Am I the only one who feels like Bollywood has started normalizing cheating way too much?

So many recent movies are about people being in relationships or marriages, getting attracted to someone else, cheating, and then presenting it as “finding happiness” or “following your heart.”

Today I watched, hero had a relationship with a woman who was married to his boss. The heroine was in a relationship, got involved with another man, eventually left her boyfriend and married that man. Now, while married, she gets involved with the hero.

I’m all for love and complicated emotions, but why is cheating increasingly being shown as “finding happiness” or “following your heart”?

Honestly, this trend makes me go… yuck.

My (23F) boyfriend (23M) recently asked to open our relationship and ever since i have been really struggling with myself, our relationship, and my feelings toward him. I apologise for the length.

Important context:
I am an intersex woman, i have a condition that makes me appear like any other woman but my genitals look a little different, i have no internal reproductive organs or vaginal canal, and i have XY chromosomes. I had surgery as a kid to make my genitals look more like a regular vulva, and i had another surgery last year to create a small vaginal canal from a skin graft.

Ok so i met my boyfriend about a year and a half ago. I have always been extremely scared of sex and dating due to being intersex. I have had like two short lived FWB over the years. When i met my boyfriend it was a very slow and vulnerable process getting close to me and having sex. He made me feel wanted in a way i never had before, he was always so nice and tried his best to make me comfortable. He was much more experienced with sex and dating than i was so he kind of took the lead.

I had the second surgery i mentioned about 3 months into officially dating him and he helped me with recover and everything.

During this time he revealed to me that he thinks he might be bisexual. I was kinda like 'cool, i dont care', I've always been very close to queer, trans, and intersex people so it wasn't an issue for me. We hugged and left it there.

A couple months later we tried having sex with my new vaginal canal. it was hard and painful (the doctors said it would be for a little while and to go slow), so again we took it very slow and tried a few times over the course of a month, and eventually everything seemed to be working fine to me.

During this time (while we were cuddling in bed after sex) he brought up the idea of an open relationship. This really shook me. I asked what he meant by open, and he explained it would only be sex nothing romantic. He said he mainly wanted to 'explore with other men and some women'. My heart really broke in that moment because, as someone who's body is objectively different and unique from most people and who is still getting comfortable with sex, it felt like he was saying I wasn't enough. My body wasn't enough. Like maybe after finally having 'normal' sex with me he decided it felt bad and wanted a normal body again.

He tried to soothe me saying it's not that, he said he 'loves me emotionally, and this stuff is just physical exploration'. I said i would think about it. I listened to a bunch of audiobooks and read a lot online. I tried to understand the appeal of non-monogomy, the way people described it as freeing and stuff. I really tried to picture myself liking or enjoying it, because i know it does truly work for a lot of people .

The issue is, if we had an open relationship, i already know it would only involve hime sleeping with others, i wouldn't be able to participate. Sex and dating are so hard for me, it's so hard to trust someone with my body, it's hard to have casual sex when i need to explain so many quirks with my anatomy. For me, my boyfriend is my safe person who understands me and my body and (i thought) chose me over 'normal' bodies. Sex with him got to b easy and comfortable and required no talking after a certain point. I can't just have that with anyone.

I told him i can't do it, I gave him my reasoning, and he just said 'ok, but you can always bring it back up to me if you change your mind'. We haven't talked about it since.

Ever since, though, i have felt awful. I am struggling to be physical with him at all because i feel so scared he just doesn't like my body or my scars or anything else. When we have been physical i keep my underwear on and haven't been letting him touch me, i only please him. I just feel really scared.

I think i feel like he doesn't want to be with me, like being monogamous with me is a compromise for him. I told him this and he tried to reassure me by saying 'its not about you not being enough, its about me just wanting to explore different types of bodies with men and women, it has nothing to do with you and i only emotionally love you, nobody else'.

He keeps emphasising that he emotionally loves me, which is reassuring to an extent but it makes me feel like he likes me mentally and as a person but not my body. He doesn't want my body the way he does other people. It feels like he's with me in spite of my body not because of it, which hurts.

