I'm a gay guy in an almost eight year relationship. One morning, after what I knew was a party night for my boyfriend, I found the door to the kitchen blocked. I pushed it open found my boyfriend sitting with his back against the door taking close up pictures of a friend's cock. My boyfriend is a professional photographer and told me it wasn't what it seemed like—it was just him exploring nudes. We talked about it right when it happened and he apologized. Three week later I asked whether more was going on between them as things seemed a bit off between us. He said no. But during our talk it came up that he has been having short sexual encounters during his solo travels over the years. Also, relatively early in our relationship, he told me about making out with a guy while on at trip and I found out he went to a gay sauna with friends.

In his defense he reminded me that on more than one occasion over the last eight years I had said something like, “If a sexual encounter happens with someone else, I don’t want to know.” And more recently (before the night I found him in the kitchen) we were playing a dirty Q&A card game with friends and I got a question about how I defined "open relationship." I again replied that I wouldn’t want to know the details about who, when, where, etc.

My boyfriend is a decade younger and I always thought that he needed his independence. I’m not against it. But I thought we would talk about it before something happened. And I thought he understood my comments about "not wanting to know" meant I wouldn't want to know if something happened because it would be hurtful to me. I didn’t mean, "Oh hey, you can continue have sex with other guys all you want just don’t tell me about it." It turns out he assumes I was doing the same sorts of things all along and that my “don’t ask don’t tell” comments reflected my behavior.

I know I said these things but we never formally made a decision to open our relationship. I have mixed feelings about this as I love him and don’t mind being in an open relationship. But I still feel like a hurt little boy over something that, in theory at least, I fully accept. This somehow feels like a betrayal but I also feel like I paved a way for him to do this. Where does one draw the line? What is okay? Are we doomed? He wants me to accept that we were “both bad at communicating.” I feel like I have no place to direct my anger or my sadness.

A Scar Is Born

P.S. The messing around with others has resulted in him taking STI tests and then rejecting my requests for sex while waiting for his test result.

You said: "If this happens, I don't wanna know." He heard: "When this happens, don't tell me."

Or so he says.

To borrow a phrase, ASIB, your boyfriend took you literally but not seriously. He seized on the literal meaning of your words in order to rationalize behavior that makes it clear he doesn't take your relationship seriously. And now that you caught him cheating on you—and not for the first time—your boyfriend is arguing he did nothing wrong. Or he's arguing that if anyone did something wrong, ASIB, it was you. Because didn't you say on more than one occasion that you didn't wanna know if he messed around with another guy? Or guys? In saunas? On solo trips? In your kitchen?

Indeed you did.

But while that may technically be true, ASIB, your boyfriend's failure to initiate a more in-depth conversation on the subject of openness demonstrates a troubling lack of consideration for your feelings. You have a right to expect that a person who claims to love you will take your feelings into account and solicit input on all major relationship issues—and open or closed is one of the majorist of issues. So your boyfriend wasn't taking his responsibility to give a shit about your feelings seriously. It's no wonder you feel betrayed, ASIB, but the violation wasn't strictly (or wholly) sexual, it seems, as you would've given him your blessing had he asked. If that's the case, ASIB, then the violation was more emotional than sexual. You could accept (or could've accepted) being in an open relationship. You can't accept being jerked around.

Yeah, yeah: you could've and should've made yourself clearer. But when you said, "If this happens, I don't wanna know," your boyfriend could've and should've asked you the obvious followups: "Are you saying you want an open DADT-style relationship? Do you really not want to know if I mess around with other guys? And how come you haven't asked me whether I wanna know if you messed around with other guys?" The reason your boyfriend didn't ask those followups is obvious: he either knew the answer would be "no" or he was worried that would be the answer. So he decided to ask for forgiveness rather than permission, if you ever found out, all the while assuming he had a gold plated get-out-cheating-jail-free card in his back pocket.

So while you might want to be in an open relationship with someone, ASIB, you're not in an open relationship with someone. You're in open relationship with him. You need to ask yourself whether you feel comfortable—you need to ask yourself whether you feel safe—staying in this open relationship. You say you love him and eight years is a long time, ASIB, and he seems to have taken some steps to protect your health—getting STI tests, not having sex with you while waiting for the results—and that has to count for something. (Some will say he just didn't want to get caught but it doesn't seem to me like he was ever that concerned with getting caught.) Where to draw the line and whether you're doomed... well, that's up to you.

That said, ASIB, I don't see how this relationship survives if your boyfriend can't issue you an apology that doesn't have "but you said" tagged onto the end of it.