My husband and I have been together for 12 years, married 6 & have a toddler. We have couple friends (31M & 26F) that we’ve known about as long as we’ve been together. The couple are pretty fluid and sexually free/open (? I guess) and we’ve had a few ‘games’ nights that ended in stripping, nudity and flirting. The last one ended in sexual acts together but no penetration and was consensual.
My husband has previously identified as hetero, but has been curious in the last year or so and now feels he may be bi, but I believe it’s only really towards the male friend because they are so comfortable together and the friend was a safe space I suppose. I have no issue with any of that and support my husband.
I found out a few months ago there had been progressive “sexting”, fantasies & porn sharing/commentary between my husband and the male friend. I was hurt by this because the nature of the conversations were what I would consider a form of cheating. We got through it though and I had many conversations with my husband about my boundaries and his being confused with his sexuality. I explicitly said that if he wanted to continue to explore in that way, there just could never be any secrets and I needed to know about it. He agreed, and while he was embarrassed about being caught out & confused in himself, I supported him to be who he is and explore things. We were fine. I also had a conversation with the male friend, who I also consider a close friend of mine, about how hurt I was he engaged in the deception, he apologised and understood, and the four of us moved on and continued to have fun together.
Last night I had a party for my birthday, and at the end of the night our couple friend Ubered home and I went to bed. My husband stayed up while they waited for the Uber, then a short time later engaged in Snapchat sexting & video nudes with the both of them, got in an Uber to their house and they had a threesome. I woke up maybe 2 hours after I had gone to bed, noticed he wasn’t at home and called him & the couple multiple times with no answer. He called my back after 5 minutes saying he had gone for a walk because he had felt a bit depressed after everyone left and was on his way home. I was sympathetic and told him repeatedly I loved him. When he wasn’t home 20 minutes later I walked out to the street and saw him being dropped off on the corner in an Uber. I again tried to reassure him I loved him and we went back to bed but something was eating me.
I checked his phone and saw all of the above. I confronted him and he initially lied, but I then told me a very brief version of events.
I’m so lost and broken not only about my husband and our marriage/life, but the betrayal of the couple friends, especially after multiple conversations about the boundary of secrets, lies and deceptions, and the loss of that friendship. They all have apologised but I can’t accept it, because they all knew and had multiple opportunities to not proceed, but did so anyway without regard for me.
How on earth do I start trying to move on from this?
ETA: I just wanted to add that regardless of the outcome of my marriage, when I say ‘move on’ I mean more how do I deal with these feelings of hurt rather than how do I forgive & forget. It’s still so hard to talk about but I am reading all the replies and appreciate your thoughts and advice no matter what it is.
this is fucked up. they’re not your friends.
Man, with friends like that, who needs enemies? Do you *want* to move on from this, and maintain these relationships?
This man is trash. He cheated on you not once but TWICE.
You caught him sexting, he promised not to do it again. You established boundaries. Both him and your ‘friends’ then conspired to cheat on you.
He lied to your face the second time you caught him. Get rid of them all
Your husband is not going to stop. He’ll get better at hiding it or not if you’re going to stay. They all betrayed you but your husband is the one who betrayed you the most.
Your husband is a horrible person, and he has no regards for what you want or feel. He only cares for his needs and thats not how relationship work. And they are not your friends because they allowed this to happen.
Im sorry boo..but never ever stay married to him just because of your child. Because your child will sense this, and you seem to be better off without him.
Sorry, but your marriage is over. If you stay he will do this again. You told him your boundaries and he ignored them, by doing this he has shown he doesn’t respect you. And those people are not your friends, they should have been cut from your life after the first discovery.
I realised I was bi while with my partner, and have never once cheated on him. Your husband discovering his sexuality is not the reason for this, his lack of respect and consideration for you is. Do not get those things confused.
You set out boundaries months ago that he broke but you forgave him. He did it again. At this point, you look the other way as he continues to do this or you stop letting him walk all over you and leave him.
It is likely that the hurt you feel has many parts to it. Betrayal by your husband despite all the faith and support you gave him. Lies, your friends doing this behind your back as well. The future of your family that you had planned. There is likely other parts as well.
You can pick one and work on it. Make decisions about how you want to manage that part going forward.
It can help to write down all the things you are hurt about. Decide which can be left till later, what needs dealing with now, what actions you can take.
Add in things that you can do to make yourself feel better, support people around you, a trip somewhere with your child. A little distraction helps to give you back some of the energy that you will need.
Just know that doing things secretly has a power all of its own, whether fueled by shame or desire the outcome is that someone will get hurt. He has chosen a path that treats you badly, that disrespects you and that is something he needs to understand and ask himself why.
I’m so sorry. This marriage is over—disappearing to cheat while you’re in bed shows an incredible lack of respect and blatant disregard for you, your marriage, and your family. There is no outcome in which he does not do this again.
You’re asking how to cope with this pain. Nothing will make it go away, but protecting yourself can allow you to process your feelings and work through them.
