Lantern
New member
My partner, Kettle, and I are having a pretty big issue and I could use some perspective. For brief history, we’ve been together 9ish years and opened up two years ago. It’s been fairly uneventful, a few perused crushes that didn’t pan out and I made out with a friend, but that’s been about it for romantic dealings beyond our own relationship. For the most part, this switch has been a really good thing.
Back in the very beginning of our relationship Kettle was in a serious long distance relationship with a woman, Lens. He didn’t tell me about Lens when we started dating and when he fell for me and eventually broke it off with her, he didn’t tell her the real reason. Their arrangement was that he could date other women, just had to tell Lens if it got serious. Which in our case, it had. They’ve continued to be friends over the years and it’s always bothered me that he kept us both a secret from each other in the beginning and that she didn’t know the real story of their break up. He didn’t want to hurt her with it, but it seemed like it could affect the choice she made about going forward with their friendship. Basically it felt like she didn’t have all the relevant info and wasn’t a full willing partner in their friendship.
Fast forward and he makes friends with a woman, Pill. This was several years ago. She expressed an interest/attraction to him and he declined but they became friends. For the past few years, he’s been in almost daily contact with her, texting mostly articles and stuff back and forth. When he would visit our old city where she lives (we moved out of state three years ago) they would have coffee or beers. He maintained to me that he was not interested in Pill romantically, just pals. I didn’t think much of it because he had told me about crushes, spent time with women he was interested in, I thought we were doing pretty good on the whole relevant info getting shared thing.
Fast forward to two weeks ago and they had sex. I honestly wasn’t super surprised. Kettle’s threshold for when one has sex is lower than mine, sex with a casual pal is not weird for him- this difference in attitudes about sex has been part of the conversation. The thing that surprised me is that she doesn’t know who I am. He’s been in daily contact with her for years and never mentioned me. This includes some pretty deliberate sidestepping of information.
I am really hurt and mad about this and deeply bothered that this is a repeat of what happened with Lens (minus the falling in love part). He maintains still that he has no romantic intentions with Pill, that it was just pals having sex. But the fact that she didn’t know about me runs contary to how we were going to do poly- fully informed consent was important. And I’m also super hurt, so very hurt that he has this significant relationship where I was a straight up secret.
I asked him to come clean about me with Pill and Lens and give me some way to get a sense of what his relationship with Pill actually is. He wants to get a therapist, he says he’s as confused by this repeat pattern of hiding relationships. He wanted a therapists input on discussing with Pill and Lens, but making an appointment was dragging out and he finally sent the messages. His relationship with Pill was continuing like normal and it was making me crazy. I was refusing to sleep in the same bed with him while I was a secret and Ive basically moved into my art studio at this point.
I ended up getting into his text messages with Pill without permission. Which I feel really bad about. It was one of those scared enough to make a bad decision things. They’re mostly articles, some flirting back and forth, and some really serious sidestepping around mentioning me. Like, not totally direct lies, but only because she didn’t ask direct questions because his narrative was constructed as though he was single.
Pill took the news okay, overall. Apparently she was surprised and hurt, but in a day or two they were back to normal. Lens was really hurt and this may have ended their friendship. I feel sad for them both, but I also don’t want to be his secret anymore. Kettle has had this plan that Lens would come visit us and I’d get to meet her someday, I’ve always been baffled that this could mean I have to lie about our relationship to cover for him- I’m not that person. I think I’ve been pretty good at letting him manage his relationships with women he’s interested and such, but I’m not someone who can straight up lie about something I know to be important to someone.
So it’s been about two weeks since this mess began. We’ve slept in the same bed a bit, had sex twice, but mostly it’s been tense and painful. It’s been a hard year overall- other big stuff happened that’s just wore us both out mentally and emotionally- and now I’m feeling really stuck. These past two weeks, I’ve been hard on him and it’s made him withdrawal. I apologized, but it hasn’t helped. These past few days I’ve been trying to give us a break from the long tough talks, but with him withdrawing it feels like I’m apologizing for my feelings. So now I’m still hurt and he’s stonewalling me. He called a therapist several times this week, we’re hoping for guidance from that end for his own insight into this pattern of his and how to cope as a pair.
You guys seem like a a reasonable and thoughtful bunch and I’d really appreciate insight. I feel so stuck right now. We love each other deeply and there’s a lot about our values, interests, desires in life that match up so well. And I’m a family with him and his kids. It’s a relationship I don’t want to give up. At the same time, I don’t want to be in a relationship where I can’t trust him to be open with me and others about relevant info. I feel like I keep reading about “communication” and “building trust” but I don’t know what the mechanics of that looks like and what we’ve been doing is not producing good results...