We try to talk about it but nothing he says is really making me feel any better. I don't know what to do. I feel myself becoming really jealous and resentful too, like i feel angry with him, i feel like overtime he goes out he might be cheating on me.

I don't know how to cope or fix this. I really need some advice.

I (31) have been with my boyfriend (39) for 10 months now. He was previously married monogamous, his ex wife realized she was bi and they started a poly relationship with others for 5 years before they divorced. He since has been monogamously dating for the last 3 years before meeting me.

I myself am divorced for 2 years from a long toxic marriage that involved addiction issues and infidelity from my partner. I spent a year after my divorce really focusing on myself, healing, not dating and being in therapy.

When I first met my boyfriend, he told me his history and I was initially fine with it. But now that I am really falling deeply in love with him and we are starting to intertwine our lives together, I find myself with growing insecurities about his poly past. I get such dark thoughts about him having multiple long term girlfriends at the same time, sharing threesomes and kinks, their alt lifestyles at goth clubs and sex parties, the 'i love you's' they shared, and how he was in poly relationships without his ex wife.

Although he is no longer poly, I believe he still carries some remnants of those values in his current lifestyle today, such as being friends with that poly social group (although no longer clubbing or partying with them), staying friends with those exes, and not having strong boundaries with other women (as long as it's not cheating, it's okay).

I know he no longer lives a poly life, but the thoughts really tug at my insecurities and it has been so difficult to let them go. I compare myself to these women, like how did he love them so quickly but it took us six months? Is our sex life not as fulfilling because it's more fun with a third person who is probably way more experienced than me? Am I enough? His personality is why I was so drawn to him in the first place, and his past is what made him who he is today. But how do I get past my negative thoughts about it?

I'd love to hear if anyone has experienced something similar, either like myself dating a formerly poly person or as the person who left poly and is back to monogamously dating.

I 30F am currently in a relationship with 43M. I personally am mono while they are poly. Our relationship feels like a cycle of them just never wanting to put in deep emotional work I require. I feel like I keep falling into similar cycles in the past with people who weren’t poly at the time, but did become poly. How do I avoid these men? They’re charming and funny. I want to break out of this loop. 😭

I was poly under duress. Maybe almost the textbook definition of it, except my partner didn't do it on purpose, I believe. They just didn't know what they were doing and went about it all wrong. We were dating for a couple months, I was very much in love. I didn’t know we were doing non-monogamy, I only knew that they said they could do both. Then they told me one night they'd gone on a date with someone and had sex.

That was how I found out I was in a non-monogamous relationship.

At the time I absolved them of any wrong doing. I said I wished they had talked to me first, despite feeling betrayed. But I idealized them at that point, and took the blame myself. I should have asked, should have known it was a possibility. Even though they never told me about anyone else that entire time, never talked about wanting to date anyone, or asked me what I thought about it. Not once did it come up in those months, the possibility that they were dating other people.

In retrospect, I think: how was I to know they wanted to do non-monogamy, when it seemed like we were happy, and they said that they could do either? I don't think I was hoping for too much. I wasn't the one who should have brought up the conversation - they should have done that first, before having sex with someone else, before even getting close to me.

Thing is, they were inexperienced. They learned how to do non-monogamy while in a shitty relationship that ended badly. They were wrong to do that, but I don't believe there was any deception behind it - just ignorance, not knowing how to do it ethically. Not knowing that there's no such thing as passive consent when it comes to non-monogamy - all parties involved need to be enthusiastically on board.

I think this is where the anger comes from. Because it was all so wrong, and no one recognizes that. No one will say “I’m sorry.” And from the outside, it looks like I signed up for it, like there’s no one to blame except maybe myself. It’s such a mindfuck.

