I unintentionally sabotaged my marriage, and it's absolutely destroyed me.

This is going to be really really long, so if you plan on reading all of it.. might want to grab a snack first.

Also somewhat graphic content warning for multiple reasons

Me and my wife have been together for nearly 8 years now and, with the exception of the last year and a half or so, I personally feel that we had the closest thing to a perfect relationship possible. We just "clicked" in almost every single aspect. Our interests nearly perfectly aligned, we were on the same level intellectually and could(and still can when things are good between us) carry on a conversation between the two of for 5+ straight hours, we balanced out one another's shortcomings and have generally always put the needs of each other before our own and even after all the years we were notorious among our friends and family for not being able to keep our hands off each other. Arguments were nearly unheard of between us and, when we did fight, we were always reconciled within an hour and back to being allover each other again.

The thing that has all but destroyed what we have together is about 2 years ago I started hanging out with one of my old friends again(known him for more than half my life) and before long he became a mutual friend to both of us. At the time he was without a vehicle and my wife would often drive him to and from work when he needed a ride while I was at work myself, but I never really thought much of it, because I trusted both of them(and still believe her that nothing happened between them at this time).

Then rolled around all that transpired a year and a half ago. This friend ended up crashing with us for a few days and after a bit too much to drink and smoke I had not my best idea ever and asked my wife if she wanted to finally have that threesome(something we had joked about and humored the idea of in the past). The first experience.. I honestly didn't mind it. Me and my friend are both straight and have zero interest in each other sexually, so we pretty much took turns giving her oral and then she gave both of oral, and we all went to bed after that. The things that drove a seemingly irreparable wedge started the next morning.

I wake up and the two of them have already gotten up before me and are both laid on our couch under one of our blankets. I immediately became suspicious that the two of them had been fooling around while I was asleep(a fact she denies to this day), but I took her at her word, because I didn't want to be unfairly paranoid. However I quickly started to become uncomfortable with a lot of her behaviour. At one point the two of us were sitting at the table and she came up and sat down in his lap. At another she leaned over him to get something and ended up repeatedly grinding her crotch into his. Keep in mind at this point I had only ever suggested the threesome the night before and not a continued sexual relationship between them.

Later that night, me and my friend had to make a store run and I took my wife aside and told her the way she was acting with him was really starting to upset me and she apologized for it. When the two of us got back from the store she called me aside and told me how much she loved me and showed me a cover photo she had made on FB using couple picture of us.

But no sooner then we both had come in and sat down again, she's feeling all over him again and, before I know it, she's shoving his face between her legs again. I guess at that point I really should spoke up and told both of them to off, but I didn't. I kind of just said " it. I guess we're all fooling around again.".

Except there ended up being pretty much no "us", it was all THEM. Yeah, my wife might of technically touched me a couple times, but it was always brief(and then back to him) and everytime I tried to interact with her, she seemed disinterested to the point of annoyance or resentment. I remember I was having a hard time getting into it because the disproportionate amount of attention she was giving to him and she started giving me oral to get me more into things, but no sooner than I started to get erect, he started to preform oral on her from behind and she instantly ignored me and went back to ing around with him. And to drive home the point that she just plain didn't want me involved at all, I attempted the same thing not even 5 minutes later while she was giving him head and she kind of just bucks me away with her hips and then sits crosslegged so I have no way of possibly interacting with her any further.

At this point I'm so taken aback and hurt by her actions that I'm practically catatonic. I was molested multiple times as a child, and I had pretty much frozen up and shut down the way I always did with my abuser. At one point she asked us "What next guys?" and my friend asked if they could actually have vaginal sex.. I didn't honestly want them to, but at that point the whole experience had already wrecked me mentally and I figured it was all she seemed to want so I told him I didn't care that all of this was for her anyway. She was pretty much jumping out of her skin in excitement when I said that and immediately asked how he wanted her. He flipped her over on her knees and she immediately shouts "OH YES"(Keep this in mind for latter).

