Originally posted on September 24, 2014.

My wife and I are in an open relationship. It started because my wife found flirtatious text messages I sent to a coworker. She confronted me calmly and said she knew our sexual relationship hadn't been great. She was not that interested in sex, as she'd gained about 50 pounds. I was still attracted to her, but I was rejected half the time. The other half, we had good sex, but nothing new or interesting. She said she was willing to try an open relationship. I offered other solutions (porn and toys), but she said she just didn't have the libido for it. We talked it to death before deciding we should move into (open) uncharted waters. I had a yearlong relationship with my coworker that ended when my wife and I moved. During that time, my wife never had a sexual experience...

Vivamus dui velit, vehicula non sodales a, aliquet sit amet orci. In lorem nulla, porttitor a nibh ac, auctor sodales libero. Phasellus sit amet consectetur urna, sed congue neque. Mauris a commodo arcu, sed commodo libero. Nam vel orci sapien. Pellentesque ac magna hendrerit, efficitur purus dapibus, facilisis est. Maecenas tortor ante, lacinia eget ante vitae, aliquet interdum tortor. Suspendisse potenti. Morbi quis bibendum arcu.
...with anyone else, but she started losing weight and we started having better and more frequent sex. Now I'm not looking for anything on the side. But she has embarked on sexual relationships with several people, including threesomes with her best friend and best friend's husband, a neighbor, and a coworker. I know I sound like an asshole, but I am insanely jealous. I feel like she's getting to know our new city by sleeping with everyone in the neighborhood. Four partners in two months seems crazy to me. Do I deal with this by ending our agreement to share information about outside partners? Or do I tell her I don't want an open relationship anymore, which seems like a dick move considering my past long-term relationship and the newness of her explorations?

Other People Excluded Now

My response after the jump...

It sounds like you and the wife had different ideas about what your open relationship would look like. What you were doing with your former coworker sounds like poly-style openness—you had an ongoing emotional and sexual relationship—while what your wife is doing with her best friend, her best friend's husband, the neighbor, and her coworker sounds more like fuck-whoever-you-want openness.

Reading between the lines, OPEN, it seems that what really bothers you about your wife's explorations—"sleeping with everyone in the neighborhood"—is the potential for gossip. Not everyone in an open relationship is comfortable being out about it; some people who aren't sexually monogamous nevertheless wish to be socially monogamous, i.e., perceived to be monogamous, because they fear being judged or even discriminated against. Or perhaps the issue is this: If people know your wife is sleeping around but don't know about the open relationship, you may look like a foolish and fooled husband. Those are legitimate concerns, and your wife needs to take your feelings into consideration, and you two need to reopen negotiations. The best compromise may be for your wife to dial it back—fewer partners, more discretion—while simultaneously shifting to a DADT arrangement or, as you put it, ending your agreement to share info about your outside partners.

Vivamus dui velit, vehicula non sodales a, aliquet sit amet orci. In lorem nulla, porttitor a nibh ac, auctor sodales libero. Phasellus sit amet consectetur urna, sed congue neque. Mauris a commodo arcu, sed commodo libero. Nam vel orci sapien. Pellentesque ac magna hendrerit, efficitur purus dapibus, facilisis est. Maecenas tortor ante, lacinia eget ante vitae, aliquet interdum tortor. Suspendisse potenti. Morbi quis bibendum arcu.