Now my wife is confused about polyamory

I

ilovestrawberries

New member
Hi. This morning my wife seemed really down and I asked what was bothering her and we had a weird discussion.

Quick recap of our situation:

•She is 20 years younger than I am
•We absolutely want to be together
•I became poly when we met (because she was) but we hadn’t dated anyone else since living together
•She dated someone recently and it really upset me and I said some horrible things about that person as a defense mechanism
•It brought up all kinds of emotions for me and we’ve discussed how we could do poly better going forward
•I don’t think I am poly myself but want her to be happy and do this if she wants – we’d have a mono/poly thing
•I told her I am doing this for her, because I agreed to it when we got together, and I want her to be happy
•She is in trauma therapy, is a rape survivor, and has Complex PTSD from all of her history

I think I just need to talk this out and there’s probably no answer. I think my wife needs to work out some things herself, but after these discussions, I’m always left feeling a bit like I did something wrong. I’m sure that’s just me and my brain processing through the anxiety lense.

She said she doesn’t know what she wants, meaning she’s not even sure about polyamory. She said the following things:

•I’m hurt by the way you talked about the person I was dating (I said terrible things about their appearance, worthiness, etc all out of hurt and stress)
•I feel like polyamory isn’t turning out the way I thought it would
•I wonder if I’m poly just to avoid feeling like I’m “owned” by someone. (This stems from abusive relationships in the past where she felt that way)
•I feel like you said demeaning things to me when you said that person was lucky to have me. No one “has” me. (again, feeling owned, but I meant that as a compliment to her)
•I want to be with you
•I’m afraid of what will happen if/when I meet someone else and form an emotional connection with them (she’s afraid I’ll do the same thing I did last time)
•I don’t want to do things that make you feel bad

So yeah, it really sounds like she’s thinking a lot about stuff. We had a big discussion over the weekend about how to arrange our polyamory so that it works for both of us. Honestly, I am kinda worried about her dating someone new at some point, but feel like it’s my deal to figure out and as long as she is respectful of my feelings, I think it could be fine. Having said that, it would be a lot less stressful to me if she kept it to casual stuff.

It sounds like she doesn’t know what she wants and needs to figure it out herself. I feel awful about my part in this, though I do feel like some of it is her responsibility because of the way she went about it with that last person. Given that she’s in therapy for those things, I felt it was too soon for her to date someone (and she did end up getting hurt by them), and also because we had not dated anyone else since living together, I would’ve appreciated a discussion beforehand about her plans so that we could’ve worked out this stuff ahead of time. But it’s done now. I know she feels alone because it’s hard for her to meet people who accept her the way she is. So the idea of more people as a support network appeals to her, but every time we meet someone new, something happens and they do/say something that triggers her and then for her own safety, she can’t be around them anymore. Imagine trying to date someone new!

Argh. So anyway, I don’t really know what, if anything, I’m asking. I just wanted to get it all out there since she brought this up about 10 minutes before I had to leave for work this morning and now I feel all weird. I know I’ll be ok…I’m just one of those super empathetic people and I literally absorb emotions from others, especially her.
 
Sounds like she knows what she wants but is scared of the backlash & verbal abuse from YOU.
 
Well it's more complicated than that. She wants to be with me but knows that I'm not entirely happy with polyamory, so she doesn't want to hurt me.
She's also struggling with what she wants and is questioning her reasons for wanting to be poly in the first place.
 
I am sorry you struggle.

In the short term I think you guys could set some boundaries. HALT. Do not do big serious relationship talks when hungry, angry, lonely or tired. Certainly not a short bit before having to leave for work. Set a date to have the talk, yes. Actually start having it NOW? No. Gotta go to work in good frame of mind.

Just cranks up your anxiety and does not give her enough processing time so it does not help either of you to try doing deep talks right before work.

In the long term? Consider reading Marshall Rosenberg books about nonviolent communication. From the sound of it both could improve How you communicate with each other.

Listening defensively is a block to communication. I see that she is in therapy for her PTSD but are you as the spouse? Is there a group or class you can take for partner of a PTSD?

