AITAH for wanting to close my open marriage?
My husband (30m) and I (28f) have been together for over 10 years. About 5 years ago I asked if he would be interested in opening our marriage. Since we started dating kinda young I hadn’t really gotten the chance to date and I wanted to experience sex with other people. I had no intention of leaving my husband, I just wanted to explore. He was a bit hesitant but agreed. During the time our relationship was open I dated 2 guys but my husband didn’t have much luck. I’m not sure if this is because he wasn’t trying or just him being unlucky. About 3 years ago I became pregnant and decided I didn’t want the relationship to be open anymore because I wanted us to focus on our family. We had kinda discussed it but hadn’t officially closed it.
After our son was born (around 2022) I became more certain that I wanted to close the relationship but my husband said he didn’t want to. I was a bit taken aback but I tried to be understanding. He made a remark about being in some sort of hypersexual stage in his life and since I knew I wasn’t feeling quite like myself anymore since the pregnancy I tried to just accept his want to continue to be open. However, I still kinda felt like we should be more focused on our family. I tried kinda dating a guy for a bit but I just didn’t feel the same anymore and I once again went to my husband asking if he was ready to close the relationship. He said if I wanted to close the relationship now it would be a problem, which I didn’t understand. I asked him if he was seeing someone and he told me no. It seemed a bit odd to me that he would be so adamant about our relationship being open if he wasn’t but once again I let it go.
After the conversation I kinda felt like he was trying to punish me because he didn’t really want to be in the open relationship when I first suggested it but I also feel like if he didn’t want to he could have just said no. I don’t feel like I pressured him into our relationship being open but I do think that he wasn’t super into it. However when I would check in with him he was just kinda whatever about it. I can see how I was wrong for not closing the relationship then but at the same time when I would ask him if he wanted to close the relationship he would be kinda sarcastic and upon further discussion just say it’s fine. So I can see how I should have just taken that as a sign to close the relationship but I didn’t and I see now how that was selfish. However, I feel like I have been clear since my pregnancy that I want is to focus on our family. When we didn’t have a child I felt like it didn’t matter because we didn’t need to be concerned about another person but now that we have a child I’m not comfortable or know how to manage an open relationship in a way that will not have detrimental consequences on the children.
So for about a year after our son was born he was adamant about the open relationship continuing even though I wanted to close it and I did my best to be understanding even though I did not like it. He actually started seeing someone about 9 months ago and I didn’t like it but he said he just wanted to have his fun like I did. Okay fine. He told me she would be moving so it would only last about 4 months. Fast forward 4 months and he told me that her plans changed so she would still be around for another 4 months. During this time I learned I was pregnant with our second child and so I really started to feel like I wanted him to be more present to support me through my pregnancy since we already have a toddler. I once again expressed this and he told me that she’d only be around until January 2025. Now I’m annoyed because I am due October and he’s making it seem like it’s not big deal that he wants to continue seeing her when we’ll have a newborn and a toddler to care for. I told him that it’s really not fair and that I don’t like it because he’s repeatedly pushed back the date and it feels like his exploration with the woman is much more emotionally invested than he’s leading on. I also worry that January will come and he’s going to tell me that she’s staying longer. He’s talking about only seeing her 2 or 3 times a week once the baby comes but that seems like to much to me when I’ll be healing from delivery and we will now have 2 kids under 3.
I definitely feel like he is too emotionally invested and it’s starting to feel like he’s cheating on me. I know that sounds ridiculous because we are technically still open and I feel like since he didn’t do more exploration in the beginning it’s not fair for me to close the relationship when he seems to be having fun now. However, no one was stopping him from exploring before we had kids so why now?
I told him I can’t do this anymore and that I cannot accept him continuing this relationship past September. He told me that it was too bad because he had no intention of ending it.
Would I be the AH if I decided to divorce him? What am I supposed to do if I’m no longer comfortable with our relationship being open?
EDIT: Overall consensus is that I’m the AH. I agree. I appreciate all your comments and suggestions. I just feel guilt at possibly divorcing him. Like you all have said, I did this to myself so now it almost feels wrong to not accept the consequences.
Thanks everyone for your input.
EDIT: Just a clarification, I didn’t explain well. We were not married when we opened the relationship. We got married about 1.5 years after opening the relationship. And honestly, I stopped participating then. I did not get married because I became pregnant. The pregnancy happened months later.