And, I'm not arrogant by any means, but I'm quite a bit more well endowed than my friend and last a hell of lot longer than he did(probably lasted about 2 minutes tops from the time he penetrated), but you would think this was the best sex she ever had in her life with the show she put on about it. And, to add insult to injury, she lays down next to him when they're done and starts rubbing his chest. Then she tells a few things that still bother me to this day. She tells him that she's really happy because she didn't think he was attracted to him at all. Then she tells him that that was a lot better than she thought it would be and that she's going to have to think of it for motivation when she needs it sometimes(so basically telling my friend she's going to think about having sex with him while we're together RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. Just what every guy wants to hear).

At some point she must of remembered I existed, because she crawls back down to me all alone on the other end up the bed contemplating all the ways I can end my ty, laughing stock of an existence and says all of two words to me "I'm sleepy" and instantly conks out on me.

I'm just like this and get up and go sit in our living room alone. A few minutes later she comes in and asks me what's wrong and as soon as I start trying to tell her that I feel like she intentionally ignored me and made the whole thing about her ing my friend she instantly gets mad and says something to the effect of "If you're just mad you didn't get to get off then I'll you if you want me to, but I don't really ing want to! But if it makes you shut the up so I can get some ing sleep then I guess I will.' And.. my mind just kind of completely broke at that point and I spent pretty much the entire night in the grip of a full on mental breakdown. It's worth noting that even in the midst of my being clearly emotionally distraught to the point of insanity my wife still tried to initiate further sex between the three of us the next night and admittedly did try to include me more, but it was incredibly awkward for everyone and we all just kind of ended up stopping and he left asap the next day.

Our relationship was a complete hell for the next several months. Despite knowing that the whole ordeal had been extremely emotionally taxing on me she at one point in the next couple of days suggested the idea of both of us having a free pass to "occasionally sleep with someone else" as long as we clear it with each other. She claims that she made the offer for my sake, because she felt guilty about how everything affected me and wanted to offer me the chance to have sex with someone else to "make it up to me", but wanted me to do so without her, because she didn't feel like SHE could emotionally handle seeing ME be intimate with someone else. I however feel like this was pretty much her way of trying to ask my permission to keep seeing our friend on the side. Especially because when she first suggested it I said "Okay. I have always kind of wanted to *one of her friends*. Maybe I'll pursue that." just to see what her reaction would be, and she flipped out on me and told me how much it hurt her feelings. So I don't feel the offer was really for my benefit.

On another occasion she expressed jealousy after finding out my friend had made a pass at the same female friend of hers I made the previous comment about. And I feel her jealousy shows her attachment to him goes beyond a sexual one, but she swears up and down it had more to do with hurting her pride, especially because I had I also "shown interest in her" and she felt like everyone she'd been with preferred her, but I find this kind of hard to buy personally.

She also discussed the relationship problems we had with multiple people despite me asking her not to because I felt humiliated by the whole experience. She even discussed her with our friend from the "threesome" and hid it from me for months before finally admitting to it and justifying it by saying she needed to talk to someone else about it, because we were fighting constantly and she didn't know who else to talk to or ask for advice, and she wanted to know if he thought her actions were wrong in retrospect.. I feel this was massively inappropriate and to me reads like trying to lay the hook and let him know we might break up soon if he was interested. Her not knowing who else to talk to reasoning doesn't really hold up either since I know of at least three other people she discussed it with and lied about in the first month alone, including MY own mother(that's not uncomfortable at all) to paint her version of events, and most if the time acting like she had no idea why I was so upset and that it wasn't the way I saw it.

She also had several conversations with him in messenger times we were arguing and deleted them which is beyond suspicious to me. And on one occasions she picked him up from work while I was at work without telling me beforehand because he owed us soom weed he was going to get for us, and ended up being over hour late to pick me up, because they had to "wait on his weed man to get home". She was also high already when she picked me up, because she was late picking me up already, so they smoked a blunt together before she dropped him off, because she was afraid I would be upset and accuse her of cheating on me with him.

