My partner (M28) has developed a rather strong sexual interest in other women during our relationship (F23), what should i do?

48 comments

1. His behaviors are not caused by your jealousy. Keep your boundaries firm and tell him that if he doesn’t want to be in a monogamous relationship with you, then you don’t want to be in a relationship with him.

2. Reading that has just gave me the ick. He’s not a monogamous type OP. If that’s what you’re looking for, dump him and move on.

3. His thinking is either odd or bullshit. Either way can you trust him to be with only you?

4. One simple question:

   If you are already dealing with insecurity now do you really think that this will go well if you see him chasing and maybe even sleeping with other women in front of you?

   You two have a whole different set of basic rules and needs surrounding a relationship. And you can not compromise on these.
   If you are strictly monogamous there is no way you will be comfortable in a situation where your partner sleeps around.

   If I were you I would spare myself the pain and at least put my foot down. There is also a good case to be made that the difference in expectations is a good enought reason to end your relationship.

   Be aware that even if you say “no” right now it does not mean that he will stay true to his words.
   He could simply give himself permission to open up the relationship with out your knowledge or consent.

5. Out of interest, what does he expect you to do while you ‘watch’? Perch on the end of the bed? Sit on a chair in the corner? Hide inside the wardrobe?

6. Time to find a new man.

7. OP, you guys are 100% not compatible. He’s pretty much telling you that he will cheat if you don’t open yourself up to what he wants sexually and clearly, you are not the type for that.

8. If he wants to be free, then let him go.

9. You both seem to want different things in the bedroom. He has to understand that these are things that you will not change your mind on so he needs to stop suggesting them or leave to pursue them. I have similar things with my partner where by she has a lower libido than me. We currently have a dead bed situation but I am willing to sacrifice a sex life to get all the other things that she provides for me and our sons. He needs to figure out whether he wants sex with other people or a relationship that comes with boundaries with you. Best of luck to you and your english is better than some people born and reared in English speaking countries 😁

10. His desire to cheat, has nothing to do with your jealousy. I would say you are not jealous, you have astute observation… Don’t trust him, and don’t be gaslit by him. Let him go, that is why you date to see if you have a good partner. You do not.

11. If he’s not monogamy inclined whilst you are, then you’re right in that it probably won’t work out in the long run. How frequently does he bring up his interest in other women? Personally I find this disrespectful so it would be a one and done conversation, but it sounds like he’s brought it up a few times, in which case his interest isn’t going away and it would be best to break up now.

12. Gee I wonder why you’ve been insecure this entire time.

13. This is that “sunk cost fallacy” rearing its head again.

    – Your partner wants to have an open sexual relationship. You don’t.
    – Your partner is blaming you for his wanting to have sex with other women.
    – Your partner is preying on your insecurities.

    You don’t need this in your life. This is your first relationship. It doesn’t have to be your last. You can do better so by yourself.

14. This is the same story we’ve read here time and time again. Man is unhappy in his relationship because he thinks he could pull multiple women to his orbit.

    I look forward to your follow up post after you two break up and he’s begging you to get back to him, OP.

15. If he wants you to watch him have sex with other women, he’d be fine watching you have sex with other men, right? Or is he just a hypocrite?

    This man is basically priming you to accept his excuses when he inevitably does cheat on you. He’s laying this groundwork now, and trying to break down your self esteem so that when it does happen he will be able to guilt you into letting it slide.

16. >Somehow caused by my (F23) jealousy, because in his opinion this strong taboo can lead to the exact opposite (Forbidden Fruit effect i think).

    What a load of bullshit. You are being gaslighted. This guy wants a hall pass to cheat while still keeping you on the leash. That’s not love, sweetie, and this relationship is doomed. Get out while you can, before you really get hurt. Sorry.

17. Been in a similar situation 5 years ago, and my advice is to get out of this relationship because both of you have different perspectives about sexual life/experience.

    If he’s telling you and pursuing you to have 3some or other sexual experience and you’re questioning your sexuality or your desires, this is not where you belong

18. Leave him and move on.

19. You are insecure because your boyfriend is openly saying that he wants to do other woman, while being in a monogamous relationship with you. Why do people put up with stuff like this? I would make his wish come true. Make him single and he can do what he wants. He is 28 already. Do you think he will mature much more or change his mind entirely?

    You are so young. You will find something better than this. Even if it’s just the peace in solitude.

