Update

L

lovelynina

New member
Hello, I am back.. Some of you guys might remember my first post in last November. Here's an update.

My first poly experience with a girl who has a fiancee, which I will call Hol, was overwhelming and taxing for me. Hol's been passive aggressive for a while. Not only that, but she cheated on her fiancee and lied to her a couple of times. Her fiancee still has no idea. I was the one who decided to break things off with her completely for many reasons: a) she kept bringing up her engagement as the main reason why she's not willing to pursue her own happiness; b) she wants to keep coaching and training her fiancee on working with jealousy/insecurity/control issues; c) She's jumping in to fix her unhealthy relationship with her fiancee before their engagement evaulation is due February (basically, it's about questioning whether it's a good idea for them to get married or not). Hol and I are pretty much done for good.

Fast forward to the present: There are two people I've been dating casually for a while. I wil call them Kal and My. Kal is in a relationship with her old boyfriend who used to be her ex-fiance and currently lives together. My (I use they/them pronouns) is not in a relationship nor seeing any other, except me. I find it difficult to manage two new relationships at the same time. Kal's situation is very complicated and mentally/emotionally draining because her boyfriend has a lot of his own issues to deal with and he needs her the most. I talked with one of my good friends who is familiar with polyamory. Her advice is one person at a time until the existing relationship is once healthy and stable enough to transition to polyamory. My and I are both open to practicing poly in the future, but not right now because we want the same things for each other at the moment. I told My that I want to date them primarily and see how things will go from there before we open up our relationship. They feel mutual about it as well. The thing is, I am not sure how to tell Kal because Kal wants to be in a poly relationship with me, but she mentioned to me that she doesn't want to be another Hol because her relationship with her boyfriend is still not healthy at this point. However, I want us to remain friends. Maybe, in the future, if she and I still cherish this kind of connection, who knows if she and I could date again? My knows about her as well.

It's just that I am wondering if what I am doing is the right thing to do. I'm pretty much happy being with My at the moment, but telling Kal that I no longer want us to date now will hurt her badly.
 
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I want to make sure I'm understanding you correctly.

You and Kal are in a relationship, but Kal is also in a relationship with her boyfriend. She is trying to work things out with her boyfriend at this point in time, because they were engaged but broke that off. She's afraid that the pressure and stress she might be under with her boyfriend would negatively affect you, especially since you had a similar experience with your last girlfriend. Kal wants to be in a poly relationship with you but wants to focus most of her energy on the relationship with her boyfriend.

You and My are in a relationship. My has no other partners. You and My have discussed being exclusive for a while, and possibly opening up to being poly later on, once your relationship has grown and become what you feel is stable enough to handle additional relationships.

Being exclusive with My would mean temporarily ending your relationship with Kal, though you hope to continue a friendship with her and would consider resuming your relationship with her once you and My are more established. But you're afraid Kal would be hurt by this.

Assuming I have that all correct...

I don't think you actually have as much of a problem here as you think you do. You want to build a new relationship with My and feel that your energy should be solely devoted to that at this time. Kal is dealing with a difficult relationship with her boyfriend, who needs a lot of her time and attention, and she feels that her energy should be at least mostly devoted to that at this time.

So just tell Kal that you and My have decided to take some time to work on your relationship, and you hope it will give Kal time to work on her other relationship. You'll be there as her friend to support her, but right now it seems that you and she would both be better off not being in a relationship with each other until you're both more firmly established in your other ones.
 
Keep it simple on yourself and expect every person to do their own emotional management. Trust they can handle it.

You don't want to date Kal at this time. Break it off. Tell her to look you up if things with her BF get better.

Focus on My on the meanwhile.

Galagirl
 
KC43 said:
So just tell Kal that you and My have decided to take some time to work on your relationship, and you hope it will give Kal time to work on her other relationship. You'll be there as her friend to support her, but right now it seems that you and she would both be better off not being in a relationship with each other until you're both more firmly established in your other ones.
Click to expand...

Yes, you have it all correctly. Thank you for your advice, this is definitely helpful. I'm going to tell her when I see her in person. Hopefully, things will go smoothly between us.
 
Galagirl-

True, someone should not coach or train any other how to deal with their own issues other than a therapist, right?
 
Hi lovelynina,

Have you had a chance to talk to Kal yet and if so, how did it go?
 
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