This is a complicated situation. My first concern is for your nephew. He is young and does not have the experience, maturity or emotional development to deal with this on his own and it might (probably will) permanently harm him in some kind of way. The possibilities are impossible to measure or prepare for. To me I would think that talking to him about it and telling him that what happened was not his fault and he was the one that was taken advantage of. It might have been his first sexual experience and having that as your first, would definitely have an effect on him for the rest of his life. He is going to need therapy for this and you should help him get it and pay for it for him for as long as he needs it. You also, I think, should tell your nephew that you hold no anger or disappointment towards him for what happened and that all the responsibility falls on your wife and it is her mistake, not his.

You do realize this is going to blow up your entire family and they will be demanding, at the very least that you divorce your wife, and at most, will cut you out of their lives for this and for your lifestyle. No shade, everyone has the right to live their lives as they wish. Secrets always come out sooner or later so it is better to deal with things rather than hiding from them.

As for your wife, that is something only you and she can figure out. Alcohol is no excuse for mistakes, it is actually quite the truth serum in this situation. Alcohol does not put your good judgment to sleep, it does not stop your conscience from speaking to you when you are doing something your conscience disagrees with. The alcohol opens the door to let one throw away their self control and later blame it on the alcohol when it was in their heart and mind to do what they wanted at the time, that is all it boils down to.

There is not going to be an easy solution but your nephew should be your main concern in all of this.

This is just one of many reasons open marriages almost always end in disaster. Once that door is opened everything becomes blurry. Even if you think you’ve set firm boundaries. The mind reasons into what the body wants. That’s why people who need to lose weight go back for more dessert. Because “one more small piece of cake won’t really matter.” Excuses start being made and those “firm” boundaries start feeling a bit more flexible. Then either emotions get involved that develop into strong feelings or chemistry gets involved that develop into heavy sexual connection. Sometimes with people that are VERY inappropriate for such things. Energy that should be going into nourishing and growing the marriage is poured into other people. Leaving the marriage to slowly wither away. 

In this situation you should have spoken up if you sensed something was off but, ultimately, your wife is responsible for her own actions. She had multiple opportunities to put a stop to the sexual dynamic continuing to develop. As the “mature” (I use that word loosely) adult in the relationship with him the onus of responsibility lies with her. Given the age and family dynamic there are actually predatory vibes here. She has crossed a lot of big lines. 

Your nephew does need to leave. For his own sake as well as yours. Someone needs to have a serious conversation with him to see where he’s at emotionally. This is big thing and could negatively impact him, and his sexuality, for years to come. He needs to see a counselor to process this and his part in it. 

As for your marriage. At the very least you both need to close the marriage at this time and enter counseling. You don’t need other people/feelings clouding an already murky situation. At most you need to end the marriage. You have to decide if you can live with this or not. Can you ever trust her again? That’s the question. A relationship is dead without trust. 

NTA. You had an agreement with your wife and she broke that agreement. Your nephew doesn’t have a leg to stand on either because you don’t sleep with family members or their SOs.

You didn’t let it happen, they let it happen so they are the As here and all the guilt belongs to them.

If you decide you want to continue your relationship, I’d strongly recommend counselling both individually and as a couple. You need the help to deal with the situation and your feelings about it. Your wife needs it to understand why she lacks the moral and ethical fortitude to behave respectfully and to agreed standards.

No matter what you decide, your nephew needs to find other accomodations, you can’t heal whilst he’s still under the same roof. Whether you forgive him or not is up to you, counselling can help you here as well.

It kind of sounds like you’re wife took advantage of a young man was there for help and support. she is the a******. like your nephew shouldn’t have done it either but she probably talked him into it saying you have an open marriage and stuff like that. I could be totally wrong but from the outside looking in it looks like someone vulnerable but attractive was around and she just didn’t stop herself.

