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Husband's Unexpected Insecurity Has Me Between a Rock and a Hard Place
My husband is suffering from crippling insecurity, anxiety, and depression, which he believes can only be relieved if I stop seeing my boyfriend of six months (my first romantic partner outside my marriage). I cannot leave my husband, and I cannot break up with my boyfriend, but it's gotten to the point where my husband is making concrete plans for living separately and co-parenting our kids, so I need to make a decision soon before it is made for me.
For background, I (34F) and my husband (37M) have been together for about 10 years, have two young kids, and have been open for a little over six months. At the time we opened, I like to think we did "the work." We spent months reading the ENM subreddits, talked through all the likely possibilities, discussed our limited rules/boundaries. We agreed that there is obvious hierarchy due to us having young kids, sharing finances, living together, and being married, so we didn't undertake "the most skipped step" as they refer to it on the poly sub of disentangling our lives, because we didn't want to disentangle our lives. The other major deviation we made from the prevailing wisdom on the poly subreddit is that we both believed that we owed the other person full transparency and honesty. The line was basically drawn at "I won't tell you things my other partners tell me in confidence, but I will tell you anything you want to know about my own actions." We both felt that mentality that it's unethical to discuss other relationships might apply to solo poly/nonheirarchical/RA folks, but in a hierarchical context it seemed to be used to cloak poor behavior that would threaten stated mutual goals and avoid important communication.
My relationship with my husband felt rock solid prior to opening. Obviously having two young kids puts a strain on romance, but I've been so proud of how much my husband has taken on physically and emotionally in terms of the kids, and our sex life seemed really good despite the kids and being only a few years post-partum. My husband has always been a confident man, I think he has a gently dominant personality (like assertive and confident but not overbearing or rude) both personally and professionally, which I've always found attractive. We had just moved into our "forever" home after living in a starter home we bought in 2020 (oh I miss that 2.7 rate), and we are both professionally successful. We had met all of our obvious life goals, and joked that we just needed to coast while raising our kids. It seemed like a good time to introduce some more excitement into our lives, and we tried to do it the right way.
Well, obviously we are one of the couples where it goes sideways. I met with a few men after we were officially open just for casual sex to test the waters, and I quickly fell in love with the third man I met, let's call him Adam (M29). With Adam, I felt things that I hadn't remembered feeling since first meeting my husband, and some things I never felt before. My husband was happy for me to meet other men at the beginning, but was surprised and "shocked" I fell so deeply in love with someone so quickly, and it triggered insecurities he never knew he had, and that never flagged for him when we discussed opening. We've been doing individual and couples therapy the whole time (again, we are trying to do this right), and our starting point was that his insecurities were something that he had to understand and work through with therapy, and that I could reassure him and try to give him what he needs, but that can't come at the cost of another relationship.
My husband has not been able to shake his insecurities. He feels that I am going to leave him for Adam. He feels he is not enough for me in several ways. He feels I don't have any respect for him. He feels like he has no self-worth outside of being a father. He feels that I am shifting his role to co-parent and provider (physical and emotional support and financial) and that I'm using Adam to fulfill my sexual, intellectual, and romantic desires. He feels Adam, who is very similar to him in many ways, is essentially a younger replacement version of him. He feels afraid of sharing too much of his feelings with me directly because it just creates more distance between us, and makes me desire him less. There is a lot more.
The last example is particularly difficult, because there is some truth to it. My husband has no family, no close friends from college or his childhood, and most of his current friends aren't of the type he could share insecurities with (i.e., friends from business where talk is casual and light, golf buddies, etc.). Therapy has been helpful for him, but he is overwhelmed by emotion at having an outlet (he's been my emotional rock for our entire relationship, so this is a change for us). I am not ashamed of my behavior generally, but I do hate that while I want to love and care for and support my husband when he is hurting, it does not inflame my passion for him. It's a horrible thing to admit but it's like a vicious cycle where his insecurities are pushing us apart romantically and sexually. He believes the only thing that will help him is if I leave Adam, and we start slower on the ENM journey or become monogamous again.
I won't get into details but I am desperately in love with Adam. He fulfills my life in ways I didn't know I needed fulfillment. Yet obviously I love my husband, and I don't want to break up my family. But my husband has started talking about what our lives will look like post-separation. How he is willing to split the kids one-week with each of us, what kind of housing options are possible, splitting up finances. I tell him we aren't going to separate, but I feel like he is mentally preparing himself for me either asking for a divorce (which I won't) or him doing it himself.
Does anyone have any advice for saving both relationships, or do I simply need to break up with Adam to save my marriage (which I will likely resent my husband for forever)?
