'Is it fair for my partner to close our relationship because I found someone to date? She opened it in the first place!' UPDATED 2x

s"My relationship with my nesting partner has soured and I am thinking about canceling the wedding."

Backstopfeelings writes:

I (29M) have been living with Julie (28F) for three years and had plans to get married this fall. When I proposed last year, Julie brought up that before she got married, she wanted to explore her sexuality before settling down.

After a lot of discussion, she started dating other women, and it was a bit much too fast. She was going out 3-4 nights a week to queer bars and meeting a bunch of people. Our intimacy got cut in half to once or twice a week, and I started feeling a lot of resentment.

This sparked several discussions that ended with me getting to date other people as well, much to her dismay. Julie finally found someone, and Kate (30F) became her girlfriend, and they met 2-3 times a week, often overnight.

Things became manageable for a couple of months, and then Julie asked me to start using barriers with her whenever we were intimate. When I asked why, she said her doctor had recommended it until a "female issue" she was having cleared up.

After a couple of weeks, I asked if things had improved, and when I questioned her about going back to the doctor, she broke down and told me that Kate had complained that I was "polluting" her, and that prompted the request. Under protest, I agreed to continue with her request.

I have a sensitivity issue with barriers; it takes me longer to finish, and I struggle to stay into things sometimes with it. This delays the entire process making sessions longer and harder. This all leads to us not being able to be intimate.

Obviously, this caused some friction between me and Julie, and this May it all came to a head when we were supposed to meet with a wedding planner. I slammed on the brakes and said we had issues we needed to work out before going any further. Julie's mother was already in planning mode and was confused because she was in the dark, which I made Julie handle, and we pushed the wedding off till next spring.

In the meantime, a co-worker introduced me to his cousin, Pam (24F). I explained my situation, and after some thought, she was in for some casual dating. Less than two weeks later, we are spending four nights a week together.

Physical touch is both our love languages, and the contact and PDA are like electricity between us. We also weren't using barriers, which had a negative effect on my intimacy with Julie.

All of a sudden, Julie says we need to fix things and prioritize each other more, and maybe cut back on our time with our other partners. I know her mom is on her case about getting the wedding back on track. And the barrier issue gets discussed a lot.

Right now, my emotional/physical needs are being met by Pam 70% vs. Julie 30%, and Pam and I have been using the "L" word a lot recently. If Julie gives me an ultimatum right now, she may not like the answer. The easiest way forward with Julie would mean her cutting off Kate. It may not be fair, but it's probably the most viable option.

OP provided an update:

I stewed all day after reading all the comments and decided I was going to confront Julie when I got home, rehearsing my speech twice on the drive home. As I pulled up to the house, I saw Julie's mom's car in our driveway.

I no sooner got in the door and I was bombarded by Julie and her mom to set a wedding date so they could start looking for a venue and start planning. I said something to the effect that there wasn't going to be a wedding. Her mom asked me what I was talking about and what the hell had gotten into my head.

Ever had one of those moments when time slows to a crawl? I looked at Julie and gave a little laugh; the color drained from her face and fear filled her eyes. I turned to her mom and said, "Since February, Julie has been having an affair with a woman named Kate, and it has ruined our relationship, and I doubt if we will still be together a month from now."

I walked into the living room and sat down, listening to them go at each other. They went at it for about ten minutes, then they walked outside, and I heard her mom's car drive away. Julie came back cussing, asking how I could do such a thing.

I said that ambush went sideways, didn't it? You should have confided in your mom and brought her up to speed first. I told her our relationship was a dumpster fire, and I no longer wanted to get married. I was tired of her relationship with Kate overshadowing ours.

She was still yelling at me, so I got up and left the house and went to grab a bite to eat and let her cool off. It took her about 15 minutes to start blowing up my phone. I finally called her back when I was leaving the diner. She asked me to come home and talk it out.

She was a lot calmer when I got back, and we actually had a productive conversation. We are still a ways from a happy medium, but we are talking. She wants to know how we can fix things, and I told her to make a list of what she thinks is fair and will help mend things, and we can go from there. I told her I would do the same, and tomorrow when we get home, we can compare the lists.

OP provided another update:

I had told Julie to make a list of what she thinks is fair and will help mend things, and we could compare her list with mine to see if there was a chance to move forward. So yesterday, she called from work and said she needed to stop and talk with Kate before coming home but would be there for dinner so we could talk.

Finally, at about 7 PM, she called and asked if I could order pizza and bread and that she would stop and pick up some wine. She came home and opened a bottle of wine as the pizza was being delivered.

She handed me a list of things she had come up with, and I handed her my list along with some printed-out comments from a message board on moments when our relationship ended due to her actions. (There were other good comments, but these hit home with me.) I told her they came from a message board, and she wanted to read them all, but I said now was not the time.

Her talk with Kate went long because they got into an argument about Julie taking a step back and insulating the two relationships from each other. It was bad enough that Julie ended things with her before she left.

She wrote down all her passwords and codes, then handed her phone to me and said I might find some of it hard to read, but she didn't want to hide anything from me anymore. She realizes now that Kate was doing everything she could to drive a wedge between us, and she was stupid not to see it.

She asked me if I had meant everything I had told her mom about the marriage and us not being together another month. I said there was no way I would marry the person she had shown me over the last six months.

I thought it would be better if we gave each other some space rather than treating each other like we had. She wanted to do therapy instead and close our relationship to get back to where we were.

I was very blunt about the fact she had made promises to me before, like decisions about sexual health and testing and always putting us first, that she had failed to keep. So I had lost a lot of faith in her word. I wasn't going to close and risk losing what I had with Pam when our relationship was on the rocks. This hit her pretty hard, combined with killing the first bottle of wine, and she ended up crashing on the couch.

I stayed up and continued to go through her phone. Kate had consistently been running me down and trying to get Julie to push back and pull away from me. There had been women she traded pictures with, including two who had warned her about Kate's agenda.

Some of Julie's texts hurt me a little because she had never sent anything like that to me. There were three from Kate today wanting Julie to come back over to work things out. There weren't any gaps or obviously deleted messages, and the rest of her social media supported what she had told me. This was all Tuesday night.

Wednesday morning, she was hung over and asked me if I would be home tonight. I said Pam and I were going out to a movie, and I would probably spend the night at her house. Julie sent me a text while I was at work amending her list from the other night. She had proposed going out only one night a week and having a midnight curfew, but she scratched that off the list.

She now wants two date nights a week with me. She still wants to see a therapist together. She wants six weeks to "date me" again and prove herself before I give up on her. She said she was open to talking about things I wanted to do that she had previously shot down.

I am torn as to what to do. As much as I would like to turn back time, the pain is still fresh in my mind that she caused, and there will always be a fear that Mrs. Hyde might reappear somewhere in the future.

Here are the top comments:

PassengerAlarmed303 says:

I'll probably be proven wrong but this relationship seems to be unsalveagble. Maybe a clean break would be preferable so OP will have the time to sort out his thoughts and emotions and heal from everything.

mykinkiskorma says:

Converting a monogamous relationship into a poly one seems like it's almost never a good idea. The two people need to both be on exactly the same page and equally comfortable with what's happening. That obviously didn't happen here. What a mess.

EmykoEmyko says:

At no point did I figure out what a “nesting partner” is.

RainahReddit responded:

In ethical non-monogamy terminology, it's the term for the partner you live with.

What do you think?