rSlash - r/Relationships Can a 19-yo Girl Date a 45-yo Man?

Episode Date: December 29, 2023

0:00 Intro 0:07 Open marriage 6:53 Dirty house 10:46 Much younger 13:09 Bad behavior Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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including Ghost Pepper, Honey Garlic and Garlic Pommajon, there's something for everyone. Mmm-mm, we got in by Popeye's and the party more often. Make any night Wing Night in with Popeyes. Welcome to our Slash Relationships, where OPs husband wants to sleep with other women. Our next reddit post is from Huntiebomb. I'm a 29 year old woman, and I'm divorcing my husband for suggesting an open marriage, and I have complicated feelings.

My husband and I have been together for nine years, married for seven. We got a not-so-classic shotgun wedding to give ourselves a better chance of receiving custody of his half-sister, who was 10 when their mom suddenly passed away. Despite only being 20 and 21 years old, we did receive full legal custody over his half-sister instead of his absent father. This information isn't super relevant to the current situation, but it really sets the tone of our relationship with the sacrifices that we've made together, and the things that

we each had to give up personally to race this beautiful little girl. We don't have any children together, but his sister is now 17 and moved in with an older, more financially privileged aunt last year. Over the past year of this newfound alone time, I feel like we've each flourished personally and as a couple. We never fight, arguments are rare, and we're pretty good at coming to understandings and apologizing when necessary.

Basically, I feel like we had a pretty healthy relationship. We each do little things for each other. I receive flowers no less than 10 times a year. We go on little vacations together and are generally really good. I guess a bit of the spark was sputtering out for a while, but I feel like that's normal for a relationship as long as ours. Fast forward to this past October. My husband seems like he's been depressed, which is normal for this time of year because of the timing of losing both his mom and dad in different years around the same time.

The holidays are tough for him, so I get it and I try to be there for him. He had previously planned a s**t attempt because of family issues before we met, so I take his mental health very seriously. He sat me down to have a serious conversation and started by saying that he wants to open up our relationship. I felt my heart dropped to my stomach, but I stayed silent and let him talk. He doesn't go into why. He just jumps right into the rules and explains that he wants me to find someone first before he starts looking for someone himself. When I asked him why, he couldn't explain it and he fumbled his words. I asked him why, he couldn't explain it, and he fumbled his words. I asked him if he already had someone in mind for himself, and of course, he denied

it. I couldn't help it, I definitely blew up. I was totally blindsided by this proposal. I slept on the couch after my outburst, and he didn't even try to come after me to explain anything, which kind of made me feel worse. I never felt so unwanted in my life than in that moment. I have never given the impression that I was the kind of girl to be open to that kind of relationship. I'll never judge anyone for wanting to live that kind of life, but it's just not for me. He went to work the next day, but I had the day off and I really thought about my situation.

After crying for hours, I came to the realization that this was the end of our marriage. Even suggesting an open marriage was a deal breaker for me, I realized while he was at work, I moved all of a stuff out of our bedroom into his sister's old room, technically a spare room now. He comes home from work ready to talk it out. After we talk through of why he wants this, I've come to realize several things.

One, he is way kinkyer than he lets on, and is disappointed with our bedroom life. He knows that I'm not on the same level, and doesn't want to push me past my boundaries to try things that he knows I won't like. When I ask how he knows that I won't like to try these new things, he explained that they're an escalation of things he already knows that I'm not down for, but won't go into specifics. He's also unhappy with how infrequently we passionately hug, but has never really put in the effort to change anything regarding it.

He just complained over and over and expects me to be just ready to do the deed any minute of the day. 2. He feels like we have nothing in common now that a sister is gone. For context, he's more of the outdoorsy type where I like to stay inside and read or play video games. I do venture out once in a while to do things that he likes together, and I do genuinely enjoy myself when I do these things.

I do understand that it's not as often as he would like though. 3. Because we got married so young, there are lots of things that neither of us really got to experience or try. Sexually, he's mourning the loss of his young twenties and never getting to sleep around and explore his kinks. 4. Part of the rules he explained was that we wouldn't technically be sleeping around with whoever we wanted.