Galagirl
 
What she needs currently is just an emotional support and attachment to you. If she is going through therapy then definitely she is not feeling good about herself. So in spite of being abusive and angry, you should stand beside her and let her feel the comfort of your relationship. Find time to spend together as much as possible.
 
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Let me clarify, I am not abusive to my wife. I give her so much emotional support and all kinds of support actually. I treat her like an absolute princess. She knows I am there for her no matter what.

It's just that we realized that I'm mono and she's poly and that she wants to make sure she does her poly thing without hurting me in the process. That first go round with the other person she was dating was an absolute disaster that could've been handled better by BOTH of us. We've talked about that extensively.

Interestingly enough, GalaGirl, we did decide to set aside one time a week to talk about relationship stuff, but she kinda blurted stuff out yesterday morning because she was stressed about going to therapy today. So yeah, we are definitely working on communication.
 
ilovestrawberries said:
Interestingly enough, GalaGirl, we did decide to set aside one time a week to talk about relationship stuff, but she kinda blurted stuff out yesterday morning because she was stressed about going to therapy today. So yeah, we are definitely working on communication.
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That happens, especially when you haven't quite figured out the communication thing yet. Just keep talking, keep your once a week talk, even if you both agree the only to say is "nothing new this week, we're good for now". Do a tag search here on "boundaries" and see what others have done and not done, it might give you guys somethings to discuss further. Also do an internet search and read up on "non-violent communication", there is some great tips on much better ways to communicate that won't put your partner on the immediate defensive.

My husband always said he didn't tell me stuff because he didn't want to deal with my reaction, based on an incident, 20 years ago, when I got upset because I found out about something after the fact. So instead of giving me a heads up, his solution was to try and HIDE it better, which never worked and made my reactions all the worse because he was now lying to me, so they cycle continued until we learned how to communicate BETTER with each other. Don't assume she understands what you are saying and vice versa.

Do you guys do any therapy together? That might be helpful. Learn the words and phases that trigger her and find different ways to phrase something - this works both ways.
 
If you said nasty things about the person she chose to have in her life you were attacking her choices. He was important to her and you attacked him. So of course she took personally.

Yes it can be interpreted as verbally abusive to those with a past history of abuse.

To be blunt dude you gas lighted her.
 
First of all, I'm not a dude and neither was the person she was dating.

I was feeling hurt by what she was doing and my reaction was visceral. We've talked about it. She knows it was hurtful to me and based on the fact that we both want to be together, we want to proceed in a way that feels good to both of us.

I have trouble seeing her date other people, that's just the fact, but I'm willing to do this because I want her to be happy, so it's HER job to be respectful to me in the way that she does it.
 
SNeacail said:
My husband always said he didn't tell me stuff because he didn't want to deal with my reaction, based on an incident, 20 years ago, when I got upset because I found out about something after the fact. So instead of giving me a heads up, his solution was to try and HIDE it better, which never worked and made my reactions all the worse because he was now lying to me, so they cycle continued until we learned how to communicate BETTER with each other. Don't assume she understands what you are saying and vice versa.

Do you guys do any therapy together? That might be helpful. Learn the words and phases that trigger her and find different ways to phrase something - this works both ways.
Click to expand...

I've seen her therapist a few times to get help on how to communicate with someone who has PTSD and my wife specifically. That was helpful and we've learned a lot from it. We basically DO have awesome communication, it's just that sometimes even with the best intentions, people are going to have emotional reactions to things and those were mine. I deal with a TON of her emotional reactions and let a lot of things just roll off of me because of her mental conditions, so while I do feel bad about the things I said, I do not feel bad about having those feelings.
 
My husband and I have dealt with this as well. I have been in an abusive relationship before and have ptsd from it. Some days it goes well other days it doesn't we've talked and worked on alot of things since we've been poly and ended up coming up with a general list of rules of respect we ask out of everyone and with eachother. That way we don't step on toes or trigger things, and everyone is happy. One of our big things is that we like everyone to be okay with eachother so we always meet with everyone first. That way we both get to know the person together and develop a freindship all the way around. It makes it easier for everyone to come together if there is a problem and talk it out or if we all wanted to hang out nobody feels left out. That seemed to help us with taking out the backlash on the others partners when things went wrong or during times of stress.
 
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