My husband and I are both 27, and we have been together for six and a half years, having married about two months ago. While our relationship has had some rocky periods, it felt as though we had been going strong this past year, and we are currently attending couples therapy to work on our communication.
This Sunday, a situation arose involving an old female friend of his who has been a source of contention in our marriage. Two years ago, we sought therapy because I felt he had been disrespectful toward me in front of her (amid a rocky time we were already having) and we almost broke up. Because of this history, shes become a sensitive topic. When he was on her Instagram recently, he told me he was only looking at a baby reveal. However, when I asked to use his phone to look up information for my mother, he quickly deleted the browser tab. I only knew because it showed on the bottom that he deleted it before handing it to me. He later explained that he did this subconsciously, knowing how I felt about her. But this year we had a dinner with her and her husband and everything was friendly and pleasant.
Because of this, he offered to let me look through his phone to show he wasn't hiding anything. At first, I declined, wanting to maintain trust. But the uncertainty weighed on me, and with our next therapy session not until this Thursday, I told him last night I would like to look through his phone. I gave him the opportunity to bring up anything he was worried about beforehand, promising to handle it as a conversation rather than an act of deceit. He thought for 30 seconds then said there was nothing there other than usual porn (which we both are ok with).
While looking through his device, I found two Gemini AI chat logs from May. During that time, we were helping a close friend of mine, who I have known since before I met my husband, and her wife, after my friend had been hospitalized. We are so close that they actually officiated our legal marriage at the hospital that week. In the first AI log (when they married us and my bff was hospitalized), he asked about polyamorous relationships in general. In the second log, dated the day after we spent a week hanging out at their house 3 weeks after the hospital stay, he asked for advice on how to initiate a polyamorous quad relationship specifically involving those two friends. This planning was happening entirely without my knowledge, even as we discussed the possibility of him being a sperm donor for them to help them start a family.
When I showed him the chats, he said he was simply "planning in case I ever wanted to do it". It led to a large argument and now we're stuck in a house together until we can talk to our therapist Thursday.
This experience feels like a continuation of a pattern I have struggled with. Last year, for instance, a heater in our home was broken. I had heard him messing with it, but when I asked him what happened, he initially swore he didn't know. It wasn't until I pushed for the truth that he admitted to it. We discussed this with our therapist, and he promised to be more honest and transparent, but incidents like these have left me feeling as though I am constantly playing detective with him and can't take him for his word.
I am now struggling to reconcile these events. I don’t know if I can trust him around my bff and her wife anymore, and I find myself wondering if this lack of transparency and the habit of secret planning represent a fundamental incompatibility, or if this is something that can be resolved.
Tl;dr: I just found out my husband has been secretly planning a polyamorous life with our friends while lying to my face. I'm newly married and don't know if this is salvageable or if I should just leave.
Image: A healthyish cupcake, Bread, Cheese & Grapes. A fancyish meal for a fancy lady with her fancy cat.