The Poly Adventure is Just Beginning

[tronprogram]

I think from the outside that "poly" and the idea of a girlfriend can seem like a glittering oasis of relief and rejuvenation, but the reality of a real, live additional woman with real, live additional needs is an entirely different matter.

Which is why it's nice that it's a LDR, Penny has a kid of her own and can relate to this, and we'd probably do reasonably well just texting and meeting when we can. It would still be better than what we've got now, which is nothing.

 

[tronprogram]

Why would you even dare to think that directing your concerns and focus to the baby and the mother of your baby is something separate from "your needs?" You're the fucking father! Those are exactly your needs.

...along with tending to my own mental health and emotional well-being. Unlike what your accusations would suggest, I don't see this as a matter of satisfying my selfish whims and making sure I'm "comfortable" and pampered with sex before I'm asked to give it all up for this baby. No, I'm just trying to stabilize a stressful personal situation before it's made even more stressful once the baby gets here. Obviously, I won't be able to do everything I'd like to, but it would be nice to reach some sort of compromise, even if it's just texting Penny again. I'm already going to have a ton of problems to deal with, and I'd prefer this not to be one of them.

If you don't realize that, you shouldn't ever have risked getting your wife pregnant. And here you are whining and complaining that you can't have another romantic relationship. I think you need to grow up and think about what kind of father you are going to be. Honestly, the arrogance and irresponsibility is maddening, and frustrating to read again and again and again.

For one, you're reading too much into it. I've been to every doctor appointment, waited on Mabel hand and foot since we found out, and I've been doing anything else she needs or asks of me--sometimes without her asking. It seems that she's staying sick beyond the first trimester, so that's more that's being asked of me, too. I don't intend to stop doing that nor do I intend to let this desire for a new lifestyle interfere with that in any kind of major way, despite my wild daydreaming, speculations, and ramblings. However, I still would like to work with what I can if at all possible just to insure an easier transition into this new season of life.

 

[InfinitePossibility]

Really good if talking here is helping you get the thoughts out and is allowing you to be present with your wife. I very much hope that you are no longer talking to her about poly, other relationships and about your own emotional state. The time to be worrying about all of those things passed when you and your wife were attempting to get her pregnant and were long passed at the point she was pregnant.

Reading back through your first post, it doesn't seem to me as if there are any indications that your wife has any interest in a relationship structure other than monogamy.

Back in May, my wife proposes an open relationship with wholly different intentions than what I perceived them to be. At the time, she felt like I wasn't interested in our marriage anymore because I didn't really do anything for her and never contributed around the house and seemed uninterested in actively trying to have kids beyond trying the natural way (which hasn't been working). In her eyes, she was giving me a way out this way.

Your wife suggested you find another woman and move on. This isn't at all the same thing as her being up for living in any kind of open structure. In May, she wanted an easy way to end the marriage - and you finding somebody else would have provided that.

In spite of things clearly being difficult between you and your wife in May, you both continued with attempts to get pregnant and these attempts worked this time. Now you are faced with a change in your life that will last a lifetime and will take focus away from you, your wife and your needs - transferring the family focus to the baby. There will always be an amount of focus on parenting for the rest of your lives. This is a massive change and it sounds like you have both entered into it from a less than ideal position.

Oddly enough, she's had more experience with other partners than I have. She's been my only partner, for the most part.

So now it sounds as if you are worrying about what you will lose. There is understandable regret at moving on in life and feeling as if opportunities to experience what you have not will be harder to come by. This is not at all uncommon. Over the years I've been a member here, I've seen loads of pregnant women who are upset that their partner has suddenly discovered poly as the pregnancy has progressed. Plus some men like yourself who seem to become fixated on it once their partner is pregnant.

However, there did come a point where the summer heat got the best of us and we made out.

To make matters worse, you broke agreements with your wife and did things that you have agreed not to do.

So - your wife was never really into an open relationship. The first chance you get, you break her trust. Now she's pregnant.

You are still going on about open relationships.

I'd say that it's pretty much a non-starter.

If I were in your shoes I'd get whatever counselling and help I needed to put poly out of my head and get myself fully invested in the family that I'd helped to create.

