Feeling All the Feels

I'd say it's entirely dependent on your needs. You like being made to feel like a goddess, then anything less will be insufficient for a sustainable romantic relationship. It doesn't mean you can't enjoy him and form a friendship (including sex) but perhaps he's just not your type for a relationship.
 
Are partners supposed to make you feel good about yourself?

That's an interesting question. I don't think partners are "supposed" to "make" us do or feel anything. But I think the healthiest and best partnerships are those in which both parties support, encourage and nurture one another in realizing their best potentials. So if you're deficient in self-esteem or self-compassion, or self-kindness, or self-confidence...), for example, your ideal partner would support you in having more self esteem (etc.). But they cannot "make" you be, do or feel anything. That's your ultimate responsibility. But support and nurturing are great!
 
I think I need to end things with him

Things are going well with Ponytail. I am more hopeful. We had a productive therapy session today.

I think I need to end things with Whiskers.

Last week I was going to drop something off at his house and he suggested that I come over before his wife got home so that he could take a break from work to be with me. When I got there he asked if I wanted to have sex and I was kind of like, “maybe....I’m tired and would actually love to just snuggle and see where that goes....” So we got in bed and snuggled. Then I got up to pee and when I came back he “laid it on the table” for me, saying that his wife would be home in a half hour and he “technically should be working” and so if I wanted to have sex we needed to get started and if I didn’t I could take a nap on the bed while he got back to work.

I was so fucking hurt. So he’s willing to take a break from work to fuck me but not willing to take a break just to be with me for a half hour?

I just feel like this relationship is only about sex for him. I don’t know if that’s how he sees it, but that’s how it feels in the way he acts towards me. We have fun, get drinks or play a game or watch something, and then he asks if I want to fuck. If I don’t, I know the night will be over....I mean, I until last week when I tried for snuggles I had never tested this theory, but I know it to be true because it’s the only stated option, and as I found out last week, if I suggest non-sexual intimacy I get turned down. I always say yes because the sex itself is great and, in truth, I just don’t want to feel the hurt of him rejecting me — saying, “okay, I’m going to go home and call it a night then.” I don’t want to confront the fact that I really don’t think he is interested in me beyond as a friend and as a sexual partner. So I say yes because I am afraid of the sting that I will feel if I say no.

It’s not that the sex is unwanted. It’s just that it feels...coerced? I don’t think he is trying to coerce me....I think it just doesn’t occur to him that there is more ways I might want to be intimate than fucking — or maybe it does occur to him and he just doesn’t want to do that.
 
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Have you talked to Whiskers about that? I mean, if you were clear about what you wanted and what he expected, is the style of relationship itself a problem for you? I'd go from there.

I wouldn't mind having a friend to do activities with and then fuck, but I wouldn't think of them as a romantic partner or have any expectations, either. It doesn't sound like coercion to me, just my two cents. Just someone being clear about wanting sex.

I dunno- most dates with a partner, especially one I don't see multiple times a week, I'd expect to be having sex, but that's me. Just a thought?
 
I wouldn't mind having a friend to do activities with and then fuck, but I wouldn't think of them as a romantic partner or have any expectations, either.

I think this is what hurts — I might have been okay with an activity/fucking partner too, if that was how things have been laid out. But it isn’t. He never said that was what he was looking for — and neither did I — and so it feels like that is how he is treating the situation even though he says he cares about me and I am clearly seeing it as more. I get him little gifts, compliment him, touch him in ways that aren’t explicitly sexual....I am clearly seeing him as “boyfriend potential” and I feel like he is taking advantage of that....

I dunno- most dates with a partner, especially one I don't see multiple times a week, I'd expect to be having sex, but that's me. Just a thought?

I get that. I don’t feel it myself, but I get it. I feel like if he were “all over me” kissing, etc — on the date, I would feel more ready for sex at the end. Instead, he’s just kind of looks at his watch and is like, “hey, wanna fuck?”☹️

And on this most recent occasion, we had actually ended up having sex twice already that week. I had been really looking forward to just hanging out with him for a half hour and not having to have sex. I was surprised that that was his immediate request and that he pretty much insisted on it when I expressed that I would rather snuggle.
 
Feeling cold and alone

Just got back from therapy with Ponytail. It was awful. It was a really difficult, painful session. We talked about how Ponytail still feels like he is in so much pain and how that's not what either of us wants. The session culminated in Ponytail saying, very calmly and definitively, "I'm not poly. I can't be in a relationship with you if you are poly. I cannot be in a relationship with you if it is more than you, me, Glasses, and the girls. I cannot be in a relationship with you if you are in a relationship with Whiskers."

Our therapist asked me if being in a relationship with only Glasses and Ponytail was something I could do. I said it wasn't.

