'We opened our relationship, young men are throwing themselves at me. Husband's mad.' UPDATED 3X

Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it.

In a popular post on the Relationship Advice subreddit, a woman shared her marriage troubles and asked for advice.

"After we (me 35F) opened up our relationship, younger men have been throwing themselves at me. Husband (40M) is displeased."

I am 35F. Husband is 40M. We agreed to open up our marriage. I am low libido and wasn’t very interested in s*x and he is high libido. Since we opened up our marriage, mostly younger men have been throwing themselves at me. I have been very picky but there are a lot of them. My partner is a younger man who’s unexpectedly attractive to me. He is the physical opposite of my husband.

My husband is very displeased. He feels emasculated. I don’t want to close my side of the relationship but I don’t want him hounding me for s*x. Is there a compromise we can reach? Why does he feel this way when it was his idea and he is also getting action?

Redditors did not hold back.

YellowBeastJeep wrote:

He doesn’t want to “open your relationship,” he want to have sex while you don’t.

OP responded:

That’s why we opened it. He said he couldn’t stand not having his needs met

MayBAburner wrote:

If he opened things because of your LL, it could be hitting him hard emotionally, if you're now far more sexually active with others than you were with him. You're not doing anything wrong but I could definitely see him having anxiety about your romantic and sexual feelings towards him.

OP responded:

I am not far more sexually active with my other partner (I am happy with once a week) but our styles match up more than mine and my husband. My husband is explorative and likes partners who are ready to go whenever wherever. He is happy with his partners as far as I know. They have a lot of kinks they are exploring.

I need non s*xual affection, kissing, foreplay to be in the mood. I prefer a delicate, more sensual touch. I still find my husband attractive but I can’t get aroused instantly and be ready to go. It’s painful and it feels like a chore half the time. I don’t think he finds me that attractive anymore but that’s life.

DevilinDeTales wrote:

I'm curious to how you set your boundaries and expectations. Cause right now it sounds like neither of you actually had a sit down and hashed out the ugly possibilities, You just threw it open for one reason or another and now there's blowback. Seriously sit down and communicate, then do some research, take some notes, come back and communicate some more. Seek couples counseling.

grey-canary wrote:

You were happy before you opened the marriage. And you are happy with the current arrangement. He was unhappy with marriage closed. And he is unhappy with the marriage open.

A compromise implies you both change to meet in the middle, but to be honest it sounds like he is the one that needs to do some soul searching or even therapy to find out what it is he actually wants. Until he works out his own feelings/wants he won't be happy no matter what you do.

The next day, OP jumped on with an update.

I (35F) talked with my husband (40M) and we have more clarity where we stand. To clarify, I am still LL. I am happy with once a week or every two weeks. My husband is explorative and likes partners who are ready to go whenever wherever. He has a lot of k*nks they are exploring. I need non s*xual affection, kissing, foreplay to be in the mood. I prefer a delicate, more sensual touch.

I still find my husband incredibly attractive but I can’t get aroused instantly and be ready to go. It’s painful and it feels like a chore half the time. I know he doesn’t find me as attractive. He told me he needed his needs met and I couldn’t fulfill them. We opened up the relationship. My husband and I had s*x once since it began. He had learned things from his partners. We both hated it.

I didn’t like him yanking my hair hard or wrapping his hand around my throat let alone the k*nkier stuff he wanted. He hated how frigid I was. My husband needs s*x to be affectionate but we weren’t having it so he told me to go find affection somewhere else. I tried dating apps but I wasn’t interesting in hookups. I really wanted affection, romantic or platonic.

Ironically, men my age or older men were looking for younger women or hookups. Younger men and women were more likely to want affection. I ended up meeting my partner in person through a mutual hobby. I also made some friends through friendship apps. My husband and I have can do our own thing separately but my partner needs a lot of time, affection, and attention from me.