He called it an open marriage, but described it more as polyamory, where we would each have a boyfriend or girlfriend of our own and we went on dates with them and did things together. Someone that we were each allowed to love and be with in the bedroom. An emotional connection was important for him, which broke my heart to pieces. During our talk, I told him I would never be able to look at him the same way. That I would never be enough for him, and he was basically trying to get a pass to guilt-free cheating in my eyes. I told him that it sounded like he wanted to be with someone else without ever leaving the comfort of his marriage, knowing that he could date around and not worrying if those relationships would fail because he could just come home to me. He tried

denying these things, saying that he wanted to explore himself sexually, but didn't want to lose me in the process. He tried getting me to agree to marriage counseling to talk about the open marriage concept. I told him that just proposing an open marriage was grounds for divorce for me, and I wasn't willing to go to a counselor for them to gang up on me to try to bully me into trying it. I know that in reality that would have never happened, but emotions were high in that moment.

Since I told him I could never see him the same way, and how badly this crush in his self-confidence I might have had, he doubled down. He said that if we go back into a relationship and pretend this never happened, then he would just end up cheating on me. For him, it was open marriage or nothing. I chose nothing. Divorce papers were filed exactly one week later. He was very hurt and angry that I could jump right to divorce and kick him out of our bedroom so fast. But I refuse to be a second choice or have to fight for his attention. I can't believe that he's okay with

the idea of another person being inside of me. He's willing to just give me up to explore other options. I can't believe that I wasted so much of my time with him. I helped him heal his family and raise his sister. I feel completely used. Man, that is brutal. This guy stole your youth from you. He stole your 20s from you so that you could raise his sister. Then the second she's out of the house, he's like, okay, well, I'm done with you. I'm ready to find a hot new girlfriend now so you can either agree or I'm gonna cheat on you and do it anyways. Opie, you're right to divorce.

This guy is a selfish douchebag. Our next reddit post is from Decalazo. I'm a 26 year old woman and I've been dating my 26 year old boyfriend since July, and things have been really good. It's a long distance situation, but we've managed to see each other at least once a month. So far, he's been kind, thoughtful, and no major red flags were detected on my end, until the first time I flew out to visit him I decided to stay at an air B&B since we were still getting to know each other and I went in my own space.

The trip went super well and I had an amazing time. Last week I went back to his place and he invited me to stay at his place this time. He lived with his brother and dad but his dad was away so it made sense and I agreed. When I got to his house it was late and dark so I didn't notice much other than a weird smell. They have three dogs and they live on an island so I figured that had to do with it. When I woke up I started to notice that the house was pretty dirty. Things were scattered everywhere.

They weren't hoarders but it was pretty bad. The bathroom had dog hair, dirt, and overall, it looked like it hadn't been kept up in a while. I tried to look past it since there two guys living there and kept a positive attitude. Nobody gave me a rundown about the situation or apologized for the mess, and I figured that his dad might have

a small hoarding problem with some sorts. On the second day, I started to notice even more things. The dogs don't get walked, so they poop and pee and puke inside the house. They do it in the laundry area that's right by the kitchen. They only get let out to the side yard from time to time. The dogs have to pass by the bathroom to get to it, which explains why there's so much hair and paw prints and dirt in there. I started to feel uncomfortable showering there, because I didn't feel like it was a clean environment

and I felt terrible for the animals. Then a really awful smell like puke were the appeared from the laundry area. My boyfriend mentioned it and I asked him what he thought it was. He said that it was puke from the dogs but he couldn't find where it was coming from. The day after that, he went into invite his friends over to hang out, so I told him that he had to clean up that smell at the very least before they arrived. He told me that he would if he had time, and I started feeling even more disgusted than before. He didn't have enough time the next day, and he and his brother figured that it was a great idea to burn cantaloupe incense right before their friends came to try to hide the smell.

They were hanging out on the table right by the smell the entire time they were there. At this point, I was beyond grossed out. I spoke to him about the mess, and the lack of urgency to clean up the smell, and he said that staying on top of cleaning with the dogs was an uphill battle. And he had, to some degree, given up on it. He also told me that he doesn't plan on living like that once he lives on his own, and he won't be getting any pets. As for the smell, he told me that he didn't think that it was just puke, and he thought

that it might be some kind of animal or rodent. And he said that he didn't want to clean it up in front of me, so he just brushed it off and said that he would get to it after I left. I told him that I would have rather seen whatever it was and saw at least some initiative on his part to not want to live in an unclean space. I feel weird because cleanliness is really important to me, and I just can't believe what I experienced. I don't want to, nor could I live like that in the future and I kinda want to end it but