Our therapist started talking about how this isn't a failed relationship, we have just reached a fundamental incompatibility. He compared it to one person wanting kids and the other not.....to one person wanting to live in California and the other wanting to live in Minnesota, etc. That ultimately, if there isn't room for compromise, then breaking up is what happens and it doesn't make us failures, it just...is.

I was crying softly and nodding as our therapist talked. Then Ponytail said, "Well, I don't consider us broken up or anything."

I must have given him the craziest, "WTF" face ever. I was like, "Uh, you just said unequivocally that you can't be with me if I am poly and [our therapist] just asked me if I was willing to not be poly and I said no. So....." And Ponytail said, "Yeah, but that doesn't mean I want to break up." Our therapist said, "Ponytail, what you have here is irreconcilable differences. You've said you can't be with her unless she isn't poly and she's saying she's poly. Therefore, you can't be with her."

Ponytail was still confused as to why we were breaking up and (of course) it was the end of our session and we had to leave.

We cried in the parking lot. And went our separate ways. I'm more confused than ever.
 
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I’ve been reading along for a while. It seems as though Ponytail is confused because he may believe that putting his cards on the table like that will eventually mean you’ll come to his side. Not to think of it as a nefarious thing, but kinda like an unfinished ultimatum that he expects you’ll want to stay with him under the conditions he wants, and not actually expecting you’ll refuse that.
 
I’ve been reading along for a while. It seems as though Ponytail is confused because he may believe that putting his cards on the table like that will eventually mean you’ll come to his side. Not to think of it as a nefarious thing, but kinda like an unfinished ultimatum that he expects you’ll want to stay with him under the conditions he wants, and not actually expecting you’ll refuse that.

Perhaps. I think he really feels he CANNOT continue because me being in a relationship with someone else makes him feel so sad. So he is trying to be clear about his needs and “stick up for himself” — but if my response is, “then I cannot meet your needs,” he is like, “no, that’s not what I want” because he also CANNOT imagine a life without me. I just feel so fucking stuck.

My own therapist, last week, suggested that I might HAVE to be the one to break up with him. That no matter how much I love him and no matter how much he wants to be with me, he is suffering and the kindest thing to do is to make the decision to break up and stick to it. Our couples therapist seemed to be suggesting the same thing — he asked me if I was “waiting” for Ponytail to break up with me.

I am so lost.

And the worst part is, due to scheduling issues, we don’t have another therapy appointment for a full month.
 
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It does seem like you’ll have to be the one to rip off the bandaid. I think I read somewhere back aways about Ponytail being on the autism spectrum? If that is the case, it is harder for him to change a status quo no matter how much it may be hurting him. There’s still an element of comfort in it, so he still wants to hold on to it. I do think it would be kinder for you to do what’s in the best interests of you both, and if he has his own counselor that will help
 
You are the one who will need to rip off the bandaid and break up with Ponytail.

You two are NOT compatible. Why keep on hurting each other. Neither of you will be ever fully happy in this relationship.
 
I still don't really understand why, if he knows you're married, that he seems to be totally okay with Glasses. Him saying he can't be with you if you're poly... but by definition, you being with him, and you being with Glasses makes you poly. You still can't offer him monogamy even if you broke up with Whiskers.

So I guess I am wondering, what is the bit that's hurting him so much? It's not being exclusive with you.
 
I still don't really understand why, if he knows you're married, that he seems to be totally okay with Glasses. Him saying he can't be with you if you're poly... but by definition, you being with him, and you being with Glasses makes you poly. You still can't offer him monogamy even if you broke up with Whiskers.

So I guess I am wondering, what is the bit that's hurting him so much? It's not being exclusive with you.

Ponytail is feeling like he doesn’t get enough of me as it is — and is terrified of being replaced or left behind by Whiskers (or anyone else “new”) coming into the scene. He wants a semi-closed V — he wants to live with me and Glasses and for us to not date additional people. (“Semi”-closed because Glasses would still be free to date Ginger and whomever else he wants, while Ponytail and I wouldn’t have any relationships outside the V.)

It’s not about wanting monogamy — it’s about being afraid of change. He frames it as he cannot he with me if I am poly, but what he really means is he cannot be with me if the relationship is open.
 
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In Limbo

Well, I tried to break up with him. I summoned all my energy and explained that I thought we should break up, that we just want different things, that it will be painful now but that we will get through it...he told me he didn’t want to break up because of a bad week of mental health and I told him that it has been longer than a week and that I feel like being with me IS wrecking havoc on his mental health. He told me that he doesn’t think that is the reason, that he is happiest when he is with me. I explained that that is the problem — his happiness is tied up in being with me and I don’t have the ability or desire to be with him all the time. So he feels like his happiness is being stolen from him when I spend time with anyone else, but that just isn’t the case. MY happiness depends on balance.

