Hi, everyone! I apologize in advance if this post gets too long. My wife (F 39) and I (M 43) opened our marriage about a month ago. We've been married for more than 10 years, and we have a kid. Let me say, to begin with, that we have a healthy, happy relationship, with ups and downs as everyone, but with lots of love and care. We're also sexually active (some months more than others, of course).

I've been a strong advocate and believer in ENM for many years, although I have actually never played outside our marriage. My wife mostly thought this was my way of getting into someone else's pants, so I've never pushed it, but I always let it clear that from my side it'd be more than okay for her to know other people or explore, which she mostly dismissed. I always told her that, if anything, she'd have way more chances than me of being in that situation (I'm a male, and not physically attractive, while she is beautiful). Life changes, though! My wife made good friends with a guy (let's call him M) we met about 2 years ago. M is a nice guy, and my wife and him have bonded around a number of issues, one being that both of them happen to have their mornings free and they love hiking. My wife has experienced loneliness, and they also share some of those feelings and struggles. M has a couple of kids who attend our son's school, and the kids have in fact become best friends, which means that they started to hang out more often for play dates and the like. Not surprisingly, my wife and M became good friends and confidants.

I noticed almost as soon as I met M that he was attracted to my wife. M, BTW, is married, but his marriage is in shambles, and he's mostly trapped in it. I told her so at the time, but she mostly refused to believe it. In the past year, however, they started going for hikes more often. Unsurprisingly (to me, at least), M started to develop feelings for her. My wife mostly overlooked it or refused to see it. When I mentioned it she flatly denied it, and she told me she wasn't physically attracted to him. A few months ago, M started becoming more and more direct, and eventually told her he was in love and wanted something deeper than a friendship. My wife didn't reciprocate (or at least that's what she thinks), but she started to feel sexually aroused when they hugged. I'd been noticing her acting weird, though (she was being sneaky, and I could tell there's something on her mind), and of course I'd anticipated that M would make a move on her and had told her so. I, however, didn't know she was actually contemplating it, as she'd told me she wasn't interested and at this point I didn't know about her sexual feelings for him increasing. Well, at some point in their conversations, my wife told him she had a free pass, and little by little she started letting me know. First, she told me she though he would declare (this actually happened to be a lie, as he had already declared to her), and she was feeling lost on how to act about it. After he "declared", she told me she hadn't told him anything and she'd try and keep on as if nothing had happened, which as I told her was a naïve assumption now that his cards were out on the table. I reassured her that I'd be okay with her exploring. I was noticing, however, that behind her reluctance, something else was going on, so I started asking more. After some talk, she finally told me that she was actually thinking about going deeper with him. This wasn't easy at all for her, as she felt guilt and shame, and fear of losing me. I knew right away that there were some red flags from the get-go: M is married and would be cheating on his wife; our kids are bff's, so boundaries are quite blurry. Nonetheless, I also realized that this was very important for my wife, and I reasoned that warning her against it would be a contradiction to my opening the relationship, so I told her so and even did my best to make their first encounter as good as possible for her (even allowing them to use our place.... I know, I know). Their experience was amazing (especially for M), and I'm genuinely happy for her. She told me all the details, and I handled it quite well, not feeling angry, jealous, or insecure. Big success!

The first hurdle came a couple of days later, though, as something had started nagging at me. Until a couple of weeks before their encounter she'd been telling me she wasn't interested, but now that she told me she jumped at the chance right away, and quite naturally. I started wondering if she hadn't been completely honest with me and was hiding something. So, a couple of days later I found myself unable to sleep. She woke up, noticing me restless and distressed, and asked me if it was about M. I told her I was feeling insecure, and asked if I could read their messages. She didn't take this well at all, as she rightly thought that I was being contradictory and I was overstepping in her autonomy and privacy. She was feeling guilty to begin with, and seeing me distressed crushed her heart, as she doesn't want to hurt me. We had a very frank and honest conversation for the whole rest of the night. I told her that she'd need to have patience with me, as despite my acceptance of the LS it was a first for me too. I apologized for being incoherent and selfishly walking back on my full trust and support to her newfound freedom. I also told her about my concerns. She didn't show me her full conversations, but showed me (on her own) a few of their messages. I learned that she had actually created a fake email account to communicate with M, and also that they'd been talking about it for a few weeks before she came to me. M had declared earlier than I thought, and she'd been thinking about it well in advance. I told her I understood why she did it: guilt, shame, fear, denial. We cried, and talked a lot, and agreed upon more precise rules.

Ever since, we've been doing mostly okay! As a marriage, we've probably been more honest with each other than we've been in most of our marriage. I've loved seeing her empowered and secure, and enjoying her sexuality and falling in love. Our sex life has also been great these last few weeks. At the same time, we have some bad days. She cannot help but feeling guilty, as she mostly ignored the red flags. For once, M is cheating, and she feels like it'd be hell for him if they're found out. On my side, the fact that our kids are BFFs has been somewhat difficult to navigate, as I feel that sometimes he's pushed his kids to meet with ours as a pretext for being close to my wife. The thing is, he's completely in love with my wife, and feels like she's his true love and has given him more happiness than he's had in all his life. My wife cares for him but doesn't feel the same way (or at least, that's what she tells me). For her, they're just good friends who happen to be FWB's. They've met for sex a few times, and it's always been at our place (again, I know), which is realistically the safest for her and the most pragmatic, but this has also meant that it's been hard for me to feel "safe" at my own place, and I feel like he envies my life. This has brought out some insecurities in me, old fears of abandonment and solitude that I'd considered long solved, and on which I'm working. I'm genuinely happy for my wife, but also sometimes I'm down, and I'm starting to dislike M more and more, as I feel that we are the ones making all the efforts for the two of them to be okay. My wife also suffers to see me struggle some days, which has led me to try to hide my feelings, as I don't want to burden her even more. That being said, sometimes I say some things about my feeling scared or lonely, and this leads to her feeling ashamed and guilty as she feels that we wouldn't be experiencing this had she ignored M.

When my wife has told him about her feelings, he mostly says he's sorry to cause troubles among us and he'd be okay to stop if she wanted to, BUT if she still wants to have sex he'll be happy to do it (I feel this is cowardly, as he's always letting the decision to be my wife's; this could be my own jealousy talking, though). My wife sometimes wants out, as she's tired of the guilt of his infidelity and the toll on me and on herself. At the same time, now that she's been with him, for good or for bad things will never be the same. I told her that despite my insecurities, the only way for us now is trust and communication. I've told her that now that this is out, I will not close our relationship no matter what, but that I expect that she won't lie or deceive me, as she wouldn't have the need to. I've told her this is my red flag, and it'd damage our relationship if she went to lie to me, as I don't want to allow myself from forgiving something like that. This has been hard on her, as she reasonably feels tired of having to tell me everything, and feels like there is a very slim chance that we might end up separating. I'm working on my own issues, as I rationally know that she loves me and doesn't want to leave me, but some days emotionally feel sad or anxious that she's not being wholly honest. Alternatively, we also have beautiful, happy days, and we give each other lots of love and support, and my respect and love for her have only grown in these last weeks.

I'm not looking for advice: we're well aware of our errors in our early path and I also feel that without further context most opinions will at best be incomplete. Do any of you have similar stories? Would any of you like to be supporting ears as we navigate this? Encouragement and support will be very welcome!

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