vinsanity0
Active member
I thought you did a fine job on your own. I think some people missed it, though.
She wants him to herself...
- Thread starter castle33
- Start date
I thought you did a fine job on your own. I think some people missed it, though.
castle33
New member
She was not aware. She knows now, and she flipped out on him. It is also when she called me a sick freak. I completely understood her level of anger. She knew nothing of what really happened when Hamish was at home with me.
I never wanted to read them. I trusted him and I guess that was the wrong thing to do. The only reason I read it was because he asked me for input on a single question or comment she had sent, which is something he and I do all the time. As soon as I read the one text, I knew she was not aware of the truth.
castle33
New member
BTW, I'm not actively seeking any type of romantic relationship outside of my husband. He knows this. I have been trying to work on my own personal issues with life and work. I just expected, and TOLD HIM that I needed to meet with her and set some things straight, not to control her relationship with him, or to make demands. I just wanted to be respected. I wanted to avoid the possibility of her not knowing what my intentions were.
You are not a freak. Hera calling you names is her misplacing her anger towards Hamish.
I am sorry he lied to both of you. That is terrible.
And he failed to show respect toward you by honoring agreements he made with you.
At this point in time...
He doesn't sound like he wants to be in this marriage, though. What more time/space does he need? Are you are hoping he will change his mind? Are you wondering if he's going to stick with you as the "for-now girl" if Hera is pissed enough to walk; just til he finds the new exit-strategy girl?
Hamish is babbling at you about how she's a perfect exit strategy for him? Gross. He sounds like a user, like he is using people.
Rather than fretting over whatever he's got going on in his head, I think you could schedule a counseling appointment to help yourself determine what you want, and what is healthiest for you. That would be doing your self care at a rough time, which is self-respecting behavior.
You could evaluate with the counselor whether Hamish living up to the behaviors you want from a respectful husband. Does he meet your standard...
Now that you have learned new things about his character...
If you are after respect, it starts with you, and with whom you allow yourself to be around. Really examine if this marriage this is worth investing in because Hamish is a great partner, or if you are just wanting to stay because he's a habit, and it feels more stable than branching out on your own right now.
Definitely talk to a counselor to help you in this super-stressful time. The stability you want is going to have to come from within so you can do those hard evaluations from a cool head, something you produce from you inner environment, because your outside environment is all topsy-turvy, thanks to Hamish's bad behavior.
Sometimes people can work things out. But other times things are just too far gone to save and not worth it. Figure out which kind you have on your hands with your counselor.
Again, I'm sorry you're dealing with this.
Galagirl
I am sorry he lied to both of you. That is terrible.
And he failed to show respect toward you by honoring agreements he made with you.
At this point in time...
- Hera says Hamish can pick her or you. She's not up for polyamory.
- Hamish wants a divorce. He admits he wants Hera for an exit strategy out of the marriage, so he can leave and not be alone. (She's really getting crap from him, but let her worry about herself. You worry about yourself.)
- You say you are willing to give Hamish the time and space he needs to make his decision.
He doesn't sound like he wants to be in this marriage, though. What more time/space does he need? Are you are hoping he will change his mind? Are you wondering if he's going to stick with you as the "for-now girl" if Hera is pissed enough to walk; just til he finds the new exit-strategy girl?
Hamish is babbling at you about how she's a perfect exit strategy for him? Gross. He sounds like a user, like he is using people.
Rather than fretting over whatever he's got going on in his head, I think you could schedule a counseling appointment to help yourself determine what you want, and what is healthiest for you. That would be doing your self care at a rough time, which is self-respecting behavior.
You could evaluate with the counselor whether Hamish living up to the behaviors you want from a respectful husband. Does he meet your standard...
- When he makes agreements he will not keep with you?
- When he shifts blame (like it was her being a block but really it was him not keeping your agreement)?
- When he lies to two people?
Now that you have learned new things about his character...
- Would you be happy continuing in the marriage with him?
- Would you be able to trust him? What would have to happen? How likely is it to happen?
