Dear Care and Feeding: My Daughter Discovered Our Open Relationship in the Worst Way
Parenting advice on open relationships, infertility, and sibling sadness.
Dear Care and Feeding,
My wife and I have been married for 22 years, and have had an open marriage for the past 10 years. Recently, our 19-year-old daughter was somewhere I wasn’t expecting her (in a different city where we live) and saw me with the woman I have been sleeping with for the past 18 months. We were in an intimate embrace, and she correctly inferred our relationship, but did not make her presence known to me. However, she confided in her mother. My wife told me our daughter saw us and now thinks I am having an affair. I asked my wife if she set the record straight about our open relationship, and the fact that she was actually with her lover at the same time I was with mine. She said that she doesn’t feel comfortable with our children knowing we have an open marriage.
I am frustrated and angry and feel betrayed. The open marriage was something my wife and I agreed on together. I get feeling a little uncomfortable about admitting something so intimate to our children, but I think that the alternative—them thinking that I am a cheater who is cheating on their mother—is much worse. My wife says I should have been more careful, and that it will blow over. I disagree and want to tell all three of our children (19, 17, and 15 years old) immediately. She has told me she’d rather put an end to the arrangement than tell them. I told her we could do both, but that I was at least talking to the 19-year-old, telling her about the arrangement, and also telling her siblings if she has already told them about my supposed “affair.” My wife doesn’t like this plan, either. Should I go ahead with it anyway? I know my wife is just trying to save the image the children have of her, but in the process she doesn’t seem to see that she is influencing the way the children see me and my relationship with them. I’d rather my children see us as sexual beings with an open marriage than to see me as a cheater and their mother as a wronged party.
—Swinger in Syracuse
Dear Swinger,
Whether you should’ve been more careful seems not worth litigating now; the cat’s out of the bag, and I don’t think your 19-year-old is going to just forget about it. Your feelings and your wife’s are both valid, but given that your daughter is now dealing with the fallout of what she thinks she saw, I think it’s worth framing your discussion and decisions around what is best for her, going forward. Is it better for your daughter to know the truth, or to persist in believing a painful falsehood? If her well-being is the priority, it’s really hard for me to see any option other than honesty.
To be clear, I don’t think it’s your place to share details about your wife’s intimate relationships with other people—she has every right to keep that information private if she chooses. But sharing the fact of your open marriage is another matter, and I believe it’s far better to explain this than to let your daughter believe you’re having an affair. Of course, it would be ideal if you and your wife could explain it to her together, calmly, as a choice adults in a relationship can make together—or at least agree on why telling her is the best option. However you approach it, you will need to find more common ground around how much you share, because it is important for her to know, and soon. And I think you and your wife should also discuss when and how you might have similar conversations with your other two children, as hearing this from you is preferable to them finding out on their own or from their sister.
I can understand your wife’s desire for privacy. And if she truly can’t imagine telling any of your kids, ever, perhaps she has more complicated feelings about your arrangement than she once did? But in any case, your daughter needs to know enough to understand what she saw. And I think that’s probably the best way to consider this question, and to frame the conversation with your wife: not focusing on the goal of damage control, or trying to control how your children see either of you, but recognizing that it is obviously better for your 19-year-old to know the facts than to hold a mistaken impression that is undoubtedly causing her pain.
-Rest of it is gay shit irrelevant to this cuck faggot-
