Originally Posted by WhatHappened
If they say, "This hurts and I don't like it," they are accused of all sorts of things, of control, of playing tit for tat, of jealousy, of not managing their emotions. So they say nothing, until they finally can't stand living like that anymore.
Nothing of the sort. We are not poly missionaries or think lesser of monogamy in any way. I am not a hard-wired poly; I have lived mono and liked it. Our situation was that I fell in love. He was allowed to give me rules, and I followed them, we used four years to open up, and I never pursued a real relationship with the first guy because he was too unstable. We agreed after opening up that he could veto anyone, except a long term relationship (more than a year). The problem is; this is a long term relationship. With inlaws and all.
Fair enough if you personally would not have said any of those things. I do wonder if he's heard them from others in the poly world or read them online such that he
believed others (or you) would say that of him. Let's face it, many poly people do see any sort of rule or boundary as an issue of 'being controlling.'
And I do still think from all I've seen that it's highly likely he
felt he couldn't really object to this and keep his marriage. It's just too common a scenario.
He did tell me, after 2 years into the new relationship, that he was not 100 % happy with poly, and with the long distance taking up a time and money. I listened to him every time he said something about it, and tried to find emotional as well as practical solutions to what he was feeling. I changed many of my habits, and explored possable future solutions. The problem was, he was focusing on a lot of small things instead of the bigger picture - which was mono vs poly. So, looking back, every time I fixed one of the problems he mentioned, it only frustrated him more because those things were not really the root of the issue.
And it's this sort of thing that makes me think exactly what I've said above. He told you fairly directly he was unhappy with the situation (big picture) and you focused on tweaking every small thing.
I can only speak from my experience, of course, but I've found that when I feel unable to tell someone directly that I have a problem with something, it's a direct result of a history that person refusing to hear, play word games with me, even get angry. XH did it, X poly BF did it. I finally walked away from both.
I was not 100 % happy with the way he did poly either; he spoke of one woman that he flirted with as his "soul mate", which really hurt my feelings. .... I ended up acting as a sort of life coach to the woman he dated, who was not able to discuss their affair with him. After all of this, she dumped him and broke his heart.
I truly do not mean to pick on you. I'm answering because you asked, trying to understand why this happened. But I can see where divorcing him and having him live elsewhere to marry your boyfriend might have been very hurtful to him. It's well and good to dismiss it as just on paper, I still really, really love you, but divorce and being asked to move out of your home for another man are huge. They are not just on paper, they mean something. The whole world sees his wife divorce him to move another man in--how does that make him feel or make him appear to everyone else?
And acting as a life coach to his girlfriend? Ouch. Again, I am NOT trying to pick on you or tear you down. I'm saying, look at it from her perspective. Because only by understanding another person's perspective and seeing how our own actions might have felt to them or impacted them can we have any hope of reconciliation and doing better next time.
How would you feel, as an adult, if your boyfriend's wife felt the need (or the right) to 'coach' you? I would find that incredibly patronizing. And arrogant. "I can figure out your life better than you can, even with your boyfriend."
I don't know the whole story of course, but from this, my own experience, and five years of nearly daily reading on poly from many, many sources, I'm guessing she left for a reason many of us secondaries leave: it becomes very clear to us that we are always going to be treated as just a little bit Lesser Than. We begin to feel the wives making sure we don't forget our place, or who's really in charge. There are plenty of subtle ways of doing it. And I've seen it very blatantly on the forum--the wives or primary girlfriends finding fault after fault after fault with every woman their husband/boyfriend dates.
They may believe in the forest--the idea of poly. Yet they find a problem with every single individual tree--the girlfriends.
I'm sure my XBF's wife says the same thing--after all that, I left him and broke his heart. Of course I did. She was playing games and making sure I knew exactly where I stood. She was playing the Silent Veto game and he was not going to stand up for me.
Now throw in that married poly men have a much harder time finding a woman willing to date them in the first place. I think many of them give up, feeling that even if they meet someone and fall in love, the wife is going to object to the next one, too. They end up sitting home alone while their wives date, feeling that poly isn't such a great deal for them.
Again, my intention is not to kick you while you're down. I know you're in pain. But you wanted to understand where this came from, and I'm saying, this is how things often look and feel to the other players in this situation.
Understanding, at least, is a good step to moving forward. I don't think he was trying to trick you or betray you.
Even before we started doing poly, there was always things about him and other women - his ex fell in love with him (mutually) again etc. And I thought it was fine, because I also had feelings for others. And I have no idea why he resents me having feelings for others, when he falls for other women himself. He has not in a while, but he will. He gets smitten with other people very easily.
I could likely write a book on that. Some of it ties in to things I've said above. I'll just say for now, people and emotions are more complex than that. Things sound good on paper but our emotions don't cooperate.
I hope you find some peace.