I (25F) Think I’m done with him (31M). Can I get some advice on how to navigate this?
I’m pretty sure my therapist is in over her head here, so here is the tea.
TLDR:
My husband and I opened our marriage during Covid so I could explore my bisexuality, but over the years the relationship has become increasingly unequal. He’s been allowed to pursue outside partners freely, while every attempt I’ve made to date men has been met with distrust, emotional shutdowns, fights, or accusations of cheating.
Recently, I developed feelings for the husband of our current girlfriend. While I believed we stayed within the boundaries that had been established, the situation exploded after his wife told my husband before we could. Since then, my husband has emotionally withdrawn, made cruel comments, threatened suicide during these conflicts, and created an increasingly toxic dynamic alongside his girlfriend.
At this point, I’m emotionally exhausted, questioning whether some of his behavior is emotionally abusive, and realizing this relationship may no longer be healthy or sustainable for me.
My husband and I have been married for seven years, I was 18 and he was 23 when we got married. I understand that for a lot of people this is pretty young, but it was fairly common in the religious communities we both grew up in. Around the time Covid hit about 5 years ago, we decided to expand our relationship to include women. I was bisexual, and I never had a lot of chances to explore that so I was OK with doing only women at the time.
Initially, we had a couple of flings and then ended up dating a childhood friend of his. It became a situation where she was there more for him than she was for me and she eventually ended up breaking it off to date somebody else. This has been a pattern in all of our mutual relationships.
Couple months later, I met a guy from work that I really liked and I was interested in doing things with. I had a conversation with my husband and admittedly, I was probably more assertive about wanting to do it then I should’ve been. Despite never engaging in this relationship, he felt like he was unable to trust the fact that I worked overnights and he shut down on me physically and emotionally for at least six months.
During that time, my best friend talked about him very negatively to the point where it absolutely impacted our relationship. I put a stop to it and she and I are distanced now, but he does not like when I talk to others about the situation.
Because he didn’t like the negative talk, I tried to switch my impromptu therapy sessions to one of his close friends (M 33). I had been under the impression that this friend would have his back and be able to give me concrete ways to address the situation. However, during this time, the friend and I had developed feelings for each other, and when we brought it to his attention and wanted to explore those feelings within the bounds of a poly relationship, he shut down.
During the next three months I was not a good partner. I let the close friend manipulate my relationship with my husband, although looking back on it now with my current situation, which I will get to, I’m wondering how much of it is manipulation and how much of it is my husband genuinely being emotionally volatile. Regardless, the close friend ended up pushing a boundary that my husband had stated he wasn’t OK with, and I broke up with the friend.
I told my husband, took accountability and understood that by his definition the boundary that was pushed was technically cheating. He had every right to break up with me then and there by our own terms, and he chose to stay.
Shortly after this, we got in another relationship that was similar to the first one where the girl was there for my husband, and not for me. This caused even more tension, and we eventually broke it off. During this time, she consumed almost every minute of his free time and got jealous when he and I spent time together, so I backed off.
Things were OK for about a year after the break up in summer of 2024. I started interacting with a girl from work, he had a sling with one of his close friends, and our relationship seemed to be getting better. Dating men was still a source of contention, as much as I’ve tried to talk to him about my wants and my needs.
In November of this past year, he started dating another girl (F28) who was already married (M32) with three kids. We have one child of our own, and all of the kids got along well together, so it seemed like it was a good fit for a while. That isn’t until her husband, let’s call him Justin, and myself started having feelings for each other. My husband would not talk about opening it up so I could date him, despite already sharing Justin’s wife with him, and every time I try to have the conversation, it would end up in a fight where he wouldn’t be talking to me for a week.
Starting around the beginning of April, I had a depressive spiral. My husband and I have had individual sex, maybe twice since the start of the year, and I am pent up and frustrated and in need of connection. Because of her own past trauma, she doesn’t wanna have sex with me on our own, and she confide in me that she gets jealous when she sees my husband and I together, so I backed down and I isolated which only made the depression worse.
We have been looking for a place for all of us to move into so that they could get out of their current living situation, and we finally found one about three weeks ago. Justin and I are there with the kids all throughout the first weekend, and during that time our relationship takes a step forward. We talk about our attraction, hold hands, and start being physically close all within what we think are the boundaries based on what we’ve been told. We don’t kiss, we don’t have sex, it’s just nice to be physically close.
The problems happen after the weekend when his wife confronts the both of us about what happened. She then goes and tells my husband before Justin and I are able to and the whole situation blows up. Now remember what I said about my husband being emotionally volatile? Yeah well he shuts down, and he’s been giving me the cold shoulder for the last three weeks.
Because we are currently in between houses and my kiddo was trying to finish up at the end of school before we move, Justin and I have been living together at the new house where my husband and the girlfriend are living together at the old house and it’s not going well. The girlfriend has BPD, and while my husband hasn’t been diagnosed, he acts in the exact same way, so the two of them are creating a negative feedback loop attacking everything Justin and I do, and saying just awful things.
For example, my husband told me that if he has to choose between me and the girlfriend, he’s going to pick the girlfriend. In another instance, he said he hopes that my kid doesn’t end up like me. He’s also been saying consistently that he wants to kill himself, which he says every single time the conversation of bringing another man in comes up, and I am just done. I don’t think I can continue living in this situation as it stands currently, but the two of them are creating a negative feedback loop and encouraging each other’s negative emotions.
Meanwhile, Justin is non-confrontational in the worst possible way. He has told me that by not cracking in the situation and trying to make the most of it that I am giving off the impression that I’m not trying. It’s not that I’m not sorry for what happened, but I can’t stop living for something that in my head didn’t even technically cross the boundary based on what parameters have been laid out prior.
And I think I’m just done. I’ve already decided today on Mother’s Day that if he does not himself get me anything, it’s over. However, I would love to hear other people’s takes on this. Does anyone have any advice for me on how to handle this?