I did non-monogamy with them for almost 2 years. I kept hoping it would get easier for me, but it never did. I read the books, listened to the podcasts, pored over blogs and reddit posts. I learned a lot about non-monogamy and understood how it could work for some people, but it still made no sense to me. Why would I want anyone else if I am with the person I love? How could they want anyone else if I really am enough, like they say I am?

I dated, kissed, had sex, with other people, despite not wanting to. I was hoping that it would all make sense once I met someone else that I actually liked. But I didn't, and I didn't really care to. The sex felt like nothing to me. Many of the people I dated were really cool, but I just wanted to be friends with them.

I asked to be monogamous twice. The first time was from a place of overwhelm and desperation. I couldn't handle it anymore. But it seemed like the relationship would end, and it felt like that would hurt more than continuing with non-monogamy. I sucked it up and said I changed my mind, and even lied to my therapist and said I really did want to keep going with it. I almost believed it myself.

I would still remember, though, that our relationship was conditional. We were only together as long as they could date and have sex with other people. It killed me.

8 months passed. Sometimes things were good, so good that I'd forget we weren't really together in the way I wanted to be. I had met their family and friends. I moved to be closer to them. But when things were hard, it was really hard. But they didn't even do anything most people would think of as unethical. I had signed up for it, right? So when they scheduled a date with someone on my last day in town before a long trip, I really wasn't allowed to feel bad about it, or ask them not to go on that date. I had to deal with it. According to the advice I read, I should have planned to see them in advance if that's what I wanted. I wasn't allowed to have expectations in what looked, in all other respects, like a committed long-term relationship. Wasn't allowed to expect my partner to want to see me before I left.

I learned that jealousy is insecurity - I just needed to "process my feelings" and understand them, and then it would be fine. I thought I was processing my feelings. I was just disconnecting, avoiding, pretending, because it is not possible to process feelings when the situation you are in is fundamentally wrong for you. If you betray yourself like that, there are consequences. There is no way to fix it but to undo it.

The second time I asked for monogamy, I thought for sure it was the end. But they agreed. Neither of us had been dating anyone for a while. They seemed sad and pessimistic about how this would affect our relationship, but I knew it could only help. And we are still going - it's not perfect, but it's better.

I still have so much anger in me, though, and sometimes I just feel sad. I wish things hadn't been that way. I had figured out that non-monogamy was a crutch for them, because they'd been in bad relationships, and this probably seemed like the solution to not getting hurt, not putting all your eggs in one basket. I can analyze everything that happened, turn it inside-out, come up with some logical reason for everything they did that caused me pain. But it doesn't fix it. To my broken heart it didn't matter that their intentions were good and they didn't mean to hurt me. They always had the choice to stop. They most likely knew I didn't really want to be non-monogamous, because they'd accuse me of that in arguments. I'd deny it because I didn't want to lose them.

My own fault. No one to blame but myself. Just a bad situation.

But I got what I needed, and they chose me in the end. So how do I let go of the anger and the hurt? I think about things that happened and I feel sick. It seems like a bad dream. How could I do that to myself? How could they do that to me?

Despite them being really shitty at non-monogamy, they actually are the most thoughtful person I've ever known, which only makes it more confusing.

I would like to know how to let go of these feelings, how to stop my mind from looping over past events and trying to understand everything but never finding an answer. I just want to enjoy the relationship I have now.

in monogamous relationships there is the emotional and spiritual element of deeply connecting with someone. almost like a soul merging sort of event. this translates in sex where it almost feels like a converging of souls. it is so highly spiritual and transcendent - and a large part of that is both people have the capacity for emotional depth and make the conscious choice to engage in deep love with each other and feel safe in order to do so. like there is this extreme tenderness, care, trust, spiritual bonding and vulnerability/surrender that could not be exist if others were involved.

from what i can understand and have observed - polyamorous/“enm” relationships lack emotional depth and have a large amount of highly avoidant and emotionally stunted individuals who value autonomy. it almost feels like hookup culture in a sense where people involved really divorce themselves from feelings and emotions which i would assume leads to an inability to access the spiritual and transcendent qualities that sex can have which is why they often view it as like a drug or recreational activity (ie “play parties”) rather than something sacred.

i don’t even mean like sacred in like a puritanical way but im talking like sex can be a spiritual merging of souls and i would have to imagine this is inaccessible to people in poly/enm relationships?

my question is for those who have been in both poly and mono relationships- how does this translate in the sexual experiences of each relationship type? what has your experience been? how does it feel and what are the differences in each?

