New and Need Relationship Advice

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.

I'm sorry for your very unhappy situation. I would be horribly depressed were I in your shoes. And now your second child on the way. I think you've got a bigger mess on your hands than you even realize. You have, since way back when you were single, been rationalizing yourself into believing and agreeing to ridiculous crazy things, in order to hold onto this man. Now you see what it has come to, which is what it was bound to come to. But you're still in denial, still rationalizing, still employing tortured logic to minimize the absurdity of this relationship. Your whole mode of thinking is to make excuses for this man and keep doing that, until you'll wish you had never been born. And, while his behavior is beyond what is even remotely tolerable, you tolerated it because you so feared losing him. That's how little you thought of yourself going way back, and that's how much if a great catch you thought this guy was.

He's a philanderer. He wants a wife who'll put up with a philanderer. And that's pretty much what you presented yourself as. Going through the wedding ceremony, as you found out just hours when it was over, changed nothing.

What you tolerated before marriage, you are expected to tolerate after. That's how it works. But you thought you had control with this mousetrap of a negotiated deal you had worked out. That was all a delusion. You said to yourself, "I'll give this guy permission to do what he likes before marriage, in exchange for him agreeing to be a stand-up guy afterwards." This allowed you to cling to the fantasy that he was on his way to becoming the man you wanted.

He's not your best friend. He never was. This isn't just a "recent rough patch." He doesn't "hate seeing [you] unhappy." It hasn't been a happy relationship for 10 years. This is all the stuff you tell yourself to avoid the truth. This was never a wonderful relationship.

I was going to say that you should tell him all outside flirtation has to stop and all - I mean - all contact with this woman has to cease. But he's not going to stop. He can't. This is who he is.

Go ahead and undertake therapy. Maybe it can help you. Mainly you have to not enter into insane arrangements that you think are controlable. Quite frankly, I'ld say leave this guy now.

Welcome to PC. You and your husband need couples therapy (and individual therapy wouldn't hurt, either) ASAP.

No, he chose not to tell you. He blatantly violated the rules and he chose not to tell you.

If this were actually true, the solution is simple and he already would have done it: stop all contact with the other woman.

Have you asked him to stop all contact with the other woman? That is the true, and the only, test of how reasonable and accommodating he is.

It is really just impossible for me to fathom the depth of disrespect and callousness involved in the decision to flirtatiously connect with another woman on your wedding night. No wonder you are horribly depressed.

If he doesn't stop with this other woman, completely stop, your life will just continue as it is now: unhappy, depressed, lonely, feeling worthless. How willing are you to accept that--for you and for the children that he is supposed to be raising with you? If you are not willing to accept that, my advice is to tell him the following:

1. he has to tell her permanent goodbye at once, today
2. He has to block her on every possible form of communication, and
3. you will leave him forever if he speaks to her after today.

I wish you the best.