Open Marriage Regret Novels & Stories

I noticed his jaw tightened, and his his fists clenched at his sides. “But let me make something really clear,” I continued. “If there’s anything I’ve been to you, to this marriage, it’s being loyal. I poured my everything into us, into making sure this marriage worked, into making sure we got our happily ever after like we wanted. But it’s so unfortunate that it’s been cut short. Do I regret falling in love with you? No, I don’t. Do I regret marrying you? No, I don’t. Do I regret thinking about spending forever with you? Of course not. But I regret shrinking myself and deluding myself into thinking that I needed to give you more time, into thinking that maybe you’d come around eventually. I

"The marriage? The life you had before?" I considered it honestly. "I regret that someone took the choice away from me. I regret the cruelty of how it ended and the people who got hurt in the process." I looked at him. "But if none of it had happened I wouldn't be standing here right now. So I don't know how to regret it cleanly." He stepped closer, closing most of the distance between us. "I'm glad you're standing here right now." "I know," I said softly. "I'm starting to be glad too."

She admitted she still had feelings for me, but at this moment, they were not strong enough for her to commit to marriage again. “Everett, I made it clear from the very beginning: right now, I’m only open to dating. I know we have Angel between us, and to outsiders our remarriage probably seems inevitable. My parents, Grandpa, and all our friends likely think the same—they believe that even if not for ourselves, we should remarry for Angel’s sake.

Maybe it was simply that she had finally reached the limit of what one human being could endure. "You want to know why I wasn't a virgin on our wedding night?" she asked, her voice steady now, deadly calm. "Because unlike you, I actually felt something. Passion. Desire. Something real and raw and honest. Something I've never felt with you in five years of marriage." Thomas's face had gone white with rage. "You little—" "Sign the papers, Thomas." Her voice cut through his rising fury like ice. "Sign them, or I walk out that door right now and take both children with me. See how your precious family name survives the scandal of a very public divorce."

I closed the door, and Rachel couldn't hide the delight on her face. "I knew you'd never leave me for dead. You care about me. It's not too late. I love you, you love me, we are… Sorry, I mean, we'll get the marriage license tomorrow, and I promise I'll give you the perfect wedding. Anything you want, I can—" "My God, why can't you just get it already?" I interrupted her la-la land fantasy and said coldly, "I didn't say I fell out of love with you because I wanted to spite you. I didn't say it because of Zacharias either. I meant it. I was serious. I still am."

The way they moved together looked natural, like they’d done it a thousand times before. In another photo, she was smiling up at him. Beautiful, elegant, perfect. Everything I wasn’t. I wondered if this was what regret felt like. Real, bone-deep regret. Why had I agreed to marry Eden? The question played over and over in my mind like a broken record. But looking at these photos, feeling this pain in my chest, I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d made the biggest mistake of my life. Maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe I could still leave. Get a divorce, disappear, start over somewhere far away where no one knew who I was or who I’d tried to be.

"So don't stand here and make it sound like I was some unfaithful wife who suddenly betrayed her husband. I gave that man five years of my life. I gave him my loyalty, my work, and everything I had." Rhett shoots to his feet, his hand slamming down on the table as fury burns through him. "I didn't cheat. I haven't." His voice softens as his gaze sweeps across the gathering. "I asked for an open marriage because we were falling apart. We used to be in love, but somewhere along the way, we fell out of it. Still, because of the bond we shared and everything we had built together, I decided that asking for an open marriage was better than destroying it all."

Would he be happy knowing he was going to be a father? Or would he be upset because I wasn't the woman he loved? "Really? Alright then. I have something to tell you too." I nodded. It had been hard for Nathan to share anything with me throughout our three years of marriage, and the fact that he was finally opening up to me filled me with so much joy. "Go ahead," I said. Nathan looked closely at my expression before responding with absolute certainty. "This marriage can't continue. I want a divorce." The hand I had slipped into my shirt pocket to pull out the test results suddenly went still. "What do you mean, Nathan?"

I said, reaching desperately for his hand but he pulled away disgustingly like I was contaminated. “Don’t say that.” His voice turned cold. “It only makes you look pathetic. Since you’re determined to stay, here’s how it’s going to be. We are opening the marriage and I am going to explore other options. I would have suggested you do the same, but we both know no one else would want you." The air left my lungs as the words rang in my ears. “An open marriage?” I gasped. “Caleb, no, I can't. Please, we can go to counseling and we can—”

After we remarried, I became the absolute perfect husband in Zoe’s eyes. When she stayed out all night, I stopped calling to check up on her. When she went to parties and ended up in passionate kisses with other men, I turned a blind eye and kept my mouth shut. Even at a high school reunion, when someone teased her and asked if her biggest regret was not marrying the school heartthrob, I simply smiled and smoothed things over for her. “Honestly, yeah. If I hadn’t clung to her back then, maybe she would be together with the person she truly loved by now.” Hearing that, the woman beside me suddenly panicked. “Are you serious? Won’t you regret losing me?” Regret? I let out a soft laugh.