Poly V hurt and pain with non-poly partner

Wisp

New member
I really need some input from experienced poly folks. I am new to this. I have very much appreciated the support and advice I've received on other threads.
(See sig below for family structure)

LP is not poly, but very much knew Beloved was poly when they got together 6 years ago, and was okay with that. In fact, when they met he was in a long-term relationship with a poly woman, and LP was happy being secondary, and very independent and busy in her own life. Then that long-term relationship between Beloved and his primary fizzled out and LP became primary. (As she tells me this story, she said her reaction was "Oh Sh--!") At that time friends advised her that if she were to stay with him, to accept him as poly, and she said she did, and would. And it seems that she has on the surface. There were 3 (I think) lovers after his first primary left, and none lasted that long, and no lovers in the last couple of years. LP moved in with Beloved a year ago. They recently had a lovely commitment ceremony (I was the ring bearer!).

None of us was looking for love when I came alone and Beloved and I fell in love. It just happened.

We spent many weeks making sure this was absolutely okay with everyone, especially LP, before I entered into their family, and before Beloved and I went to a sexual relationship. My rule has always been that if it's not okay with everyone, it's not okay with me. It is part of my personal ethics. Nor was LP pressured into agreeing to this.

We talked about feelings, boundaries, etc. We took it very very slow. During this "prep" time, and many many times since, I have asked LP if she was still okay with me being there. She has said yes very firmly and passionately each time, that I am wanted and loved.

However LP struggles with pain and jealousy. She is honest about her feelings, which is good. She says she is not afraid that Beloved and I will run away together or anything like that. She just has a hard time seeing her man be with someone else. And also says she knows he's poly, and if not me, then someone else. And she's rather have it be me because she loves me and we have a good relationship, and she trusts my honesty and openness and ethics.

By now I'm deep in, very much in love with Beloved and he with me, and the three of us have made a family. LP has told me a few times that it would hurt her very much if I were to step away. She said that most of the time we have such good times, love, family, that the pros outweigh the cons.

Each time Beloved and I have a new milestone it hurts her and she struggles. She tries not to let it show, but in the end I ask her to tell her feelings and she does, and we talk about it, and I offer to put the brakes on it. And she says no, she does not want that at all.

It's so hard. I feel so bad. First hard time was our first date of physical intimacy. That was in early February. She gave her blessing even the day of the first date, but then had such an emotional breakdown afterwards. It was really awful and I just about ended it right then and there, but she said no, she still wanted to go forward. So here I am, and date nights are now routine. I can tell there's still a twinge there with her each time we have date night.

Yesterday, after much talking about it and agreements, Beloved and I had our first overnight date night at my house. All seemed fine in the two weeks leading up to this. But then yesterday came and she was having a hard time all day. I offered to cancel the overnight and she said no, she wanted it to go forward and it would just take some getting used to. But I could tell she was so upset, and I insisted on canceling date night until we had time to talk about it. In fact, I considered stepping away completely from the whole relationship for awhile because I'm tired of being the source of pain for LP. Then LP actually called Beloved after that conversation, and told him not to let me end it, and to get right over to my house. He came over, I cried and we held each other, and we both reconfirmed our love for each other. I agreed to let him stay overnight. We called her together on the phone to tell her we loved her and good night and she said she was glad he was staying, even as she also said (after I asked) that she was sad and working through it. Today there is still some tension but things are mostly better. I rescued LP and her broken-down car, she asked about my kids' new school schedules, and back to normal family stuff.

I really need some input and support here. Yesterday my heart was breaking because by loving Beloved, I am causing pain to my very best friend LP. Today it's better, but I am sure we'll go through this again each overnight until she gets used to it. And it sucks. How do I get used to this? Is this normal poly stuff that comes up sometimes? What can be done to help with this situation?
 
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I am sorry you struggle.

I am in the painful position that by loving Beloved, I am causing pain to LP.

You are not doing anything TO her.

LP is choosing to participate in a polyship of her own volition that brings her challenges. What is it about watching her deal with her emotional management (which she seems to be willing to do and deal with) that triggers you into guilt?

Everyone is consenting to be here.

I have always tried to live my life in a way to not cause pain to others...

Well, I am sure you don't go out of your way to hurt anyone. But you also can't be taking responsibility for everything that people feel and think it is YOU causing it.

...and to be ethical and do the right thing. But that person who I am hurting by being there is telling me she wants me there, even though sometimes it causes her pain.

When you remove evaluations where you seem to think you are responsible for hurting her?

It boils down to the fact that she is willing to take on the challenges of poly. So believe her. Do the right thing and expect her to speak her truth and take her at her Word.