- Would it be healthier for you to leave this marriage?
If you are after respect, it starts with you, and with whom you allow yourself to be around. Really examine if this marriage this is worth investing in because Hamish is a great partner, or if you are just wanting to stay because he's a habit, and it feels more stable than branching out on your own right now.
Definitely talk to a counselor to help you in this super-stressful time. The stability you want is going to have to come from within so you can do those hard evaluations from a cool head, something you produce from you inner environment, because your outside environment is all topsy-turvy, thanks to Hamish's bad behavior.
Sometimes people can work things out. But other times things are just too far gone to save and not worth it. Figure out which kind you have on your hands with your counselor.
Again, I'm sorry you're dealing with this.
Galagirl
Last edited:
castle33
New member
He keeps saying that he didn't lie to her.
We have been talking for weeks now about if and how we want to work things out.
I never told him, "I want to leave. I will sign the papers now. I'm gone." I didn't and he didn't. There was no official decision. He said he assumed that I was done because we were actively talking over our problems. We were communicating and helping each other process things. I keep asking myself how that equals a definite divorce.
We have been talking for weeks now about if and how we want to work things out.
I never told him, "I want to leave. I will sign the papers now. I'm gone." I didn't and he didn't. There was no official decision. He said he assumed that I was done because we were actively talking over our problems. We were communicating and helping each other process things. I keep asking myself how that equals a definite divorce.
"Didn't lie to her"?? Well, there was an awful lot of omitting information which would have been important for her to know, like that he has you read her messages to help him answer her; that you two still have a sexual relationship; that you two had agreements as to how he was to conduct relationships; not to mention not telling you that he had not told her these things.
vinsanity0
Active member
It doesn't. He is just trying to justify his lying, to her, to you, about her and about you. Lying about somebody is just as hurtful as lying to them.
Legion
New member
Fear and Communication
It sounds like Hamish is afraid. Fear damages communication.
I have had very similar situations to this, or situations that could have easily gotten to this point. It can be very difficult when you are meeting someone new to put the brakes on and have that conversation about the important things, like that you have a partner; like inquiring about sexual health; like whatever it is that you think might be damaging to this newly-blossoming intimacy that you are enjoying so much.
Unfortunately, if you don't have these conversations, they endanger your happiness. They can endanger your current relationship. They can endanger your sexual health. They can endanger your heart when you end up showing this person who you really, truly are and they reject you, because instead of falling in love with you, they fell in love with a facade that you presented them to fall in love with.
My perspective is that the only person you can control or do anything about is yourself. Any time you start to attempt to control someone else or even are influencing someone else heavily, your life just got exponentially more difficult than it needs to be. Set your own boundaries, make your own rules.
By "rules", I mean a set of parameters that are in alignment with your values. You should feel pretty good about how you conduct yourself.
By "boundaries", I mean a set of parameters that establishes what interactions with you or concerning you are acceptable. You should feel pretty good about the way other people interact with you.
I understand that not everyone will respect your boundaries and sometimes you can't even get away from them physically, but with a little discipline it can be quite easy to distance yourself emotionally. Once you are at an appropriate "emotional distance", the effect of other people disrespecting your boundaries is moot.
Hera is also scared. My guess is that she was raised mono in a mono culture and is therefore perceiving you as a mono woman who wants to let her husband sleep around, but still wants to keep the power and ultimate control of him. It is hard to disillusion mono people of this sort of perception, since most of your actions fall perfectly into that perceived role.
I'm guessing you are not immune to fear yourself. Idk what kind of polyamory you practice/subscribe to, but in my experience it is least stressful to attempt to embrace chaos, know and love people, and accept them for who they are in the moment, but without attaching personal stress to their actions.
I'm not sure that is the most clear way to say it, so here is an example:
I am in love with "A". Let's say she decides to date someone else (and also date me). Great. Let's say she decides she wants to leave me! Also great. Why? Because I don't want to be with someone who doesn't want to be with me. If someone gives me the impression they'd rather we weren't romantically involved, I'm going to have a conversation with them to see if my impression is accurate. If it is, I'm gone.