There is absolutely no need for you (or anybody else in the Western world) to have children. Creating that kind of relationship is a deliberate choice and it does put limits on what else you can do. You chose freely to do this - own that choice. Learn the skills you need to parent well. Learn about how children learn, how best to support them when things aren't going well, how to negotiate the school system with your child, what things there are in your area to take kids to, how you and your wife will best work together as parents.

There is so much to learn and so much growth to be done for parents.

You may be going to appointments with your wife and helping around the house just now - but in filling your mind and spare time with thoughts of romance, you are still short changing your unborn child because helping your wife out doesn't help you learn about children - and once the baby is born, sleep will be short and life will be hectic.

IP

 

[MightyMax]

...along with tending to my own mental health and emotional well-being. Unlike what your accusations would suggest, I don't see this as a matter of satisfying my selfish whims and making sure I'm "comfortable" and pampered with sex before I'm asked to give it all up for this baby. No, I'm just trying to stabilize a stressful personal situation before it's made even more stressful once the baby gets here. Obviously, I won't be able to do everything I'd like to, but it would be nice to reach some sort of compromise, even if it's just texting Penny again. I'm already going to have a ton of problems to deal with, and I'd prefer this not to be one of them.



For one, you're reading too much into it. I've been to every doctor appointment, waited on Mabel hand and foot since we found out, and I've been doing anything else she needs or asks of me--sometimes without her asking. It seems that she's staying sick beyond the first trimester, so that's more that's being asked of me, too. I don't intend to stop doing that nor do I intend to let this desire for a new lifestyle interfere with that in any kind of major way, despite my wild daydreaming, speculations, and ramblings. However, I still would like to work with what I can if at all possible just to insure an easier transition into this new season of life.

Whilst you wait on her hand and foot, you constantly badger her to let you fuck another woman. It's disgusting, honestly. And these are POLY people telling you this. What do you think monogamous people would say?

 

[starlight1]

Really good if talking here is helping you get the thoughts out and is allowing you to be present with your wife. I very much hope that you are no longer talking to her about poly, other relationships and about your own emotional state. The time to be worrying about all of those things passed when you and your wife were attempting to get her pregnant and were long passed at the point she was pregnant.

Reading back through your first post, it doesn't seem to me as if there are any indications that your wife has any interest in a relationship structure other than monogamy.



Your wife suggested you find another woman and move on. This isn't at all the same thing as her being up for living in any kind of open structure. In May, she wanted an easy way to end the marriage - and you finding somebody else would have provided that.

In spite of things clearly being difficult between you and your wife in May, you both continued with attempts to get pregnant and these attempts worked this time. Now you are faced with a change in your life that will last a lifetime and will take focus away from you, your wife and your needs - transferring the family focus to the baby. There will always be an amount of focus on parenting for the rest of your lives. This is a massive change and it sounds like you have both entered into it from a less than ideal position.



So now it sounds as if you are worrying about what you will lose. There is understandable regret at moving on in life and feeling as if opportunities to experience what you have not will be harder to come by. This is not at all uncommon. Over the years I've been a member here, I've seen loads of pregnant women who are upset that their partner has suddenly discovered poly as the pregnancy has progressed. Plus some men like yourself who seem to become fixated on it once their partner is pregnant.




To make matters worse, you broke agreements with your wife and did things that you have agreed not to do.

So - your wife was never really into an open relationship. The first chance you get, you break her trust. Now she's pregnant.

You are still going on about open relationships.

I'd say that it's pretty much a non-starter.

If I were in your shoes I'd get whatever counselling and help I needed to put poly out of my head and get myself fully invested in the family that I'd helped to create.

There is absolutely no need for you (or anybody else in the Western world) to have children. Creating that kind of relationship is a deliberate choice and it does put limits on what else you can do. You chose freely to do this - own that choice. Learn the skills you need to parent well. Learn about how children learn, how best to support them when things aren't going well, how to negotiate the school system with your child, what things there are in your area to take kids to, how you and your wife will best work together as parents.

There is so much to learn and so much growth to be done for parents.

You may be going to appointments with your wife and helping around the house just now - but in filling your mind and spare time with thoughts of romance, you are still short changing your unborn child because helping your wife out doesn't help you learn about children - and once the baby is born, sleep will be short and life will be hectic.

