Hi - I (37F) have recently discovered this subreddit after my husband (44M) dropped the bomb that he wants to open our marriage and allow ourselves to love other people. This was about a month ago now. It has not been the best month of my life. It seems like there are a lot of wise and experienced humans on here, and I would love to hear your opinions and any advice you may have about our specific situation. Apologies in advance, this will not be a short one - I am really not great at editing down details.

We have been married for 10 years, together for 13. We've always been monogamous; him maybe by default, me definitely by conscious choice. I've never questioned wanting to be monogamous, because it has always fit in with exactly what I want out of life (a best friend to share life with, kids, a stable and secure home, both emotionally and financially).

My husband says he never really questioned it either, because he didn't really know it could be a thing back when we first met. And in my opinion - he really wanted kids, also, and committing to monogamy with me without questioning it was probably the most straightforward path to him getting that. I almost certainly would have not committed to him, or moved countries for him, if he had suggested we have an open relationship while starting a family 10 years ago.

We now have 2 kids, ages 6 and 8. I was a SAHM until 2 years ago, when I started working again full time. This may be relevant as we live away from our families and friends and neither of us have managed to make any good friends in our new city in the years we have lived here. He comes from a big family and struggles more with the loneliness (as well as mental health in general). I'm a textbook introvert and tend to crave alone time more than anything else after a full day of work and parenting.

In the last year or so, he's grown closer a lot closer with a female coworker, Anna (29F). He's always been open about admiring and liking Anna - she has a long-term partner as well (but not married, and no kids). I've never had a problem with him liking Anna, or being friends with her. I could always tell he had a bit of a crush on her, but thought it was harmless. Neither of us have ever been jealous people. I've never had a reason before to doubt that he wasn't entirely committed to me, and to our family.

About 3 months ago, he initiated a conversation about Anna that gave me a weird feeling for the first time ever. He told me he was getting to be better friends with her (and they'd been talking more via Snapchat), and wanted to know that he wasn't doing anything wrong, and how he would know where the line was between friendship with a girl and cheating. I told him I've never had a problem with him having friends who are girls (he has a few, but they all pre-date us being together, and don't tend to talk often), and I was happy for him that he was finally forming a good friendship. I said that I thought you would be able to tell if a line was being crossed by your feelings when you are talking to a person, and what types of things you are talking about (or not talking about).

That was all mainly fine, but then what really made me feel strange about it was him asking if hanging out with her outside of work was okay - but then brushing me off when I suggested doing something with all of us (he mainly blamed the kids, said it wouldn't be the same if they'd have to be there, and said he would prefer to keep the friendship separate from family/kids). And then also a comment he made afterwards "don't you think you can love more than one person?" - I said "yes, of course, but when you're married you choose not to". I was also not super impressed with the fact that they were talking via Snapchat, but didn't question it too much as I trusted him at that point.

A few weeks later, he left on a work trip where he was stuck on a boat for 6 weeks. Anna was not on the boat, but this trip gave him lots of free time in the evenings (compared to being a parent).

When he got back, I started noticing that he was on his phone a lot more than usual, carrying it everywhere with him, not leaving it out during his shower. He was getting heaps of Snapchat notifications, and smiling at his phone, and just generally very absorbed in it. He kept mentioning things that "someone" had told him - I could tell by his tone of voice who that "someone" was. It was very noticeably different than before.

I was working on the nerve to confront him about it - I was definitely worried that he had fallen in love with Anna and would be telling me he wanted to leave me to be with her instead. I'm not entirely convinced what he actually did tell me was a better result for me - definitely not one which is easier to process.

We were watching a tv show, and we started talking about the good looking actors. That turned into him dropping the bomb that he thought he would like to love other people as well as me, before I'd even asked about Anna. I then asked him if he was talking about an open marriage (yes he was), and that I'd been noticing how he's been acting about Anna, and did he have feelings for her. He said "what if I do have feelings for her?". At that point I broke down and started crying. I asked her if she felt the same way about him, and he said he didn't know. He kept saying he still loves me, nothing has changed, he doesn't want to ever leave me, he's committed to me, he just feels like he's always had more love to give, and feels like he's been coming to the realisation over the past few years that his mental health issues have potentially always been about not being able to explore connections with multiple people. He said he would choose me, but would always be "stifling" a part of himself if we stay in a closed marriage.

I eventually asked him to sleep in the spare room, as I was in shock and crying too much, and we were not communicating productively at that point. I lay there for a while picturing him sending messages about it all to Anna, before deciding I needed to know if that was what was happening, so I went to the spare room and demanded to see his phone. He handed it to me - I opened their Snapchat convo and saw that he hadn't messaged her since late afternoon (on the messages that stick around, anyway), but that the last message she'd sent to him that afternoon was "love you xxx".

