The pace of the one who is struggling most

[IndieSolo]

Dinged, AC's other guys are friends her husband has known for years, and I believe they have all attended parties and dances together before. I think you are misinterpreting some things, though I also think it is valuable for AC to see your perspective. However, do you not see that her husband blew things way out of proportion?

He is overly sensitive about his wife's friendships with these men, because he's not willing to do the work to understand and deal with his feelings about it. He has told her what his boundaries are. She has agreed, and been totally ethical and considerate of him, but he doesn't want to know anything more about what she does with them, and yet, won't let himself trust her. He struggles because he doesn't want to address it any further. Instead, he stews about it in his own mind, judges her, and feels that what she wants is shameful. He is from another culture, which influences him here, but that doesn't absolve his responsibility to handle his own emotions. There was a miscommunication and many bizarre assumptions on his part. A dance only lasts about four or five minutes, why would he think she wasn't going to be with him for the last one? He is irrational about this. If it had been anyone else she was dancing with at 11:45, I'm sure he wouldn't have blown up at her.

I asked him to join me on the main floor before midnight.

At 11:45 they announced it was the second-to-last dance before midnight, so I asked C to dance. Before the band started, my husband walked up, looking upset, and said he wanted to do the next dance with me. I said of course. I had a good dance with C, wished him a happy new year, then found my husband, who launched into an angry tirade about how I should have been with him since 11:45. Not just the last dance before midnight, but the 15 minutes before midnight. (For the kind of dancing we do, it is common practice to change partners for each dance.)

I told him that wasn't what I thought we'd planned, but that we were doing the last dance. He continued to try to convince me that I had done something wrong. I told him it didn't feel like he actually wanted to be happily enjoying dancing with me, but rather that he was trying to stake some kind of claim. ...

He has accused me of not caring about him, of not wanting to make him happy, of not wanting to dance with him as much as I wanted to dance with C. (Thank god L changed plans last minute and didn't make it.) He said I danced with C at least 6 or 8 times, when it was really only 3. He said if he hadn't come up to me when he did, I would probably have danced with C until midnight, and C would have expected a midnight kiss since he came without a date. It's like he's making up a version of reality that turns me into a bad wife, but it's not based on fact. So how can I make it right?

Ironically when I asked C for that dance, I'd actually hoped to ask the woman who had been dancing with him before that. She's someone I really like (friend-wise). But she moved off before I could get to her, so I asked C. Never realizing I was breaking my husband's unwritten 15-minutes-before-midnight rule.

 

[dingedheart]

I know you think I'm talking out my ass, but I was dumped into this type of situation.

I do realize they have all know each other for years. How is that relevant? What things did I misinterpret?

I said HYPER sensitive, overly. What's the difference? I think I used the stronger word. If not, insert the strongest word. I said emotion spilled, like PMS. What didn't I get?

This is a relatively new for him (meaning since the sexual contact started). Reframe old dynamic. Let's not forget this happened with his main social hobby. Please correct that if that's wrong. It could change his view or desire to participate in the hobby. Has anyone added that into this mix.?

This isn't like bowling or darts. This is intimate contact. In his mind, this could be like watching them make love.

And how many struggling mono's stories do you see where all the participants have the same shared hobby?

Where's Sage? Little help, please.

Bottom line-- I give him an A for going, B or B- for conduct prior to 11:45 (really subjective here-- my gut says A-, but I'm downgrading out of fairness), D or F for the incident in question, Cs and Ds for the ride home trying to articulate his position.

Some think he failed. I think he's trying and had a bad night. I think his continued trying should speak for more than any 15-minute block of time.

 

[AnotherConfused]

All I ask from my husband is that we communicate openly. Two weeks before, we had a dinner party that included Colin. I offered to cancel. I offered to move it out of our house to a restaurant. But my husband said he was totally fine with it, and it seemed he was. Given that, how was I to guess that two weeks later he'd be uncomfortable being in a venue with hundreds of people, including Colin? He never told me. He never asked if we could change plans, or if I could not dance with Colin, or in any other way indicated that I shouldn't treat Colin just as I do all my other favorite dance partners, and that includes smiling, twirling, and enjoying the dance. I do this every week. If he doesn't tell me he's suddenly uncomfortable with it, how should I guess?

