This isn’t about BDSM. It’s not even really about the open marriage. Those are red herrings which attract thread views and opinions about irrelevant “scandalous” topics.
It’s about cheating, plain and simple. She’s making agreements about boundaries and not keeping them, and she’s lying about it. That’s cheating, open marriage or no.
So what I would tell him is the same thing I’d tell any person whose partner was cheating repeatedly: live with it, get counseling, or get out. You cannot change them, you can only decide if you are okay with it. You are the only person you can control.
Honesty and keeping your word are the bright line, same as in a monogamous marriage. Even monogamous marriages have different rules from one another - in some, you can go to lunch with a preferred gender friend, in others you can’t. In some you can flirt with her friends, in others you can’t. In some you can have emotionally intimate friendships with people of the preferred gender, in others you can’t. Open marriages require exactly the same sort of conversation and agreement on boundaries, the boundaries are just a little broader than you’re probably familiar with.
Cheating is when you agree to a boundary - a behavior - and you break that agreement.
I don’t think I’d agree that all open marriages are a bad idea. I’ve certainly known some people who have marriages that operate that way.
What I do think is that the vast majority of open marriages are inherently unstable. People change over time and what might work for one partner might not in five or ten years. That would require altering the understanding with open communication.
Now, I understand that even monogamous marriages are also unstable. But in my observations, open marriages exceed the instability of monogamous marriages by several factors. Whether that’s due to the open nature of it leading to outside emotional bonds, or the fact that people in open marriages are simply more prone to instability or whatever, I’d hesitate to even guess.
Still, if the communication is there and all partners are willing I see little reason to avoid an open marriage.
Well, of course not. Anecdotally, though, it seems like every open marriage I hear about ends up like this. Open marriages expose themselves to ‘emotional cheating’ risk all the time.
I know it’s anecdotal, and there’s probably a confirmation bias, because my exposure to open marriages is largely the internet, where you don’t hear about them if they’re going swimmingly.
I din’t get most of the comments in this thread, frankly. Two points in particular :
-Remove BDSM from the equation. This woman met another man who satisfies her more than her husband for whatever reason, and as a result stopped respecting the established boundaries to spend all her time with this other man. The husband quite sensibly decided to cut his losses and walk away. This marriage is just breaking apart in a pretty ordinary way. I’m not sure what there is even to discuss.
-Now, at the contrary, about BDSM : all the posts stating that he should play into her fantaisies, impose himself as the Master, could try with at first a blindfold, etc… don’t make any sense to me. Either he is into BDSM, or he isn’t. If he isn’t, pretending won’t cut it for his partner, and won’t be satisfying for him, either. You can’t pretend all the time and expect that anybody will be happier for it. You could as well tell a gay man to pretend to be straight. There’s a peculiar dynamic, and peculiar feelings to an actual BDSM relationship that aren’t present in regular couples “playing” BDSM-related fantaisies. The husband couldn’t give his wife what she apparently wants, and he would make himself miserable trying to.