Who is actually fucking someone else in this story? Sorry, but online sex chatting is, IMO, not even JV cheating. If "fucking someone else behind your back" is a 10 on things-your-partner-can-be-livid-at-you-for, and watching porn being 1, sex chat is like a 3. Maybe a 2.

LW seems a bit too clueless (you paid for sex on the internet?? with a credit card? and you don't have paperless billing?? join the 21st century bruh) and the wife a bit too aggro for this ever to be a decent relationship. I guess you have kids but IMO parents who openly disrespect each other is worse for your kids than divorced parents are. Your wife doesn't respect you, LW, and I don't think there is any coming back from that. I don't really understand what your issues are (at least your wife can say she wants to fuck other people; for all the time you've spent with therapists, you don't share your motivations for [possibly] cheating) so you'll probably be unsatisfied until you can state those out loud.

I wouldn't suggest an open relationship. Wife seems to only want one because she's stuck with you as the father of her children; you seem to only want to stay in to maintain your status quo. An open relationship will crumble just as fast as a closed on with you two.

Is it just me or is he the one that doesn't want an open marriage, because he doesn't want his wife having sexy times with other people? That is what I am getting out of it.

*Claiming, " I don't think she really wants and open marriage", when she has clearly stated she does multiple times and has had one if not more long-term affairs is... suspect.

Yup.

It’s worth asking yourself WHY you keep trying to repair this monogamist relationship, LW. Is it because you love her? Convenience? You don’t want other people to “have” her because you feel possessive of her sex life? You’re worried one of you will find a new love of your life? Why monogamy when polygamy exists?

A good think - and a good talk with your wife - may settle things for you. She’s right to be skeptical about you “getting help for your problem”: clearly seeing a therapist doesn’t work. You ultimately have to make the stakes for failing at monogamy higher or the stakes for trying polygamy lower if you want anything to really change.

You are a pathetic piece of shit;
we don't know as much about your wife but at best she copes with your shit by cheating and doesn't want to stop;
you kids deserve each other.
Screw up each other's lives, no point in inflicting it on others.
Don't you dare have kids,
if you do they will have to invent a new hotter circle of Hell for you to get what you deserve...

They have children together. Read the letter.

“ I was shocked but should have seen it coming.”
Shocked I tell ya. Why would she even think of this? Just can’t imagine.

@1 Dude, he STARTED with the online sexting and has been MEETING with other women for almost ten years, and only confessed/promised to stop/got counseling every time he got caught but returned to the cheating right after! What did you think he was meeting these women for? Pinochle? Even he admitted that he was cheating! Why the fuck should his wife respect someone who kept cheating and lying and breaking promises to her, not to mention giving no fucks about how all this cheating was affecting his marriage, his wife's health, AND their children!
Your misogyny is killing your eyesight and reading comprehension. Consider getting help before you lose more brain cells and turn into a dotard.

LW, it is too late to have a monogamous marriage with your wife. Since you have never been monogamous, your wife has decided 'If you can't beat them, join 'em' as the way going forward to stay tolerate being married to you. She has played the fool for years accepting your promises, and she is done with the lies. She KNOWS you will not stop cheating. Accept the open marriage, negotiate the rules AND stick to them. Your only other choice is divorce. And when your children are old enough your wife might divorce your ass anyway, so you should consider how you might want to act in the next few years if you want to stay married to her for longer than that!

*to tolerate staying married...

If she wants an open relationship, then why did she "confront" him about his latest cheating when she was in the midst of a years-long affair herself?

She'd caught him for the 3rd time about two years ago, so maybe steppin' out was in response to that. Episode 4 was the perfect time to bring up opening the marriage. "Honey, I know you're cheating and... surprise, surprise... so am I, so let's open things up!"

They should definitely follow Dan's advice and stop pretending to be monogamous, but I really don't see how they can navigate ENM when they're both such entrenched cheaters, and both so fundamentally selfish. DADT (and Don't Snoop) would be a minimum requirement.

iseult @8: "Your misogyny is killing your eyesight and reading comprehension."

The story begins with online sex. Then "several years later she finds out I have been doing it again" and "she caught me the third time, about two years later". Only the last time - the previous April - was he clear about "talking with someone for a while and meeting up with her".

Yes, LW admits to cheating, but lots of people consider porn viewing to be cheating. LW is not forthcoming about actual fucking, or Pinochle for that matter.

Prior bad acts notwithstanding, I don't think Sportlandia can be fairly accused of misogyny, impaired eyesight, or comprehension failure for assuming @1 that LW has been cheating only in his heart.

