PhilosophicallyLost
New member
Sometimes just looking at the threads on this forum help me feel less freaky. Anyway, my husband and I have tried letting me be poly with his best friend for a year. In the last few months things have settled finally to a degree. My husband's anxiety spells are greatly reduced, which in turn makes me happier too. Hubby and I had a talk today about our stance on things, and some of it has me feeling unsettled again. I wear my heart on my sleeve and I hate hurting anyone in general. However, we came to the agreement that it's not entirely possible for both of us to be completely happy. I will always wish to some extent that Y was on board with the poly thing and was okay with it. He wishes that I'd be on board for the monogamy thing. What we have now is a compromise between the two. I cannot have sex but I can still be romantic with E. Also, Y and I are moving into our own home. Y just can't deal with even the subtler signs that E and I love each other being present on a regular basis, so I agreed I can visit E at his new place and we can be ourselves much easier. E is not entirely happy about the arrangement, but it was the only way I saw to keep my marriage together. It's not perfect by any means, but I at least hope this will be a better model of poly for all of us to work with in the long run.
Which brings me back to the fact that I wish it was possible for Y to be more okay. I hate seeing him in pain. He said it's not that I don't give him enough love; he feels I've done a lot to give him the support in this transition he needs. He just feels he will always wish me to be monogamous with him someday again. We are at opposite poles and objectively I see we have tried really hard to meet somewhere in the middle. Emotionally I just feel that I'm just causing him misery for developing feelings for someone else and that I'm the one who made things worse for everyone. I have struggled even before poly with hating the fact I developed feelings for someone else. I had a horrible fight with my brother where he accused me of being cruel and immoral for subjecting my husband to this, and the words still haunt me. I am supposed to be entering therapy finally with my brother to work through our issues with this too, and I just am not looking forward to remembering how horrible he made me feel.
As logically as I can defend the practice of polyamory, I still struggle with legitimizing my practice of it because of my conservative background. I have conservative friends, and even though they support us as friends they don't agree with the practice either. I feel very isolated sometimes. I logically feel that falling in love with someone else is not wrong and is not a betrayal, but I got the feeling from my husband that he feels it is to a degree. I just feel it is wrong to be deceptive about it and not adhere to boundaries.
Yet I see him struggle with his feelings on it. Granted, it's not all the time, but he more or less told me he will always have those days. And that's when I get that feeling that I'm horrible for doing that to him. I don't want to forgive myself for wanting to love others, even though I would forgive all other beings for wanting the same for themselves.
Logically I feel I should treat this as just a difference between my husband and me philosophically and romantically. He feels outside of this issue that we are very compatible. Yet the stigma that comes with it just makes me feel like I'm more horrible than I actually am. I just don't know if I'm being too hard on myself or not. My husband still thinks it's clearly worth sticking with the marriage despite his issues with poly, and that's his decision to make, but I sometimes wonder if he'd be happier elsewhere. I told him as much and that's when he said he felt we were pretty compatible otherwise...but is it worth it? I guess it is for him, otherwise he'd be trying to leave me. And it wouldn't be fair for me to force a separation on him if he thinks he can still more or less work with it.
I want to do the right thing, and it just seems so murky sometimes. It's hard to know sometimes if there even is a clear answer, or if the answer is just do the best you can despite that it guarantees hardships ahead.
Any input is appreciated. Thanks for reading.
Which brings me back to the fact that I wish it was possible for Y to be more okay. I hate seeing him in pain. He said it's not that I don't give him enough love; he feels I've done a lot to give him the support in this transition he needs. He just feels he will always wish me to be monogamous with him someday again. We are at opposite poles and objectively I see we have tried really hard to meet somewhere in the middle. Emotionally I just feel that I'm just causing him misery for developing feelings for someone else and that I'm the one who made things worse for everyone. I have struggled even before poly with hating the fact I developed feelings for someone else. I had a horrible fight with my brother where he accused me of being cruel and immoral for subjecting my husband to this, and the words still haunt me. I am supposed to be entering therapy finally with my brother to work through our issues with this too, and I just am not looking forward to remembering how horrible he made me feel.
As logically as I can defend the practice of polyamory, I still struggle with legitimizing my practice of it because of my conservative background. I have conservative friends, and even though they support us as friends they don't agree with the practice either. I feel very isolated sometimes. I logically feel that falling in love with someone else is not wrong and is not a betrayal, but I got the feeling from my husband that he feels it is to a degree. I just feel it is wrong to be deceptive about it and not adhere to boundaries.
Yet I see him struggle with his feelings on it. Granted, it's not all the time, but he more or less told me he will always have those days. And that's when I get that feeling that I'm horrible for doing that to him. I don't want to forgive myself for wanting to love others, even though I would forgive all other beings for wanting the same for themselves.
Logically I feel I should treat this as just a difference between my husband and me philosophically and romantically. He feels outside of this issue that we are very compatible. Yet the stigma that comes with it just makes me feel like I'm more horrible than I actually am. I just don't know if I'm being too hard on myself or not. My husband still thinks it's clearly worth sticking with the marriage despite his issues with poly, and that's his decision to make, but I sometimes wonder if he'd be happier elsewhere. I told him as much and that's when he said he felt we were pretty compatible otherwise...but is it worth it? I guess it is for him, otherwise he'd be trying to leave me. And it wouldn't be fair for me to force a separation on him if he thinks he can still more or less work with it.
I want to do the right thing, and it just seems so murky sometimes. It's hard to know sometimes if there even is a clear answer, or if the answer is just do the best you can despite that it guarantees hardships ahead.
Any input is appreciated. Thanks for reading.