20. Dump him, there are monogamous people out there. He’s going to cheat.

21. Run!! Get out of this relationship asap, he’s chancing it and in my view, he enjoys the power your insecurity gives him and knows, after him saying this crap, that you’ll be even more insecure. Why would you want to spend your life with this creep? He’s playing games, tell him to go. I’ve been there and the first thing you need to do before you get into another relationship is to get help with your low self esteem and get him out. Good luck, you deserve so much better than this manchild

22. Omg, he is just a loser who thinks he can manipulate you because you are young and you love him and you will do everything just to keep him in your life. Please I beg you, leave him. In 4 years when you are older you will not believe you even thought about doing these things with him. You will find a better man trust me. I was also naive when I was younger and let men do stupid things to me because I was in love with them. Just dump him please 🙏🙏😫❤️

23. He knows you’re jealous. He knows you don’t want to share and yet he tells you all of this and then ends it with “I can live with my dreams not being fulfilled”. He is trying to make you feel bad so that you’ll allow him to do whatever he wants. Tell him one last time it is a no, it will always be a no and that you do not want to hear more of it.

24. Surely, Love is blind!!! 😅

25. He is slowly preparing you to start cheating and he is expecting since he is so open about it and you did not break it up during so many mentions of him with other women, he might get away with it. He “THINKS” he can live without being with other women, and you should think exactly the opposite.
    This is NOT normal.
    This is NOT your fault.
    You have instincts and they are screaming at you to do something about it, better listen to them.

    If you are thinking if this is worth ending a 4 year relationship? What do you think how you will feel if you invest 2-3-4 more and then get cheated on?
    Every monogamous person deserves a relationship where he/she is enough for their partner. You do too. This is way too serious to ignore or think it will pass or he will give it up just if he says so

26. Girl be happy that he is being honest with you but sometimes the truth hurts and his truth is not something I agree with. Leave him and fast

27. OP this may have been a great relationship 3 – 4 yrs ago, but I wonder how you can say that about the past few months. He is now showing you he has no desire to be faithful to you, he wants to be able to cheat on you and have you be waiting at home. Most of us that have been reading this sub for a while would probably bet he has already found his “3rd”, has probably already been in an EA with her, and is hoping to slip in a PA.

    Personally, based on your comments it’s time to break up and find someone that understands and believes in the concept of “forsaking all others” in their wedding vows.

    An interesting test of his true intentions would be to tell him you are interested in a threesome and are willing to find the 3rd person you can accept. Then be sure to tell him you will be having auditions for the guy and as soon as you pick one out he can schedule the MMF threesome. After that you will talk about a FFM threesome but not before you get your MMF.

28. Your man told you he wants to f*ck other women and you’re debating whether to stay or not?!!!! It’s be one thing if you were into that too but doesn’t seem like you are. Please love yourself and leave that relationship.

29. Sounds like a pretty big incompatibility. He wants to sleep with other women, you don’t want him to. He will probably cheat, or already has. He’s just looking for “permission”. End of discussion.

30. There’s quite a lot to unpack here…

    Firstly it’s not clear how he communicates this to you and what he expects out of this. I mean I can imagine him:
    – “testing” the waters to see if you’re interested in an open relationship or some kind of non-monogamy. You wouldn’t be the first couple who engaged in a threesome since… you started reading this sentence
    – unloading some confusing emotions he’s battling with internally onto you and looking for support/guidance. Maybe even looking for you to put your foot down and end it right there (so he doesn’t have to take responsibility for stopping his own feelings)
    – he’s looking to manipulate you into accepting possible infidelity in the future

    I think you should factor the above possibilities.

    I’m going to be generous to your BF because most others haven’t been and you have plenty of advice if you read him in another way. So I’ll say he’s challenged by his own internal insecurities and desires and for lack of better skills in dealing with them as well as expressing them he ended up telling you these things.

    Note: I was this guy in the past, so I’m biased to be generous towards him, but also I want to say that what he’s saying might NOT be a tragedy.

    I think it’s normal and extremely common for people to be attracted to others outside of their primary partner. Sadly infidelity is a common outcome of this. But infidelity isn’t the only outcome and non-monogamy isn’t the only solution to it either (non-monogamy is also the most difficult solution so it shouldn’t be something to explore lightly).

    If he’s affected by these thoughts you can (you don’t have any obligation) support him by validating his feelings and helping him understand them (usually these come from insecurities and toxic masculinity). In the process you should be sharing your own emotions and making this about how both of you view and experience your individual sexuality and sexuality together as a couple, this should give both of you the opportunity to find what you need in your relationship (you need reassurance and confidence building, he might need confidence and intimacy). Rejecting his thoughts means rejecting his internal feelings, leads to alienation and resentment. You can’t make someone unthink stuff. You can only help them understand why they have those thoughts and help remove the suffering that’s causing them

31. Bruh…

    He’s using mental gymnastics to justify this shit. That relationship is gonna go nowhere. He’s lying.