She did eventually apologize for her actions during and after the threesome, and since cut all ties with the other dude because of the problems it was causing between her, and I do completely believe that she isn't doing anything behind my back and what ever fixation she had for him has since dissipated, but it's still kind if permanently shaken my trust in the strength of our relationship, because if her desire to sleep with one person can upset the value she places in our relationship that easily then I feel like the same could happen with anyone she takes a passing interest in.

My self esteem and sense of worth is also all but shot at this point. Especially seeing her be like that not only right in front of me, but with someone I've known for so long. I really find it impossible not to compare myself constantly and wonder what it was about him that made her have so much more interest in him. And I often have trouble being intimate due to worry that she isn't enjoying it.

I know it will likely sound really dramatic, but I feel like I have actually experienced actual trauma from how upsetting the experience was for me and have had everything from nightmares to flashbacks to panic attacks so strong I've actually thrown up from them as a result of it. And have undergone a lot of extreme personality changes in order to cope.

At times things feel normal between us and even great, but other times all those negative feelings flood back to me just as strongly as when I first felt them. This inevitably leads to me becoming depressed, withdrawn, often suicidal and self-destructive and to many repeated arguments about it that never go anywhere and drive us more and more apart.

Let it be known that I love my wife even now and have never once hated her for any of this. I really can't imagine my life without her at this point, but the more time that passes and the harder I realize it is to let go of the hurt I felt and the more we argue about the same thing again and again again.. I realize that our relationship falling apart is inevitable if something doesn't change very soon. Hell, I did a stay in a psychiatric hospital for a suicide attempt during a mental breakdown over this not even a month ago and I wanted to cry every day I couldn't see her, but here we are arguing again for the last two days straight. I just want my life back, but don't even know if it's possible at this point.

I want to be fair to her, so I'll give her side of things too. According to her she didn't show more attention to my friend because she was more attracted to him than me. She did it because due to her own self-esteem issues she didn't want him to think badly of her or talk badly about her to other people if she didn't perform satisfactory to him and found it harder than she thought to juggle making two separate people happy in bed, so she chose to focus on the new person since we already had a great sex life and she didn't feel she had to prove anything to me. She also felt that I was less likely to resent her for underperforming than he was as someone it was first time sleeping with. And I can give her the benefit of the doubt there because she IS a people pleaser in almost every aspect of her life. My problem is this doesn't really jive for me with the rest of her actions. From being all over the whole day to being the one to initiate things on the second night to cuddling with him afterwards to(and especially) the things she said to him during that. Though she claims at that point she was stressed, upset, tired, had too much to drink, uncomfortable and was just rambling off whatever she could think of to make the situation less awkward. She also says that the reason she got upset later and made the comment about ing me if that's what I wanted was, because the whole ordeal was a negative one for her too in a lot of ways. That after awhile she just started to feel stressed and used and tossed around by both of us and just wanted to do whatever she had to do for it to be over, and thinking I wanted more from her because I wasn't happy made her feel even more used when she just wanted to feel like a person at that point. This to me doesn't jive with trying to initiate it again the third night(which she says she just didn't know what else to do to disperse the tension in the house at that point). She particularly said when I agreed to him having vaginal sex with her it made her feel especially dehumanized and like little more than something to be used for our enjoyment.. but again her response DURING this was an immediate "HOW DO YOU WANT ME?!" followed by "OH YES!", so I often find that hard to swallow. Though she often states that this was part of the need she felt to put on a show with him for the sake of her self-esteem and in order to not hurt his feelings or make him feel bad. I also feel if she felt that way in the moment she could have easily refused to go along with it, but that might not be fair to say with the way I froze up myself and just let things happen. She also says I seemed to be not getting into it the times we interacted, so she felt maybe just watching her with someone else was what I wanted out of the experience(since I admittedly wasn't clear on that point). But.. again she kind of literally rejected every attempt I made to be more involved in my eyes, so obviously I wasn't going to get into things very much and I feel my attempting to be involved multiple times should have showed a spectator event wasn't what I was hoping for..