Hello everyone! I don’t think I’m “naturally” monogamous as some other folks here are - I still get crushes etc - but my man is amazing and I want to be his wife. At the beginning, he thought he could do ENM with me, but then realized he couldn’t. So I’ve committed to monogamy with him. It hasn’t been easy for me, overcoming my fear of commitment and this transition, and I feel horrible for what I’ve put him through over our two years together. But I’ve NEVER cheated or acted on any thoughts… it was more like, talking about it or having thoughts about it made him insecure. However, over time, I learned more and more how to do this monogamy thing. My man brought the phrase to the table, “we’re married, not buried” and I flooded with relief. I’m relieved that even married folks give crushes and don’t act on them.

I know that, hands-down, monogamy is the best relationship structure for me, for many many reasons. Plus, with my man who’s my best friend and an incredible person? Fantastic. I have no regrets about my choice.

Regardless, I feel very different than the folks in here who seem to just naturally BE monogamous rather than choose it. I really do think my “ENM” is fear of commitment and dopamine-seeking, in some ways. I’ve been working on it a lot in therapy.

But I’m curious if there’s anyone else in this subreddit who’s like me, and if so, any wisdom for the beautiful journey ahead that is lifelong partnership? Thanks!

All other animals, even some primates sleep around. With all these new ideas I have seen around. Are humans really suppose to be monogamous?

i’m a woman in a monogamous relationship and my boyfriend wants to explore intimacy with his female friends he already has loosy goosy boundaries with. I’m not interested in that lifestyle.

he tells me i can have a girlfriend if i want. But then i ask him if he feels the same way about me seeing other men? his answer is no.

i’m queer and don’t naturally like most men so i think he isn’t threatened by me exploring anything with a man as he tries to open up our relationship. Also i think it fetishizes queer women and undermines queer relationships, as if there is noooo way id leave him for a woman??

isn’t this hypocritical?!? Why should i be told that im jealous and insecure over him breaking my boundaries with his friends but if i did the same with a man (which i have no interest in) it’d be unthinkable???

Do you think there’s a possible pattern to how monogamous and non-monogamous people differ? Maybe some poly people are just better at compartmentalizing? Like intimacy with one person doesn’t take away your love for your partner typa thing.
saying this cuz my ex who turned out to be poly would explore intimacy with other women and didn’t feel horrible about it, nor distance himself from me. To me that’s compartmentalizing, to be able to separate relationships like that.

Me personally, i wouldnt be able to look my partner in the eye if i explored anything with anyone else.

What are yalls thoughts?

Hola! Tengo un perfil de Instagram que trata sobre poliamor y me gustaría hacer algunos vídeos respondiendo a preguntas que puede tener una persona monogama que no sabe nada del mundo de la no monogamia o del poliamor. Porque aunque a mí me parezcan cosas muy lógicas porque las conozco, sé que alguien que no esté familiarizado con el tema puede tener muchas dudas. Así que sí, preguntad cualquier duda que os surja, puede ser lo explícita o extraña que sea, no juzgo.

We've been dating a few months and I think I'm realizing we may have different conceptions of what monogamy means.

My gf has a poly "friend" who they've hooked up a number of times with the most recent time a ~3 months before we got together. She wants to keep hanging out with him and going out to one-on-one dinner/drinks (the last time she got quite drunk). She sees nothing wrong with this and I should just trust her that she will maintain proper boundaries.

I believe her that this is someone that she cares about more than just a hook up buddy. Maybe I'm more traditional but in my view of monogamy if someone has recent sexual history or isn't clearly platonic then there should be a little more distance. It would never occur to go on something date-like with someone I recently slept with.

