TL/DR SO broke rules to be with a certain woman, it’s taken months of individual therapy and couples counseling to get to a better place, I still have lingering anger and resentment.

I posted in one or two other subreddits, but mostly people told me to leave him. I am not ready to do that as I believe he is making progress and we have a lot invested in us, love each other very much, and have a young son to think of.

Ok long story here but I’m really looking for advice for how to move forward and heal. My goal is to stay with my guy as we live together, have a child together and are not married yet but are engaged. For some background we were friends for about 6 months, then started “dating” for around 3 more months, then made it “official”. It’s been a little over 1.5 years of officially together. He moved in with me just before a full year of being official. We have a child together who is 5 months old. I realize that was quick to have a child, but we weren’t that young and planned on having kids so when we got pregnant we went for it (he was the most wonderful, supportive, amazing person during my pregnancy). It’s been open since the beginning so we didn’t have any awkward discussions about opening our relationship. We always intended to have it open because of past infidelities on both sides in previous relationships, a desire to be honest with each other, and our shared belief that maybe we were never meant to be fully monogamous as humans. We both said we were looking more for sexual exploration than emotional connection.

Our agreements were to communicate a lot and decide on boundaries as a team. It worked really well for awhile. We tried swinging, went through some challenges with one-on-one sex with other people finding things we liked and didn’t like, and respected each other’s feelings when one of us was uncomfortable. Right before I got pregnant we had decided we were not ok with having sex with people we had emotional connections with, we wouldn’t do spendovers, try to stay away from people in our social circle, and definitely nothing resembling outside boyfriends or girlfriends. I actually had a guy I’d been seeing for a bit who I stopped seeing bc my bf thought it was too much like a bf-gf relationship and it made him upset and uneasy. All in all, the swinging seemed to result in the least amount of jealousy, so we discussed sticking to that for awhile after the baby until we moved forward together to new things. Everything seemed great and mutually agreed upon. Right before I gave birth, he told me he might not even want to know if I wanted to see someone individually, as he wasn’t sure he would be ok with it. We didn’t really specify whether we were doing DADT as we were about to have a baby, and at least in my mind that meant we probably wouldn’t be doing anything any time soon.

Fast forward to after our son was born, and I notice he’s always talking about this woman who went on dates with his best friend for a bit. She had met both of us and was a part of our anonymous groups that we attended (read:social circle). He befriended this girl and apparently had started hanging out with her (started out as him getting her to cut his hair. She is a hairstylist.) and she was now “one of his best friends”. Always talking about how wonderful she was and whatever. I thought it was weird bc he told me multiple times that men and women can’t be just friends. So I asked if that was all there was, and he said yes they were friends. Fast forward again and he invites her over to workout at our home gym. Alarm bells again... she came over dressed like she was a gym insta model with fake nails, makeup, dyed hair, lip injections,fake eye lashes, and a super provocative outfit. After she left (she was very standoffish to us both and seemed uncomfortable), I said there’s no way you are just friends. He again said they were friends (made sure to omit “just”) and I was overthinking it. Fast forward again to the week before Xmas, and he mentions he bought her a gift. Now, this man hates gift giving and buys no one but me and some of my family members gifts.... not even his friends he’s known for 20 years or his family members. And I find out he spent $100 on this woman. Major red flags and my gut is yelling at me that something is off, so I flat out ask him are you sleeping with her or do you want to. He admits it and tells me “not to make this a problem”. Well I said ok I guess even though that wasn’t within the boundaries as long as there’s no sleepovers or PDA (another one of our boundaries. I went over my parents a lot for overnights with the baby so he could get some rest and focus on work). He says he won’t commit to that and that he wants no more rules at all. He said the rules were confusing and restricting, and he wants to let it be whatever it becomes. I forgave him for the lies by omission as he said he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to tell me or not bc of our DADT discussion and he didn’t want to hurt my feelings. We spend the next 2 weeks arguing and discussing and trying to compromise, until he finally (after a failed meetup attempt for the three of us - I broke into tears before we all got in bed) said ok we won’t talk to each other for a bit. Well that lasted all of 4 days and then he declared they were dating, she was his gf, and would be seeing her for 1 overnight a week regardless of my feelings. This was devastating to me as all of our boundaries were broken, and I felt powerless in the relationship. I told him I was uncomfortable and could they press pause for a month or so for me to catch up, I told him I didn’t think it was cool for them to have an overnight once a week with me Home alone caring for our 2 month old child.... I told him I felt betrayed and hurt and why couldn’t he compromise. And all he said was why couldn’t I let him be happy and why did I have to control everything. He said I was free to do it too so that made it even (I was 2 months post c-section and barely cleared for physical activity of any kind, sex still hurt). Also, he said he was already compromising bc she had wanted 3 (!) overnights a week and he told her 1 max.

