If you want some background, here's my Intro thread: https://polyamory.com/threads/afraid-of-taking-the-leap-from-a-lt-mono-relationship.153695/ I've appreciated everyone's responses and support. I took a break from the forum around Thanksgiving, and have been mulling things over and focusing on other things besides polyamory and monogamy (which has been nice!)
Long story short: 20 year marriage, wife comes out as poly. I am trying to figure out what to do. We have not done anything but read, talk, fight, and start working on exploring platonic opposite-sex relationships.
One thing I have decided to work on, independent of specific decisions about my wife and our exploring whether to open the relationship, is: My jealousy. I am going to take this opportunity to unpack it, do a bunch of reading, talk it out with people (including my therapist), because I really want to understand what it's about. And I am going to use this space to do so. I welcome any comments or thoughts.
(One note: Even when I'm writing about jealousy in general, I may use the "she" pronoun for "the partner who is the object of jealousy" here, but that's only because it fits with my situation, not to imply that there are definite gender roles).
Entry 1:
One thing I (think I) know is that some forms of jealousy are genuinely unreasonable/abusive (e.g., "don't talk to other men or even look at them"), and then there is a wide grey area that is not abusive and is a mix of reasonable and unreasonable, going off towards zero-jealousy/compersion. Forms in the grey area includes:
Case 1 - Here is one thing I am dealing with now, that is relatively simple, so a good place to start.
My wife has been texting another guy a lot, and hanging out every other week for walks. I am confident that the relationship is not sexual, that there is no sexting going on, and I trust that my wife would not cheat. I think she's enjoying the attention and flirtation of another guy, it's a break from the monotony of family life, and there's also a sort of compulsive aspect to texting where she can get a little 'ping' throughout the day. She has told me that there was a mild attraction at the beginning but for various reasons that attraction has decreased and she now sees him as "just a friend" albeit a male friend, which she acknowledges has a different, fun energy.
My reactions:
I also know that I want to have an equivalent relationship with a woman, don't want to have a double standard.
I also think that I'm never going to be okay with a true poly relationship if I can't be okay with this type of relationship. So I might as well try to get a handle on this level of jealousy.
Okay, that's all for now. Not really sure where this diary is going, but I'll take it one entry at a time.
-Arc
Long story short: 20 year marriage, wife comes out as poly. I am trying to figure out what to do. We have not done anything but read, talk, fight, and start working on exploring platonic opposite-sex relationships.
One thing I have decided to work on, independent of specific decisions about my wife and our exploring whether to open the relationship, is: My jealousy. I am going to take this opportunity to unpack it, do a bunch of reading, talk it out with people (including my therapist), because I really want to understand what it's about. And I am going to use this space to do so. I welcome any comments or thoughts.
(One note: Even when I'm writing about jealousy in general, I may use the "she" pronoun for "the partner who is the object of jealousy" here, but that's only because it fits with my situation, not to imply that there are definite gender roles).
Entry 1:
One thing I (think I) know is that some forms of jealousy are genuinely unreasonable/abusive (e.g., "don't talk to other men or even look at them"), and then there is a wide grey area that is not abusive and is a mix of reasonable and unreasonable, going off towards zero-jealousy/compersion. Forms in the grey area includes:
- "I don't want you to ever reference your exes";
- "I don't want you to ever interact with your exes";
- "No, it is not okay to me that you are attracted to that guy on Poldark";
- "No it is not okay to me that you are attracted to that guy you work with";
- "I don't want you to have platonic male friends";
- "I don't want you to share personal things with this man but not with me";
- "I don't want to have to think of her having sex with someone else";
- "I don't like the idea of you talking about our relationship with another partner";
- "I don't want you to fall in love with someone else."
- [Insert other, less and less strong feelings of jealousy until you get to the asymptotic line of non-jealousy]
Case 1 - Here is one thing I am dealing with now, that is relatively simple, so a good place to start.
My wife has been texting another guy a lot, and hanging out every other week for walks. I am confident that the relationship is not sexual, that there is no sexting going on, and I trust that my wife would not cheat. I think she's enjoying the attention and flirtation of another guy, it's a break from the monotony of family life, and there's also a sort of compulsive aspect to texting where she can get a little 'ping' throughout the day. She has told me that there was a mild attraction at the beginning but for various reasons that attraction has decreased and she now sees him as "just a friend" albeit a male friend, which she acknowledges has a different, fun energy.
My reactions:
- I feel annoyed by all the texting - it feels like I'm being left out of a conversation that's happening in the same room;
- There were a few situations where she seemed to prioritize walking with him, when we actually don't get a chance to do that much (due to parenting duties, and COVID means we can't rely on other people for childcare; and also we just kind of forget to do "couples things" together);
- Jealous that she is getting outer emotional fulfillment from another man (I'd still be annoyed by the texting if it were a girlfriend, but not jealous);
- Worried that things are getting romantic/sexual-feeling;
- Suspicious that she is talking about our relationship issues, particularly the poly part;
- Suspicious/worried that she will get wrapped up in a secret texting affair and be too afraid to tell me;
- I'm just not into this guy, he's kind of a dud/mess, so I am annoyed that she likes him to begin with;
- Jealous that he has qualities that I don't have or think I lack - extroverted; better-looking; makes her excited like I don't;
- I feel territorial: He's encroaching on my turf;
- I have a vision of him being kind of cocky; in other words, general anti-man sentiment that makes me think poorly of him.
I also know that I want to have an equivalent relationship with a woman, don't want to have a double standard.
I also think that I'm never going to be okay with a true poly relationship if I can't be okay with this type of relationship. So I might as well try to get a handle on this level of jealousy.
Okay, that's all for now. Not really sure where this diary is going, but I'll take it one entry at a time.
-Arc