feeling heart broken

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Sweetpea

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I guess this is kinda an introduction and a cry for help kind of letter.. Lets see where to start...
When I first met my husband of 7 years (10 years ago) I already knew that I was a non-monagomous person. He has always been supportive of me and my freedom. We have a great relationship, a kid, a business together and he is one of my best friends. He is a freedom oriented highly emotionally intelligent person, but he is not interested in other lovers.
Over the years we have been together I have had lovers but nothing ever more than friends who like benefits. NO one has been able to even hold a candle to my husband. That is until about three weeks ago. I met someone who within just a few days I felt like I was being reawakened and dare I say in love. Not one time in my life have I fell in love at first sight. That is not my experience at all. But I think that may be what happened with this person. We both opened and shared so much it was pretty amazing on many levels.
He made some promises to me and we spoke in depth about poly relationships and seeing each other again... Then upon our return to our home (7 hours away from each other) the communication has been horrible. I am feeling pretty hurt and even crazy. Trying not to obsess (that is the one rule my husband has asked of me). We have spoken a few times, but he really has spent most of the time ignoring me. I sent him a letter in the mail (old school I know), but until I actually can have another conversation its pretty difficult to know whats going on. We have a mutual friend which is how we met and I have thought about talking to him..But not sure yet... Any advise?:(
 
Hi Seasiren,
Sorry you are hurting at this time. :(

I know your husband means well when he says not to obsess, but of course you're going to obsess when you've fallen madly in love.

It sounds like this new guy isn't very reliable in the long-distance department. Any chance he can move to be closer to you or vice versa?

I think you should talk to that mutual friend; just get his thoughts about it. Unfortunately it's possible that your long-distance guy wasn't as in love as you were with him? You can ask him some point-blank questions and see if he'll answer. Do you just only have his snail mail address, or can you email him as well? Can you call him? text him? etc. ... maybe Skype would help.

If the guy just isn't a reliable long-distance lover, then you might either have to get used to rather infrequent contact with him, or break up with him if you can't stand the silences. You might want to tell him that you need more contact from him and see (if and) how he responds.

I can understand why you're hurting.
Sincerely,
Kevin T.
 
Thanks Kevin...
You hit the nail on the head for sure. I do have his phone number and we tried to talk this weekend, but the timing just didn't work. Otherwise we have texted and also had uncomfortably long stretches of not talking. I think that its clear I am a better communicator. From our experience together I thought he was a good communicator but we also didn't set up standards to what was expected. It is also probable that I fell harder than him, even though he was the one expressing his feeling and literally leading every opening with communication. I feel hurt and confused...
Our mutual friend is a lover of mine who learned many things about his friend that he didn't know, through our coupling. I am not sure what to ask him? The last thing he said to me was that maybe the three of us could have a threesome. If you have any ideas let me know.
 
I don't know, do you want a threesome? I'm not experienced in that area, though I have to say I've heard more than a few tales of threesomes that left at least one person feeling very unsatisfied. Just a fair warning, I guess.

I guess you should just ask your mutual friend (the lover of yours) what his thoughts are on what has happened so far. This long-distance guy you have fallen in love with: is he trustworthy? Is he a strong communicator in person, but a weak communicator from a distance? These are some of the things you could ask your mutual friend.

It is always a good idea (especially in poly) to be very clear, explicit, even detailed about what our wants, needs, and expectations are. Sometimes we assume that if something is obvious to ourselves, it must be obvious to the other person as well. But that's not necessarily the case.

Those are my thoughts for the moment ...
 
All excellent advise. I mentioned the threesome comment from him to show you how he is pretty unaware. It doesn't make any sense except to emphasize that he just thinks poly just leads to orgies. Anyway. I am seeing my mistakes with communicating big time. I was so caught up in the excitement of all the feelings and meeting someone who actually got me so easily that I wasn't really being very smart. I am going to try to talk to our mutual friend amd ask him some specific questions.
 
That's a good idea. Please keep us posted on how things are going; we might be able to give some more ideas.
 
While it could be any number of things, I am wondering if it could just be difficult for him to express himself through email and text. I've known some wonderfully intelligent people that had dyslexia or were poor spellers that made expressing themselves in the written word arduous at best and impossible at worst - especially when trying to express emotion. I had one person tell me that once they had to stop and think about the mechanics of putting word to email, the feeling was gone.

I throw this out as a possibility that you didn't misread the situation, but that there might be something quite mundane at play.
 
Bookbug.. I guess it could be any number of things. I prefer to think its a positive thing, but its just challenging for me...
I did spend the last little bit talking to our mutual friend and he gave me no insight more than the thought that I am probably just a rebound....Guess all I can do is wait and see, and let go. :(
 
Re:
"I am probably just a rebound ..."

That's a depressing thought. I hope it's not true. :(
 
"Probably just a rebound..." That is *exactly* what Best Friend said to me a few weeks ago when I was dealing with a lack of communication from S2.

That wasn't the case, though. When I was able to see S2 and speak to him in person about the communication lack, he was very clear that sometimes he gets busy and isn't able to answer a text or email right away, and depending on how busy he is he might forget to answer later. And sometimes he gets stressed, and he prefers to isolate until he's gotten a handle on the stress rather than talking to someone else and risking having the stress spill out onto them.

It may be that something like being busy, or dealing with other stress in his life, is behind the lack of communication with the guy you've fallen for. It's also possible, as bookbug suggested, that written communication just isn't his thing. Guy is one of only two people I generally talk to on the phone as opposed to texting or emailing (the other person is my mother, for whom technology is more foreign than Martian), because Guy has difficulty wording things in writing, and is better at talking. It's a huge compromise for me because I'm the other way around; I'm far better at communicating in writing than verbally. But in any relationship, compromise has to happen sometimes, and the alternative is very little communication with Guy, which would suck because he and I are long-distance.