IP

I am with IP on this. My ex husband did this when I was pregnant, but he preyed on my sensitive feelings for a woman, that I wasn't interested in at the time of my pending daughters birth, of having a full blown relationship with. Like you he had cold feet on being a parent and thought, by 1) we have problems, let's add a person to it (child), and then 2) omg, child isn't working let's add another (woman I liked),.

Then difference between you and him though, is that we were 18/19 with littler understanding about how the world worked, or knowing our options. We didn't think it was an option for abortion or adoption, and I certainly didn't realise it was an option to tell him, no stop pushing this woman on me while I am pregnant.

You are not 18. You have been trying a long time to have kids. Your behaviour is disgusting. If I were your wife, I'd be planning an adoption or abortion based on your really selfish and immature behaviour that is not suited towards rearing and raising a kid. And yes you can all hate me for being brutally honest, but kids are a long term, serious commitment, with huge social and legal ties, and if you have issues with poly now, it's only going to be magnified later, to the point of you losing everything. That's a real possibility. She could walk into a divorce now, taking kid, money, home, your self respect, your social status at work, and community, and that's not even considering the heart ache and loss of herself, or your unborn child. Those are realities just from your blog here. Those are your legal relaities as to her it could be used in court as cheating. Plus everything you write here, pseudonym or not, can be tied back to your IP address, and legally proved as cheating. Is texting penny really worth that?

I don't think this is about penny at all. I think this is about losing your freedom. Being committed to just maybel and kid(s) for the next 20 years. About the responsility and loss of freedom that evokes. So yeah poly is going to look pretty damn appealing right now.

You talk a good talk on here, but you're not walking the walk of Ethical poly, which is the consensus of all involved. If she isn't a joyful hell yes, I would leave, or stop pushing it. Or at least show her her options and have the talks you need to have if you're going to value freedom over family. I would say that's what you need to sort. Not seeing penny, if your freedom is more important that having and raising a child you have created intentionally.

Have you once considered how this will affect that baby? How this will affect maybel? Right now maybel is vulnerable in her pregnancy. Her body isn't her own, her life isn't her own, her drive to protect that child goes beyond anything you may want right now.

And what about that kid? The child doesn't get to choose their parents. And you're saying, from the outset to this child, no verbally, I value seeing romantic relationships over you kiddo. I am not thinking about baseball, and your room decorations, of singing sign classes, or relating to new dads and how they cope, or what your college fund looks like...I am thinking I want to txt some woman I just met more than meeting and building my relationship with you and mummy.

That's what your actions are telling me, and a lot of people on here and that's why we are so disgusted.

 

[Evie]

ok, I'm going to have a go at identifying with you rather than Mabel or bubs.

(just for a little balance and a bit of mental exercise).

You've said Mabel opened the relationship first because of her perception that you'd already pretty much opted out of you and her. But you hadn't, you were perhaps just a little too comfortable and rather neglectful and perhaps took her for granted somewhat. But you still loved her then and still do now.

You love Mabel, that was one of the real attractions to you about experiencing the potential of poly after you went on that date with Penny.

You love Mabel, and you realised that there was no threat to that love by dating another, beginning to feel excitement about that person, realising that it could turn into love.

You posted before about wanting to love and protect both Mabel and Penny, knowing your had this capability, being awakened to it.

And now from all quarters you're being told to go back to sleep.

But you know that you'll never be fully asleep again.

And now, you're trying to find some way to live in this world, awakened but in a never ending (as it seems now) dawn when you just want it to be midday.

And while you are in the dawn, you see Mabel as being in darkness, and you want to show her the dawn. But she's not ready for dawn because she actually never was, and now her primary focus is on the new life inside her - her own dawn.

And you still yearn for your poly midday. And she yearns to nurture and grow your baby.

Both are forces of nature, both are love. Both take a long time to reach zenith. Don't rush.

Kia kaha
Evie

 

[tronprogram]

ok, I'm going to have a go at identifying with you rather than Mabel or bubs.

(just for a little balance and a bit of mental exercise).

You've said Mabel opened the relationship first because of her perception that you'd already pretty much opted out of you and her. But you hadn't, you were perhaps just a little too comfortable and rather neglectful and perhaps took her for granted somewhat. But you still loved her then and still do now.

You love Mabel, that was one of the real attractions to you about experiencing the potential of poly after you went on that date with Penny.