Back in the very beginning of our relationship Kettle was in a serious long distance relationship with a woman, Lens. He didn’t tell me about Lens when we started dating and when he fell for me and eventually broke it off with her, he didn’t tell her the real reason. Their arrangement was that he could date other women, just had to tell Lens if it got serious. Which in our case, it had. They’ve continued to be friends over the years and it’s always bothered me that he kept us both a secret from each other in the beginning and that she didn’t know the real story of their break up. He didn’t want to hurt her with it, but it seemed like it could affect the choice she made about going forward with their friendship. Basically it felt like she didn’t have all the relevant info and wasn’t a full willing partner in their friendship.
Fast forward and he makes friends with a woman, Pill. This was several years ago. She expressed an interest/attraction to him and he declined but they became friends. For the past few years, he’s been in almost daily contact with her, texting mostly articles and stuff back and forth. When he would visit our old city where she lives (we moved out of state three years ago) they would have coffee or beers. He maintained to me that he was not interested in Pill romantically, just pals. I didn’t think much of it because he had told me about crushes, spent time with women he was interested in, I thought we were doing pretty good on the whole relevant info getting shared thing.
Fast forward to two weeks ago and they had sex. I honestly wasn’t super surprised. Kettle’s threshold for when one has sex is lower than mine, sex with a casual pal is not weird for him- this difference in attitudes about sex has been part of the conversation. The thing that surprised me is that she doesn’t know who I am. He’s been in daily contact with her for years and never mentioned me. This includes some pretty deliberate sidestepping of information.
I am really hurt and mad about this and deeply bothered that this is a repeat of what happened with Lens (minus the falling in love part). He maintains still that he has no romantic intentions with Pill, that it was just pals having sex. But the fact that she didn’t know about me runs contary to how we were going to do poly- fully informed consent was important. And I’m also super hurt, so very hurt that he has this significant relationship where I was a straight up secret.
I asked him to come clean about me with Pill and Lens and give me some way to get a sense of what his relationship with Pill actually is. He wants to get a therapist, he says he’s as confused by this repeat pattern of hiding relationships. He wanted a therapists input on discussing with Pill and Lens, but making an appointment was dragging out and he finally sent the messages. His relationship with Pill was continuing like normal and it was making me crazy. I was refusing to sleep in the same bed with him while I was a secret and Ive basically moved into my art studio at this point.
I ended up getting into his text messages with Pill without permission. Which I feel really bad about. It was one of those scared enough to make a bad decision things. They’re mostly articles, some flirting back and forth, and some really serious sidestepping around mentioning me. Like, not totally direct lies, but only because she didn’t ask direct questions because his narrative was constructed as though he was single.
Pill took the news okay, overall. Apparently she was surprised and hurt, but in a day or two they were back to normal. Lens was really hurt and this may have ended their friendship. I feel sad for them both, but I also don’t want to be his secret anymore. Kettle has had this plan that Lens would come visit us and I’d get to meet her someday, I’ve always been baffled that this could mean I have to lie about our relationship to cover for him- I’m not that person. I think I’ve been pretty good at letting him manage his relationships with women he’s interested and such, but I’m not someone who can straight up lie about something I know to be important to someone.
So it’s been about two weeks since this mess began. We’ve slept in the same bed a bit, had sex twice, but mostly it’s been tense and painful. It’s been a hard year overall- other big stuff happened that’s just wore us both out mentally and emotionally- and now I’m feeling really stuck. These past two weeks, I’ve been hard on him and it’s made him withdrawal. I apologized, but it hasn’t helped. These past few days I’ve been trying to give us a break from the long tough talks, but with him withdrawing it feels like I’m apologizing for my feelings. So now I’m still hurt and he’s stonewalling me. He called a therapist several times this week, we’re hoping for guidance from that end for his own insight into this pattern of his and how to cope as a pair.
You guys seem like a a reasonable and thoughtful bunch and I’d really appreciate insight. I feel so stuck right now. We love each other deeply and there’s a lot about our values, interests, desires in life that match up so well. And I’m a family with him and his kids. It’s a relationship I don’t want to give up. At the same time, I don’t want to be in a relationship where I can’t trust him to be open with me and others about relevant info. I feel like I keep reading about “communication” and “building trust” but I don’t know what the mechanics of that looks like and what we’ve been doing is not producing good results...