She said that most of the time we have such good times, love, family, that the pros outweigh the cons.

Could believe her. What more reassuring do you need from her that she really wants this? :confusing:

Is it that YOU don't want to take it on? :confused: You seem to want to be in this "V."

Maybe you need to stop asking her how she is doing every moment if it leads to YOU being upset? Check in less or in less detail.

Maybe use "colors" for quick check ins --

  • "green" is good/no problems
  • "yellow" is ok, just proceed with caution
  • "red" is stop to reassess if maybe stop/reschedule or maybe keep going with whatever it is. (Right now it is overnights)
  • "black" is abort, no questions asked right now. Process later.

That also lends itself to light green, orange, etc. She can process her details with someone outside the system -- a close friend, relative, or counselor. So can you. It's good to talk, but maybe you guys are oversharing right now?

Every little happening can't be instant mega doom for the whole polyship. YKWIM? Try to relax.

Today it's better, but I am sure we'll go through this again each overnight until she gets used to it. And it sucks.

To me it sounds like YOU will go through this again until YOU get used to it and realize that you are not causing her pain. She consents and chooses to be in a challenging relationship model. It's ok for her to be challenged.

It's ok for the transition time to feel a bit weird. The "new normal" isn't here yet. Some growing pains is ok.

Learn to accept that. Reduce your stress, not add to it.

Hang in there.
Galagirl
 
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Galagirl thank you so much!! I really needed this talk. I guess I needed permission to be here and allow her to hurt, because, as you said, she chooses to be here and wants to be here.

I love the idea of the code words for emotional states. I will suggest this.

My guilt-- I have scars. I come with a lot of baggage and history and a full set of issues. I am continuously owning them and working on them.

I live by the code "first do no harm" both in my professional life and my personal life. I feel like by being there and going forward in milestones, I am harming her. But you are absolutely right, she is consenting, not a victim. She chooses to have this arrangement and continues to give her blessing over it.

It's hard navigating this. Poly is a lot different than mono relationships, and I just need a dose of reality and common sense advice. :D
 
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Glad it helped some.

My guilt-- I have scars. I come with a lot of baggage and history and a full set of issues. I am continuously owning them and working on them.
Another thought... Maybe what you feel is regret? But your habit is to frame it as guilt? If you did do something, sure -- own it and take personal responsibility. But don't take responsibility for EVERYTHING in the world.

It is possible to regret that she has challenges and sympathize. Without taking responsibility for it like you are the one doing it TO her.

I can feel sad and feel regret that someone got all wet caught in a rainstorm. Offer them a towel and say "Aw, bummer! What a shame it ruined your new shoes!"

But I am not the one causing the storm in the sky. I am not the one wrecking the shoes. I am not guilty of that.

Does that make sense?

Galagirl
 
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Glad it helped some.


Another thought... Maybe what you feel is regret? But your habit is to frame it as guilt? If you did do something, sure -- own it and take personal responsibility. But don't take responsibility for EVERYTHING in the world.

It is possible to regret that she has challenges and sympathize. Without taking responsibility for it like you are the one doing it TO her.

I can feel sad and feel regret that someone got all wet caught in a rainstorm. Offer them a towel and say "Aw, bummer! What a shame it ruined your new shoes!"

But I am not the one causing the storm in the sky. I am not the one wrecking the shoes. I am not guilty of that.

Does that make sense?

Galagirl

yes, it absolutely makes sense to frame it as regret. Especially as I let go of the guilt because I didn't really do anything to her personally. She chooses to be in this situation and I regret that she is getting hurt, but it's her choice.

I actually felt a weight lift as I read and understood your words. I will be sharing this with my partners. I think it will help us all to deal better with this (especially me).

I know she feels very bad that her pain is causing me pain, on top of her own pain that she is dealing with. And the beauty here is how incredibly much we care about each other's feelings, and the love that shows.

Thank you again so, so very much!
 
There've been more than a few vees where one partner (so-called) in a dyad basically made it clear that "you will let me have another sexual relationship, because it's that or I'm going to start having affairs -- if you don't like it, we can just end right now."

The compromise is the closed vee.

I've met a few, & we've seen a few here.

IMO, whoever feels the least pain is probably the one benefiting from the situation, & not likely to give up control.
 
Your 'personal ethics' of 'if it's not alright with everyone, it's not alright with me', sound like you have already taken on a sense of, if you are involved in a situation where someone else is hurting, then you have decided you are in some way responsible for their hurt, and you will opt out. The problem with this is we go through so many relationships, in so many ways through our life, that it is impossible to never be part of a situation where someone else is hurting. What you can choose though, is whether you take responsibility for their hurting or not, or whether you see it as their bag'o'stuff, and you carry your own bag'o'stuff.