One of you needs to stay elsewhere for an indefinite period of time. I would also recommend no contact for at least a week when you do this, with clear expectations and a plan for when you’ll check in next. No contact at all before that planned time.
You’ll get through this! Fuck him, I mean honestly. I wish you and your kiddo all the best.
Your “allowing” and “being supportive” about “all his needs”, have essentially given him the green light to disrespect you and your marriage. I’m not really sure what people expect when they allow other people into their marriage, there are a HUGE amount of posts about this and it almost always ends in that one partner falls for another persons partner and thats the end of marriage. What’s the point of marriage then? Of the swingers i know, they’ve all divorced because they’ve fallen for other people they were swinging with, half of the newly married/after divorce couples met through swinging. You made your boundaries clear to him about what hurt your feelings but you also seemed to disregard your own boundaries at the same time by repeatedly forgiving him and “helping him with his needs”, but he has disregarded your boundaries after that and he completely disregarded them for sexual thrill- he cheated on you plain and simple. Is this going to be another discussion “about how it hurt your feelings and its ok, as long as he doesn’t do it again”, or are you going to really stand up for YOUR needs??? Where do YOUR needs come into this, as far as I can tell you’ve been so focused on being “a supportive wife” to a cheating husband (purely because of the sexuality confusion- would this be different if he was attracted to another female and how is that even different)…….but where is effort to put you and your needs first
I’m a little confused — are you guys all sleeping together…?
> The couple are pretty fluid and sexually free/open (? I guess) and we’ve had a few ‘games’ nights that ended in stripping, nudity and flirting. The last one ended in sexual acts together but no penetration and was consensual.
and then
> he apologised and understood, and the four of us moved on and continued to have fun together.
Is “fun” a euphemism for more sex acts? Or are you saying the first sex act was like a one time thing and now you guys just are platonic friends? And then he snuck out and had the threesome?
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The only thing that is going to make this less painful is time and distance, I’m sorry. I hope you do divorce him because otherwise I suspect this kind of thing is going to happen again and again. He doesn’t respect your boundaries at all.
I’m so sorry this happened to you. Your friends are no good and same with your husband. All involved knew better and knew exactly what they were doing when they started their sexcapades on video. They all deliberately waited til you were asleep to do this.
That’s a tremendous betrayal and blow on your trust. I am not sure such a betrayal and destruction of trust is something you can move on from when it comes to the likes of any of them. Things will never be the same. The only thing is to let time heal, but you would need to rid yourself of the three of them to do that; otherwise that wound will get ripped open over and over again.
I’ve been following Reddit for over 3 years. So many stories like yours do not have a happy ending. And for those that “try” to deal with their feelings and stay together, often came back to post a year or two later that everyone was right.
My father cheated on my mother when I was 5 years old. Whenever he tried to show affectionate advances towards her, she rejected him very deliberately! As a young 5 year old, my nervous system learnt that it was very “bad” to touch people, especially women! I’m now 51m and I’ve had a fear of touch throughout my whole life. This has severely affected my ability to form relationships with women. I’ve been celibate for 32 years. I always wanted a family, I yearn for intimacy, but I fear it as well. Staying together for the child can do more damage! My nervous system never learnt what a healthy relationship looks like.
Wow just wow! They all have been betraying you behind your back for a while now. I don’t think you can get over this. I think you can only move on from it if you do it without any of them because none of them are trustworthy or loyal to you. That is a hard pill to swallow but I think with time you will heal and be able to find someone that is deserving of your love, trust and understanding. Unfortunately that is not your current husband or your “friends”.
The outcome of your marriage should be divorce if you want to be a good parent. Even if you have zero self respect, you have a kid for fucksake, does that kid need to see that mommy is a doormat and daddy gets his way no matter what?
A group of people went and betrayed you, everyone knew your boundaries and decided you were worthless, probably because you had this whole thing going on with them and felt you would eventually be okay with it, because it kept escalating and escalating.
Show some self respect, and get out with your kid.
> Last night I had a party for my birthday…
Happy (belated) birthday!
> …husband stayed up while they waited for the Uber, then a short time later engaged in Snapchat sexting & video nudes with the both of them, got in an Uber to their house and they had a threesome.
Holy crap. Divorce him, take everything you are entitled to take without question. Get yourself into therapy. Give yourself time to heal. This man is a heartless monster.
I don’t think that it’s worth saving.
1. You’re willing g to play and give him space to explore himself and his fantasies.
2. He didn’t have to flirt in private, because of nr 1., he choose to do this behind your back.
3. You caught him, he choose to lie about it, he didn’t have to because of nr.1.
4. You forgave him the cheating to the point you even invited his Co cheater to your birthday.
5. They let you go to bed so that they could (in the span of 20 minutes) arrange a treesome. Because of nr.1, thus could have been a foursome, sharing, swapping session. But no, they made sure to not include you.
6. And more importantly, this all happened on YOUR BIRTHDAY! Your partner, lover, husband left you on your BIRTHDAY to go explore himself!
And him using a depression walk and your reaction to it makes me think it’s not the first time he’s using his ” unhappiness ” to guilt trip you into doing things you’re uncomfortable with. Hold on to the anger and leave, you deserve better on your BIRTHDAY!
