This forum is amazing. I didn't even hope for the amount and quality of these responses, which are the most helpful and insightful that I've come across since this poly situation began for me. While my "friends" and co-workers basically scoff and ridicule, and my girlfriend is just as bewildered as me, you people have really empathized, like wiser friends to me, and I can't express my gratitude enough. I've been reflecting all day and here's where I'm at, if anyone reads this and is still curious. My original post was written in the midst of suffering and panic, so I'll try to be more level-headed this time.
I'm sorry you struggle. I could be wrong but it sounds like major
poly hell while also circling the drain.
Like you are not quite at final acceptance in your stages of grief, but perhaps getting closer to accepting that parting ways for now might be the best thing.
I was shocked at how accurately your "Poly Hell" article describes what I'm feeling, and why. Like, this proves it's a normal thing, and my reactions are not insane or irrational. This actually gives me hope, and I want to share it with my SO and discuss it with her, because she is also very new to polyamory and I suspect she doesn't fully realize what she is doing to me.
She is the kind of neurotic person who totally fixates on things, such as her new relationship energy, and remains oblivious to anything else until that excitement runs its course. Once, for example, she spent $1800 on a pool table (going into debt), and 6 months later she was totally bored with it and trying to sell it. This is one of the reasons I love her; I find it really endearing and beautiful to see her passions fulfilled. I have the same thing in me. However, you're right that I can't continue to live in misery and grief. The way you pointed out and listed my own misery to me has been a great thing, I almost feel silly for allowing it to continue now.... But I have to trust my understanding of her for a little longer, and actually meet the new guy, and see how she responds to the Poly Hell article first.
She knows, but doesn't appear to care, that she is the agent of your misery.* Yet even when presented with an ultimatum in the form of you threatening to leave, she refuses to be "the bad guy" and just TELL you a separation what she wants too, although it is clear she has next to no interest in you as a partner, but only as the source of familiarity/comfort/adoration.
Instead, she forces you witness her extreme NRE without offering anything in the way of affection, attention or sex, even allowing you to sleep outside in a camper van instead of the home you share.
Damn, you are like a ray of light on all the dark realities I don't want to admit. I am feeling like a discarded pillow in her living room, which is something I always feared becoming with her. Sex is a complex issue between us, though. This is kind of embarrassing, and I'm about to get very graphic about our sexuality (warning).. but I mentioned she gives me handjobs now. These handjobs are actually very intense, and she has become skilled at edging me, and she also gets very turned on and usually orgasms too. This is an INCREASE in our sexual activity since she met the new guy... In fact we were never extremely hot for each other, and for many months we rarely had sex... It was stagnating. Sometimes we had sex with other people (even prostitutes, in my case), or masturbated alone and separately. Now our sex life is better, even though it's nothing compared to the new guy, who practically lives in her bed. So while she still won't fuck me, it is strange that we do the handjob thing now sometimes... And maybe her newfound passion is reinvigorating our previously stagnant (but comfortable) relationship. Maybe my fear of losing her is causing me to temporarily want sex with her... I don't know. That part is very confusing. But I know I want sex with her sometime in the future... Which her new guy has specifically mentioned as a potential problem. Sex issues aside, you are right that I shouldn't be allowing her to use/discard me as needed. I offered to sleep in the camper van, it's fun and saves me a commute to work, but the truth is I did it mostly for her freedom.
In summary, your introduction post paints a very bleak picture that I suspect most people would advise a separation. I'm wondering what keeps you in the relationship. In particular, what does she do these days that shows her love for you? I'm also wondering how confident you are in yourself in finding a new love if you were forced to eventually leave this relationship? And finally, I'm wondering how healthy your relationship was before all this third person entered. I think these questions will help you to reach a decision on your own on whether you want this relationship with her to continue.
These are great questions. I see how the question of "finding new love" can reveal whether I love myself. And basically, the answer is negative.. Ever since I met her, I have felt that I will never love anyone this completely or find someone who loves me so well. We connect and open each other up so easily, it seems like a miracle. I know that's not healthy, though... I just don't want to face that loneliness and aimlessness again of being single. I don't know what reason I have for living, if not with her. I have no ambitions or desires. I guess that sounds pretty dependant and self-diminishing... Basically, I know I would survive without her, just not how.
To your other questions: Before the new guy, my relationship with her was very comfortable and routinized and stable. We spent every possible minute of spare time together. She would pick me up from the bus station after work, to see me earlier. We lived for each other. We walked everywhere with our arms around each other, watched Netflix every night, shared everything in our hearts and minds. These things are the same now, when we are together... I have to admit. But it feels like the joy is gone, or it's rote and robotic, especially when she's thinking of the new guy. She leaves me an hour or 2 earlier every evening to text him, and she spends 2 days per week with him, but the rest of our time is unchanged. This leads me to believe I'm overreacting, or too jealous and dependent on her and I just need to chill because she still loves me. But the suffering continues, too. Thank you for making me think about these things, which is reassuring me that we're still OK, if I can get through it. I want our relationship to make it through this so we can mature and be stronger, like you talk about in Shaya's Foibles, if it's possible.
There's a lot more going on in you than love and devotion, Dimensionless. There's a lot for you to discover about yourself and a lot of room to grow. Separation might stop the bleeding for now, but you are going to take you along wherever you go. All of the reasons that you find yourself in this excruciating position will still be with you when you leave unless you do some serious soul searching with ample support and guidance.
...
A lot of people seem to be using "We're poly" as a convenient way to fuck around and make their mate watch (metaphorically speaking.) "If my mate knows about it, it's poly," seems to be the thinking. It might be "poly" but it's not "amory." It's choosing a new and vastly preferred lover while keeping the old one around for security and whatever household duties can be wrung out of him.
Your response is beautiful and true. Iam not all love and devotion. Why am I suffering so much, when everything was fine? My tentative response is: I am jealous, possessive, easily humiliated, I have a tendency to stagnate in life which can drive my lover to seek excitement elsewhere (which I then resent), and I have low self-esteem (so I need constant and exclusive attention and adoration from my SO). Perhaps my greatest mistake would be to run away from her now, just to relive this experience in 5 years with someone else. I want to change, let her love others, get over jealousy, and love myself. I want to climb this damn mountain instead of jumping off to pointlessly start up another one.
Sometimes I do feel as if she is keeping me around just to rub her new lover in my face, and make me "watch," but I don't really think she would do that. I think she just talks about him a lot because she can't help it, because she's thinking about him a lot. Thank you for encouraging me to confront myself, whatever is in me, to grow, and not to simply run away. I think you must be some kind of spiritual teacher, in a way, to challenge people like this instead of allowing them to succumb to themselves.
Dimensionless, at least start going to therapy, and reach out to family and friends. On your own. You need to be in self-preservation mode. Your SO is NOT thinking of your needs. She just isn't.
You made me realize how much I rely on my SO for my own happiness. It is true that I need to help myself, even if that means leaving her. It is so confusing to get completely wrapped up in someone, depending on them, and then they turn around and embrace someone else with greater passion than you can even remember receiving. And at the same time, I can't remember how to take care of myself. Therapy is a good idea. I guess I don't know where to start though. I'm going to start with Google and my insurance company, but if you know of any other tricks or things to look for, I'd be glad to know.