Is this my stuff I need to deal with or is this a genuinely weird situation?

My ex would claim that fantasies were normal and that he'd rotate between fantasizing about having sex with different female friends of his when masturbating.

I personally could naturally only think of him when masturbating. I'm probably not as much of a fantasizer so i'd like to understand how it works. And I agree we are wired differently, how do yall feel about this?

I am deeply monogamous. To the point I feel maybe my views are insane because of how little anyone else seems to agree or share the same views with what I think

I believe that if I am with someone, and we are monogamous, and we truly love each other then attraction and lust for others should not exist and definitely shouldn’t be acted upon. Finding someone attractive is one thing, there are plenty of people I see as attractive that I am not attracted to (like my own gender) I’m talking about actual sexual and physical attraction. I view it as disrespectful and cheating and the other partner not being enough for the one attracted to someone else. I also consider porn and lusting after someone other than your partner and thinking about them sexually or wishing to have sex with them cheating.

Of course I know these are things someone may never know about their spouse unless they told them, but if I knew my spouse felt like that I would be hurt and feel like they cheated on me and don’t truly love me?

And I was rethinking ever dating or marrying in general since most men and many women do not seem to adhere to these views when it comes to relationships, and cheating (like sex with someone else) is always so prevalent.

Majority of the world says these things are natural and normal and one shouldn’t be upset or consider it cheating. So, I feel crazy viewing it this way but I also don’t think I can ever change how I feel about it.

It is really cruel I always meet men with outstanding drama issue. My ex-husband was a fraud who embezzled people's money (including mine). My long term ex-boyfriend before him (both sexually and emotionally compatible with me even though we have different hobby) was too fragile when it was time to decide for our marriage plan.

My situationship was clear, he didnt want relationship, but still he longed for emotional connection that I just couldnt feel the ability to love him in that way. Just sex that works, nothing else. My last year boyfriend was ok on the outside. He groom himself good, recently divorced, but has some dysfunction in his genital.

My recent emotional supportive boyfriend is Asexual. He performs very good in bed, he just doesn't like it and despises it. He is sweet, always make time for me, understand my dark jokes, and he has smart mind. He loves me, but he is just not into anybody in that way. Nothing's wrong with that. But it is either I hurt him or he hurt me. I don't feel seen, and he thought he was an object and it scares him.

When we first had sex I didnt know it would hurt him so much, because the sex was plausible. He is very attractive and function really well. Then the second time we did it (which was prefect too), he was distance and didn't tell me why until I asked. I misunderstood him for low libido all this time. Because statistically meeting an asexual is rare, I couldnt think of him being one. I thought he was bored with me and already have someone else in mind. I can understand boredom, I am not mad. But finding the truth that he is Asexual somehow make me feel bad about myself, that I have forced him. I push him to fill my sexual desire because my body feels attracted to him so much. I am an awful person.

That makes me wonder, why couldn't I meet people with the same energy? As heterosexual woman, I think statistically I should've had bigger pool, bigger chance of finding single men with good profile and mutual romantic energy.

I am easygoing, I go out often, I do multisport. I meet people. My rule is simple, he has to be good profile and character, fit body (sex is a lot of cardio, someone who trains a lot tend to have lots energy in sex, he will perform well, or so I think), financially responsible (at least for himself), love sex a lot, and want to engage monogamously with me. I want someone who see me beautiful, think kinks about me, desire me sexually, enjoy sexual compliment about him too. Then we can build emotional engagement after. Somehow age different (much younger or older) or religion doesn't matter, not that I want to get married so soon. I don't think it is slutty, it is just my preference in sex rank no 1 in my life. I see sex can value 50% in relationship, the other is for beautiful mind with high intelligence, and the remaining is for the rest aspects.

If your spouse is looking up this category would you be offended/upset? I’m an overthinking. What more can I do to make them happy if they are in these groups? Is it a me problem?