I don’t know how that means you let her do it. is she saying that someone can’t beat her house without her banging them? she needs to take accountability for her own decisions in life stop acting like things just happen. this was her home and she had control

UMMMM. ywnbta.. While open marriages are not for me, I have a few friends that are in them and based on their explanations I get it. The issue always comes when there are no rules, no reinforcement of rules, respect of communication. In theory family members should be offlimits fullstop.

But if those rules were not in place….. The best thing you can do is sort your own emotions as that is what you are responsible for always. Understand what you want and what outcome makes sense for you and then lean towards that. Be communicative and tell them you need time and don’t let anyone manipulate you going through the process.

Younger people have a reason to feel atttaction towards older adults with established lives, but older adults in established lives have no reason to feel or feed into attraction into teenagers. She most likely played into a mild crush he had and might’ve groomed him. I’d definitely talk to your nephew and get details. I’d divorce her. It’s gross.

If you can handle it, when she’s out of the picture, let him stay with you until he’s able to go on his own and ensure he is aware that age gaps are not appropriate in whatever type of intimate relationship. NTA

I think you have several options.

1/ divorce her and tell everyone what happened.
2/ divorce her and keep it quiet.
3/ do nothing.
4/ totally close the marriage from now on
5/ Close the marriage on her side only
6/ Get revenge by having sex with the person that will hurt her the most.
7/ Buy her a chastity belt and she stops drinking alcohol.

One thing you need to do now though is kick your nephew out. He is 19 not 16. He’s an adult and he needs to learn there are consequences for his behaviour.

INFO

Did you specifically talk about having family off limits? If you didn’t, well then she technically didn’t do anything wrong as it was an open marriage. Yeah, it is weird, but both were consenting adults.

If you did talk about having family off limits, then yeah, she cheated as defined in the terms of the open marriage.

Either way, she didn’t talk to you about it being OK before engaging with your nephew, so communication and trust were broken.

I’m assuming your wife has known your nephew for quite some years. That adds an extra layer of creepy predatory grossness to this. If this was an older guy and a 19 year old girl, EVERYONE would be screaming “groomer”. Well it happens the other way round too.

It’s not just the huge betrayal of trust, it’s that your wife has been downright predatory.

You didn’t let this happen. This is NOT your fault.

NTA there are certain lines you don’t cross, that being family and friends.

Did you have ground rules? If you decide to work things out with your wife then there needs to be ground rules about who is out of bounds.

If you don’t want to patch things up then I’d fully understand as it feels like the trust is broken and this could forever have an impact on your relationship with your nephew.

Unfortunately this is too close for comfort. Every time you see your nephew, it won’t feel good. This is a betrayal from them both. I hope you can salvage something should you want to, you’d be a better person than me. This doesn’t sound like part of the open agreement, as you’d known it advance right? This is cheating. How many times? Would she have ever told you? .. lots of questions.

I am curios about how many open marriages succeed or fail.

You two agreed to an open marriage. The few that I ever heard about were “do it somewhere else, not in our home”. I didn’t really think that you would have to include “and not with family “.

The fact that they both acted weird tells me that they both knew they were wrong. Alcohol is an excuse for weakness.

> not immediately shutting down the possibility of this happening?

I don’t really understand what you’re asking. Are they blaming you because you didn’t set a specific boundary?

Let be real, she needed to bring it to you if she wanted to sleep with a) someone you live with, b) a family member. If she’s denying that, then she’s being purposely obtuse.

NTA

It needs to end. There’s no coming back from sleeping with family. You’re both going to be seeing him a lot over the rest of your lives and just wait till news gets out to everyone else….which it will. It always does. Clearly it wasn’t the alcohol that gave her a bad choice. They had been ‘weird’ for ages so it was clearly on the books for a few days.

Reverse the rolls…30 something uncle with a 19 yo (not blood related) niece. We would all be screaming much louder than we are! Grooming? Inappropriate? Twisted? Having an open relationship is 1 thing…sleeping with your nephew is unforgivable. I blame her as an adult in a power position as she took advantage of him.