I believe, in the same way that you are not hurting LP (her own thoughts are hurting her, and you can't change those), she is not hurting you. When she breaks down, gets upset, that is not the cause of your hurt - your perception of it is. Maybe you could both mind your own business a bit more. You could stop taking on her stuff, and if you do take in her stuff, she could practise not minding that you have had a negative emotional reaction to your perception of her hurting. Then you both stop putting energy into feeling guilty and instead put energy into feeling better about what is - you feel better about your life and she feels better about her life.

Going forward for you, I see three options:

1. Continue as you have been, with you feeling guilty every time LP gets upset. Pros are: it's a familiar pattern, which takes no energy or effort to leave as it is. Cons are: it's taking away from your personal enjoyment of your relationships with LP and Beloved and it is no longer working for you (which is why you made this thread).

OR

2. End relationship with Beloved. Pros are: you no longer have to feel responsible for LP. Cons are: you lose Beloved and you also miss an opportunity to practise owning your own stuff and not other people's.

OR

3. You see this situation as a really good opportunity to practise being responsible for how you feel, and not how other people feel. That is, you decide that you are responsible for how you feel, and whether or not LP is unhappy, YOU are still responsible for your emotional response to that, and you practise being happy anyway. You also decide that LP is responsible for how LP feels, and you give her back her bag (I.e you stop asking her how she feels, stop offering to leave, stop basically acting AT all responsible for her stuff). Pros are: you get to keep Beloved and LP in your life, you are happier and you use this as an opportunity to rewrite your script about how and who you are responsible to, and change that story about having guilt and scars and stuff from the past. You make that no longer relevant to your life. Cons are: it takes some effort to rewrite your neural chemistry and wiring, and can take commitment that you actually want to change your beliefs. Some people find it unsettling and just prefer to stick with their comfort zone of 'this is how I am, I am just a person who feels guilty easily' rather than realising their beliefs are just scripts they can change.

It's up to you of course but option 3 sounds by far the best to me:)
There's a book called 'how to break the habit of being yourself' which might help you with retiring those belief patterns and habits if you're interested. I'm sure you can find it on amazon.
 
Galagirl thank you so much!! I really needed this talk. I guess I needed permission to be here and allow her to hurt, because, as you said, she chooses to be here and wants to be here.

...

I live by the code "first do no harm" both in my professional life and my personal life. I feel like by being there and going forward in milestones, I am harming her. But you are absolutely right, she is consenting, not a victim. She chooses to have this arrangement and continues to give her blessing over it.

I'm struck by the quote and have been thinking about the complex meanings we sling around when we use words like 'pain', 'harm', and 'hurt'. I'll start by noting that my marriage was damaged beyond repair in large part because my partner and I did not want to hurt each other. We did not tell each other important, difficult things that were going on for us for fear of causing the other pain. This helped kill intimacy and helped lead to our breakup.

I see people here and in real life get really wrapped up in not wanting to hurt their partner, or partners. I often see variations of:

'I can't be honest and tell my truth because it will hurt my girlfriend';
'I can't do such and such because it hurts my wife', or
'I can't be my real self because that will hurt my spouse', or
'I can't ask for what I really need because that causes great pain in my husband (or metamour).'

Because of the unwillingness to cause pain, to hurt a partner's feelings, people get stuck in these often unhealthy dynamics. The absence of pain does not mean a relationship is healthy.

It is definitely true that being deliberately cruel or vicious is the death knell of a relationship. It is also true that a long-term pattern of bone-deep thoughtlessness, an unwillingness to truly take into account a partner's needs and wants, causes pain and can speed a relationship to breaking up.

I do think the 'First, do no harm' mantra is appropriate in medical situations. First, don't make things worse is a wise idea in treating disease. The patient has to survive to get better.

However, this idea that not hurting one's partner is how relationships should be done is actually very harmful. There are times when the truth is painful to one or more people in a relationship. It's hard to hear that sexual desire has waned, or that one's job is putting too much stress on the relationship because of long hours and so on. It's hard to hear that one partner is unhappy because of how the other partner is acting. It's hard to hear that you've been self-centered and thoughtless. All of these things hurt. A lot. They cause great pain. But partners need to be able to tell each other the difficult things, the painful things, the thing that can make one reassess how you've been a partner.

To be in a truly healthy, intimate relationship, partners have to be willing to hurt each other. To cause no harm in an intimate relationship will have the unintended consequence of distancing partners from each other. Sometimes causing pain and upset is the only way to resolve an issue. Not dealing with issues definitely leads to relationships ending (or becoming unhealthy).