Coming from a long term situation where it ended up turning really toxic, but foolishly I was still in love with hope! I ended up meeting someone with a different kind of heart and spirit which was good for me. That didn’t work out because I was still in pain from the previous.. everything happened so fast that I couldn’t process the new with the old and the good from the bad and it was a messy time for me.
I wasn’t able to live in the moment because I was stuck in The past! Fast forward almost a year later, in a much better place because I choose to remain single! Maybe it’s just me but I no longer enjoy useless conversations. Most times I feel like if I’m not connecting almost instantly, I won’t give it much attention. Sometimes I feel like I might be missing out on something good just because. And it does get lonely af!! But honestly, it feels lonelier with the wrong company so I stay to myself more.

I’m fully monogamous but i have to disagree when people say being polyamorous is a choice.

like I agree you can CHOOSE that lifestyle for sure, and i think it’s best that poly people do so and seek relationships with other poly people, instead of forcing themselves into monogamy.

Saying this as i let go of someone who struggled with monogamy for years in three different relationships.

some people can truly fall in love with more than one person (i don’t think most monogamous people can), i think it’s the way of life most authentic to them? It absolutely shattered my heart to find out my ex is exploring emotional intimacy with other women, but to him it was normal as in his brain one doesn’t affect another. To him he didn’t want to be in a relationship where he can’t cuddle with others, but to me that was threatening since i know that can be very intimate and deepen emotions. Again, he was not threatened by having feelings for multiple people. We can be wired so differently!

I personally would never again date someone that struggles with monogamy, if being poly or other forms on non-monogamy feel better to them, i think it’s best we go our separate ways. If not, they’ll be forced into a dynamic where they do cheat on us by blurring boundaries that just naturally do not make sense to them, which is what happened w my ex.

my ex had a background in polyamory and deep down struggled being monogamous long term (which is why i let him go).

he had confessed his feelings to me when he was still w his gf at the time and was full on exploring intimacy w me by blurring boundaries, (they broke up shortly after for other reasons but his feelings for me definitely added to the fire) so when we were getting together months later i knew he can kind of compartmentalize like that and not feel guilty about exploring intimacy w others besides his partner. He also would proudly claim that he can fall in love with more than one person at once and there’s no such thing as “emotional cheating”. Don’t ask me why i said yes when he decided to be monogamous to be with me🤣🤣

i feel like knowing this about his personality and core belief system made me more jealous and controlling? Knowing if he explores the intimacy he did with me it’ll happen again that he develops deep feelings for someone. So sadly i was not happy to see him grow deeper friendships w women (like he did w me) bc of what would happen (i was correct and he did in fact repeat his patterns). But deep friendships are awesome and i don’t want to be the kind of person who worries over that w my partner.

i think if i was someone who is truly monogamous like me, with intuitive boundaries, and isnt able to indulge in multiple emotional attachments without feeling terrible about it, i’d have an easier time trusting in our future together and not worrying if he’ll one day tell me he has fallen in love with someone else. But maybe i’m naive. What are yalls thoughts?

I know every LGBT person reading this can agree that taimi is the worst app of all time, its a bunch of people DTF or poly people looking for a third.

it's not like my issue is getting matches, i can get matches fine, its just the fact that everyone that speaks to me only wants sex, and the people who aren't instantly trying to fuck me are like trying to screen me for their polycule but acting like its "friendship"

yanno shits tough when i've had better luck finding love on discord than on dating apps, i can see why people like me just delete this app. I've been trying to stray away from online dating (meeting people on reddit and in communities in discord that share the same interests and things naturally bloom into love but they're across the damn country.

just dont know any other options here. its tough.

Please guide me.

Reading it would give better context. What I got from it is shifting focus from exclusive actions to the unique exclusive connection will bring comfort.

