Background

My partner (25F) and I (29M) were in an open relationship and we had one centrally governing rule: communicate, communicate, communicate. Since we only recently started out, and the experience was new to the both of us, we were slowly toe stepping our way into seeing others, with no major escalations. From 30 June to 13 July, my partner developed an emotional and physical affair with a married man with children. I was absolutely oblivious to this development. Her betrayal made me feel belittled, insignificant, invisible, unworthy, demeaned, and, fundamentally, disrespected, as well as creating and amplifying insecurities. The affair partner (AP) didn’t even know I existed. Despite only meeting twice, they developed an exceptionally close connection. When AP travelled back to their country, she cried before he left at his hotel, and they resorted to send 2-3 long-worded emails per day, consisting of poetry, music, intimate details, and what they were going through and what they were up to. I reason emailing was the selected medium because AP wanted to evade communication from his wife. Anyways, the magnitude of their connection was greater than what I had with her but it was similar to how our relationship first started. So, the limerence / new relationship energy is particularly strong. AP eventually told his wife and both AP's wife and I affirmed no contact boundaries. So, they effectively chose to cut off contact, however, when they were communicating, the affair partner promised her two books. Also important to note, my partner never felt like she truly felt like she was in love with someone, until she met me. So her feeling 'love' is a novelty.

My partner was exceptionally remorseful for the first week and a half. She told me she didn’t want to tell me because she was concerned I would judge her for liking a married man. Also, at first, I think she was experiencing denial, and brushed off their connection (plus emotional and physical attraction) as transactional and argued that she was just using him. 

The Books

Just before cutting off contact for good, however, my partner requested for books that AP promised her, because in her words, it’ll feel that she’ll still have a part of him. Mind you, his wife is likely oblivious to this development. My opinion and feelings, alongside the ongoing trauma and unprecedented emotional distress I’m enduring, were never accounted for. 

Nor was consideration extended to AP’s wife. I, after a couple of days of trying to nudge her towards accountability, put my foot down and objected, indicating how that makes me feel. 

She, however, insists that she already made so many sacrifices (e.g. cutting him off), but she wants to keep that 1%, tangibly represented by the books. She’s very, very frustrated and annoyed by what she perceives as a restriction on her autonomy, with the overall attitude effectively being, ‘can’t I just have these fucking books?!’.

And, honestly, this whole entire development is hurtful, because it reflects the same behavior that enabled the cheating to occur. The same selfishness. The same desperation. The same obsession. She's effectively saying that her immediate desires and feelings are more important than AP's wife's / my feelings and self-respect. A different shade of disrespect, in that it was communicated, but to me, it’s like forewarning me about getting punched in the gut indefinitely while simultaneously being spat on.

Additionally, her logic surrounding the dynamic was communicated during this development, it is important for the next development of concern:  

What our relationship differs from traditional relationships, and this circumstance differs from “traditional cheating”, is that in our non-monogamous dynamic, the external relationship itself is permitted, and it’s a separate matter from disclosure. In a traditional relationship, neither the external relationship nor the non-disclosure is permitted. 

So in this case, what I hope we can do is focus on our relationship, the relationship between you and I itself, instead of my relationship with someone else. I understand that in your mind/feelings, this relationship “represents” my deceit to you and makes you feel uncomfortable, which is why I’m choosing to cut contact with this external relationship that otherwise would be “permitted”. But more importantly, in reality, I, myself, represent my deceit to you. I have made my confession, and I’ve been doing everything within my power to fix that and be transparent to you.

Re-communication with AP

The second development relates to her wanting to re-communicate with AP. I noticed she wasn’t her self and wanted to cultivate space with radical honesty and acceptance. I also insisted and had a strong feeling that she still had feelings and an attraction towards AP, despite her prior objections. She eventually spilled the beans and indicated that’s he’s been on her mind all the time. She writes about him every single day, multiple times a day, and wrote and recently made a song for him. I reminded her on the 30th of July that it's been one month since they first met and made out, because of the trauma it represented, and she forgot about it. What does she do? She went to the cafe where they first met and wrote about him the whole day. She also has urges to call him or contact him, but is restraining herself. I also told her, despite what happened, I hope that there comes a day where they can rekindle things on more ethical footing, with my and AP’s wife’s awareness. This is the critical bit - when they cut off contact, they indicated that they would only contact each other to alert the other if their respective partner (AP’s wife or I) changed our position, allowing them to re-pursue things. 

Later that same evening, with a slightly aggressive tone, she challenged my boundary on not letting her rekindle things right now, asking, ‘why don’t you let me talk to him so I can see if we actually work out’? I told her, a) I’m still healing and processing things, I don’t know when I’d be comfortable with you two reassuming contact, and b) this is a sequential game, with AP’s wife’s decision also limiting her interaction with him and you two rekindling things also being contingent on her. This also feeds into her obsession of just wanting to communicate with him. And, remember what she said before: 

I understand that in your mind/feelings, this relationship “represents” my deceit to you and makes you feel uncomfortable, which is why I’m choosing to cut contact with this external relationship that otherwise would be “permitted”. But more importantly, in reality, I, myself, represent my deceit to you.

What happened to that respectful attitude?

All in all, I think she places a high value on her autonomy. And I respect her autonomy. If she wants those books and if she wants to communicate with him, by all means, go ahead. I’ll just need to exit her life. But I feel like she’s minimizing, which reduces the degree of remorse and I feel like she's delusional. I think she’s in the bargaining stage of grief.

My partner and I are currently in the process of reconciliation, and honestly, at this point, I’ve effectively given up. Because of the boundary testing, am I entitled to feel disrespected? Manipulated? Are my boundaries really disproportionate and excessive? Why do I feel guilty for exercising basic self-respect? Why do I feel like my strength and courage throughout all of this is now being taken for granted? Or is there something from her perspective that I'm not seeing?