If he had given me any indication that he was having trouble seeing me with Colin, or that he wanted more time with me, or that he wished I would spend more time upstairs with him, I would have been able to work it out. In fact, we started out on the main floor together and I asked if he'd like us to both go upstairs, and he said to wait until the break between bands. He then went up without me, while I was dancing, leading me to believe he was comfortable with us drifting between floors separately, on our own. And I did go up and dance with him up there, several times. I would not have gone up to look for him before midnight, because we agreed to meet downstairs.

Incidentally, I asked a friend when I was out dancing last night whether he thought "two more dances until midnight" announced at 11:45 New Year's Eve meant everyone should find their significant other, or whether it might be acceptable to dance with someone else for one more dance first, or whether he thought there was room for interpretation. He said it was definitely up to interpretation. He also said his wife danced the last dance of the night with another man, and he was glad to see her enjoying it.

When it comes down to it, I don't think my husband wants to see me happy. I think he wants to take what he feels entitled to. In fact, he said those last 15 minutes were his entitlement. I really don't want to feel owned. If he had framed this whole thing as, "I'm so sad we only had 5 minutes together before midnight, because I really had looked forward to having more time with you in 2011 and to dancing with you because I love you so much," it might not have upset me. Instead I felt like a toy, and he was a toddler screaming, "Mine!"

I'm not sure how it's relevant, dingedheart, but my husband is by far the better dancer. And dancing is not really his hobby. He wouldn't dance at all if I didn't ask him to. I'm the one who needs to dance regularly in order to be happy.

 

[IndieSolo]

I think it is the sense of ownership over you that I would bristle at, as well.

 

[sage]

Where's Sage? A little help, please.

Sigh... This is all too complex for me to get into at this late stage. I would just comment that it is unrealistic to expect monos in poly relationships to be logical and to respond in a linear way. It is my experience that dealing with a poly partner is a hugely emotional experience and our emotions erupt in very irregular ways, i.e., what was fine for us one day may not be the next.

If your husband is behaving like this, AC, he has probably had some kind of emotional trigger. We dealt with this by my partner responding rather than reacting. He took the time to get underneath my actions and we both would try to figure out what was going on for me.

Hi, Dinged. I am busy with work and study at the moment. My mono-poly relationship is probably working as well as possible, so I don't have the time to follow the forums. I have left my blog up as a resource for those in need. If you would like me to comment on something, just private message me. It will come up as an email message and I'll know to check the forum.

Hope you are finding some peace, love and joy, and that it will continue for 2012.

 

[AnotherConfused]

I'm perfectly fine with emotions being illogical or erratic. We can't always predict how we are going to feel or why. (Case in point: my discomfort with adding sexual touch to my relationship with Luke-- once I finally had the freedom to try it, I was completely caught off guard by my feelings.)

I just think it's unfair for my husband to expect me to understand and be sensitive to his feelings if he doesn't tell me what they are. I'm a caring person. Loving is what I love to do. I have been putting a lot of very conscious effort into trying to make this work for all of us to be happy. If I had known what he needed in order to feel happy that night, of course I would have done it. Colin wasn't expecting another dance with me, or me with him, and if I'd known my husband was in the room I would happily have danced with him the rest of the night.

I'm trying to get to the bottom of this with my husband so that we can try to prevent this kind of scenario from repeating, but he wants to drop the subject, and just hold on to feeling wronged. His attitude is that he shouldn't need to spend his time and energy on all this, since it's my insistence on polyamory that has caused all the trouble in the first place. So now, not only do I feel like he's trying to own me, but I feel like our relationship (the love, the partnership, the inter-relating) is not worth his time. It's not a very good start to the new year.

 

[dingedheart]

AC, do you think I misinterpreted anything, outside of the hobby part, which I didn't know?

I said because of the events of the last few weeks that you were probably feeling relaxed about things. He may not have had problems until later in the night, or up until 11:45, getting close to the Cinderella stuff.

You surprising him by finding him at 11:15 was the extension of the possible romantic notions or thoughts that could have been rolling around in his head. And about placing meaning to things that otherwise are taken for granted because they happen by default. Years past, this same exact thing could have occurred and nothing would have been said.

The friend you asked the second to last dance protocol question of, is he aware of the new romantic dynamic between everyone? That might skew the answer.

Your thoughts and feelings about entitlement to a certain dance are valid. Were his comments made in the heat of the moment? In the balance of trade, even if he truly felt that way (about the 15 min), not ownership, why would you want to fight about it? Oops, I didn't know. Please remind me next year. And stipulate that this entitlement only applies to 15 min blocks of time.

The relevance of the dancing ability question was his possible thoughts and feeling about being less, dancing as the metaphor. I thought this had a shared hobby type feel. Maybe everyone would be better off if not go go. Less stress for you him.