Then I had to leave to put the kids to bed and when I came back he asked me to wait until Dec 30 before making any final decisions. He is going on a trip at the end of the month and seeing some friends and he is hoping that doing so will help him re-set his emotional state and feel less dependent on me. Suddenly this person who seemed to be at the end of their rope and unable to bear the thought of me spending time with anyone else, was telling me that he completely understands my need to be with other people, that he doesn’t want to keep me from that, that I SHOULD be with Whiskers and that he wants to get to a place where he is comfortable with that.

It was like talking to a dream. He was saying all the things I wanted him to say.
And he said them with conviction and confidence. I told him I was skeptical, but that if he really thought he could work on his insecurities, I would try to keep an open mind and give him some time to do that.

And you know what? This was two nights ago and the next night he made plans with a friend. It is rare for him to do that in a spur-of-the-moment way. He didn’t even flaunt it or anything — I just noticed he wasn’t texting me a lot and I asked what he was up to that evening and he told me he was hanging out with a friend. It felt so good to hear him say that. I felt instantly relieved.

So maybe something clicked? Maybe?

Or maybe we are just postponing the inevitable. But it is good to have a solid check-in/end date in mind.
 
Glad that you at least have a timeline set.

I'd like to think that Ponytail is able to do the emotional work to get comfortable with you dating other people.... but lemme tell you that after 4.5 years of this with my own NP, it doesn't just magically get better. And I've found that it ultimately comes down to either someone making the decision that the relationship doesn't work, or learning to both accept and be ok with just letting your partner be upset when they struggle with your dating.

If at the end of the month, you want to keep going with things, then it might be time to just put your foot down if he reacts poorly again in the future. Or if you see things haven't changed and you decide that it's still best to end things, then don't suggest a break-up.... just break-up. He doesn't have to like it, it doesn't have to be mutual. Once you say it's over, it's over.

Best of luck to you though!
 
As a person outside your relationship, here is what I have read from you. From the beginning of your relationship with Ponytail there has been nothing but a pattern of him getting upset.

Go back and read your own posts. There has been nothing but a cycle of drama and hurt. Every few weeks or months something sets him off. Then you try or think about fixing it. When he sees he can jerk your chain then he backs off when you go to end things.

I have been doing this whole polyandry/polygamy thing for over 6 years. A relationship should not be this hard. I have never experienced emotional black mail like what Ponytail gives you.

Just because you love each other doesn't mean you are good for each other.
 
He has a plan

Ponytail and I spent much of the weekend together. We cleaned, played games, watched YouTube and had a snugglefest on the couch with Glasses , etc. Ponytail had gone out on an OKC date on Friday evening and they ended up seeing a movie and getting drinks until quite late at night. He explained his plan for becoming less dependent on me for his social needs. He is going to aim to see OKC dates as fun ways to meet new people and not hold himself to the expectation that he is supposed to love everyone the way he loves me. He also said that he wants to return to some of the interests he was more involved in before we got together and that he has neglected in favor of wanting to be available for every possible opportunity to spend with me.

I am still skeptical. But in the meantime it is really nice to see him putting himself out there and being independent of me.

In other news, a funny/awkward thing happened: Whiskers invited me to go to a performance that I was already going to with Ponytail and some friends. When I told him I was already going with Ponytail he joked that “all your sweeties want to take you to the same show!” It was kind of cute that he referred to himself as my sweetie. He also said that he was planning to still go on his own, but he would go a different night so that ponytail wouldn’t have to feel anxious about running into him. I thought that was very understanding — my personal feeling was that Whiskers shouldn’t have to adjust his plans to accommodate Ponytail’s comfort, but Whiskers insisted that he didn’t want to cause any awkwardness, and I suppose that is a very mature and considerate approach.
 
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Therapy with Ponytail

I went with Ponytail to his therapy appointment yesterday. I was super nervous because, as devotees of this blog may recall, the last time I went to one of Ponytail’s personal therapy appointments, his therapist’s cavalier attitude made me so angry that I stormed out of her office in tears.

This was a completely different scenario. (Thank goodness!)

It was actually hugely illuminating. I feel like I feel really validated in an odd way. Everything makes a little more sense now. Apparently, she had helped Ponytail roleplay telling me that he couldn’t be in a poly relationship with me. So that level of firmness and directness was something that he had practiced with her in an effort to be more clear about his needs — apparently he had told her that he fully expected that I would say I didn’t want to stop seeing Whiskers and his therapist had INFORMED him that if he told me that he couldn’t be in an open relationship with me and I told him that I wasn’t willing to close the relationship, that that would be a breakup. So Ponytail shouldn’t have been surprised at all that that was how the couple’s therapist and I both interpreted that exchange....But apparently Ponytail said to his therapist that he didn’t think I would go along with him not wanting to have an open relationship — that I would try to convince him to be okay with polyamory and that that would cause him to shut down.