I hope that you are able to get in touch with your man and find out where the communication gap is coming from. If so, maybe you could express to him that you'd like to, for example, have one or two "check ins" a week, where you'll at least exchange text messages to say "Hey, how's it going?"
 
You guys are so great! I am happy I found you all!
Thanks for the insight you had recently with S2. It inspired me to write him this morning to be clear. Its funny how two people can have such a strong compatible connection and yet have such different ways of dealing with stress and communication. And truly I don't know what the deal is with him, but for now I feel better that I have spoken my truth instead of hiding behind some outdated fears I have around past relationships and the hot cold thing.
Actually I have had great insight in many ways this week. One being that my ex-boyfriend apologized to me (after 4 years of therapy dealing with his stuff and two years of being in a loving married relationship) that he created this love hate thing between us over the years as we became friends post breakup. When I would reach out to him he would be so clear and open and loving with me then would turn cold and not return my calls. So as I tease through falling in love with someone for the first time in many years I see this pattern show up. These are all affirmations for me that loving completely and openly is the only path for me.
:D
 
Well thank you for helping me through this. I was able to tell him how I felt and ask him why he has basically blown me off since our incredible time together. He told me he was sorry but he really doesn't have time for me. Long story short. I am riding the emotional roller coaster. The learning curve is pretty intense with this kind of thing. So many good things have come out of this experience that I can't be mad and hurt for too long, I hope. In the mean time I am just surrendering to the ride.
 
Awww, he's breaking up with you? Does he mean that he doesn't have a *lot* of time for you, or that he doesn't have *any* time for you?

Breakups suck. :(
 
Well.. Lets just say the communication is limited. He said he does not have time for a day to day love relationship. I told him that I also don't want that, I told him what I wanted, and part of that is I do need to talk through some of this stuff at first so I can know where we stand and he is not even available for that. I am going through learning curve here. I got my heart connected to someone who's communication and self awareness seems to be much different in LDR than in person and he can't explain it to me. There were a couple red flags and I should of been clearer from the start..
 
Well maybe when he was with you in person, he was on vacation? and had quite a bit of spare time? whereas now that he's gone back home it's back to the old grind and he has a job to do every day, school, a house to keep up ... maybe a wife and kids? I am just speculating here.
 
Some people don't need or want daily communication. I know I don't. If a lover of mine expected me to be in touch every day or even every other day, it would feel quite oppressive to me. I don't want a recipe to follow, I just want to reach out to someone when I feel moved to do so. It doesn't mean I am not thinking of that person frequently, I am just happy to have some space apart. I hate the idea of being obligated to call or write - or even see someone. My current beau and I just texted today for the first time in two weeks. It takes some flexibility for someone who thrives on constant contact to realize that not hearing from someone who for a few days should not automatically be equated with being "blown off." They just may be someone with a different threshhold for frequency of communication.
 
nycindie,
You are quite right. I must admit I did not handle this one with much grace. The whole thing took me by surprise and I was not ready for the emotions that came with it. I am flexible to designing whatever works for the two of us, but I am afraid I made the mistake of coming on too strong without there being any decent boundaries set. We are both just giving it time to see where the dices fall and see if there will be more in the future. Huge learning experience for me, and I am grateful for it.
 
Some people don't need or want daily communication. I know I don't. If a lover of mine expected me to be in touch every day or even every other day, it would feel quite oppressive to me.

I'm with nycindie here.

For me, personally, I don't really count txt or phone as "interaction" - because I can't "read" people via these channels. (So much of communication is nonverbal). But just because I'm not spewing digital bits of info at someone doesn't mean I don't value my relationship with them.

People have different needs for communication.
 
Communication/staying in touch is something I think some people forget to communicate *about*. As nycindie and Jane both said, different people have different needs and ideas about keeping in touch, and that's something that should be discussed in the course of a relationship, in my opinion.

When Hubby and I were dating, we lived 2 hours apart. He came to spend his days off with my kids and me once a week. At first, he would call or message me between visits, but after a while, he stopped doing that. I didn't hear from him AT ALL, not even to confirm whether he was coming to see us that week.

When I asked him why, he said, "I talked to you a lot at first because I wanted to make sure you weren't some kind of psycho. Now I know you aren't, so I don't need to talk to you between visits."

I told Hubby that that made me feel kind of crappy, and that for *me*, brief calls or messages while I wasn't seeing him helped me feel more connected, and that it was also important for me--and my kids--to hear for certain whether he would be coming to see us. I said it didn't have to be much, just a texted "Hi, hope you're doing well, see you Friday" or a quick call, and it didn't have to be often, just once or twice between visits.

When I understood why daily communication neither worked for nor mattered to him, and he understood why it was important to me to hear from him at least once or twice, we were able to make that compromise. But if I hadn't brought it up, I would have kept feeling like he wasn't getting in touch because he didn't like me anymore or consider me worth the time, and he would have kept thinking everything was fine.

Same thing with my situation with S2; once he understood that not getting any response at all to my texts worried me and made me wonder if things were all right, he's made more of an effort to answer as soon as he's able, and even sometimes to initiate text-versations. For my part, I've tried not to text him often, and when he doesn't answer right away, I let it go because I know I will hear from him eventually.

Communicating with each other, like anything else in a relationship, requires communication and compromise.
 
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