My husband and I, both mid 40’s have been together for 25 years. I love him very much and our lives are intertwined. Economy, family, friends so when he told me that he still loved me but wasn’t sexually attracted to me anymore (I see you as my best friend and companion) I understood where he was coming from. He didn’t want to lose me but he wasn’t attracted to me.

We have our house and an apartment in the city. So we agreed to open the marriage and we had some set of rules like no relationships and no fucking in my marital home. No dates, spending money on the women or taking them for vacations etc. all relationshipy things are just between us and he can meet people for casual sex. Same for me (although it is different since men do take me to dinners and hotels but I don’t pay).

This has been going on for a year and I had very difficult time in the beginning and I cried all night when I knew he was in the apartment with someone else. My best friend recommended that I download tinder and at first only talking to new people did it. With time I realized how there are so many other people out there and I started to feel attracted to men other than my husband(I didn’t realize I could be turned on without love) and after some months, I started to meet guys. I slept with my first 2 months ago and we still see each other sometimes. And I have met two more.

My husband started wanting me more since he started sleeping with his gf. I don’t know how to explain because logically it should have been the opposite shouldn’t it (can someone explain why?) but before we opened the marriage he wanted sex maybe a handful times a year and it increased the more he met other women and now we have sex regularly. Like once a week.

Yesterday we were having a lazy morning in bed with Netflix and he said that he didn’t want this anymore and that we should close the marriage again because we have great sex now and he loves me and thinks that I am the sexiest and most beautiful woman he knew.

I had a panic episode tbh because I don’t think he has come to a realization or anything. I feel that he likes me and wants me now because of the open marriage and not in spite of it. If we close it he will go back to being unfulfilled. I have done much research about open marriage and the goal of it is to strengthen the existing relationship and this happened to us. I said no. He was very unhappy but I said that we can divorce if this didn’t work for him anymore because I have done everything in my power to save our marriage and I feel that I succeeded. I don’t want to go back to when we almost lost each other.

He asked me if we got divorced and I started dating, would it be open/poly relationship? I said no. I would want a monogamous relationship so he said that I was an ah who did want to give him the same decency as my hypothetical future partner