If I were Hera, I'd tell Hamish to kick rocks until his divorce was finalized.
If I was Hamish, I'd apologize to Hera for not being honest with her, and tell her if she wants to see me still, she needs to understand I have other people in my life that I am involved with romantically.
If I were you, I would already be emotionally distanced from Hamish, and have lost respect due to his dishonesty. I would tell him that if he wants to be mono, that's fine, but he's not doing a very good job of it. If he wants to be poly, he's not doing a good job of that, either. So either decide to put in some more work and be poly, or realize you don't have the discipline or integrity, and go on being a serial monogamist. Either way, he's going to stop sleeping with me or his new girlfriend, because letting him sleep with me, and Hera letting him sleep with her, means I'm letting a guy who clearly has no idea what he is doing steer the vessel, and we're all gonna end up on the rocks, some of us perhaps severely injured.
It sounds like Hamish is afraid. Fear damages communication.
I have had very similar situations to this, or situations that could have easily gotten to this point. It can be very difficult when you are meeting someone new to put the brakes on and have that conversation about the important things, like that you have a partner; like inquiring about sexual health; like whatever it is that you think might be damaging to this newly-blossoming intimacy that you are enjoying so much.
Unfortunately, if you don't have these conversations, they endanger your happiness. They can endanger your current relationship. They can endanger your sexual health. They can endanger your heart when you end up showing this person who you really, truly are and they reject you, because instead of falling in love with you, they fell in love with a facade that you presented them to fall in love with.
My perspective is that the only person you can control or do anything about is yourself. Any time you start to attempt to control someone else or even are influencing someone else heavily, your life just got exponentially more difficult than it needs to be. Set your own boundaries, make your own rules.
By "rules", I mean a set of parameters that are in alignment with your values. You should feel pretty good about how you conduct yourself.
By "boundaries", I mean a set of parameters that establishes what interactions with you or concerning you are acceptable. You should feel pretty good about the way other people interact with you.
I understand that not everyone will respect your boundaries and sometimes you can't even get away from them physically, but with a little discipline it can be quite easy to distance yourself emotionally. Once you are at an appropriate "emotional distance", the effect of other people disrespecting your boundaries is moot.
Hera is also scared. My guess is that she was raised mono in a mono culture and is therefore perceiving you as a mono woman who wants to let her husband sleep around, but still wants to keep the power and ultimate control of him. It is hard to disillusion mono people of this sort of perception, since most of your actions fall perfectly into that perceived role.
I'm guessing you are not immune to fear yourself. Idk what kind of polyamory you practice/subscribe to, but in my experience it is least stressful to attempt to embrace chaos, know and love people, and accept them for who they are in the moment, but without attaching personal stress to their actions.
I'm not sure that is the most clear way to say it, so here is an example:
I am in love with "A". Let's say she decides to date someone else (and also date me). Great. Let's say she decides she wants to leave me! Also great. Why? Because I don't want to be with someone who doesn't want to be with me. If someone gives me the impression they'd rather we weren't romantically involved, I'm going to have a conversation with them to see if my impression is accurate. If it is, I'm gone.
If I were Hera, I'd tell Hamish to kick rocks until his divorce was finalized.
If I was Hamish, I'd apologize to Hera for not being honest with her, and tell her if she wants to see me still, she needs to understand I have other people in my life that I am involved with romantically.
If I were you, I would already be emotionally distanced from Hamish, and have lost respect due to his dishonesty. I would tell him that if he wants to be mono, that's fine, but he's not doing a very good job of it. If he wants to be poly, he's not doing a good job of that, either. So either decide to put in some more work and be poly, or realize you don't have the discipline or integrity, and go on being a serial monogamist. Either way, he's going to stop sleeping with me or his new girlfriend, because letting him sleep with me, and Hera letting him sleep with her, means I'm letting a guy who clearly has no idea what he is doing steer the vessel, and we're all gonna end up on the rocks, some of us perhaps severely injured.