Sage, it was somewhat of a joke. For a person who's not around, you are sure around when I infrequently use your name. Do you have some technology that notifies you? Better put a block on the recipe section around the holidays. Take care.

 

[SNeacail]

I'm trying to get to the bottom of this with my husband so that we can try to prevent this kind of scenario from repeating, but he wants to drop the subject (and just hold on to feeling wronged).

He may just be overwhelmed and feeling bombarded beyond what he is capable of dealing with right now.

His attitude is that he shouldn't need to spend his time and energy on all this, since it's my insistence on polyamory that has caused all the trouble in the first place.

I call "Bullshit"! Every marriage needs to spend time and energy on communication. The reason so many marriages/relationship fail is that we get lazy and decide we shouldn't have to spend anymore time and energy on our partner. Please seriously look into getting a marriage counselor, because the communication issue and his attitude toward it is a BIG RED FLAG! It will only get worse. My husband use to always throw out, "you should just know..." and it was only through a third party that he finally got it that I didn't just know.

 

[AnotherConfused]

Do you think I misinterpreted anything, outside of the hobby part, which I didn't know?

I don't know that you misinterpreted anything, really, unless you think my husband gave me enough cues that I should have been able to figure out what was going on and what he wanted from me. He really didn't.

In the first half of the night, I danced with him multiple times on two different floors. I danced with Colin once on the main floor. From that, I really had no idea that he would be feeling uncomfortable or pushed into second place or any of that.

Also keep in mind that my husband is strikingly handsome (very tall, exotic Indian coloring, long thick ponytail, once got asked to be an underwear model) and never has to ask anyone to dance. He just walks in and the women come to him. Colin is 16 years older and pretty average looking. So I didn't expect my hubs would have had any kind of inferiority feelings either.

Before we got to the dance, he told me he'd probably be sitting down most of the night, and we arranged to dance together for the waltz before the break and the waltz at the end, so I also didn't expect that he'd be wanting to dance with me much. He was just getting over being sick, so it surprised me that he kept dancing.

So while it may be true that he was suffering his way through the evening feeling slighted and rejected at every turn, I can't imagine how anyone in my place would have figured that out. He seemed to be having fun. Quite a lot of fun.

As for the friend who thought the second-to-last dance was not necessarily assumed to be danced with one's spouse, he did not know the relationship dynamic between Colin and me. My husband wants that to stay private. I only asked him whether he thought it was implicit or not, and he thought it was a fuzzy situation that could be interpreted either way.

At this point, I'm ready to drop the discussion too. I don't think my husband will ever come around to seeing that I wasn't purposefully rejecting him, and I don't think discussing it is going to take away his apparent insecurity. Sadly, this whole fight leaves me completely uninspired to keep trying demonstrate my love for him. My efforts feel futile, and his love for me feels more oppressive than supportive. We'll just be housemates for a little while until the dust settles. Maybe for Valentine's Day I'll make us a counselling appointment.

 

[sage]

It doesn't sound as if he has really accepted your polyamory.

 

[AnotherConfused]

It doesn't sound as if he has really accepted your polyamory.

I think he has resigned himself to it. He tolerates it. He certainly doesn't like it, but he recognized that I was struggling in trying to ignore it. 8 months of being mostly bedridden from a swollen sac around my heart... it finally healed around the time we came to an agreement on the boundaries for my relationships with Luke and Colin. We are trying to live a compromise that hurts us each the least.

 

[sage]

Resignation is not a particularly healthy way of looking at this, even though I think we all fall into it at times, it is defeatist and no one wants to feel defeated.
It's really important for monos to find the positives for themselves in their mono-poly relationship. I have a post on that under favourites on my blog.

 

[dingedheart]

AC, I wouldn't be surprised if the evening went perfectly in your mind and then he cried himself to sleep a week later over it. So no, I don't think you missed any blatant cues, or did anything intentionally. He may be very good at keeping things in.

 

[AnotherConfused]

Resignation is not a particularly healthy way of looking at this, even though I think we all fall into it at times, it is defeatist and no one wants to feel defeated.
It's really important for monos to find the positives for themselves in their polymono relationship. I have a post on that under favourites on my blog.

