What would you do if your wife proposed an open marriage? Here's what I did.
When all this happened, I, James, 28, had been married to my wife Jill, 27, for 4 years. We met in college in 2017, my junior year, her sophomore year, at a university mixer. Jill was smart, funny, and beautiful. We hit it off and started spending our free time together. I lived in my parent's house, not far from campus, while she lived in a campus dorm. We agreed to a committed, exclusive, monogamous, relationship within a couple of months of starting to date.
I graduated with a B.S. in 2018 and immediately found a terrific job in my field soon after graduation. The company was in our town not far from my parents' place so I could continue to see Jill as often as our schedules allowed. Just after I graduated, my father retired, and my parents decided to move to Florida. They didn't want to sell the house I grew up in so I'm living in the house I will someday inherit. I pay property taxes, utilities and take care of upkeep on the place. It's a great house, great location, and a great place to raise a family.
Jill graduated in 2019 (B.A.) and moved in with me. She found a job but in a low-level position.
We married in August of 2019. I was so completely in love with her that I didn't think I could be happier. She told me she felt the same. It was the happiest day of my life.
Jill hated her job.
By 2023, it became clear that Jill would not be promoted, have more responsibility and more interesting work, unless she got an advanced degree. We agreed that she would go back to school to get an M.A. It would take two years to get the degree if she went full time, forever if she went part time. We decided Jill would quit her job and go full time. I agreed to pay tuition She was accepted into the M.A. program at the university in our town where we both went as undergraduates. So, no disruption of our married life because she could live at home. She started graduate school the Fall semester of 2024.
Her days were incredibly busy, but she loved being back in school. She came home excited every day by her classes and would tell me about what she was learning. After about a month, she told me a study group was forming of people in her master's degree program and she decided to join it. When I asked her who was in it, she gave me the names of three women and two men.
"What are your study group mates like?"
"They're younger, early 20's, very smart and nice enough. One guy in the study group is a teaching assistant in the department. He's friendly with all the professors. He's smart and helps the rest of us understand the course work. A really great guy.". They would meet in any empty classroom they could find for a few hours to discuss what they were learning. How long they needed to study depended on what was coming up in their classes; longer when there were exams to prepare for.
When she started in the study group, she would be home by 8-8:30pm at the latest, two or three nights a week. She asked if this was a problem for me and I told her that it wasn't. I wanted her to do well in her classes.
Early in November, the group study started lasting longer and began meeting most Saturday afternoons for a few hours as well. She would come home more often after 9pm weeknights, sometimes smelling of alcohol. I asked her about the longer sessions and the alcohol and she told me, "I go out with the girls after the study session for a beer or two to unwind. They're in my classes and I'd like to get to know them better. The Saturday sessions are necessary because finals are coming up." I trusted her completely and wanted her to do well. She no longer talked to me about what she was learning. "I'm tired and want to forget about school. I just want to chill when I get home."
When the semester was over in December, I decided to cook a celebratory dinner. Jill passed her classes but her grades were disappointing. She was capable of doing so much better. But she had passed, that was the main thing, and it was her first semester back. She would get acclimated and I was sure she would do better next semester.
When we sat down to dinner, Jill seemed very anxious about something. I thought it was just winding down from a stressful semester. During our dinner she complemented me on the food, told me how much she loves me, and kept smiling at me. Touching and hugging me when she got up from the table to get something. Way more affection than usual. But the nervousness didn't seem to go away.
Toward the end of the meal, she took a deep breath and said, "I saw something interesting on T.V. a few days ago. I was taking a break from studying and there was this program on educational T.V. about open marriages. It was interesting because the people interviewed all said it was an incredible help to their marriages. Open marriage provided excitement and spiced up their sex life."
I said, "Our sex life has always been great. You said it's the same for you."
She said, "That's true. I've never had any complaints." Jill smiled at me and took my hand, "But I've been thinking about the T.V. program and wondering if this was something we should try. We've been married for four, going on five years. I want to be married fifty, sixty years. I don't want to have our wonderful marriage go stale. We could agree to see other people occasionally. It would be exciting. Our lovemaking after we came home for our dates would be even more incredible. That's what all the couples on this T.V. documentary said. It really enhanced their sex lives. Our sex life is good but we don't want it to get old and predictable. The all said their marriages were stronger than they've ever been.
"We can set up some rules that we both have to follow. Like, I don't know, we could have a rule that says no bringing dates home. Or keep a calendar of upcoming dates so we'd each know when the other one is available or not. Or no going away for whole weekends unless the other spouse knows well in advance that it will be for an entire weekend. Same with overnights. Things like that. So we'd both know when the other spouse is going out. No sneaking around. What do you think?"
So this wasn't some theoretical discussion of a T.V. show. Jill was serious about opening up our marriage to others. Once she started pushing for this nonsense, I knew our marriage was over. I figured she was already hooking up with someone or she had someone already picked out. As she was droning on about the benefits of an open our marriage, I tuned out and instead started wondering, "What will my life be like without her? I've never considered a future without Jill. But that's what's going to happen."
I'm the sort of person whose mind works on how to get from here to there. I'm results oriented. I would grieve the end of our marriage later. Instead of listening to her BS, I thought about what I needed to do, right now, to end the marriage and get her out of my life. I thought, "I need to record this conversation, everything she says." I took out my phone and brought it under the table to open the record app. I put the phone in my shirt pocket. She was so wrapped up in her nonsense that she didn't notice. I started thinking about how to unravel our shared life, "The house belongs to my parents. There was no question she will be the one to leave and that will be tonight. This state is an 'at-fault' state so I'll need to prove infidelity. How do I find out if she's seeing someone and, if she is, who it is? How do I get evidence for the divorce? If Jill's unfaithful, she's not going to just give up the name of her lover or details of their affair. But if I play this right, I should be able to at least find out if she's started cheating yet or just planning to. That would be a start. Her tuition is due for next semester. I hadn't paid it yet and will never have to again."
When she said, "Why don't we discuss the rules we want to set," it brought me back from my planning to what she was saying. She continued, "I think our first open marriage rule is that we won't ask about or discuss who we're seeing and what we did on our dates. It's enough to know when the other spouse won't be available. I don't need to know any more."
I thought, "If she's already talking about weekends away and overnights, she not talking about dating random guys. She's already involved with someone. Someone she doesn't want to tell me about. So this isn't about us and our marriage. This is about her being single again. Single when she wants to be but with a loving husband to come home to between overnights and weekends away with her lover. I wonder who it could be." I tuned her out again.
After about ten minutes of explaining how great this would be for our marriage, I heard Jill say, "James." That yanked me back to listening to her. She asked, "Have you been listening to me? What do you think?"
I asked her, "What's the point of this? What's wrong with our sex life now? "
She replied, "There's nothing wrong with it but now it would get even better. All the couples on the T.V. said so."
I asked, "Wouldn't you be jealous if I saw other women?"