@8 Meanwhile your politics seem to have convinced you that you already know everything that happened and can fill in all the blanks for us. Shut the thread downnnnnnn!

I'm sure regular therapy helps with a lot of things. In this case, I'm confused why the LW thinks he can be monogamous only when he's seeing a therapist. Dude, you either want to be monogamous our you don't. A therapist shouldn't be the difference in this situation. The therapist should help you and your wife communicate with one another and help you make sense of who you are and want to be. But claiming that you are faithful while in therapy and not faithful when you aren't seems like a problem to me. You're obviously not getting at whatever larger issues you need to get to when you do see the therapist.

Also, why are you running up a credit card for sex chatting. You can't find other horny people who want to sext? If you're not planning on meeting up and you have a decent imagination/ability to write that imagination, then you should have a lot of options for sexting.

This guy has serious issues with denial, and probably self-honesty in general. 10 years of "I'll change! I swear!" with no success means something, and he clearly hasn't admitted to himself what it means. (Monogamy isn't something he can do, and he tends to make promises he can't keep, which makes him behave in an untrustworthy way.)

This is conjecture, but it seems like a pattern: continually promising to do better (maybe sincerely but with a lack of self-awareness), can't accept that his wife may be so far done with his bullshit that she can't see anything but not-monogamy working for her. This may even be why he said he cheated, but didn't specifically say he had sex with all of these women: got to keep it vague to avoid being honest with himself and direct about what he's done.

Whether the above is an accurate projection, it seems pretty clear he can only make anything better by accepting his wife's demand at face value and negotiating from there—and following whatever ground rules they come up with to build some trust.

He says he cheated. What was he paying for then? He also said it started with porn. He didn’t say what it finished with.
Not excusing the wife, though yeah, she is pro active. Showing her agency.
Though who is focused on the children is anyone’s guess. This was four yrs ago, wonder if they are little tearaways now.

I think LW and his wife should be encouraged to look at the positive side of things: despite all the nonsense they've endured in their struggle to remain monogamous, they's stuck together. They must really love each other, or something about each other, to be able to do that.

From LW's tone, it doesn't sound like there's much bitterness on his part (his wife may be a different story). He should give in, go with the flow. Unless, of course, what he really got out of cheating was the thrill of cheating. An open marriage is going to take away his favorite part?

"She says I was able to choose when I wanted to do what I did and now I am taking that right away from her." Absolutely right. Mr Mealy Mouth here who can't even admit what he's doing ("she found out I had been talking with someone for a while and meeting up with her," not "that I was cheating") only sees that cheating is wrong and wants to stop when his wife does it. Dude, you made this bed and, to mix metaphors, your chickens came home to roost in it. If you can't stay faithful, and you've proven you can't, why should she? The goose deserves to have her sauce, to throw in another avian reference. This was almost five years ago, I'd be surprised if they are still together. It would be interesting to get a follow-up.

Lava @15: If he's this evasive it's no wonder counselling did no good. It started with online sex chats which he was paying for, and progressed to "meeting up" with someone, as Iseult says, presumably not playing Pinochle. That's the one he was caught meeting; the implication is that there were more. Who knows whether he paid them or not. This guy had so many chances and he blew them all. His wife deserves to have boyfriends who treat her better than he does.

I think @Dan is wrong on one account, the evidence does not suggest that Mrs. Ass is bad at monogamy. She might have been no better than average, but secretly starting sexual affairs with multiple men after ASS was caught cheating three times seems like a reasonable response. “My husband won’t spot fucking other women, so I’m going to have some fun sex with other men.”

ASS is unhappy only because he knows that from now on, his wife is a sexual free agent with multiple sex partners, rather than exclusively his. Now, he has visions of his wife out on dates, having sex with other men, while he is at home or work.

Mrs. Ass actually sounds really reasonable, and if she is still willing to maintain their marriage and sexual connection after all this, than they might be a good match going forward.

Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. A good sauce is apple sauce. Peel and core many apples, and cut into chunks. Simmer the apples in a little demerara sugar, a scant quantity of water, three star anise and a dash of Calvados. Watch the pan (do not go off and comment on Savage Love). When the apples are mushy, fluff them up with a fork and boil off any excess fluid. You won't have an honest marriage; but at least you have a quantity of goose-enhancing apple sauce.

The guy is hopeless. He promises to change, but doesn't try to change while he's cheating. Then he gets serious about change--her changing, really--when she's cheating on him. Does he know why she hasn't left him? Ask. Identify what's good and enduring about the marriage and build on that.

@1. Sportlandia. The degree of a sex-chatter's emotional involvement, and the couple's previous understanding, can make it a 10.

