Situation: Me (m35) and partner (f35). Married 10 years, 2 kids. Her "maybe a" bf, Sam.

She wanted to open, explore poly. I consented under condition of therapy for us to get on the same page, shore up our relationship and communication. She agreed, said I needed to find and pay for therapist.

Our agreed poly structure was "approved affair": we are centered as a couple. We have a life, kids, 20 years of history... emotional and sexual relations that were auxiliary to our primary core relationship felt safe and good for both of us.

I found two or three therapist options. She didn't like any of them- said none of them has serious clinical experience with ADHD, which I have.

She suggested one a friend recommended- let's call her Cathy.

Cathy had no availability for the foreseeable future.

Everything got tabled.

9 months later, wife comes to me: she's met someone (a body worker she and I are both clients of), Sam.

They have been talking, and are interested in starting a relationship, and she wants to be above board about it.

I'm taken aback (where's that therapy?) but do my best to be supportive.

I ask again for therapy: she says I didn't do the work finding someone and it's not her fault, and she's not waiting around for that. And our relationship is basically over unless I let her get what she needs from elsewhere - "I have to put my oxygen mask on first" were her repeated words.

I say, well then, go ahead. I guess? I found out about the concept of "PUD" recently, which I guess some people like and others don't believe in, and some who believe in but say it wouldn't apply here. (For the record, she is primary breadwinner, I am primary childcare, she asked me to sign a postnup which put the home and all real estate investments in her name, which i did)

She sees him for a while. Things are good between us. I'm totally jealous and freaked out (she only begrudgingly agreed to use protection after I was in tears about it, and she refused to give any promise that we would remain primary partners, "I can't make promises or agreements about the future. You don't 'deserve' monogamy with me, nor poly either- you don't deserve anything, but if I feel like being with you, then you can enjoy it." Fair enough, I guess). But I'm happy to see her happy.

Then, things between us fall apart precipitously. She begins threatening our relationship more days than not.

We get in, finally, with that therapist, Cathy, she had wanted.

Cathy says that we need to close the relationship temporarily: we are in crisis (all agreed) and navigating the transition to poly for the first time deserves a stable base, which it doesn't have.

Wife agrees, I agree.

We work on our relationship for the next 6 months or so. It's on the rocks. I move out to give space, but we're still working on things and I'm at her house more than not (two young kids).

Her words: "there was never anything between him and me, so there's nothing to end or pause."

"we've kissed, and been close, and of course he's touched me nude (that's how massages work), and the opportunity to have sex was there and we started to but it felt awkward so we didn't."

"He wanted a full time, primary partner girlfriend, and I can't give that to him so he doesn't want me, and I'm crushed about that. I feel rejected."

"He made advances I wasn't expecting from a position of power, and I think it was all consensual. I'm not a victim: can't let myself get into that mindset. I don't want to feel like anything untoward happened, or I cheated on you."

She continues to see him whenever she has the opportunity - she travels for work to his town. They go out for dinner, for drinks. I've tried to not seem like I'm prying or surveiling, but I have mutual friends that see it all going on and are like, "yeah, they went out for the whole evening," "saw them at the bar until 1am," "she spent four-five hours with him at his place."

She's open about some of this, and says they're just friends (or there's just a purely professional healing relationship). But... yeah. Last time she went to his town, she said she just grabbed a bite with him, but I know that they also had drinks.

This makes me really uncomfortable. I feel like this is NOT in the spirit of the agreement with the therapist.

But I'm afraid I'm being some sort of secretly self-denial misogynist asshole who won't let his wife have male friends out of some sense of fucked up ownership.

She thinks this is the case: "we never formalized any relationship, and we're not fucking, so there's nothing to end."

I feel like when you agree to close a relationship for a period, you don't keep going out for drinks with the romantic interest that you don't tell your long-term partner about, and brush off your long term partners concerns. And insist "this is the only person who can give me the (nude) massages that are keeping me emotionally together." If you've talked openly with this romantic interest about a relationship, and kissed them, and almost had sex... yeah, scaling back to "just drinks" doesn't feel like it's honoring a commitment to pause and shore up a primary relationship first.

Or am I an asshole and terrible person and misguided? This is Reddit; you can tell me I'm an asshole and a terrible person and misguided.

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