Internet Backs Husband Who Revealed Open Marriage 'Secret' to His Wife's Family

The internet has come to the defense of a man who said in a now-viral post that he recently told his wife's family about their open marriage.

Posting to Reddit's "Am I The A**hole" forum on Wednesday under a throwaway account, the man explained that he and his wife Rebecca have "hidden a lot of aspects about [their] marriage" from her "very religious" family.

So far, the post has received more than 10,000 upvotes and over 1,100 comments.

At the beginning of his post, the man told Redditors that his and Rebecca's relationship has been open from the start, but this had been kept a secret from her family.

That changed, however, after someone from Rebecca's family caught her husband at a bar with another woman.

"Well, today we went to Rebecca's sister's 'baby shower' (the large baby shower was canceled since the plague so it really was dinner with her family)," the husband wrote.

"We get there and everyone is glaring daggers at me. The whole thing is tense until we get to a slideshow on her sister showing pictures of the nursery and other baby stuff. In the slide show, there was a picture of me with the girl at the bar," he claimed.

Rebecca's family yelled at him for "cheating," but Rebecca said nothing. Upset, the man finally told the family that he and Rebecca have an open marriage, and the two left.

In the car, Rebecca told her husband that he'd "betrayed her trust." Her husband retorted with: "You would rather make me out to be a cheater than tell the truth."

Now, the two aren't speaking and Rebecca's husband is sleeping on the couch.

Many Redditors were quick to defend Rebecca's husband. Many argued that not only was Rebecca wrong to "throw [her husband] under the bus" but that her family was also wrong to address his alleged cheating at a family gathering.

When it comes to telling a friend—or in this case, a family member—that their partner is cheating, Dr. Megan Stubbs told Bustle that it's a good idea to do some research.

"Before you start accusing people or gossip with mutual friends, make sure what you're seeing is cheating," she said. "It's also important to note that your friend may have an open relationship with their partner."

Stubbs also recommended that readers ask their friends about the state of their relationship before divulging that their partner may be cheating.

"Ask how the relationship is going," she advised. "If positive, try something like, 'I care about you and your well-being very much and I wanted to talk to you about something I saw between your partner and another person. Maybe I misread the situation, but here is what I witnessed."

As previously stated, many Redditors decided that the husband wasn't in the wrong to reveal his and Rebecca's secret to her family.

"Hoo boy, I was so primed to write Y.T.A. [you're the a**hole], but no, NTA [not the a**hole]. Your wife was perfectly willing to throw you under the bus, and that should put her on the couch, not you," wrote u/JudgeJudAITA.

"NTA. She [Rebecca] was throwing you to the wolves to save herself. You had every right to defend yourself," said u/talibob.

"I don't know if I should be more mad at a family who would rather publicly blindside their own family member than respectfully tell her privately that they've seen her husband with someone else, or with OP's [original poster's] wife for letting her husband be attacked by her entire family when she knew he wasn't cheating and could have defended him," added u/higaroth.

Newsweek reached out to Rebecca's husband for comment but did not hear back in time for publication.