Cheating & Betrayal·
OPEN RELATION, CLOSED HEART
A couple agrees to an open relationship, then jealousy, secrets, and misaligned motives collide when one partner's plan for an escape unravels, testing trust and commitment.
Should she close it or walk away?
Be one of the first to vote.
He wanted to open the relationship. Instead, he got found out.
The poster and her boyfriend, both 37, had been together for just over three years, and by her account, things had been healthy overall. Then, about six months ago, he came to her with a new idea: open the relationship so they could date and sleep with other people.
She was skeptical at first. But after doing research and thinking it over, she agreed. The terms were clear. Either of them could date or sleep with others. If either person got uncomfortable, they could close it again. And there was one more rule: "we don't discuss with each other what we're doing or who we're going on dates with etc."
So the poster signed up for a dating app.
It took off fast. She got "500+ likes," started matching, texting, and going on dates. On average, she says, she went out one or two times a month. She also began seeing a few people regularly in similar open-relationship setups. She says she enjoys the arrangement.
Her boyfriend, meanwhile, was running his own plan.
While she was at his house, her phone sat on the kitchen counter. He saw notifications, picked it up, and went through her messages. He found the dating app. He read everything.
Then came the anger.
He admitted why he had really pushed for the open relationship. He had been hoping to pursue a younger colleague at work, and, in his words, "it would work with her so he could ultimately leave me for her." But the colleague had misunderstood his idea of a "date" as a work lunch, and she was not interested. Over the last six months, he said, he'd had a few rough dates but nobody else willing to sleep with him.
The poster says she felt embarrassed for him.
He didn't take her success well. While she had been quietly dating, he had apparently expected the open relationship to be a route out. Instead, she was getting matches, dates, and options, and he wasn't.
He demanded they instantly close the relationship up. She pushed back and suggested something else: maybe they should just end things or at least take a break.
That set him off. He called her names. She left. Afterward, she says she was seriously considering fully breaking it off. He kept blowing her phone up.
Now she's left with the question he never seems to have expected to face: he was the one who wanted this dynamic, so what's the problem?