Queer & bipolar partners cheat on each other; shocked when they find out who with. AITA? MAJOR UPDATES.
When these two women are shocked to find out who they've been cheating on each other with, they ask Reddit:
"My partner and I both cheated on each other with the same person. AITA?"
Me(21F) and my partner "Emma"(23F) have been dating for a little over 3 years. Both of us are close friends with this girl "Vanessa"(21F) who is considerably attractive, and has previously hinted that she likes me as more than just a friend.
One day, Vanessa sent me a couple nudes of herself out of the blue. This was during a time when Emma and I were having a major fight and agreed to go NC for a bit.
I was feeling particularly lonely and selfish, so I sent some back, and it all went downhill from there. We then sexted for a week or so and eventually ended up sleeping together. I immediately regretted it after the fact, and didn't know what to do. This was ~2 weeks ago.
Fast forward to yesterday. I still hadn't confessed my infidelity. Vanessa adds all 3 of us to a shared groupchat and immediately sends out a bunch of screenshots/evidence of me cheating.
"I'm so screwed", I thought. I started panicking when Vanessa suddenly sends out even more screenshots, except these showcased Emma sending her nudes and discussing how they had sex, and how amazing it was. Vanessa then leaves groupchat.
Needless to say I was in shock. Neither Emma nor I said anything to one another until the end of the day.
She showed up at my apartment ~10pm but wasn't mad. Instead of talking about what had happened, we just cuddled on my couch for a couple hours as if everything was fine.
At some point she said "we need to be in an open relationship". I agreed with her and that was that. We eventually fell asleep in each other's arms afterwards.
We woke up this morning, exchanged a few "I love you"s, and started our days. Neither the cheating incident nor the big fight before that have been addressed, and something tells me that they never will be.
I had to type this out because I can't stop thinking about how we are both incredibly toxic individuals, yet somehow perfect for each other. AITA? I just don't know what to make of our relationship.
Before we provide you with OP's update, let's take a look at some of the top responses:
huntershadow writes:
Okay so I’ll go against some of the other comments here and say that there is absolutely nothing wrong with you two staying together AND nothing wrong with you two being in an open relationship.
That said, the basis of a healthy relationship is communication. If you guys can’t handle even a basic conversation about the fact that you both cheated and ground rules for an open relationship the whole thing is going to implode.
To be clear, it’s OKAY for you two to honestly and genuinely not be upset about this. Weird? Yes. But still okay. But you NEED to have an actual conversation.
embilamb writes:
You could bring the convo back around by saying hey, I agree we should be in an open relationship but let's talk about boundaries and what we think would be acceptable versus not okay so we're on the same page.
That way you kinda end up talking about it because issues surrounding why you guys took a break will be relevant to those choices. To make an open relationship work, you gotta communicate and that starts with "what does open look like to us".
Don't choose poly to fix the problems in your relationship. It will absolutely end badly. Choose poly because it's how you both love and works for both of you. And always let people know you are poly upfront so they can make their own choices before getting sexually or emotionally involved. Best of luck!
mythics writes:
Okay first of all, this whole situation is kinda funny to me, but I personally believe if you two did go to couples and individual therapy, I think you might just have a wonderful relationship with each other, and others along with you should you choose that route.
I’ve seen some comments on here about Vanessa doing this and ‘fixing’ the relationship and it just may be the case for this situation. It’d definitely be a conversation that you’d have to have not only with each other but maybe with Vanessa and your therapists as well, it’ll benefit the relationship in my opinion.
internationaltzs8 writes:
When you start a conversation or a post by "for context: I have X mental disorder", what you're actually doing is preemptively excusing being a terrible person. At least that's the pattern I keep noticing. Don't use mental illnesses to excuse shitty behavior, there is no excuse.
BPD is curable if you want to work on it, it's not easy by any means, but it's not a persistent disorder (also please confirm this diagnosis with multiple doctors, it might be something else). I wish you both much luck and joy in life.
partybus writes:
You all don't seem like Op asked for advice. They literally just shared it to share. Op stated they both found out they cheated and decided to open the relationship once they got " trapped," " caught,"
They both do not care about cheating and blame their " impulsively actions," like cheating an excuse and not a surprised that wither cheated.
Why be together when they are just going to sleep with other people. Open relationships are still toxic, and clearly, they don't acknowledge that their friend purposely slept with the both of them and posted the screen shots in a group chat immediately and left.
Tbh, I would be surprised if she did it on purpose to break them up because the friend likes OP.
It's not like they are ploy because they would have added the friend, but instead they said let's just open the relationship to sleep with other people so it's not " cheating " like why kind of emotional detachment is that.
Are they really not satisfied with each other se%ually to be exclusive and just say, "Let's sleep with other people as a solitude?"
I swear Gen Z brains are weird. Two broken people can not help each other. And its not the partners job to fix someone, but they are enabling each other.
They are not made for each other, and they know it. Two toxic people do not make your relationship perfect just because you both are on the BS and don't gaf because you both will cheat and not even talk about it.
You are both grown-ups acting like children . You are adults, and have a grown-up conversation. It's okay to be single and by yourself to grow and learn. You can only grow so much while being in a relationship.
I'm not sure what mental illness OP has but I hope they are not codependent on the other partner who's both toxic to where their emotions depends on that person's happiness and willing to compromise to do anything to avoid conflict because they are nonconfrontational.
Op had so much anxiety towards addressing her cheating while the gf didn't care as much. She Saif open the relationship and left it as that.
Then, OP provides this toxic update:
Both my partner and I have severe BPD, and a lot of other mental health issues. I'm personally very impulsive, and have a tendency to do harmful things without putting much thought into them. We do happen to be in therapy though.
We've both experienced a lot of toxic/abusive relationships in the past, and have previously cheated on each other.
This is why the cheating itself wasn't that surprising to either of us, it was moreso the fact that we cheated with the same person. I also want to clarify that by "open relationship" she meant that we should be able to sleep with other people, not date them.