Hi, I’m new here, and I could use some help.

I’m in my mid twenties, recently married to my best friend of ten years. We have one child and another on the way.

Right now we’ve hit a rough patch and I’m unsure how to handle it. Unfortunately some of the issues seem to go back a ways and were just unrealized until recently.

Some time ago, before we were married, we had an open relationship because we were living far apart. During this time we were allowed to have sex with other people, but not form romantic attachments without permission. He slept with a lot of people and I had a brief encounter with one person before deciding that was not my thing. That was fine. We ended this arrangement eventually.

What I didn’t know was that before we had gotten together my husband fell in love with another woman in a different state who returned his feelings. They still have feelings for each other, and currently maintain a flirty friendship. Because this existed before our relationship, and because our relationship was open for so long (even though this fell outside our rules), he didn't think to tell me. I found out on our wedding night when I saw them exchanging very flirtatious texts. I confronted him the next day and he admitted to being in love with her, but with no intentions of acting on it beyond their flirtatious friendship.

I immediately got very depressed. Anger and other emotions came later. But we didn’t address any of it for a couple of months because there was a lot of major life things going on outside of our relationship that were immediate concerns. But now that everything else has calmed down, and I witness them talking on line every day, her sending him pictures, etc, I feel completely worthless and very jealous. I don’t know how to cope with this at all. It hurts, a lot. And it blindsided me.

We’ve talked a lot recently. He hates seeing me unhappy. We’ve discussed appropriate boundaries. He’s agreed not to say anything to her that he wouldn’t be comfortable saying out loud to her with me present. He’s agreed to talk with her about setting those same boundaries on her end and have me participate in that discussion. He has been completely reasonable and accommodating about all of my requests.

But, I don’t feel any better. I cry every day. I feel like I’m not good enough.

I don’t know what to do.

I want to go to therapy, but can’t afford it until June, when I can go regularly. I need some kind of help in the meantime.

This is effecting our sex life too. Since I’ve started reacting emotionally, we’ve gone from having sex a couple of times a day to every few days. He masturbates instead. And that makes me feel even more unwanted.

Please, do you have any advice?

This is the first problem we’ve had in ten years of friendship and in what has otherwise been a very happy relationship.