My boyfriend agreed to an open relationship – until I started getting much more action
DEAR DEIDRE: MY boyfriend happily agreed to an open relationship but now that I’m getting a lot more action than him, he wants to go back to being monogamous.
The problem is, I feel like the genie is out of the bottle and I’m not sure I want to go back.
I’m a 23-year-old woman and he’s 24. We met at university and have been together for four years.
I have always felt like I met him too soon. While I love and respect him and do want to spend my life with him, there is so much more I want to experience first.
I want to travel and meet different people. If I’m honest, I want to have more sexual experiences before I settle down.
My mum and dad were childhood sweethearts. It’s sweet they are still so dedicated to each other but I don’t want such a predictable life.
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I’d always told my boyfriend I was interested in an open relationship and he’d never outright rejected the idea, but when I got a job as a teacher in Italy I felt strongly the time was right to put my plan into action.
We both love each other and want to stay together and this arrangement seemed to me the best way to stay romantically involved and sexually satisfied while living in different countries.
We agreed to give it a go.
That was six months ago and since then I’ve had four partners in Italy, while my boyfriend has had none.
He says it’s much harder for him to meet anyone as he’s still in the same place and everyone knows we are still together.
He says the open relationship isn’t working for him any more.
But I’ve got another six months here and want to make the most of having fun.
I’m sure he’d feel differently if he were getting some action.
And isn’t he being unreasonable by going back on our arrangement?
MORE FROM DEAR DEIDRE
DEIDRE SAYS: Your boyfriend agreed to try an open relationship, that doesn’t mean he has to stick with it.
I think you know there is no compromise to be made here and only a difficult decision.
Either you decide that you don’t want to risk your future with your boyfriend, in which case you’ll agree to return to your monogamous relationship.
Or you’ll need to finish with him so that you can enjoy meeting different people and having different sexual encounters.
While it’s simple to write, I understand this won’t be an easy decision to make, and talking to a therapist would help you work through this decision.
My support pack, How Counselling Can Help, explains more.