He gets a bit territorial. I don’t think he feels threatened by my husband but my husband has remarked that my partner is always over. (My husband has an apartment for his partners and lets me use the house.) Finally, I talked with my husband on why he feels emasculated. He says he is over jealousy about me. But he is jealous about partners.

He says that my partner and the men I attract are far more attractive than I should have been able to get. It made no sense as I have aged and don’t look as attractive as I did back when I was 20. Meanwhile he should be in the peak of his attractiveness. He is very put together and he expected that as an attractive older man with disposable cash that women would be flocking to him.

They do but he doesn’t like them for various reasons. Attractive young women want him to spend a lot of cash. They’re not interested in an equal relationship and expect him to spoil them. They’re bratty and entitled. Attractive young women who don’t want money have mental health issues. Young women in the k!nk community or who are poly were ugly.

Would-be mistresses would leave when they found out he was in an open marriage. I didn’t know what to say. I can’t help him with his problem.

Redditors had a lot of responses to the update.

JarFullofFarts wrote:

I said this in the other thread but start getting your affairs in order for the inevitable divorce. Y'all aren't having s*x with each other and your side dude is always at the house so already baby stepping towards that. Might as well rip the bandaid off instead of slowly pulling it on something that has no chance of working.

Squash-Reasonable wrote:

Bruh, the only young women who would be interested in an old avg to below avg looking dude are gold diggers and women with mental health issues...like what did he expect?

meowmeow_now wrote:

He still ll doesn’t understand how his wife is pulling hot guys - this dude had put zero thought into it. It’s sounds like a he’s fell for the women age like milk men age like wine nonsense.

hiddenthings_ wrote:

This may sound rude, but your husband is an AH. Sounds like he is putting you down every chance he can get. “He says I am getting people far more attractive than I should be able to get”. WHAT. Girl. You clearly are a babe. Maybe your husband isn’t getting women because he is egotistical. That isn’t attractive.

And OP responded:

He is a bit blunt but he’s not wrong. My partner is far out of my league and I can’t believe he wants me. My husband is getting women, plenty of them. He just doesn’t like them because of one small reason or another. From an objective view, my standards are much more ridiculous but I did manage to achieve them whereas he feels like he isn’t asking for much.

After receiving lots of criticism of her husband, OP jumped on with two more small clarifying updates:

UPDATE: My husband and I both thought that I would only get men interested in no strings sex or one night stands, which I would not be interested in, rather than a close, affectionate, frankly committed relationship that I desired and filtered for. Surprisingly, there were men who wanted the latter.

UPDATE 2: There are a lot of comments saying my husband has few prospects or he isn’t getting as much action as he thought. That is untrue, he is a very handsome man and has been with several women since we opened up. A lot of women are attracted to him. He has s*x with beautiful women, k*nky women, accomplished women.

He should be happy. At this point, I think he’s just looking for something to be unhappy about. There is no perfect partner that meets his requirements.

Redditors still had plenty to say in response.

danuhorus wrote:

Alright guys, place your bets. Divorce within six months or a year?

Lace-V wrote:

Yup hear this a lot with new relationships opening up - women will get hit on a lot and the guys will feel butt hurt. One of the reasons I don’t like being involved with others freshly opened relationships as you can get hurt or thrown away too easily if they decide it’s not for them anymore.

kenakuhi wrote:

Poor woman is made to feel like once a week is LL and desiring affectionate foreplay is a fault. The reason his husband doesn't feel fulfilled from the random s*x is the fact that he seems to have no emotional connection to it. Yes, kinky dominant s*x is fun, but most humans have a deep need for a romantic s*xual connection at least once in a while.

Opening up the relationship to try and fix something in the relationship usually tends to make it worse. It seems like the husband made no effort to accommodate his wife's needs, which probably would've lead to more s*x in general. I hope she realizes her worth and finds someone who really appreciates her.

Wild_Butterscotch977 wrote:

These tables have turned so deliciously.

Sounds like OP's husband has been facing a very uncomfortable reality check.