is this equal to cheating?

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During my teenage and adult life, I have moved back and forth between the US and south america, and I have been in a long distance relationship for the past 7 years where we talk every day but see each other maybe 1-3 months a year. Although I am not religious, I would not consider a girl for a serious relationship (at least at this age) if she has previous sexual partners. Something about settling for another guy's sloppy seconds just really turns me off. My girl was a virgin when I met her, but when I moved back to the US, I convinced her to have an open relationship, since we would be apart for a while. She finally agreed to the open relationship, and about a year and a half later, she slept with a guy (the only time she did this) and called me up the same day crying about it. Then, a year and a half after that, she was about to sleep with another guy, but called it off at the last minute because she didn't want to hurt me. I know she didn't mean to hurt me with the first guy, and I had to talk her into the open relationship in the first place, it still bothers me and I cant get past it. The thought of her giving her body to another man in order to satisfy some sexual desire that I wasn't fulfilling repulses me, even if it was 5 years ago, and even though she never tried to hide it from me. On top of that, every time I try and talk about this with her, she tries to be polite but ends up getting very uncomfortable with the topic. And the few times we've talked about it openly, she ends up admitting things that I don't want to hear, like telling me that she was curious about sex with another man because sex with me was not as satisfying as she wanted.
The worst part about it is I could have stopped all this from happening 5 years ago with a simple phone call telling her "no more open relationship." In fact, I wouldn't even have had to give up my freedom. Right now, the agreement is that, when we're apart, I can f**k around with other girls but she can't with guys. And she seems to be fine with this, recognizing that as a man, I am not going to turn down an opportunity for sexual release, and at the same time if she were to get with another guy, it would damage our relationship beyond repair. I only with I had realized all this 5 years ago.


P.S. I would appreciate responses from more traditionally-minded people who understand the differences between men and women. I would prefer not to get responses telling me I'm sexist, or telling me I shouldn't care about a woman't "purity," or that there is nothing wrong with a woman pursuing casual sex like a man.

Do you ask if what she did is equal to cheating, or what you do?

By the way traditional minded people doesn't mean that they think the man is allowed to f*** around and the woman can't. Unless you mean like traditional in 34 B.C.

This is really simple: If you want an open relationship you'd have to accept that your partner shows interest for other guys, otherwise you are not up to it and you shouldn't suggest it. Additionally, unless you are asexual, an open relationship usually also means your partner can have sex with other guys. If you cannot accept that, you can negotiate that neither of you can have sex with other people while still being allowed to connect emotionally to others.

IMHO, you simply cannot keep this one-sided so you can do whatever you want while your partner cannot.

So in response to the question, I don't think anybody cheated given you negotiated an open relationship.

Personally, I can handle polyamory, but I wouldn't be able to handle my partner having sex with other guys. That's simply disgusting so I would think she was disgusting just by doing that. As I'm asexual myself, I wouldn't want to have sex with anybody (unless I wanted to reproduce). That means I need a partner that is asexual, and preferentially polyamory.

If they agreed to a relationship open only for him, it's perfectly okay. It's nobody's business but theirs.

I wouldn't want a relationship on unequal terms for myself, but this is irrelevant.

This is really more on you and not her, not to mention the fact that you clearly lack both sexual-knowledge & experience, otherwise sex with you would have been satisfying to her to such a point where she wouldn't have felt any need nor curiosity about what it feels like to have sex with any other guy. When you capture a girl's heart whilst she's a virgin, she would have definitely kept herself just for you, even in a long-distance relationship, but at this point you were simply inexperienced with the pros & cons of relationships, and from the sounds of it she doesn't really want you to disappear from her life (probably because it sounds like she's probably not very sure if any other guy would be willing to stay with her for as long as you have & that kind of thought probably scares her which is probably why she's agreed to such things with you, but as it's not necessarily « cheating » that you two have agreed to in your relationship, the agreement-terms are somewhat lop-sided, and I've been in relationships before where the woman wanted to keep me so badly [even though she wasn't a virgin] that she even exclaimed out that I could have as many other girls as I wanted, but for me to just not leave her [i.e.: she wanted to keep me for her man so that she could continue riding me every day, and we were often doing each other several times a day, but she made it clear that it didn't feel too good to her that I had any sexual-interest in other {younger} females, although she'd have preferred letting me do it with every girl that I wanted just as long as our relationship were to continue, for no other man in her entire life had made her feel as much happiness as I was able to give her]).

Not everybody is able to be honest with their feelings, and of those who are, feelings may end up getting hurt, and you shouldn't be putting either her nor yourself into situations where feelings may get unnecessarily damaged. That is kind of like a cat-owner who thinks that his cat is very smart & well-trained enough to be allowed out-side at night even amongst the presence of coyotes, only to end up finding his cat never returning after that day, and in your ignorance you've allowed some damage to already happen. The man has the responsibility to protect the feelings of the woman or any woman he's pursued (although it's not uncommon for multiple sexual-partners to exist amongst various percentages of the population, except with females, multiple-partners do not occur simultaneously, but she will typically stick with one for at least three months at a time before even considering other sex-partners [according to studies on promiscuity], whilst men are more-often polygamous rather than serial-monogamous).

Is this a joke? Surely this is a joke. OP can't possibly be serious. This is the dumbest sh*t I have ever read.

No she didn't cheat because you were in an open relationship.

The fact she has agreed to remain faithful to you while you sleep around now means either that you are so controlling that she will agree to whatever you want or that she just doesn't care who you're sleeping with (and is probably sleeping with other guys too and just not telling you).

The problem here, is that you offered her an open relationship (probably hoping that you could sleep around, and she wouldn't), and then she took you up on your offer.

Be careful what you wish for.