@2. nartweag. I think you're essentially correct.

@8. iseult. 'Dotard' is such a great word. Personally I like knowing what Sportlandia thinks; it's good to know the requirements of male pride (not always construing this in a pejorative sense) and self-respect.

@11. fubar. I'm not sure we know that his wife is evidently selfish.

@21: sex chatting alone can never be a "10", because there's zero danger of pregnancy or STI's, which would almost certainly make any emotional betrayal worse.

This jackASS is stuck way back at Kohlberg's first stage of moral development. It's no wonder he keeps cheating and lying and can't handle his wife turning the tables. It doesn't matter if he and his wife agree to try ENM (hah! Like this guy is even capable of ethics) or get counseling or divorce or anything, he's probably a lost cause at this point and will probably always be a dumpster fire full of soiled diapers. Shame about the kids, though. They'll probably grow up to be the same.

Are we sure this wasn't written by Donald Trump?

I guess the "betrayal" scale could go to eleven. Everything else does.

No Chase, not an odd number. That doesn’t sound right. Twelve or leave it at ten.
He was cheating, how many numbers up some immaginary scale won’t change that he cheated. No way did he only ‘meet up’ one time. The guy is a tool and I hope wife and kids moved out long ago.
Why do people talk of love when their behaviour says the opposite.

"I now realize I have issues I need to work on in order to be a better person." Oh, really? 10 years of lying and cheating and just now this occurs to you?

Lavagirl@ 15: "He says he cheated. What was he paying for then?" Well... cough a couple ideas leap to mind.

MartyVega @16: Yup. He likes feeling entitled, and that he has the upper hand in the relationship because he gets to screw around and she doesn't. He wants a situation where she devotes everything to him, and he doesn't reciprocate that devotion. If it's just a fair, honest arrangement that they both have other partners, then he doesn't get to feel like he's more privileged than her.

Sublime @19: I agree that Mrs ASS seems easily capable of monogamy with someone who doesn't cheat on her repeatedly and unrepentantly.

Chase @22: Bwahaha! Good call.

Chase @22, scale of betrayal is subjective. I personally agree that any "cheating" that does not carry STI risk is a lower level of betrayal, but some might think that a one-off "slip up," as a recent LW put it, is more easily forgiven than a sustained emotional affair or an ongoing habit of spending the family savings on sex chats after repeatedly promising not to. Did he know he was betraying his wife's trust, yes; did he promise to stop and then kept right on doing it, yes. He doesn't get a pass because his dick never touched anyone else.

LavaGirl: Eleven is for when you need just that little bit extra to take it over the cliff. Not sure if it will let me post this link:

https://youtu.be/uMSV4OteqBE?t=78

BDF@27: Sure, it's subjective (and trivial). I just find it hard to imagine that even if someone felt that catching their partner having an emotional affair with a camgirl or boy was the worst feeling in the world, it couldn't be made even worse by the revelation that they'd also been infected with HIV or that their cheating partner had a lovechild too. But if we think about it we can pretty much always imagine something worse than the previous worst (even the one in the Offal Orifice). That's why knobs no longer just go up to ten.

And I agree that the real problem is the complete lack of honesty or responsibility, which is a very strong indication that Dan's suggested solution isn't going to do any good. People in explicitly open relationships can still cheat and lie and otherwise act irresponsibly, and I'm sure ASS will (or did).

Further to @27, it's clear that his dick did go on to touch at least one other woman, so the how-bad-was-it discussion is moot anyway.

Ethical non-monogamy is a wonderful thing, but it's not a solution to chronic infidelity. ASS wanted an open relationship he could have proposed one after the first or second time he cheated, but he didn't. He also could have chosen to work on himself with or without therapy... But he didn't do that either. He might love Mrs ASS but he doesn't respect her.

No amount of therapy is going to 'fix' this guy's lack of control and continual lying, nor will an open relationship now save this marriage. They both need new starts with new people and to decide what relationship they would like with those people when the time comes (monogamy, open relationship, polygamous etc.)

As for the kids, it sucks, but surely better than living with parents who must be often angry/upset with the other.

Baby @31, I know at least one couple who opened their relationship as a result of repeated infidelity and it seems to be going well for them. It depends on whether gets-off-on-lying or can't-keep-it-in-pants is the fundamental issue one has with monogamy.

For clarification, I understood that ASS started paying cam girls and ran up moderately significant expenses. I don’t see that as an affair, rather a financial betrayal, and an inability to stop using cam girls seems more like an addiction than a sexual affair. A recent story about a man who killed his parents and brother over theft of money to pay a Bulgarian cam girl inform my view.

