Counter an Affair With an Open Marriage?

MILF_in_training:  Someone tell me why this is a bad idea.

We get lots of “s/he cheated on me, now what do I do?” stories. The standard advice is to Option A/B, with A going no contact and B being divorce. I’m wondering if the exact opposite might work:

Option C: We now have an open marriage. Honey, you can keep the affair going, BUT I need the OM/W’s contact info, and we (and the Other Spouse) need to all sit down together and set the ground rules. Give me the info now. Oh, and this means I’ll be able to find a lover, too. And let’s both go tell the older kids, and call out families and friends to let them know we now have an open marriage. And there’s this hottie at work ….

Do you think this would scare the cheater into reality? If the other cheater and spouse were forced to come out into the open, would this kill the thrill of an illicit affair?

Athol:  Actually that sounds like it could potentially work in some cases, but suspect it’s easier in abstract than reality.

It’s extremely hard to get cheated on people to even focus on pulling off an Option A or B without collapsing into a pool of tears and doing nothing more than begging the cheater to not cheat. Generally we have to prop them up and support them every step of the way as they struggle with the idea of taking action that can potentially end their relationship. Most people will cling to the idea of “half a loaf is better than none” until they can see no possibility of saving the marriage any other way than truly demanding the affair stop or the marriage ends.

Generally it’s simply not believable to the cheater that the betrayed spouse wants / is willing to sleep with someone else on a mutually calm and rational level. “Oh you were banging Tom? Cool! I’ve always wanted to nail Jessica, I’ll be back tomorrow morning.”

Generally the betrayed spouses willing to sleep with someone else, are hell bent on revenge and simply fucking other people to hurt the cheater as much as they can. They aren’t interested in saving the marriage, simply having it all end in the biggest fire possible.

The spouses capable and willing to try the open marriage route, are probably sexually open enough that it’s already on the table before the cheating in some sort of fashion. “Oh you were banging Tom? Why didn’t you tell me, I told you I wanted to watch if you did someone else.”

What is totally believable though, is where a betrayed spouse simply executes an Option A or B move in an icy righteous rage.  You want the cheater to have that sense of cold hard reality batting their hamster all the way up into the upper deck… “Holy crap. What have I done? I knew she was going to be upset, but I never though she would flip out like this. Oh shit, she’s got freaking divorce papers already. Oh God I’m screwed.”

What most people don’t realize is that the betrayed spouse is usually unwittingly supporting the affair by performing all their usual Beta support spouse stuff. Holding a job, watching the kids, doing the shopping, making a home, yada yada yada. Once you threaten to remove all that support, and are 100% believable, the affair relationship is going to fail under it’s own weight.

The exception being where the Other Man/Woman is willing and able to immediately bridge to making the affair their primary relationship, and their Sex Rank is higher than yours. But if that’s the case, you’re out gunned anyway. If you’re a 7 and your wife is cheating on you with a 9 and he offers your wife a permanent gig… game over.