Your feelings and emotions are not a consideration in his decision making. If you let him he will rip all capacity for care and love out of your heart. Being in a relationship is all about being vulnerable and opening up to your partner. If they can’t respect you when you’ve done that then you have no business staying together. It’s gonna suck but you’re better off cutting your losses… Or there will be more losses.
This opinion is based solely on the information you’ve chosen to share. But it seems like enough to make a rational conclusion.
I’m not a married man or ever been in a committed relationship but one thing I know is once there is confusion the next step is destruction……. Your husband is human and somewhat of a weak one to not realize what’s at stake giving it up for a few moments of pleasure ………. You are currently in a sticky situation which is gonna take a huge toll on you and maybe at the end of the day mess up the very thing you are trying to protect …your child so please girl get out before it’s too messy cause the kind of environment your husband is gonna create wouldn’t be a safe one for raising a child
Open marriage never ends well.
Has the meaning of marriage changed or is it just me?
He lied to you and purposely went behind your back to screw other people. You would have never known if you didn’t find out for yourself. Save all the evidence because he is going to continue doing it. If you have a joint account, go to the bank and do a big withdrawal to have funds to retain a lawyer. Also purchase something really big for yourself. Your husband screwed his marriage you might as well mess up his finances.
Please drop your friend and if you want to move forward with your husband make him understand those friend are gone from both your life or you want a divorce.
tell him to move out while you take a few days to think about things. find a hotel, move in with them, some guy’s couch. you don’t care, you don’t want to know.
while he’s gone, you document everything you can about what he’s done and call a divorce attorney. then take a few days off from work to do some thinking. see a friend you absolutely trust (ie: someone who doesn’t really have a relationship with your husband). spend some time just seeing what you’re like without him. you should not have any of these people in your life anymore and need to come to terms with that. they have abused you and disrespected you in some of the worst ways possible. they are not worth being in your life. have fun. cry. get it all out. when you’re ready to talk to your husband, just serve him with divorce papers. and those ‘friends’? they’re not worth anything. just remove all ways to contact them or for them to contact you. they know what they’ve done, and they’re not worth your time living in your head.
also seek therapy cos you’re going to need it. godspeed OP. i’m so sorry this has happened, but i’m rooting for you.
Hilarious really….we have naked time with friends and he ended up cheating. Well how surprising lmao
He’s not trustworthy. You had to go and find out on your own. He pretended he was even feeling depressed. On top of that, this was all on your birthday.
Clearly he’s capable of doing this over and over and much worse. I would not stick around.
I think you are being used. Your husband doesn’t care about you.
Leave. You are worth more than that .
Therapy to remind you of your worth and you need to cut those friends. Obviously you can’t cut out your husband if you have a toddler together, but would he have told you if you didn’t catch him out of the Uber? You don’t know if he’s cheated more then twice (sexting and this). Plus it was your fucking birthday what a dick head! You deserve better! Also a little confused you’ve known the couple aslong as you guys have been together, that would have made the f 14, is their relationship truly consensual or built of a power imbalance?
You lived before you met your husband, you will live again, gain and loss is natural
Your husband has been lieing and visually cheating. Then it moved onto lieing again and full on sex cheating. Not only with your woman friend but gay sex with his guy friend. Then come home to only lie again.
Apologies don’t mean shit. Why, because they got caught, so they had no choice?
Are you going to stay in the marriage?
He now has the taste of cheating. Will he start hooking up with other men and not tell you? You have no way to know what he is capable of doing.
You can never trust him, nor your friends
They all disrespected you, and they didn’t care.
Cheaters lie, and liars cheat.
The first thing you do is go and stay with an actual friend or family member to get some space to deal with your feelings.
Start looking for a therapist.
Don’t blame yourself for his actions.
If you want a divorce then research lawyers. As someone who had their now ex-husband cheat on them with my sister, I’d never recommend staying after cheating.
Your healing process will take time unfortunately.
Find a new husband and better friends.
Pick your self respect off the floor and Get a divorce
They did this on your birthday? Im so sorry.
Save all the messages. Both you and hubby need to be tested asap. This is a deal breaker for all parties involved. They aren’t sorry about what happened, they are sorry for being caught. They had no intentions to
tell you what happened. Husband is going to change, he’s going to continue with these sexual urges. Break
it off with all of them. Don’t keep it a secret.
This is cheating. No matter what you were okay with or consented to prior, this was willful deception. Your husband chose to fuck this couple and to lie to you in the process.
This is why it’s dangerous to swing.. I would never allow me & my GF to swing with another couple because so many things could wrong like this one. I think you lost your husband, I doubt he’ll stop. He’s just going to get better at cheating. The moment you go out of town or to work will give him plenty of opportunities. Youre going to have anxiety forever if you stay with him.
It’s gonna keep happening, it’s time to move on and let laying dogs lie
Yeah see your first mistake was engaging in ‘games’ where you strip nude and flirt. What the hell did you think was gonna happen dummy.