It doesn't. There are all kinds of lies. He may be lying to himself, despite all the mess he is making, so he can believe that he is still "a nice guy."
If you are done and want to sign divorce papers, seek a lawyer rather than a counselor. Or see both.
Do not sign things he brings you just to be rid of him in a rush. Have them looked at. Do it properly so you don't get shafted in the settlement. After all the mess Hamish has made, don't trust him to not pull another stunt somehow.
If you have joint accounts, you may want to pull out half now, so he cannot just close the account on you and block your access to money. Same with joint credit cards. You don't want him racking up debt for you on those either. Some people get ugly when divorcing.
Galagirl
Last edited:
Sometimes people make all kinds of promises to their partner when they own their relationship, but soon see that those promises will not be conducive to building other relationships. The necessity of the promise becomes dubious, but rather than renegotiate the promise, they just ignore it. I think that's what's happened with his agreement for you to be involved with his other relationships.
WhatHappened
Active member
I agree with Dagferi. What about what Hera wants? Coming from the POV of one who was a secondary, who was 'sold' on dating a married man with the words 'This can be anything we want, short of marriage,' I broke up with him because I found out his wife, despite all her claims of 'being poly,' really only wanted someone to be his living, breathing blow-up doll to entertain him while she fucked every other man in the state. When he fell in love and treated me like a person, she had issues.
Hera is not a plaything. She is a human being, a person with emotions, who, when she is invited into and takes part in a romantic relationship, is going to have feelings for the guy. Surprise!
She flipped out on him when she found out you read her personal emails to him? Can't say I'm surprised. You say you 'didn't want to read them.' But you did. Yeah, I kind of didn't appreciate it either, when I realized 18 months into my relationship with ex-BF (notice the "ex") that my PERSONAL emails were fully open to her at any time and NOBODY BOTHERED TELLING ME.
This is exactly the sort of thing that leaves people--
1. Feeling like they're really just a plaything, not a person at all, and hence,
2. Deciding they will never again date a poly man.
SchrodingersCat
Active member
Hera is no innocent victim here.
Not knowing that the wife and husband were sexual, that's her fault for not asking.
Married is married, divorced is divorced. In between is separated, and you guys weren't. She obviously saw all kinds of signs that something wasn't right, and she ignored her gut and persisted anyway. Believing what she wants to believe gets no sympathy from me.
On the issue of text message privacy, it's common for spouses to read each other's text messages. Whether or not you like that fact, a fact it is. Therefore, anyone with privacy concerns has the responsibility to find out if their texts might be read, and to censor themselves appropriately. Really, that's true of all communication. Never assume that anything you say or do is private, unless you've previously agreed otherwise.
Not knowing that the wife and husband were sexual, that's her fault for not asking.
Married is married, divorced is divorced. In between is separated, and you guys weren't. She obviously saw all kinds of signs that something wasn't right, and she ignored her gut and persisted anyway. Believing what she wants to believe gets no sympathy from me.
On the issue of text message privacy, it's common for spouses to read each other's text messages. Whether or not you like that fact, a fact it is. Therefore, anyone with privacy concerns has the responsibility to find out if their texts might be read, and to censor themselves appropriately. Really, that's true of all communication. Never assume that anything you say or do is private, unless you've previously agreed otherwise.
Castle said that Hamish lied to Hera about the true state of their marriage, so asking wouldn't have helped much. Of all the couples I know, monogamous and otherwise, it certainly isn't common to read each other's messages. Most people I know understand that there may be professionally or socially-confidential information.
SchrodingersCat
Active member
My understanding is that Hamish didn't lie, but actually believed the marriage was over. His sin was acting prematurely to replace his wife. Then they decided to save the marriage instead, but it was too late to stop the snowball.
Although that neglects to explain why Castle understood this to be a polyamorous relationship. Was that just her assumption, or did he lie to her about his backup plan?
Lots of people will "lie" by omission, but answer truthfully when asked directly. Their definition of lying only means "saying something they know to be untrue." To these minds, "not mentioning" is completely unrelated to honesty.