There's a part of me that wants to take her word for everything. It would make me happier to see all of it the way she says it was. Hell, I often feel bad for not taking her at her word when she has done that for me times she misinterpreted my actions to mean something that they didn't mean to me. And I feel like things would ultimately work out between us still if I did just accept it and it would just be one bad chapter in an otherwise great life together.

It's just.. that I have a hard time reconciling her version of events with the reality I feel I lived through. To me all the aspects of my experience just seem to add up to she just really really wanted to my friend for a long time and was going to make damn sure she got her feel of it those 3 days regardless of how it made me feel. I feel like she tried to make it clear to me that was what she wanted and did everything she could to guarantee that feel unwanted in the equation, so I'd let that happen and not get in her way of it.

I often feel that if I do just accept her explanations and let it go then I'm pretty much just saying that she can do whatever she wants and treat me any type of way and I'll just roll over and take it because I love her. Like I'm pretty much saying I'm a spineless doormat that she can walk all over with whoever the she wants, and even do so right in my face and I'll still be too weak to stand up for myself. I often feel like she took advantage of and made a fool of me and outright humiliated me to get something she wants. She has offered me multiple times the option to sleep with someone else to make things feel more fair, but I honestly don't feel the desire to, because I am and always have been completely satisfied in our sex life and don't feel the need to seek fufillment elsewhere. I do however sometimes feel resentment at the perceived imbalance of our relationship due to her getting to have what, to me, felt like a three day fling with another person way more than any type of group sex and me never asking for or even wanting the same for myself.

I don't really know what the point was in all of this. I guess I just really needed this off my chest finally since I usually just keep everything in my own head and don't talk to anyone when I'm struggling with something. I don't know if anyone is even going to read all this , but, if you did, thanks for being my audience. Hopefully you at least got a good laugh out of how much of a less cuckboi loser I am.

Didn't realize language was censored her so some of this might read weird now.

Oh, dear.

As a woman who has occasionally participated in threesomes with my long-term partner, I can tell you there is a lot more going on here than just a random act to spice things up sexually. You two opened a can of worms that was already in trouble, even though you might not have realized it before that night.

It doesn't appear you two had any real discussion prior to the event regarding boundaries, which in my experience is absolutely necessary so both partners know what is acceptable and unacceptable for the other. There needs to be a very clear understanding of the other's comfort zones, and an agreement that either party can shut it down at any time. That was a big mistake to not talk about this first, but what's done is done in that sense.

Based on your description, your wife was attracted to your friend before this even happened. They might not have gotten physical, but there was a spark there and they both felt it. This simply gave them license to act on it. I also believe it carried on after that night, up until she stopped messaging him. Her continued interactions with him were extremely problematic. You two have a big rift in your marriage that is not just about the sex act itself. She wouldn't have behaved the way she did if she were more interested in the marriage and the fun you two could derive from this as a couple. Her focus was elsewhere which strongly suggests she was primarily wanting to have sex with someone else. Her suggestion that you both sleep with others sometimes also is an obvious indicator that she is stepping away from the marriage. Not good. I realized she's since backpedaled with all sorts of justifications and excuses, but her intent was clear from the get-go.

Given that you have been committed for mental health struggles since then, are you still under a doctor's care? You and your wife badly need marital counselling together as well, and you will need to be completely honest with a therapist about what happened. If she (or you) won't do that, I don't see how your marriage is going to survive, I'm sorry to say.

That's been my thoughts in most of this time honestly.. I'm glad to get the thoughts of someone with experience on this type of thing in a relationship. I've had far too many people who have no experience with threesomes telling me I'm reading too much into things and how obvious it is that she's crazy about me.