he's a great guy in all other respects from what I've seen. How would you handle this situation? Girl, it's time to wake up here. This dude is living in an actual biohazard. If he's this uncaring with his family pets, what do you think he's gonna be like when you two have a baby? Is he just gonna let your baby stew and filth and unchange diapers for hours because I didn't have time to get around to it? Our next reddit post is from Throwaway. I'm a 69 year old woman and I have two sons. The younger one, who's 37, is married to his high

school girlfriend and they have two daughters. My older son, Sam, is 45 and he moved to New York City to focus on his career and now he's at the point where he can relax a little. All mothers love their sons, but he is objectively good looking, tall, smart, successful, and kind. He's had a couple of age-appropriate long-term girlfriends. I've always been sad that he hasn't found a life partner yet, but understood that he was doing it at his pace. Until he met his girlfriend a few days ago, over Thanksgiving, both sons flew home to us. My older son brought home his girlfriend who he's been dating for almost a year. I'd heard about her from him, and he sounded happy, but he's not the type to share that much

with me or his father. When he said that he would like to bring her for Thanksgiving, we were very excited to finally meet the girl that he's so serious about. When she walked in, we were all shocked! She looked so young, so beautiful and mature, but definitely young. I pulled him aside to ask him how old she was. He looked embarrassed and said that she was turning 20 soon. I never expected him to go for someone so young. Maybe someone 30 or 35? I know that he

wants children soon, but not someone in their first year of college. We went back to dinner. I didn't want to make the poor girl feel bad. My husband and younger son's staring was rude enough, so I was very welcoming to her. She was intelligent, nice, confident, and so on, but in the manner of a precocious teen, her family is wealthy, so she's not financially dependent. Dinner was awkward, but fine. At the end of the evening, everyone went to bed, but it made me feel so nauseous to know what was happening in my own house. The next day, they had to leave early so that she could see her family. My son went to visit his childhood friends in our hometown, but he's coming back tomorrow.

Is this relationship possibly healthy? Can I voice my concerns, or is it none of my business? Has anyone dealt with something similar in their family? Hmm, I find it interesting that he was willing to take her to visit his family, but she wasn't willing to take him to visit her family. Do you think maybe she's so embarrassed by her older boyfriend that she's afraid she's gonna get cut off from mommy and daddy's money? Our next Reddit post is from Throwaway.

I'm a 39 year old woman, and I've been married to my husband, who's 45 for 8 years now. He is a friend, Brian, who's 40, who worked with my husband at his old job. Brian has a wife, Helen, and a young daughter who's 4. Brian and my husband used to be close friends and drinking buddies, but they haven't hung out in person for several years. My husband has told me in the past that he no longer wants to talk to Brian because he's a negative person, but they still text and call each other sometimes.

Last week, I heard my husband on the front porch talking on the phone. I thought he sounded different, so I put my ear against the front door to listen. I know, I know. Basically, I pieced together that Brian was cheating, or was trying to cheat on his wife when he goes out drinking, and my husband encourages it. They were joking about Brian's friend switching partners and having a threesome, which I thought was weird and out of character. Then I heard my husband say, so you went to the bar. Did you get any action? Like it was a normal question that he asked all the

time. They also mocked Helen for calling Brian 50 times to check up on him when he was out and joked about her installing a GPS tracker on Brian's phone. My husband said that Brian used to be careful with his phone because he didn't want Helen to see text between Brian and my husband. Guys, my husband sounded like a totally different person. My stomach dropped as I heard everything. I'm still in shock. I never thought my husband would condone cheating,

but to also be so calm and almost gleeful about it, I'm feeling hugely disillusioned. And I'm thinking about all the times that Brian and my husband used to go out to the bars years ago. And when they were doing that, was my husband also cheating? My thoughts have been spiraling

and I'm walking around in a days. My husband doesn't know what I heard, but I feel like everything's changed. I know that I need to talk to him, but I don't know how. Well OP, I've got a core group of like 5 guy friends that I talk to just about every day, and if one of them started bragging or discussing their plans to cheat on their partner, I'd probably start talking to this person, even though this person's been my friend for like 20 years at this point. So unfortunately OP, I think your husband is either a bad person or he's fantasizing

about being a bad person because he's trying to vicariously live through his bad friend. That was our slash relationships, and if you like this content, be sure to follow my podcast because I put out new Reddit podcast episodes every single day. That was our Slash Relationships, and if you like this content, be sure to follow my podcast because I put out new Reddit podcast episodes every single day.