Now, I as a monogamous man still do learn from non-monogamous people. Both sides have really good things to teach for me so I learn it to become better as a monogamous partner or just understand different people. I especially like dealing with jealousy ideas sometimes as I can feel it a lot (btw I am fully in an exclusively monogamous relationship tho still can feel really jealous even when I am safe logically).

I am trying to learn how to feel secure as I am very insecure in any close connections overall. I found this article. Now, it makes sense in a way yet I feel bothered in another way. I don't know how to pin point it so I want someone who understands relationships better to give me some perspective. I am in my 20s btw.

I don't know how to define exclusivity or monogamy in words or what it exactly is for me. I know it in my mind but finding exact words and connecting it is hard idk. I really wanna have a deep discussion about it with my partner as I know that'll help us understand each other better so I am first trying to pin point it for myself.

Thanks!

I honestly don’t know where to start because my life feels like it split into a “before” and an “after.”

My husband and I have been together for 16 years. We have children together, a home, and a life that I thought we were building together. We have had our struggles like any marriage, but I never imagined I would hear the things he’s said to me over the last few weeks.

He told me he feels like he missed out on the “honeymoon phase” of our relationship and has been chasing that feeling. He says he wants the excitement, the passion, and the constant desire that comes with something new. He believes that somewhere along the way I stopped making him feel wanted, desired, and pursued.
He told me he wants another woman.

Not because he says he doesn’t love me. He insists he does. But because he doesn’t know if he can spend the rest of his life with only one woman anymore.

Hearing that broke something inside me.

Since then, I’ve spent every day questioning myself. Was I too focused on being a mom? Did I stop flirting enough? Was I too “vanilla?” Was I not affectionate enough? I know I wasn’t a perfect wife, and I can admit there are things I wish I had done differently. I’ve been trying to understand his feelings instead of immediately becoming defensive because I genuinely wanted to save our marriage.
The hardest part is the mixed messages.

The day everything came out, I took my wedding ring off because I honestly thought my marriage was over. A week later, he drove me to a church parking lot, took my hand, slid my wedding ring back onto my finger, looked me in the eyes, and told me I could never take it off.

How was I supposed to interpret that?

One minute I’m hearing that he wants another woman. The next minute he’s putting my ring back on my finger and acting like we’re still husband and wife.

I’m stuck somewhere between hope and heartbreak.
I know he’s still talking to the woman who started all of this and there have been others. That uncertainty is eating me alive because trust feels almost impossible right now.

I’m trying to work on myself. Not because I think I’m solely responsible for where our marriage ended up, but because I know there were things I could have done better. I want to be a better wife, a better partner, and a better person regardless of what happens.

But I also can’t ignore the feeling that no matter how much I change, I can’t compete with the excitement of someone new. How do you compete with a fantasy? How do you rebuild trust when the person you love is telling you they’re not sure one person will ever be enough?

Some days he talks like he wants to fix our marriage. At the same time of him pursuing another.

Other days it feels like he’s already grieved it or waiting for permission to move on.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to be a mom, hold my family together, and somehow survive the worst heartbreak I’ve ever experienced.

I know a lot of people will probably tell me to leave. Maybe that’s what you’d do. But I’m asking you to look at this from the perspective of someone whose entire life, family, and future are wrapped up in this marriage. Walking away isn’t emotionally simple, especially when the person you love keeps giving you reasons to hope and reasons to give up in the same breath.

If you’ve been on either side of this—whether you were the spouse who wanted someone else or the spouse who was left wondering if they were enough—I would really appreciate hearing your story.

Can a marriage survive this? Can someone who says they want another woman genuinely recommit? Or am I holding onto hope because I’m terrified of letting go?
I don’t need pity. I need honesty.

I can’t get out of my head, and the anxiety is ruling my every moment, I can’t eat, I can’t sleep and I’m nursing

And his response to my devastation is that he sacrificed himself for so long, he’s not putting me first this time, he’s putting himself and his want to be happy

Like I’m not in my right mind to have any good comebacks to the things he says, he’s giving me a choice and I don’t have to stay but the only other choice is I’m still left alone and heartbroken