I just in the back of my head am always like "Obviously not as crazy as she was to jump my friend's bones". I just hate that I feel like I'm paying a heavy price for NOT wanting to be a controlling, jealous and overly paranoid partner. I've always given her her space and my trust, and made it clear that if she was ever unhappy for any reason or felt like she wanted to cheat on me, I'd prefer if she just left me rather than hurt me like this.

I however don't believe she and him have had sex since then, just because I've asked her straight out and I know her well enough to know if she was completely lying to me(I easily caught her up in every other lie she told me during that time), but I do still feel a lot of her continued contact with him was far from innocent in nature.. For my money and at the very least she was trying to be closer to him on an emotional level.. which is just as if not more upsetting to me than them fooling around. And I know they had to at least of discussed the sex they had.

I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment that the way the whole ordeal played out was symptomatic of something larger broken in our relationship that I just never saw, and some sort of couples' therapy is the only hope we have of fixing anything between us. But everyone in my life that is aware of the problems between us tells me that I'm being unfair or even emotionally abusive every time I even bring up my feelings on it. It's like people only see the outward appearance of our relationship. On the outside she gloats on me and tells everyone how great I am all the times and breaks down sobbing anytime we fight and it seems like things might end between us.... but I don't think those things really negate behaviour that is such a clear sign of some sort of deep rooted unhappiness and some downright underhanded, manipulative and even cruel tactics to get something you want without having to give up your more stable relationship for it.

I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment that the way the whole ordeal played out was symptomatic of something larger broken in our relationship that I just never saw, and some sort of couples' therapy is the only hope we have of fixing anything between us. But everyone in my life that is aware of the problems between us tells me that I'm being unfair or even emotionally abusive every time I even bring up my feelings on it. It's like people only see the outward appearance of our relationship. On the outside she gloats on me and tells everyone how great I am all the times and breaks down sobbing anytime we fight and it seems like things might end between us.... but I don't think those things really negate behaviour that is such a clear sign of some sort of deep rooted unhappiness and some downright underhanded, manipulative and even cruel tactics to get something you want without having to give up your more stable relationship for it.

Stop discussing this with people outside the marriage, with the exception of a trained and neutral professional. I understand you need support, but it's better to draw a boundary and seek the opinions of someone who has no bias towards you or your wife and can see the situation more objectively. Is this something your wife is willing to explore?

I also agree with you that even if she and this friend didn't have further sexual contact, their continued coziness was inappropriate and a symptom of the bigger problems. I get the sense that your wife had previously been asking for threesomes before this - is that accurate? If so, when did that start? It is not jealous or controlling to say no to the idea, either. Everyone has their own boundaries. But I am gathering you said yes because you were worried she would sleep with someone else anyway if you said no? I'm just trying to follow your thought process of conceding to this.

Sorry to hear this . Marriage therapy and getting this sex partner out of your life may possibly repair the trust and the damage. Unfortunately, play with fire, get burned. But you both need to be ready to make changes. Including rethinking your drinking, smoking, etc habits and who your friends are.

I think you both need to decide what it is you want out of this marriage and what it is going to take to move forward together. Or is this the end?

What do you need her to do, say, & agree to?

What does she need from you in the same ways?

I think that includes the exit of the other guy from both your lives permanently.

This will take a lot of openess, trust and commitment from both of you to move forward and leave this completely in the past. That it no longer exists.

can you do that? can she?

I think you know now, don't invite others into your marriage. And I think she needs to commit to not discussing your marriage with others. Especially your Mom. Your marriage should only be between you two. Why isn't she talking to you? explaining her feelings to you? Something is not right there.

Hope you guys can work through this. Its sad the brunt of the pain its caused you bc it was supposedly 'your fun idea'.

It might be good to seek couples therapy, but if you can come together on your own, because you both want to, that's even better.