Thank you, Sage. I looked at your blog once in the past and will do that again. Right now he is unwilling to accept any positives. He says, "There's no benefit for me," but closes himself off to any potential benefit-- everything from saying we should not have sex if I'm aroused as a result of happiness from spending time with them (and now coitus interruptus if one of them happens to cross my mind at the time) to refusing to let them do anything for us or give anything to us. I was jubilant yesterday when he said he was grateful I had learned the trick of keeping a ripe avocado from spoiling by refrigerating it. "Who told you about that? Oh yeah..." I said, "Now you can't say you haven't gotten any benefit from me having Colin in my life!"

 

[bassman]

I think he does believe polyamory is immoral. Unfortunately, all his ideas about relationships are based on what he perceives other people are doing, and since he has never been in a relationship or had sex with anyone but me, he has no clue what goes on behind the closed doors of other couples' lives. As far as he can see, I'm the only person (outside of porn movies, I guess) who has sexual fantasies, or uses sex toys. He never hears our friends talking about them, or his family. So between my libido and my interest in other men, I'm really not what he expected in a wife. It's disheartening.

"like"

My wife is the same, this really struck a chord with me.

 

[dingedheart]

I'd love to benefit from your relationship with Colin, if its not too complicated and derail the thread. How do you keep a ripe avocado in the fridge? PM if that's better.

I gave my daughter a magic bullet for Christmas to make her smoothies and energy shakes, but I'm thinking guacamole.

 

[redpepper]

Right now he is unwilling to accept any positives. He says, "There's no benefit for me" but closes himself off to any potential benefit -everything from saying we should not have sex if I'm aroused as a result of happiness from spending time with them (and now coitus interruptus if one of them happens to cross my mind at the time) to refusing to let them do anything for us or give anything to us. I was jubilant yesterday when he said he was grateful I had learned the trick of keeping a ripe avocado from spoiling by refrigerating it. "Who told you about that? Oh yeah..." I said, "Now you can't say you haven't gotten any benefit from me having C in my life!"

I agree, he doesn't get it and isn't on board, from what have read here. Might I suggest you PM Mono? He sounds like he could use some mono guy help. This is sounding all too familiar. Let me know if you need some help hooking them up.

If it's not too complicated and derail the thread, how do you keep a ripe avocado in the fridge?

You can keep an avocado in the fridge to slow it from ripening too fast, and when it just becomes over ripe, freeze it until when you want to make guacamole, then defrost it. It keeps its colour and taste, and whips up smooth. Also keep the pit in fresh guacamole as it stops it from going brown. Lime juice helps too, says my friend from Puerto Vallarta.

 

[SNeacail]

you can keep an avocado in the fridge to slow it from ripening too fast and when it just becomes over ripe, freeze it until when you want to make guacamole then defrost it. It keeps its colour, taste and wipes up smooth. Also keep the pit in fresh guacamole as it stops it from going brown (lime helps too). So says my friend from Puerto Vallarta on that last one.

Lime juice helps a lot to keep the guacamole from going brown. Before putting the guac in the fridge, put a layer of lime juice over the top. When you pull it out again, either drain the lime juice off or just mix it in (I mix it).

Don't put unripe avocados in the fridge. They will never finish ripening. If you only use part of an avocado, keep the remainder in the skin, with the pit still attached.

 

[IndieSolo]

Might I suggest you PM Mono? He sounds like he could use some mono guy help. This is sounding all too familiar. Let me know if you need some help hooking them up.

I believe I once asked if her husband would ever come here and the OP said he would be mortified to talk to anyone about this, so I doubt that would ever happen, RP.

 

[AnotherConfused]

I believe I once asked if her husband would ever come here and the OP said he would be mortified to talk to anyone about this, so I doubt that would ever happen, RP.

I wish I could get him to talk to someone, but yeah, he's resistant. And right now, he doesn't even want to talk to me. Things are really tense.

Colin was in town today. I figured it was best not to even let my husband know, but then he decided last minute to work from home today, so I had to tell him Colin was headed over. He helped me with a fix-it project at my business, and then we went out to lunch. When we came back to put the tools away, the 2 men crossed paths and my husband's hello was shooting daggers.

Every conversation I have with my husband is full of tension. There's no warmth between us. So I just had my first orgasm of 2012 in the back of Colin's car. (We followed all the explicit rules; I'm tired of trying to figure out the implicit ones.) Honestly, I'd rather be with a man who is willing to tell me his feelings, and appreciates what I offer, and offers kindness in return. Until my husband decides that our relationship is worth working on, I'm not able to keep up this one-sided attempt to connect. My door is always open, but he's got to be willing to enter.

So yeah, put the ripe avocado in the fridge and it holds it that way for quite some time.