There are more than enough reports on this forum of partners openly sharing text conversations with metamours like it's no big deal, and to many of them it isn't. The fact that the people you and I know are more respectful of privacy doesn't entitle us to take it for granted.
Assuming privacy is just foolish. Assuming anything is foolish. We didn't develop all these fancy communication techniques just so we could go around assuming everyone thinks the way we do... That's why professionally-confidential information almost always has a signature and/or non-disclosure agreement to that effect. Why would socially-confidentially information be any different, if a little less formal? Make it part of your "getting to know someone" question list: "Do you share your text conversations or do you consider them private? What about in-person conversations and sexy time?" None of this can be taken for granted, and neglecting to ask the right questions means you live with your assumptions, as it usually does...
Besides, anyone going around the world in 2015 with any serious expectation of privacy hasn't been reading the news.
Last edited:
Just from reading previous threads on here, I'm going to say that the majority of people seem to agree that it isn't a norm whatsoever. Here are a couple of examples.
http://www.polyamory.com/forum/showthread.php?t=74317&highlight=Reading+texts&page=3
http://www.polyamory.com/forum/showthread.php?t=73617&highlight=Reading+texts&page=2
If the conversations you have with people are not private because you and your partner think it's okay to read personal information sent by people outside of your relationship, you need to let them know from the outset, because that is not how things normally go-- at all. If that's something you need, have at it, but don't delude yourself into thinking that couples regularly browse each other's interactions. People normally offer each other privacy as a spoken or unspoken rule.
http://www.polyamory.com/forum/showthread.php?t=74317&highlight=Reading+texts&page=3
http://www.polyamory.com/forum/showthread.php?t=73617&highlight=Reading+texts&page=2
If the conversations you have with people are not private because you and your partner think it's okay to read personal information sent by people outside of your relationship, you need to let them know from the outset, because that is not how things normally go-- at all. If that's something you need, have at it, but don't delude yourself into thinking that couples regularly browse each other's interactions. People normally offer each other privacy as a spoken or unspoken rule.
opalescent
Active member
Quite a few people here don't mind if their metamour reads their communications to their partner. And if one isn't bothered by that, there is no problem. However, I expect privacy and consideration and tell partners and metamours my expectations around that. It would not be unspoken because I've found that one's unspoken rules are not even a glimmer in the mind of another's. I do think the presumption should be a higher level of privacy until some level of comfort has been achieved.
Of course, this all boils down to trusting one's partner to be honest and aboveboard, and to have good judgment, both of which are lacking in this particular situation.
Of course, this all boils down to trusting one's partner to be honest and aboveboard, and to have good judgment, both of which are lacking in this particular situation.
SchrodingersCat
Active member
I won't dispute that. Like I said, *communication*
Sorry, but I have news for you: there's no such thing as "how things normally go." Everyone has different backgrounds, different values and morals, different tolerances for all kinds of things. Some people think reading their spouse's phone is a violation of privacy. Some people think it's fine, but only if they can read yours too.
Yep, these prove my point. These people took it for granted that their conversations were private, and got burned when they learned they weren't. A simple "Are you sharing our conversations with anyone?" would have avoided that. You can insist all you want that they should have been told, but the reality is they weren't.
I don't feel the need to judge the practice of reading spouse's messages; I think it's a personal decision. But don't be naive to the fact that some couples take reading messages for granted and it doesn't even occur to them to mention it. If having your messages read is going to bother you, you can choose to ask or you can do nothing and assume they'll tell you. Yay for choices and consequences!
Also, here are 15 pages of mixed opinions on the topic: http://www.nairaland.com/1039216/it-disrespectful-read-spouses-sms
Point being, the practice is common enough that you can't take privacy for granted. It needs to be discussed if it's going to bother you one way or the other. You can't assume anyone will tell you if their partner's reading your texts, even if you believe that's what they should do. By the way, you also can't assume anyone will tell you if they have HPV, herpes, or warts. So ask questions!
Last edited: