriage. But instead, she secretly lived with another man for a year and only then told me I should accept new rules for our relationship.
After a few weeks, she finally said that if I wanted, she would stop seeing her ex and we could try marriage counseling.
But for me, it was already too late.
I don’t know if I could ever trust someone again who knowingly cheated on me for so long and then wanted me to just accept it.
Now we’re getting divorced.
I’m completely devastated. I’m losing my wife, our home, and a part of my everyday life with my daughter. What scares me the most is that I won’t be with her every day like before.
My wife tells me that I’m largely to blame for the breakdown of our marriage. Maybe I could have done some things differently. Maybe we should have addressed some problems sooner.
But I keep coming back to one thing: if she was really that unhappy, why didn’t she talk to me about it sooner?
Now I don’t know if our marriage could have been saved. All I know is that after all this, I can’t imagine just going back to the way things were before.
I just needed to say it somewhere.
Good luck!
