Back story, as succinct as possible: Husband and I have been open for close to four years. We had some understandable growing pains on both sides, in the very early days. Started off a swingers but after encountering a lot of toxic and outright abusive situations (particularly for me), and ultimately me being raped, I decided to venture further out of the swinger scene. This led to an increase in us dating separately. Eventually my husband decided that he wanted to explore deeper relationships with more of a connection, but was and remains adamant he is not capable of deeper romantic feelings. During our swinger years, I met a woman that I fell deeply in love with. My husband was more of less fine with this, provided he was pretty much entirely involved in our reactions. They played together alone once or twice, but it wasn't something I was allowed to do until after he did it (he changed his mind after playing alone with her). And it was not something I ever acted on, primarily from fear of upsetting him or starting problems.

Some time later, I met a man with my husband for a threesome with my husband, and the man and I had an instant and electric connection. My husband decided he couldn't handle the romantic aspect of this after that first date, told me as much, and I cut things off immediately without him asking.

Unfortunately, throughout the course of the last several years my husband had undiagnosed neurological issues that were severely impacting his behavior and actions. He was horrifically abusive to me for years. But I stood by, with unwavering support, and fought to get him medical answers because in my heart of hearts, I knew this wasn't really him.

Our list of agreements/boundaries became something like a "check list" for him, and he would lie constantly, and had a robust dating life where something went wrong in nearly every situation. My husband would police my behavior, dictate so much of what I did, and would even frequently accuse me of doing random awful things that I would never do. When I was raped and decided to take a break from seeing others, my husband lined up and had a sex date that next week (that was not scheduled prior to me getting raped, and with someone he'd never met before). My husband cheated on me at one point. He has very little memory of most of this time, so I'm left often thinking about just how much he did that I just happened to never find out about. On top of that, my husband never once chose me over even complete strangers. He cycled through at least a dozen women, talking to anywhere from 10-40 a day, and I found myself always on the back burner. When I would try to relay my concerns, I was met with being told I was "just jealous". After the cheating occurred, plus the numerous lies to try to cover it up, we closed. Important to note here, that I let him dictate my choices based on his comfort in the moment, and have almost always done absolutely whatever he asked. I also have never broken a rule/agreement. After so many years of being under a microscope, I police my behavior overextensively mostly because I'm so afraid of causing problems with him/making him mad at me.

Abour a year later, my husband came to me and suggested that we re-open our relationship, at least on my side to start because I was obviously very trepidatious about re-opening at all, but especially him being open given the history. Important to note that he'd spent that last year with us closed still surfing Swinger websites regularly, and at least a half dozen times told me he didn't think he'd ever be able to be monogamous (at least long term), and how much he missed being open. When he suggested that I re-open (which took months of convincing, and reassurance from him), he also encouraged me to call the man I mentioned earlier when I decided that that would be something I want, that I had a strong connection with right off the bat. So I did, and that was about six months ago. Shortly after I opened back up, I came to my husband and we had a long conversation about him re-opening and me explaining that giving this second chance was incredibly hard, but because his neurological issues were being treated, I felt some hope and that I was willing to put my trust in him again. I was so hopeful that by giving that trust, my innate trust would be restored because I truly expected him to come through. My husband assured me that he wanted me to have loving and fulfilling relationship with someone he knew cared about and respected me. My husband even repeatedly told me that he'd be fine with me being poly! (This is not something I would personally ever want because to me, poly=enmeshment and commitment that I simply can't offer).

Unfortunately, my trust was short lived as he broke more rules with two consecutive women in the span of him being open a few months. We've chalked it to his neurological issues that have remained, namely a severe lack of impulse control. I was honestly stupid to give him another chance after the first woman, but God, I just really wanted to be proved right that I could indeed trust him.

In the last six months, I've seen the guy I'm seeing 5 times. I've never been gone for longer than 6 hours. A 6th time if you count my husband and I going to a dinner to guy and his wife's house.

Early on, I could tell that I was developing love for this guy. I knew even then that it was different/lesser kind of love, as we'd never be (and even both single wouldn't have this) compatible as companions. This guy is married and we have always been open and outright about what capacity we have to give to each other. And we have very much deeper love for our spouses, so we were fine with what we could give each other. I told my husband right away, and we had many, many discussions about it. I've always left the door open to me cutting things off, but my husband has repeatedly assured me he doesn't want to, and even outright stopped me from doing so at one point. This guy is an incredible support to me. Above all else, he's a damn good friend and a support I've needed for a long time. I could tell my husband was struggling, but often he'd tell me it was the guilt of the abuse he put me through so I honestly chalked a lot of his struggling up to that. We had many, many conversations about my relationship with this other guy, and I did my best to reassure my husband and support him in working through his feelings. At times, I lost my cool because of the flip-flopping he did, and sometimes over disagreements about my (hypothetical) behavior (my husband expressed discomfort with certain types of dates he felt were too "romantic", and I did push back on this as I didn't want to be confined to a hotel room every time I saw this guy.) I've made as much space as I possibly can for my husband's feelings and experiences and I truly wish I had always stayed calm and collected, but there were unfortunately a few times that my frustration got the best of me, and I certainly regret it.

Less than a month ago, my guy and I said "I love you". Of course, I told my husband immediately and we'd had many conversations leading up to that. Husband had a lot of concerns afterwards about being "special" and I spent hours and hours and hours, for days on end, reassuring him how special he is to me. He is my husband, I will always choose him. Hell, I stood with him for years as he actively abused me and still fought to get him the appropriately medical care (which was a ridiculously long and arduous battle, but I truly believe that everyone deserves someone to go to bat for them like that, and I was so happy I could do that for my husband).

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