So his therapist pointed out to him that I didn’t try to walk all over his boundaries and convince him to do what I wanted — that I respected and accepted that he didn’t want to be in an open relationship....even if that meant we couldn’t be together. Ponytail told her about his plans to re-evaluate how he views dating and how he wants to use it to meet more people instead of to find “love.” He also told her how he had realized that he was experiencing a different relationship than the one we were in — he was still envisioning a future for us in which we lived together and had a baby together and he needed to recognize that that wasn’t the relationship that I wasn’t experiencing/wanting. She said, “it actually sounds like MsEmotional respects and understands your boundaries. You have learned that she isn’t going to walk over your boundaries to get what she wants. What happened instead was YOU changed your boundaries all on your own — which is a really interesting turn of events and I am curious to see how you guys proceed from here.”

Me too.
 
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S’wonderful

Things are continuing to go well with Ponytail. He has been going out, going on dates. On Saturday he had two dates — and in between them I went with him to his family holiday party, he helped me go grocery shopping, and we went to my place and fucked. So basically his day was “date-party-Target-sex-date.” I feel so....comfortable. Like I finally feel like our lives are in balance. Last night we got together for our last date before he leaves town for the holidays. We had so much fun. At one point I laughed so hard I nearly peed. I just want to hold onto this feeling.

I am just feeling this marvelous, warm, positive feeling. It’s more than just this new situation with Ponytail — it’s also that I think I have fallen for Whiskers.

I am positively smitten. Can’t stop thinking about him. He’s so — confident and unique. And he has started being more “cute” with me — and expressing that he wants to spend more time with me or have longer dates. I want to say something but it feels too soon. We have been dating for 4 months. I am used to exchanging “I love you”s early on, but I feel hesitant to say it in this circumstance — I just feel like moving more slowly is working so well for us right now; I don’t want to fuck it up. How do you know when it is the right time?
 
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Just some updates

So! Updates!

Holidays went well, Glasses’s parents were cordial. I actually felt like we all had a great time, which was refreshing and much-appreciated.

Glasses is going though a hard time with Ginger. He doesn’t tell me all that much, but I get the impression that he is feeling like he is a really low priority in Ginger’s life. I want to be supportive and reassuring but I don’t know what to say.

Ponytail is still out of town. I am looking forward to his return. On Christmas Eve we both got tipsy and called each other. It was awesome and fun.

I am also getting SO excited to see Whiskers again. Crazy-excited. I know it is the NRE talking, but it’s all I can think about.

Today I am having lunch with a college friend. I am super excited to see her again. It has been at least 5 years since the last time I saw her (briefly at a wedding), and even longer since we actually hung out.

I am super excited, but also kind of nervous. The truth is that I had a bit of a crush on her in college. So even though it *isn’t* a date, I have the same nervous excitement as though it were.

So lots of happy excitement in my life....tempered by guilt about how things are going for Glasses and Ginger.
 
It’s a small world after all

So even though I haven't been looking for relationships for the last few months, I still have an active online profile. Occasionally folks will message me and if I am interested in chatting with them I will politely direct them to the bit of my profile that indicates that I am looking only for friends right now. Usually they disappear within a few interactions after that, which is fine.

Anyhoo, there's one guy who hasn't disappeared. I didn't actually get a chance to direct him to the bit of my profile that mentioned friendship-only because in his opening message to me he said that he wasn't looking for any more serious relationships and he just wanted to chat with like-minded poly people. Cool!

So we've been chatting for about two months and I have accumulated a few details about him that have been adding up to make me wonder if he was someone I knew of through Whiskers. I just had this feeling...

So I told him I thought we might be in the same social circle and asked him a few pointed questions to find out if I was right.

Yep. I was. He's the husband of Whiskers's girlfriend. So if we had hit it off further and somehow pursued a relationship, we would have inadvertently made a....square-shaped?... polycule completely by happenstance. We shan't be pursuing anything further, of course, because that would be hella weird.

Writing out "the husband of Whiskers's girlfriend" has made me realize I really need to finalize some kind of nicknames for all these additional metamours and in-laws.

Curleycue: late 30s/early 40s, Whiskers's wife
Kitchenbear: early 40s?, Curleycue's partner, lives with Whiskers and Curleycue
Rapunzel: early 40s, Whiskers's girlfriend
Chameleon: early 40s, Rapunzel's husband
 
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