best friend with benefits

Keep it to yourself unless you are prepared for a worse-case scenario, ie; looking for a new place to live.
BTDT and coming clean will forever destroy any chance of regaining trust.

 

Amazing how people in a non-open relationships have the answers. Keep it to yourself & deal with the guilt & keep stringing him along. Yeah, that's win. pretty shitty thing to do. Either fix the dude or move on. Staying & stringing along for the sake of having a place is pretty fucking stupid. Sure it's a happy home.

 

Don't see how being in an open or non-open relationship has anything to do with the validity of opinions/advice given by the others on the issue of telling or not.

Regardless, I couldn't agree less with the don't-tell camp. Keeping quiet about it is dishonest (dur), unfair, unreasonable and a perfect example of failed moral/ethical values.

Many people seem to believe they have the right to temporarily alter the reality of things for other people just for the sake of convenience; completely ignoring that the other person does have a vested interest in being aware of the full picture and that it is their decision only how to deal with what happened, not yours.

Then again, what could you possibly expect from people who choose not to face the consequences their own actions would cause for them?

Responsible and adult individuals, my ass.

 

Open relationship obviously plays a part if she had the discussion abt being with another man and he agreed but broke the rules

 

It may play a part in how the situation developed, but the opinions of the others simply address the issue of whether she should tell her partner, given that she broke the rules.

You don't need to be in an open relationship to be able to make a statement on that.

 

Maybe I'm too old school to voice my opinion on the subject but I will anyway.

I have to wonder how you having an affair outside of a "loving" relationship and his condoning it can be deemed in any way helpful in your case. Sure, you get your sexual needs met and he gets some guilt off his back for not being up to par with you, but in what other ways do you feel that this arrangement is going to benefit your relationship in the long run? Just my opinion, but in my view, your situation is outside the scope of "open relationship" as the open part is strictly one sided. Or at least it appears to be. His decrease in sexual desire may find it's renewal in someone other than you. How would that make you feel? Are you prepared for that?

I've always considered an open relationship an agreement between both parties to experiment with other partners. There are as many reasons couples choose this kind of relationship as there are these kinds of relationships. Some are healthy and for healthy reasons. Some, maybe most, are not. But that's beside the point because I consider yours (from what you've said in your OP) to be less an open relationship than a way to ignore the elephant in the room.

Have you two discussed any options other than this one such as sex and couples therapy or medical intervention for his lack of sexual desire? That should probably be first on your list, assuming you two haven't already pursued these options.

The real issue here, as it appears to me, is not whether or not you should tell him you've already been with someone but how the hell do you two move forward with your relationship? When do you get down to really addressing the fact that he is not satisfying your sexual needs (and whatever else may be lurking) and do something constructive about it?

It's not my intent to come off as presumptuous or judgmental. I'm going by what you've chosen to reveal about your relationship, making some assumptions (possibly unfairly), and voicing my opinion based on what experience I do have, such as it is. And like I said, I'm a bit old school when it comes to these things.

 

If I was the betrayed one, I'd like to know, no matter what the reason. It would be only fair to let me decide, what to do about it on my part. If not for anything else, then to make the partner feel miserable... of make a victory dance...