For 1 month after that it was absolutely terrible. We’d fight, he’d go over there, he wouldn’t help as much around the house, he claimed he had “given me what I wanted” by committing and having a baby with me and now I wasn’t holding up my end of the bargain by letting him do what he wanted, I was the only one getting up at night with the baby and had several evenings taking care of him alone bc he’d be over her house or doing jiu jitsu. I didn’t mind him missing bed/bath time for jiu jitsu as I consider that a healthy activity and good for his mental and physical health. I resented him being gone for his overnights with her as I wasn’t ok with overnights to begin with. I even told him I’d be ok with once a week date nights if he’d just come back to sleep whether that was 8pm, 10pm, 12am, 2am. As long as he came home to sleep. She got upset when he’d tell her he wasn’t leaving me, and that we still were intimate. She wouldn’t continue to see him unless he came over once a week to spend the night and he called her his gf. I felt like she was a major threat to our relationship and It didn’t feel like I had any say anymore in our relationship boundaries.

The couples counselor I’d reached out to right after I found out about them was FINALLY able to see us around this time (he’d gotten Covid and was out of commission for a month!). After our first session my SO took a week off from the overnights at the suggestion of the counselor. That was HUGE for me as he wouldn’t do it when I asked... and it was the main thing I’d been asking for. The next month and a half we made great progress. He and I were both doing individual therapy (I’d been going for 3 years, he just started around this time), and we had couples counseling every other week. He also agreed to make a day every week for us to talk about this issue for an hour (good progress since before the counseling started he refused to talk about it with me at all). He also told the girl there wouldn’t be anymore gifts, holidays, no family intros, etc. They mutually decided to downgrade to FWB. She got back to her online dating looking for a “real” bf. He skips a week here and there of visiting her when we are busy or he has a work trip or we have family obligations. Even if he’s going over there he still picks up our son from daycare and spends time with me prior to leaving for her house. Honestly, if it had been the way it is now from the beginning... maybe I would’ve compromised with the overnights? But as it is, I am not ok with it and I am still struggling in general....

The panicked and anxious feelings have been replaced by anger and resentment. He understands he really hurt me, shook my trust by his lies by omission, and hurt our relationship by ignoring my feelings to pursue his own selfish wants. He said he doesn’t mind if this thing with her fizzles and he expects it to soon, but he likes hanging out with her and wants me to be happy with him doing it. I find I’m just unable to be. I feel like I haven’t been able to fully forgive what they (mostly him) put me through yet. I think I will be able to in time, but I honestly don’t know if I can be ok with him having ANY relationship with her moving forward. I feel like he just made it so miserable, refused to set boundaries, and made me feel like I was the one being unreasonable and selfish. All during one of the most physically and emotionally taxing few months of my life (post c-section with first kid, adjusting to being a new mom, trying to battle my anxiety and panic disorder rearing their heads bc of exhaustion, and postpartum depression). He is doing really well with his therapist and is really growing, learning how to balance his values and make himself happy while meeting his families (me and our son) needs and expectations. I’ve been patient with this process because he had a very traumatic upbringing (he was physically abused) and is in recovery from many years of addiction. I just find myself unable to be ok with him seeing her. I feel like too many rules were broken, too many boundaries were crossed, and I went through too much pain associated with this woman. I feel like if it was someone new and I was involved from the beginning MAYBE I’d be ok. Even then I am worried I’d be paranoid because of how this time went! I feel like there are so many triggers to my anxiety and anger. I feel like my resentment just builds every time he goes over there, every time I think she texts him and every time I think he may have met up with her. Obviously we are both respectful of privacy so I don’t grill him about where he’s going, etc. Obviously his texts are his business and I would never in a million years look at his phone. But now I just don’t trust him like I did, and I feel the only solution would be for him to cut her out of his life and us start fresh with new people. Anyone have any advice on moving forward when my SO seems to be trying to make up for his past actions, work on his shortcomings, and is really trying hard to show me that me and our son come first? I want to make him happy by giving him what he wants, but I just feel so much anger and resentment still. Toward both him and her. Him for obvious reasons, but also her since she knew we were dating and started seeing him sexually mere weeks after I delivered our baby by c-section. Any help on moving past these negative emotions is appreciated, or additional advice aside from the professional therapy I am already receiving. Has anyone gone through something similar?