That obviously did not match up very well with him telling me he didn't know how she felt about him. At that point he told me that they had actually been "exploring" their feelings for each other over the last few weeks.

After lots more crying and him trying to convince me that he loves me and doesn't want to leave me, I asked him to stop talking to her, and to delete Snapchat, He was hesitant to stop talking to her, said they had to talk for work, but agreed to step back "for now". He also said he needed to call her to tell this, because he "owed her" that. He was worried about hurting her feelings by ghosting her. I told him if she had half a brain she would understand exactly what has happened. We agreed we would go to see a couples counsellor that week (which we did, but weren't overly impressed with him and are now looking for someone different).

Now, I am not completely closed off 100% to opening our marriage, if this is truly who he feels he is, and how he will be happy. I know him very well, and he is not pulling all of this completely out of his butt - it does match with his personality and I can see where he is coming from. I also don't think monogamous marriages are the only way to be happy, and could potentially see us making it work (I think I'd be far less hesitant if we didn't have kids, and still young kids - it just doesn't feel right to me. I have no idea if I'd feel more interested if he hadn't decided to wait until he had already had feelings for Anna).

The way this has all happened has also given me MAJOR red flags, and I'm not sure I will ever be able to separate the issues from each other - I don't really think they can be, either. I've asked him why he has never approached me about this in the last few years if he's been thinking about it, and his answer was basically that it wasn't worth the risk. So I guess now that he has feelings for Anna, it's now worth the risk. I've also asked him what if we opened up but he wasn't allowed to date Anna, and he said "I would still want to, but I wouldn't want that to be a boundary". Well, of course not...

So at the moment we're at the place where I've basically told him I do not really want this at all, especially not right now, and especially not with you already dating someone you were emotionally cheating on me with. But I will agree to learn more about it and think about it before saying no for sure, and we will both go to therapy separately and together.

He immediately wanted to put boundaries in place in regards to talking with Anna. He was very resistant to not talking to her outside of work at all. I eventually agreed it was somewhat fine as long as it was not on Snapchat, and no flirting or talking about feelings.

I'm having a hard time in general understanding how he can still want to talk to her knowing how much he has hurt me with how it happened. If this was reversed, I would feel absolutely sick about talking to the other person until I knew he was emotionally okay with it.

He also asked me less than a week later if he could re-install Snapchat (claiming he also wanted to talk to other coworkers who also use it), and after I did not take that well he reluctantly agreed to wait at least another month before re-assessing.

Oh, and it also came out a week later that Anna and her partner are actually already non-monogamous. As far as he claims, she is bi and only fools around with other women, and he doesn't know if her partner would be okay with her dating other men too. He didn't want to tell me that one at the time, because he knows how bad it looks with him suddenly deciding he has always been polyamorous too (he hasn't actually used the word polyamorous to refer to himself, he seems to prefer 'ethical non-monogamy').

We've hit some roadblocks discussing our current boundaries as well - such as my biggest boundary at the moment being him actually acting on a deep emotional/romantic connection - basically crossing the line between being a friend and a romantic partner. He claims he doesn't really understand this line, doesn't know where it starts, what makes a romantic partner different to a friend, and further that he doesn't even want friends in his life, only deep romantic/intimate connections. I'm not even sure why we need to talk about boundaries at this point, because mine are still the same as they have been for the last 13 years, and I'm not sure how he can claim to not "understand" them.

And now, a few weeks later, he also claims that looking back, he doesn't think he actually did anything wrong in any of his previous chats with Anna, according to my boundaries. I think it's pretty clear that he had/has crossed a line that I had very clearly articulated, multiple times, even in that conversation months beforehand.

He thinks I only want to keep our relationship monogamous out of fear - fear of losing our marriage, fear of jealously, insecurity, etc. That's partly true, but I don't see how it's relevant, as now I'm scared our marriage is over either way - and additionally, I don't think being alone *would* actually be worse than being in an open marriage where I am continually miserable. He keeps repeating that he is still committed to our marriage, does not want to leave me - he wants secondary relationships only. I would not be happy sitting around knitting and reading books and taking care of our kids while my husband is out "connecting" with his young "secondary" girlfriends.

If you are still with me - thank you. I hope I have not made out my husband to be a bad guy, because he is really not, he's generally the most kind, caring and thoughtful man I've ever met. I do think he has handled this sequence of events extremely poorly (and so does he), and that he is also generally not the best at self analysis and communication, and it has blown up just a bit in his face. I believe him that he & Anna have never done anything physical, and it has been emotional only (although I think I'd probably prefer physical cheating anyway). What are your thoughts?? What should I do?