You love Mabel, and you realised that there was no threat to that love by dating another, beginning to feel excitement about that person, realising that it could turn into love.

You posted before about wanting to love and protect both Mabel and Penny, knowing your had this capability, being awakened to it.

And now from all quarters you're being told to go back to sleep.

But you know that you'll never be fully asleep again.

And now, you're trying to find some way to live in this world, awakened but in a never ending (as it seems now) dawn when you just want it to be midday.

And while you are in the dawn, you see Mabel as being in darkness, and you want to show her the dawn. But she's not ready for dawn because she actually never was, and now her primary focus is on the new life inside her - her own dawn.

And you still yearn for your poly midday. And she yearns to nurture and grow your baby.

Both are forces of nature, both are love. Both take a long time to reach zenith. Don't rush.

Kia kaha
Evie

THIS. Thank you, Evie.

 

[tronprogram]

And what about that kid? The child doesn't get to choose their parents. And you're saying, from the outset to this child, no verbally, I value seeing romantic relationships over you kiddo. I am not thinking about baseball, and your room decorations, of singing sign classes, or relating to new dads and how they cope, or what your college fund looks like...I am thinking I want to txt some woman I just met more than meeting and building my relationship with you and mummy.

That's what your actions are telling me, and a lot of people on here and that's why we are so disgusted.

This is what I think is missing from everyone's perception (except for Evie). I'm only presenting my thoughts on polyamory here because this is a polyamory forum. If I needed to talk about parenting, my work, or even my hobbies, I wouldn't do that here necessarily. You guys aren't seeing a fully-developed picture of me. You're probably seeing about as much of me as I see of my kid on an ultrasound these days. Just a vague shadow. Just because I'm talking about this a lot doesn't mean that I don't have a life outside of it. I'm in grad school, have a full-time job, a part-time volunteer position with a film festival, I write, and have a semi-active social life. I was still doing all that stuff while I was talking and meeting up with Penny. In other words, that's a lot of stuff I don't want to mess up for not having my mind and affairs in order. Nobody bothers to ask me what's going on in my life outside this forum. You just assume that I'm some 'disgusting' slob who just sits around all day pining to have a wife and a girlfriend and satisfy his every whim.

 

[starlight1]

This is what I think is missing from everyone's perception (except for Evie). I'm only presenting my thoughts on polyamory here because this is a polyamory forum. If I needed to talk about parenting, my work, or even my hobbies, I wouldn't do that here necessarily. You guys aren't seeing a fully-developed picture of me. You're probably seeing about as much of me as I see of my kid on an ultrasound these days. Just a vague shadow. Just because I'm talking about this a lot doesn't mean that I don't have a life outside of it. I'm in grad school, have a full-time job, a part-time volunteer position with a film festival, I write, and have a semi-active social life. I was still doing all that stuff while I was talking and meeting up with Penny. In other words, that's a lot of stuff I don't want to mess up for not having my mind and affairs in order. Nobody bothers to ask me what's going on in my life outside this forum. You just assume that I'm some 'disgusting' slob who just sits around all day pining to have a wife and a girlfriend and satisfy his every whim.

It's not our job to ask you more about information about you, when you are the one informing us of your situation in the first place. It's your job to give us as complete a picture as possible. If you give us a one sided view, then we're going to answer with the information given, which then may be a one sided answer.

I think your actions are disgusting during a time when a woman is physically vulnerable as carrying a new life inside her.

Based on the information given, that was the opinion I had of you.

I didn't base my opinion on you as a slob, I said you weren't being ethical in polyamory, because you don't have a joyous yes from your wife. And you live in a country which can be daunting for a woman to be on her own as a mother, and you're jeopardising Maybels safety / security and your child's safety / security because of penny. There has been no reassurance from you in this forum that you are going to put maybel and baby first, based on the information given.

Giving us your hobbies and outside activities to prove to us you aren't a slob, misses the point entirely. The point which is about your ethical behaviour towards your wife and unborn child. I do not think that means you are unethical in all your other activities or behaviours. And I am not sure how slobs even come into it.

 

[tronprogram]

It's not our job to ask you more about information about you, when you are the one informing us of your situation in the first place. It's your job to give us as complete a picture as possible. If you give us a one sided view, then we're going to answer with the information given, which then may be a one sided answer.

