SgtGossamer
New member
Hello,
First a bit about my background. I grew up in a catholic family who all had the same ideas about spirituality and monogamy. Basically, I was expected, like all the other family members, to grow up, serve the church, get married, have children, and then die. This idea of life has never sat well with me and so I was always the "black sheep" of the family. Recently, I have been trying to understand my emotional issues and figuring out my spirituality. This is where I hit a wall.
Sometimes I feel like I'm ok with the idea of a poly lifestyle/relationship because I do want to feel needed and do have strong emotions towards a variety of people but I also know that sometimes I'm "too much" for one person to deal with due to my aggressive affection. I have friends who have extremely healthy relationships while still living poly but, I'm having a hard time actually understanding how it works. My catholic background and my trained idea that it's got to be a mono relationship or it's cheating is really creating a conflict within myself.
Currently, I'm in a mono relationship with my son's father and we're happy together but, about a year ago a friend of ours brought up the idea of maybe us 3 change the relationship to poly. I had a major meltdown. All of a sudden I couldn't stop thinking about her and him together and couldn't get the thoughts out of my head that he was leaving me. This led to thoughts like "what's wrong with me" "am I not pretty enough" "why does he want to sleep with other women" "am I going to be left behind" ect. it was tearing me apart and eventually he told her no it wasn't going to work because he didn't want to hurt me like that. As the time passed, I've had a lot of encounters with my family and every encounter is worse than the last.
As of now I am "banned" from the family because of the fact that him and I are not married but we have a child, I chose not to force my child into religion, and I refuse to fit into their idea image. This led me to start thinking about spirituality, sexuality, and relationships. I asked myself if my family is so toxic am I the same way because they raised me? As I am shuffling through these thoughts I remembered our friends offer. Note: I don't have an attraction to said person and would never act on it based on the personality differences. I was curious on why I freaked so hard about the issue and I realized it's got to be my hardwired mono brain. It's not necessarily the whole problem but it's definitely a block that I can't seem to get past.
So I'm just curious how do you get past the hurt feelings of knowing that your partner is out with someone else or having a close relationship with someone else? How do you go about even starting a relationship like that? How do you not feel rejection every time you see your partner's face light up with excitement knowing that you're not the cause of it?
I'm not trying to be offensive or rude I just want to know how one gets to the level of stability to be able to handle a poly relationship without feeling all the loneliness, rejection, sad feelings? Does anyone have any advice how to get me to stop feeling like that? Maybe not to be able to have a poly relationship right away but at least open my heart and mind to the idea and to be able to understand and truly accept it.
First a bit about my background. I grew up in a catholic family who all had the same ideas about spirituality and monogamy. Basically, I was expected, like all the other family members, to grow up, serve the church, get married, have children, and then die. This idea of life has never sat well with me and so I was always the "black sheep" of the family. Recently, I have been trying to understand my emotional issues and figuring out my spirituality. This is where I hit a wall.
Sometimes I feel like I'm ok with the idea of a poly lifestyle/relationship because I do want to feel needed and do have strong emotions towards a variety of people but I also know that sometimes I'm "too much" for one person to deal with due to my aggressive affection. I have friends who have extremely healthy relationships while still living poly but, I'm having a hard time actually understanding how it works. My catholic background and my trained idea that it's got to be a mono relationship or it's cheating is really creating a conflict within myself.
Currently, I'm in a mono relationship with my son's father and we're happy together but, about a year ago a friend of ours brought up the idea of maybe us 3 change the relationship to poly. I had a major meltdown. All of a sudden I couldn't stop thinking about her and him together and couldn't get the thoughts out of my head that he was leaving me. This led to thoughts like "what's wrong with me" "am I not pretty enough" "why does he want to sleep with other women" "am I going to be left behind" ect. it was tearing me apart and eventually he told her no it wasn't going to work because he didn't want to hurt me like that. As the time passed, I've had a lot of encounters with my family and every encounter is worse than the last.
As of now I am "banned" from the family because of the fact that him and I are not married but we have a child, I chose not to force my child into religion, and I refuse to fit into their idea image. This led me to start thinking about spirituality, sexuality, and relationships. I asked myself if my family is so toxic am I the same way because they raised me? As I am shuffling through these thoughts I remembered our friends offer. Note: I don't have an attraction to said person and would never act on it based on the personality differences. I was curious on why I freaked so hard about the issue and I realized it's got to be my hardwired mono brain. It's not necessarily the whole problem but it's definitely a block that I can't seem to get past.
So I'm just curious how do you get past the hurt feelings of knowing that your partner is out with someone else or having a close relationship with someone else? How do you go about even starting a relationship like that? How do you not feel rejection every time you see your partner's face light up with excitement knowing that you're not the cause of it?
I'm not trying to be offensive or rude I just want to know how one gets to the level of stability to be able to handle a poly relationship without feeling all the loneliness, rejection, sad feelings? Does anyone have any advice how to get me to stop feeling like that? Maybe not to be able to have a poly relationship right away but at least open my heart and mind to the idea and to be able to understand and truly accept it.
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