Its a real test of what you say your marriage was. Sounds like it was good, but not perfect. Let go of that. no one nor is any relationship perfect. If it were really perfect, none of this would have happened. And that's ok. Be more realistic.

We're all just Human after all.

Alcohol, weed, past trauma all effecting each of you in this dynamic, with no ground rules leads to each person acting in ways that are specific to them.

good luck.

And PS.... If you want threesomes, go on line and meet others in that lifestyle. Don't over complicate your life and relationships like this again.

Well....it sounds like your situation is pretty typical in that a fun fantasy backfired spectacularly in reality. I have to agree with the other poster that neither one of you thought this through, talked about it, talking about rules, boundaries....or even explored emotional consequences, as in can both of you actually handle this emotionally or not.

Turns out that you cannot. What you thought would be fun, went differently from how you imagined and caused blind raging jealousy and triggered deep insecurities in you. In other words, strangers in your bed is not something you can handle in your relationship and your marriage. I think you need to start owning that and own YOUR responsibility in this in that this was your idea and your impulsive decision. On that note, I don't think it's very fair or mature for you to continue to lash out and punish your wife because your fantasy didn't go according to your imagination and plan. Your wife is an individual person and she shared with you her perspective and how things looked for her and why she acted the way she did.

I think emotionally, your wife is much more in touch and more honest than you are. Reason I say this is that she admitted openly do you that she could not see you having sex with another woman. In other words, it would upset and send her in a jealous insecurity filled spiral same as what's happened with you. I don't even think she really was OK with the whole open marriage suggestion, but was rather grasping at straws on how to make you happy and if that meant you sleeping with someone else, so be it....even though it really would be like pouring gasoline to put out a fire. Good you decided against it because that would have destroyed what is left of your marriage.

So consider this - you are both indeed as alike as you believe in that neither one of you is cut out for having other people enter your marriage. It leads to a mess and emotional chaos. Start with that to bridge things. More importantly, start owning your part in this and stop lashing out and blaming your wife.

On the whole, maybe remove weed and alcohol from your lives and actually do focus on getting counseling for yourself to deal with your issues and get your head screwed on straight. You can't keep running away from yourself and who you really are, which is a loyal monogamous person who isn't all that into "fun extras". Stop pretending and realize that most fantasies are best left in your head and never taken into real life.

Your wife talks to your mother about threesomes and cuckolding? 🙉

I know of at least three other people she discussed it with and lied about in the first month alone, including MY own mother

 

Hopefully you at least got a good laugh out of how much of a less cuckboi loser I am.

but I feel like I have actually experienced actual trauma from how upsetting the experience was for me

Dude, you were the one who invited this dude into your marriage bed. all the "trauma" is self inflicted. i really suggest personal therapy as well as marital.

You need to cut this dude out of your life completely -- not even casual friends - both block his number - even get a different scenery if you have to like a trip or even rearrrange the house so its not the same as when it happened. And you need to cut other people out of your marriage. your mom and friends have no business in it. You may think you have the perfect marriage, but you both have insanely porous boundaries.

Your wife is a people pleaser, by your own admission, so maybe she didn't feel she could say know to the situation and felt she had to perform and it totally backfired on you. I hope you learned your lesson --

Difficult situation but once that step is crossed breaching the intimacy between a couple, is it ever the same? Hard to know where to turn when the initial blame sits with yourself. It appears as if your wife is blatantly taking advantage of the situation at every opportunity. She's lost respect for you and I can see why. You gave her the opportunity to suck another man's . Personally I just don't get it, and how your feeling now reflects the fact that generally speaking intimacy and trust are an essential part of a successful relationship. You had it and let it slip for a few moments of sensational indulgence. I made a mistake once involving to much alcohol that ultimately ruined my relationship and caused years of anxiety and blaming myself. That said reading your story makes me realise that it wasn't all my fault. Its about choices, yours,hers and your friends.