Yes, but before you leap to such a big conclusion and automatically assume I'm as disgusting as it seems, don't you think you should qualify it a bit more before making such a verdict? Just in case I'm not disclosing something that I see as irrelevant, despite making me seem more human?

I think your actions are disgusting during a time when a woman is physically vulnerable as carrying a new life inside her.

Based on the information given, that was the opinion I had of you.[/quote]

When all this began, we weren't pregnant. It was a slim possibility, in fact, because the doctors had told us we were all but infertile. It wasn't until the open relationship stuff had already been going on and I'd been talking to Penny for a good month and a half that we found out. It's not like Mabel got pregnant and I chose to go out and do this on my own.

What I don't understand is how the father is treated as such a non-player in this situation. His ability to care for the woman and the baby should be a matter of some importance as well. The family isn't just comprised of a mother and child. The needs of the mother and child outweigh the father's needs for sure, but the father can't totally neglect his well-being or else he's rendered incapable of giving mother and child his best.

How is that disgusting? It's logical.

I didn't base my opinion on you as a slob, I said you weren't being ethical in polyamory, because you don't have a joyous yes from your wife. And you live in a country which can be daunting for a woman to be on her own as a mother, and you're jeopardising Maybels safety / security and your child's safety / security because of penny. There has been no reassurance from you in this forum that you are going to put maybel and baby first, based on the information given.

Granted, this is an area where I haven't divulged much because I'm trying to figure out how I can get myself healthier rather than gushing with excitement over this baby. Right now, I'm not needed as intensely as I will be. So it's a good time for me to sort out my personal issues before I'm called upon to do my duty and put my nose to the grindstone. In the hierarchy of needs, shoring up my mental health is more important than spending every waking minute romanticizing about fatherhood or tending to my wife because neither she nor our baby need that right now. What they have needed, I've still provided. And I see that continuing. I see myself acquiescing to that far more than giving into my own indulgences because it's in my nature more than non-monogamy.

Giving us your hobbies and outside activities to prove to us you aren't a slob, misses the point entirely. The point which is about your ethical behaviour towards your wife and unborn child. I do not think that means you are unethical in all your other activities or behaviours. And I am not sure how slobs even come into it.

I'm doing my best to remain ethical, but it's tough because it's not fortifying my health at a time when I need that to happen ASAP. My choices are to go into fatherhood compromised and ethical or strong and unethical. I'm doing my best to find some middle ground, but that's tough for no more cooperation than I'm getting from Mabel and it's adding a lot to my stress.

I honestly feel like the father's health is being downplayed by a lot of you. He's the backbone of the family. He's the glue. If he's not there, all hell breaks loose. If he's weak, the family is weak. He's the foundation. Maybe this is an outdated/archaic view, but that's the one we have in our home and it's the one Mabel expects. The mother brings about the home, but it's the father who provides it and sustains it.

I don't feel confident going into this new season if my mental and emotional health is compromised due to a long-gestating personal crisis that's recently been exposed. I feel like I'm well within my right to do what it takes to prepare myself for this. At this point, I'm so desperate that I'm willing to compromise ethics for peace of mind and risk the chance of hurting Mabel for that. Fortunately, I'm going to the therapist in a few hours, so I'm hoping that will be some more efficient peace of mind for me.

 

[Confused]

New relationships are not answers to personal crises. They are people with their own needs and messes and crises and adding more people adds difficulties, it doesn't solve them. You're stuck in this immature idealising NRE.
Like a lot of others I feel angry and disgusted by the way you write nonchalantly about cheating as if it's nothing major and try to justify it with arguments of it "helping" you.

Pursuing a successful poly life is never going to be possible without honesty and ethical, trustworthy behaviour. You're setting the people you claim to love up for a world of pain and trauma. Regardless of whatever else you do in life, if you choose to lie and cheat then you're a liar and a cheater. Not poly. Polyamory means loving multiple people, cheating and lying are not loving things to do.

 

[IndieSolo]

Tron, Mabel does not consent to polyamory, so to keep going in about it is not only futile but rude and overbearing. She wants and needs a full partner by her side, not distracted by wistful thoughts of another woman. She needs a partner in every sense of the word. It is no wonder she wanted to give you an out, a few months ago, because you seem to prefer fantasyland over reality. You are now facing the daunting tasks of parenting. Forget poly, forget Penny, and step up to your responsibilities.