But I also understood that ASS eventually started having sex with other women too, which led to Mrs. Ass doing likewise, and I suspect people are wrong to surmise otherwise.

However, if ASS was not having sex with other women, then I am not inclined to see Mrs. Ass’ sexual encounters as justified, and appreciate why ASS would be unhappy about his wife sleeping with other men.

@21. Chase. For some people, imv, an emotional affair conducted by text can be a worse betrayal than a brain-free dick dip. Some supposedly monogamous partners cheat, get a fresh or deepened sense of what they risk losing, then come to their senses and don't do it again. (Admittedly, these people aren't the most thoughtful types). I have the feeling, further, that if someone's straying is, to their partner, a 10, then it's a 10 (even if the strayer thinks, 'no, it's only an 8.5; I wore a condom'). No--it's a 10 and it's your problem.

@34 Sublime. But was ASS personally seeing these camgirls, or some other sex workers, on whom he was spending money? This isn't a rhetorical question. His letter is kind-of evasive, and I'm just not 100% on the facts.

@34. Sublime. Why would her encounters not be 'justified'? Are sexual encounters, as a rule, justified? People in relationships get fed up, and feel entitled to some extracurricular. Often we understand why they do so. We do here.

Harriet @21: My suggestion that Mrs. ASS was too selfish for ENM is because she chose to hide her own cheating whilst confronting ASS about his. But that said, there's little doubt she's the wronged and worn-out party, and she's been reading about and asking for an open relationship, while he's continuing the cycle of his past behaviour: at this point, promising change that ain't coming.

Sublime @34: if ASS was not actually "having sex" with other women, but rather wanking alone in his man cave, abetted by phone sex operators or cam girls, and ignoring Mrs. Ass, then her sexual encounters might well be justified by marital abandonment, and doing what she needs to stick around for the kids. We've read that story in these pages before.

@37/harriet: As a general proposition, if ASS was not having sex with other women, then I do not support Mrs. Ass’ sense of entitlement to have sex with other men based on those facts. But again, I think he was having sex with other women, and do think Mrs. Ass was entitled to have sex with other men.

@38/fubar: Nothing in the letter suggests marital abandonment, and given ASS’ response to learning that his wife has two lovers who she does not want to stop fucking, I think we can safely rule out your hypothesis.

Bi @33 - good distinction, and I'm glad it's working out for them. More than anything I think it depends on how well they can rebuild trust.

As for the "how bad is it" question, Harriet @35 nailed it: "If someone's straying is, to their partner, a 10, then it's a 10 (even if the strayer thinks, 'no, it's only an 8.5; I wore a condom'). No--it's a 10 and it's your problem."

This whole letter is a humble brag. Look at us, we're married but we're both getting tons of outside sex.

Stop focusing on your bull shit selves, LW and Wife, and look after your family. Who has time for this level of DramA when there are kids around. Ffs.
Sportlandia, what is going on for you? You have been a bitch lately. Like you’re not even trying. I went to bat for you.
If One or Two women are giving you a hard time, talk about it. We are here to help. Please don’t go down the living next door to twitter path. Those women are AGrade Ambitious. Do you get out into the trees?

"I really do want to stop"
When that's true, there's no issue, the person stops, and has no difficulty stopping. But you haven't stopped. So no, you don't really want to stop, you just want her to stop. That's what you have to work on, while you also work on a friendly, honest, open marriage.

Not that there’s anything wrong with AGrade Ambitious women. Like AGrade Ambitious men, they are full steam ahead.

@38. fubar. I think he cheats either twice or three times--the kind of cheating that runs up the charges--before she starts looking elsewhere herself. And maybe after the second time she's checking up on him in the spirit of investigating whether he's holding to his promises--not because she has any faith in living out an ideal of monogamy.

He wants to say, 'we're both cheaters--how do we reform?'. But he's dragging her into it unnecessarily. He's the truly incorrigible cheater, the one who cheats against his best intentions and sense of his interests; and he needs to work on himself first.

@39. Sublime. My 'general proposition' would different to yours and much closer to fubar's. I can't see a sliding scale of betrayal or marital dereliction in which wanking off to cammers (possibly splurging both of their cash) is less bad than physically having sex with a third party. Both can be betrayals, and their magnitude lies in the eyes of the wronged partner in the marriage.

@35: I didn't mean that a physical betrayal was always worse than an emotional betrayal (mileage varies), just that a purely emotional betrayal could be even worse (as could a purely physical betrayal, or a purely financial betrayal, etc). And as ever, the betrayer doesn't get to assess the level of the betrayal.

@44 I give how I get. Pretty simple!