32. Girl, get out fast.

    He’s openly commenting on how much he would like to fuck other women directly to your face very well knowing it will hurt your feelings. He’s saying those are his greatest wishes but he THINKS he could also be happy with you (wtf is that for a partner to say??) because he wants to make you feel both guilty and thankful like he did you a favour and sacrificed himself by choosing you so you’ll never leave him and he’ll continue to mentally abuse you while having an exuse to cheat.

    Run.

33. “What can I do?”

    You can dump him, there’s a reason this almost 30 year old is going for younger women because no woman his age would put with this bullsht! This isn’t your fault, he’s just a selfish disrespectful ahole that doesn’t know how good he has it with you. You’re right love alone is not enough to sustain a healthy relationship.

    “it would be stupid to give up a great relationship of 4 years”

    You think he cares about your 4 years together while he’s fantasizing about pounding these other women? I know he doesn’t, hold your head up high and dump him. He’s not the one.

34. There is two things here to take into account:
    – He talked openly about his desires which in itself isn’t a bad thing if he wanted genuinely wanted to just talk to you about it. Although if he new you would be totally against the idea that would mean he doesn’t really care that much about his relationship with you.
    – Shaming you into thinking that his behavior is the result of your jealousy (totally normal) was really an asshole move

    Verdict:
    – 90% chance relationship is doomed
    – 10% chance he finds out these desires are not worth loosing a stable loving relationship and genuinely and demonstrates to you that he really changed

35. Let him get on with it, let him catch sti’s, let him feel insecure in years to come because he’s fucked around with people who r the same as him, let him go, u r worth 100 x more than some silly little boy that just thinks about his cock, best of luck to u

36. End it. This is going in a chaotic direction where he bullies you into sex you don’t want or just repeatedly cheats on you.

    Can I just add for the gallery, it is STILL CHEATING EVEN IF YOU KNOW ABOUT IT IF YOUR INTENTION WAS A MONOGAMOUS RELATIONSHIP AND CUT THE BULLSH*T ALL YOU FAUX POLYAMORY PEOPLE.

37. Please stop thinking that your relationship has issues because of your insecurity…your insecurity is caused by this man. If he likes thinking how it would feel to be a single man, then please help him to feel this by telling him the relationship is over. He’s using $hitty manipulation tactics to wear you down so that you’ll agree to his fantasy. I’m sorry, but this man is not worth being with.

38. Holy fuck. I read the first sentence and that is all I needed. You drove him to be attracted to other women??? Good lord please respect yourself.

39. Not him manipulating you into blaming yourself for his treacherous behavior. Leave.

40. A man can suggest an open relationship, but you are free to say no and he needs yo respect that. The problem is that is desire is still there and he can’t let the idea go.

    At this point you two don’t seem to be compatible.

41. Break up with him. You are young. This type of conversation are always a red flag if you are not looking for what he is looking. Enjoy yourself, value your values and the right person will appear. Don’t settle.

42. I was in this same relationship from 21-26 with a man 8 years older than me. It wasn’t until I finally broke it off that I started to see all the ways he had me under his thumb. This isn’t healthy. He’s manipulative and most likely a very good liar! You are young now and I know it seems like you have all the time in the world ahead of you. But you will wake up and be 30 in no time and you will regret the time wasted on a loser who didn’t care about you. You’re in your prime. You deserve to be happy and respected.

43. He is the wrong man for you. You want different things. There are men who want a serious monogamous relationship, like you do, but it sounds like it is not him, at least not at this time in his life. You did not cause this with your “jealousy”. He is gearing up to blame you when he cheats. I would leave him now.
    Edit: typos

44. He is using you jealousy as a cheating pass. I believe this is an example of gaslighting.
    It sounds like a red flag to me.

45. You leave.

    He is trying to gaslight you and convince you that you are the reason he is a crappy person and probably has cheated on you.

46. My ex-husband was like this. He wanted threescore and wanted to watch sex with other people, who wanted me to have sex with other people, and I was not having it. Divorced pretty quick after walking in on him having sex with a guy we knew. He basically wanted to sleep with anyone who would let him. I just didn’t want that in my life. When someone tells you who they are, listen to them.

47. I’m telling you this as someone who is going through the exact situation you are but 3 years older and three years into it. Please leave him. My boyfriend brought up this issue around the time I was your age, I stayed, we’ve not gone through with his fantasies, but I’ve been slowly dying for those 3 years and too afraid and in love to leave.

    Please leave now while you’re in your early twenties, don’t waste this time, hold yourself to a better standard. His words will never leave you, they’ll eat away at you and fester inside of you.

48. It’s okay to have sexual preferences, it really is. But when you don’t agree with each other on what is accepted, problems arise.

    I don’t think this relationship will work out. Especially if both of you guys are adamant on what you want. Please have an honest talk with him about this before deciding your next course of action.