 

[starlight1]

I'm doing my best to remain ethical, but it's tough because it's not fortifying my health at a time when I need that to happen ASAP. My choices are to go into fatherhood compromised and ethical or strong and unethical. I'm doing my best to find some middle ground, but that's tough for no more cooperation than I'm getting from Mabel and it's adding a lot to my stress.

I honestly feel like the father's health is being downplayed by a lot of you. He's the backbone of the family. He's the glue. If he's not there, all hell breaks loose. If he's weak, the family is weak. He's the foundation. Maybe this is an outdated/archaic view, but that's the one we have in our home and it's the one Mabel expects. The mother brings about the home, but it's the father who provides it and sustains it.

I don't feel confident going into this new season if my mental and emotional health is compromised due to a long-gestating personal crisis that's recently been exposed. I feel like I'm well within my right to do what it takes to prepare myself for this. At this point, I'm so desperate that I'm willing to compromise ethics for peace of mind and risk the chance of hurting Mabel for that. Fortunately, I'm going to the therapist in a few hours, so I'm hoping that will be some more efficient peace of mind for me.

So basically, single mothers have homes that all hell breaks loose? and what about those pesky lesbian couples, apparently they are doing a job of not having enough backbone for their kids either?? Ugh I got so sick reading this. Seriously, I vomited a little.

The time to assess your mental health is NOT While the baby is on its way. That should have been done before she got pregnant.

This idea the father is the backbone isn't just an archaic idea, it's sexist, and shows such a level of immaturity. It's ideas like that that stop women from being able to make and keep independence and better choices to be on equal footing in order to not be vulnerable during pregnancy in the first place. Ugh.

Compromising ethics is probably the worst way to be an example as a father, and also makes for a inconsiderate spouse.

 

[MightyMax]

Forgoing acting on your urge for a polyamorous relationship style whilst you welcome and care for your new baby and strengthen your marriage should not cause you significant damage to your health.

 

[reflections]

Tron, since you are seriously thinking about cheating on Mabel to be with Penny, consider this:

Will you lie to Penny too and tell her that Mabel is okay with you dating? Or will you be upfront with her and encourage her to be active participant in your cheating?

From what you've said about Penny, she might have some strong ethical beliefs that would not fit with you cheating.

So would you choose to lie to two people you care about, in order to satisfy your own needs? Even if you are bitter towards Mabel for not consenting to being in a polyamorous marriage, would you pull Penny into your lying as well, despite feeling so open and close to her?

I know that if either of my partners asked me to cheat with them, I would lose all respect for them. I wonder how Penny would respond.

 

[InfinitePossibility]

You just assume that I'm some 'disgusting' slob who just sits around all day pining to have a wife and a girlfriend and satisfy his every whim.

I'm not sure where you got the idea that people were critical of you because they thought. Or where you get the idea that it makes it all okay because you have a job, volunteer work, hobbies and a social life. These things kind of make it all worse.

You have very little spare time to dedicate to your family - and you plan on taking that limited spare time and using some of it to start a new romantic relationship. One which your wife does not consent to. That's the problem not whether or not you work.

The needs of the mother and child outweigh the father's needs for sure, but the father can't totally neglect his well-being or else he's rendered incapable of giving mother and child his best.

So - what you're saying is that your mental and physical health are so precarious that not being able to pursue a relationship with a woman you've had one date with puts them at risk??

If that is the case I have no idea how you are going to stand up to the demands of being a father. Maybe the best thing you could do is divorce your wife, sign away any rights to your child and let your wife find somebody more suited to fatherhood. Then you could get a vasectomy and seek out a less stressful way of living.

IP

 

[tronprogram]

So basically, single mothers have homes that all hell breaks loose? and what about those pesky lesbian couples, apparently they are doing a job of not having enough backbone for their kids either?? Ugh I got so sick reading this. Seriously, I vomited a little.

You act as if women can do it all by themselves, but here you are berating me for not doing enough to help a person who, by your reckoning, doesn't need it. No wonder guys like me get mixed signals on this stuff. Thanks, society and culture.

