She cheated and now wants to be open

And my partner's dating more people than me: Advice #53

As a coach, I try to avoid giving direct advice — the client always knows the answer and my job is to guide them to find it within themselves — but in this week’s advice column, I get pretty direct.

One person struggles with her partner, who she was monogamous with previously, having met someone else. And now wanting to be open.

Our other asker’s partner is getting more dates than they get. I’ve been there so I share my experience “losing” in my open relationship.

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What do you do when your partner is much more successful at getting dates than you are?

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I know this can be difficult. When Flo and I first started our non-monogamy journey, I was in a similar boat.

He’d had a few encounters, dates, and one casual relationship before I had any at all.

Nine or ten months into our (open) relationship, he’d slept with two or three women and I’d slept with…zero.

It was starting to ware on me.

I felt like I should just get on with it. I could finally sleep with other men while in a relationship, so why wasn’t I?

One sunny June day, I had a few beers at the park with a friend’s friend group. I didn’t know most of the people there. After the sun set, a subset of us ended up at one of the friend of friend’s apartments. We continued talking and drinking späti beers as someone DJed (of course, because it’s Berlin) and the whole time I was trying to decide who of the guys there I should commit to flirting with so that we could hook up.

There were a couple of guys who were cutish. One from Australia seemed pretty into me; I talked to him most of the time. But the whole time I was eyeing this other guy from Egypt and I kind of wanted to go after him. He was cuter and more mysterious. Also I guess that night, I was drawn to the chase.

I couldn’t make a decision about who to go after until the end of the party when the Egyptian guy (he was the host) kicked us all out.

As I was leaving, I asked if he wanted me to stay. He said, “No, he had an early day the next day.”

That wasn’t my proudest moment.

Looking back, it felt a bit silly. In reality, I didn’t have a super connection with anyone there and I was forcing it. Forcing there to be something with someone so that I could finally get laid.

Which honestly is fine.

As I’m writing this it occurs to me that there’s nothing wrong with wanting to hook up for the sake of it. Nothing wrong with pushing yourself to hook up with someone you’re not sure you really connect with yet.

I’ve done this on other occasions, pursued the kind-of-cute person who just happened to be there but I didn’t feel especially strongly about otherwise and been pleasantly surprised that we actually had a great physical connection afterward.

So I will not slut-shame myself for my actions that night, thank you very much.

But the point remains, that night I was forcing it partially because I was “losing” the open relationship competition with my partner (of course I knew it wasn’t really a competition but it was hard to not see it a little bit like that too) and I didn’t need to force it because a month or two later, I met a very attractive guy at a festival who I actually had a real connection with and that was so awesome.

We ended up dating casually for a while after that.

Then that ended, and nesting partner Flo was seeing someone new and I wasn’t. And then neither of us dated anyone for a year. Then he did for a while. Now I’m seeing someone and he isn’t.

What I’m trying to say is, often things balance out, in the long term. You could go a year seeing no one new. That’s just life. That’s normal.

Although in some ways it’s nice when both partners date others at the same time, it’s unrealistic to expect it to be even all or even most of the time.

And I’m not sure what (if any) gender you identify with, but it’s worth mentioning we do see a trend that hetero women for example get more matches than do hetero men on dating apps.

So it’s likely as a hetero woman, you’re going to have the opportunity to go on more dates.

But what I find as well is that as a poly hetero woman, you have to wade through a lot more bullshit to actually find someone you really like.

Who doesn’t just want sex and nothing else.

I’m not sure if that’s your situation but just having more dates does not necessarily mean you’re having a better experience overall.

So be patient. And focus on what really matters: Your connections with people you love, your hobbies, your friends.

And also maybe what your partner’s partners can bring into your life. Maybe your partner is in a better mood or more horny then usual. You can enjoy that too!

I know it’s not easy, but try to stay grateful for all that’s there already. You’ll be fine!

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She cheated and now wants to be open

I’m 45, my partner is 42, we’ve been living together in a fully monogamous relationship for 7 years, when during a job abroad in Italy she connected with someone else.

At first she hid it, then it came to light. And she doesn’t want to stop it, she wants me to allow it to go on as long as it lasts, and she wants me to be open too, because it wouldn’t bother her.

I’m trying, but this whole thing feels very unequal.

I never even had such a desire before. And it feels like deep water, because I’ve been put in a very intense situation. I want to allow her this new relationship because I don’t want her to suppress anything because of me, but somehow I don’t feel stable. Since the girl lives abroad, they can only meet once every one or two months, but still, this ties up every nerve of mine.

And another little add …

She’s texting all the time with her, so it makes me feel that we’re never together like the two of us. And maybe that is the painful truth indeed.

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I’m so sorry. This does sound like it must be really painful to you. When I hear this it kind of sounds like your partner is really caught up in this romance and is, to be frank, being quite irresponsible when it comes to your feelings.

There are a few things here that sound alarms for me.