NTA. I’ve been in open relationships and it never occurred to me even ONCE to mess with anyone my partner is related to. Like alcohol or not that’s a hard place to come back from. Plus he’s a kid, like what the fuck man. Your wife is sick and if you somehow manage to forgive her you should apply for sainthood. Ick.

NTA. 

The problem is not having an open marriage, the problem is your wife broke the rules of your arrangement. It is especially galling considering the age of your nephew and the power imbalance between them. Only you can decide if this is something you want to try and move past. I’m not sure I could.

Is this your sister or brothers child? I have kids, I have a husband and a brother. Im a woman, your wife is disgusting. To me, this is absolutely abhorrent behavior. I wouldn’t even be in the same room with her again. Terrible, terrible judgment. Totally preventable. She wanted to do it.

Your wife took advantage of a younger person to achieve sexual gratification. She is a predator. Your open marriage has nothing to with this. She would have done this even if you guys weren’t open. She cheated.

Grow the fuck up, grow a spine and talk to a lawyer, divorce her.

Eww your wife is gross and questionable for even doing anything with a TEENAGER. Let alone YOUR teenage nephew. This wasn’t a lapse of judgment this was a buildup and alcohol is not an excuse. I would maybe talk to your nephew but your wife needs to go.

Alcohol is no excuse for what she did with a family member who’s a teenager as well!

Open relationships are one thing, but this to me says something about her character that I couldn’t get past without divorcing her.

Good luck

What the fuck. Brother, you shoulda divorced here the moment “open marriage” left her mouth. Sever ties with them both, wish you luck in putting your life back together and getting those 2 massive knives removed from your back.

YTA, but your wife is REALLY the AH.

Personally (and I think I speak for most) anyone I knew as a child I would be unable to find (or even think of?) sexually attracted to.

You & your wife are abusing your nephew.

Answers:

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

You wanted to lead a hedonistic lifestyle free of morals and values.  No commitments.  Congrats.  The scorpion you slapped on your back just stung your dumbass.

They both broke your trust. Nephew and wife need to go. It’s not only that she cheated with but who she cheated with. ..how long had this been going on? And with a 19 yr old family member? Uggg.

Your grown adult wife just took advantage of a barely legal young adult. That is so gross. Predatorial. Absolutely a violation of family trust. This is what open marriages leads to.

ESH

this was predatory behaviour of your wife. he might be an adult but he’s only 19 and she [was] a trusted family member. it’s super creepy. i could never see her the same way again. NTA

This is evil. I also think this is fake. If it’s real, YTA and your “wife” is the AH and your nephew is well mostly the victim but also the AH. Everyone is an AH. Go F yourself.

Naw. Divorce her and be cold asf when dealing with her. No emotion, just treat her like a nobody.

Your nephew? Cut him off completely.

You don’t deserve that no matter what.

YTA, if something means crossing moral or relational lines then silence isn’t neutral, it’s complicit. Protecting your family means setting boundaries not watching them crumble.

OMG!! An open marriage where somebody got hurt?!?!

Who woulda thunk it?

(Besides every person throughout history what enough to refuse to be part of an open marriage)

NTA. None of this is your fault. Your wife and your nephew have betrayed your trust in a massive way. I’m not sure if it’s forgivable for you, for me it wouldn’t be.

YTA, that’s crossing a line that should never even be in question. No matter the circumstances, family boundaries should be sacred and you failed to protect them.

NTA – even with an open relationship sleeping with your partners family is seriously fucked up, and let be honest the age gap is disturbing AF to

YTA. Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

You had an open marriage, what did you expect would happen?

NTA, why would your wife think that family would be an appropriate avenue to include in your open marriage.

That’s a divorce.

Your family should be minus a wife and a nephew…

Maybe find one of your wife’s hot friends and fuck her silly?

WOW! You wanted an open marriage well you got it.