You pride yourselves on not needing a father in the picture, but when he is and wants to remove obstacles in his way so he can be better at his job as a father, you give him the foulest shit over it. Pardon me if I take this with a grain of salt.

Seriously, if I wanted to be judged, I would've just aired my dirty laundry at church.

The time to assess your mental health is NOT While the baby is on its way. That should have been done before she got pregnant.

Well, TS. Better late than never, hmm?

This idea the father is the backbone isn't just an archaic idea, it's sexist, and shows such a level of immaturity. It's ideas like that that stop women from being able to make and keep independence and better choices to be on equal footing in order to not be vulnerable during pregnancy in the first place. Ugh.

Again, you're talking about female independence, but here I am being chastised for basically being in the picture at all and not allowing my independent wife to depend on me.

Compromising ethics is probably the worst way to be an example as a father, and also makes for a inconsiderate spouse.

Just as a reminder, I've only compromised once and gave up talking to Penny as penance. I'm only considering doing it again, but haven't actually acted on it. Quit acting like I have.

 

[tronprogram]

Tron, since you are seriously thinking about cheating on Mabel to be with Penny, consider this:

Will you lie to Penny too and tell her that Mabel is okay with you dating? Or will you be upfront with her and encourage her to be active participant in your cheating?

From what you've said about Penny, she might have some strong ethical beliefs that would not fit with you cheating.

So would you choose to lie to two people you care about, in order to satisfy your own needs? Even if you are bitter towards Mabel for not consenting to being in a polyamorous marriage, would you pull Penny into your lying as well, despite feeling so open and close to her?

I know that if either of my partners asked me to cheat with them, I would lose all respect for them. I wonder how Penny would respond.

Penny is very ethical and she's as against me having anything to do with her under these conditions as Mabel is.

 

[tronprogram]

I'm not sure where you got the idea that people were critical of you because they thought. Or where you get the idea that it makes it all okay because you have a job, volunteer work, hobbies and a social life. These things kind of make it all worse.

I wasn't using my job or hobbies to justify what I want to do. That's horribly twisting my words. I just used that to show that polyamory is not all there is to me and Penny is not all that I think about. People here are calling me disgusting and irresponsible and immature without knowing what I do in real life or who I am. They just know me from my opinions, mostly. Here, I can think out loud about things that I wouldn't do in real life, no matter how much I might want to. Sure, if people are going to judge me based on what I wish I could do, yes, I'm a pretty vile person. But who here as actually seen how much of that I've acted on. None? They're relying on me to tell them the facts that while I'm also sharing my opinion and my desires, too. A lot of people here are confusing those things.

You have very little spare time to dedicate to your family - and you plan on taking that limited spare time and using some of it to start a new romantic relationship. One which your wife does not consent to. That's the problem not whether or not you work.[/quote]

So - what you're saying is that your mental and physical health are so precarious that not being able to pursue a relationship with a woman you've had one date with puts them at risk??

I see this as a complicated marital issue that shouldn't be ignored even if a baby weren't in the picture. Now that there is one, it's all the more pressing of a reason to sort it out ASAP for the stability of our home.

If that is the case I have no idea how you are going to stand up to the demands of being a father. Maybe the best thing you could do is divorce your wife, sign away any rights to your child and let your wife find somebody more suited to fatherhood. Then you could get a vasectomy and seek out a less stressful way of living.

This doesn't sound critical at all. I must be imagining things.

 

[InfinitePossibility]

This doesn't sound critical at all. I must be imagining things.

Just to be clear. I didn't say I wasn't critical of you. I said that my criticism didn't relate to your employment status or your hobbies or whether or not you get up off your arse and stuff.

My critique is about your ongoing desire to see other women when you are due to become a father.

I grew up in a fabulous family. My mum stayed at home to parent us. My dad worked. Neither parent had regular hobbies that we couldn't all do - they didn't have the income or the time. My siblings and I are all living lives that make us happy. We are all confident and free from psychological problems.

I would not make that effort. I have stuff I want to do that makes that sort of commitment impossible. So I don't have children.

I see sometimes the long term impact it has when children grow up with a parent who isn't committed. It isn't nice.

I have little sympathy for men like you who decide when their partner is pregnant that they must have additional romantic relationships in spite of their partner not being willing. I see it as unkind and unethical.

Yes - I am critical of you. I think your behaviour sucks.