Husband wanted an open relation, I kissed someone and now he wants to divorce, what did I do wrong here?
Hi all, thank you for reading.
My husband Tom, and I have been dating for 5 years, married for 1,5.
Tom and I met and agreed to be monogamous. However, 2 years ago, he suddenly, out of the blue, told me that he wanted to have an open relationship.
I was very surprised. As much as I respected the choice of people to have an open relationship, I knew that it was not something I was willing to do. I told my husband, and he replied that I was just ‘still young’ and that ‘In a few years I would think otherwise’, and that sleeping with other people was something he had always wanted to explore himself
This was a rough period where he wasn’t very nice about me not wanting this, even the idea of cancelling our wedding was an option. I told him that I did not want an open relationship but that I wanted him to be happy, so if that meant us breaking up, so be it.
After a month of reflection on his side, he told me that it was his mental health issues (which he was suffering from) that made him say this. We organized our wedding, and I thought that was it.
A year ago, Tom was telling me about his sister, who had cheated on her husband, I was very shocked, and so was he, but he told me that he was very much in favour of the fact that it’s not because you are in a relationship that you can’t go and see someone else if you are very attracted to them. He called it ‘following your attraction to the limit’. Again, I was sceptical, but until six months ago, the topic didn”t really get brought up again.
6 months ago he came back with the idea of an open relationship. I decided to hear him out, and he told me that it wasn’t fair that I had the possibility to experiment with other men while he had always been in commited relationships. And that he felt like it should be something to experience. I asked him if that would mean that we would have some rules, to not make it a very messy situation, but Tom assured me that an open relationship doesn’t need rules, and that he didn’t want any, he wanted it to be spontaneous.
I was hurt by this. But in the months after that it did come up, and 2,5 months ago I gave in. Not because I wanted to, but because I did not want to stop him from doing what he wanted.
2 months ago, at a dinner with friends, I met a man: John, we got along very well and afterwards I told Tom about my evening and about John. Tom, who was never jealous, suddenly became mad and insecure, asking everything about John. In discussions afterwards, he would tell me, ‘Why don’t you go ask, John’ etc.
John and I were in the same Whatsapp group so we texted a bit in that group and met up several times together with our friends. One evening, John kissed me.
When I got home I told Tom about this and he got mad, really mad. He told me an open relationship doesn’t mean you can text someone and/or hang-out with them and that I ‘betrayed him’.
He packed his bags the next day and today I got a text of him saying he can’t get over my betrayal and that he wants a divorce.