I suggest rethinking the first do no harm mantra as applied to relationships. Not wanting to cause pain can lead to greater damage down the road.

Also there is a concept from the BDSM communities that you might find helpful to think about. Bear with me - I'll tie this to a non-kink environment.

Some sadists have a saying of 'I will hurt you. I won't harm you.' What they mean is that, with a willing masochist, they will do things that cause pain, often intense pain. But they will not do anything that irrevocably damages the masochist. The pain is the point, not the harm. (Consent is obviously super important here.)

This saying really gets at that hurt and harm are not the same thing. Hurt means to cause or be in pain. 'I'm hurt' means I'm in pain. Harm is damage. But damage is not pain. Damage can cause pain to indicate that something is badly wrong and needs attention. Pain can mean harm has been done. A broken bone hurts a lot! But pain is not the problem - it's the 'check engine light' of the human body. (I don't mean to downplay the hardships people with intense and/or chronic pain experience- just that most of the time pain is the vicious indicator of something awry in the body.) People who don't feel pain often struggle to maintain themselves well physically because they can't easily tell when something has gone wrong in their body.

So I suggest to you that while your actions, and your partner's actions, may indeed be causing pain to LP, you are not harming her. Pain is not harm, necessarily. In fact, she has chosen to go through the pain, it reads, so that she can grow as a person. The other thing pain sometimes indicates is growth. (Think of the 'growing pains' children experience as they get taller - that's a literal example of the concept.)
 
Infinity, thank you. I like how you broke down the three choices. And you are right, I should not own the pain. I need to develop better boundaries with my emotions, including owning pain that is not mine to own.

Opalescent, you are right too, I should rethink this mantra. And your other points are also excellent!

I really appreciate the time you took to type out these thoughts of yours. I see that this has been a very big growing opportunity for me in my own personal life, even beyond our poly relationship. I am embracing this growth.

I have been very touched by everyone's willingness to reach out to me and help me in this situation. I talked with Beloved and LP today on the phone about this, my recent change of perspective, and the advice I have received here. They were very happy, both of them, and LP said "I kept trying to tell you this!" but somehow the way it was explained here clicked with me. Perhaps also because it was told to me by people outside my relationship.

This is a huge step forward. Thank you again!!
 
Hi Wisp,

I am glad you are feeling better about your situation. I really like what opalescent said, that pain isn't the same thing as harm, and that some pain in certain situations can actually be a good thing. In this case, I think LP wants to grow as a person and that is why she is okay with your relationship with Beloved, even though she hurts over it sometimes. Think of exercise, your muscles have to sting a little before they can gain strength.

I actually think LP's "pain pattern" is quite a good sign. She hurts a lot in the beginning after a new mile marker, then she gets used to it and the pain recedes. That is progress. It means you have a future in store in which LP is totally okay with your relationship with Beloved, and is no longer suffering at all because of it. I think she has faith in herself that she can get to that point. And I believe she'll be able to get there with no permanent damage.

Carry on, you'll make it.
Sincerely,
Kevin T.
 
Kevin, thanks for your feedback. I really value your experience and the consistent good advice I've seen on other threads. I can't believe what a difference my change of mindset has made, and how it also released LP's burden of me feeling bad when she was feeling bad.

LP is a very brave, loving person to work through these milestones and feel secure in the love. And none of us three shy away from personal growth work.

It is our intention to make this a long-term thing, and we keep that goal in mind as we work through things.
 
Sounds like you're all doing considerably better, that is good to hear. I am glad if I could help.
 
It sounds like she has a lot of courage and a strong self-reflection practice.

For me, when I am feeling hard about husband's relationship milestones, I also make sure that both him and her know this is not about them, that it is okay with me that they do what they are doing, that I want them to be happy, and that this is just my own process. I might have tears, I might need time to process, but I won't tell them not to do (whatever it is they are doing, like a sleepover or special date).

I see them as "growing pains", and that it gets easier with time. The first date is hard, the first sexual encounter is hard, the first sleepover, the first weekend away, etc etc... and then, once I've felt what I need to feel, then it's integrated and becomes a bit easier next time. Eventually our relationship will grow into the shape we want it to be, where these events are "normal" and the feelings that come up are less intense, if present at all.

The more safe and respected I feel, the more I am okay with my partner seeing other people. I choose to be in a poly relationship even though it is hard. I wasn't expecting it to be easy, or fun every moment. It is a personal-growth path - a practice in communication, love, and self-reflection. It sounds like she is doing a great job of working through her big feelings.
 
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