Am I asking for too much after breaking an agreement?

[waavymirror]

I’m relatively new to the poly lifestyle. I had wanted to explore polyamory back in 2022, but my husband (primary partner) Jason wasn’t OK with the idea of opening up our relationship beyond purely physical intimacy with others. My impetus for this ask was because I felt a lack of emotional connection with Jason and he wasn’t doing much to change it.

At the start of this year (2024) Jason matched with someone who was interested in dating him. (I’ll refer to her as Carly.) I am all for that, as he has minimal experience being in a committed relationship and I wanted him to have other experiences.

I then met someone in June and unexpectedly hit it off well. (I’ll refer to him as Albert.) Shortly after, Jason’s relationship with Carly ended due to the concerns of her primary partner around HSV-1. (I get cold sores. Jason has tested negative, but this is a deal breaker for Carly’s primary partner.)

As Jason and I had not worked toward resolving our emotional intimacy issues in any meaningful way, it was hard for him to see me getting these needs met with another person.

He asked me to start birth control, and I walked away from our conversation thinking that meant I no longer needed to use condoms. That led to the first major rupture in my relationship with Jason and he asked me to pause things with Albert.

After two weeks, Jason agreed it’d be OK for us to re-open and for me to reach out to Albert. I then asked if it was OK for me to see Albert in person, with the explicit understanding that I would not be physical with him.

However, when we met up, I did end up being physically intimate with Albert — I spaced on my agreement with Jason— and when I shared this with Jason he reminded me of our agreement and was understandably very upset. He asked me to cut off all communication with Albert.

We’ve since started couples therapy and Jason has come around to letting me re-connect with Albert, platonically, after about two months of no contact.

My question here is if I’m being unreasonable for asking Jason to allow me to continue a romantic relationship (emotional + physical) with Albert.

 

[GalaGirl]

Here is what stuck out to me. I don't know if it helps you any.

Gently... why are you asking Jason so much about Albert? What's the purpose of doing that?

Can't Jason just date his other people, without you all up in his biz, and you date your other people, without Jason all up in your biz?

If I were Albert, and you asked me out again, I'd give it a pass, even if I liked you. You'd have turned me on/off too many times and shown me you don't have a healthy relationship to offer me because you will do whatever Jason says to do.

He asked that I start birth control, and I walked away from our conversation thinking that meant I no longer needed to use condoms. That led to the first major rupture in my relationship with Jason and he asked me to pause things with Albert.

That's where I think you could have said something like:

"I am sorry that I misunderstood and assumed one thing when you meant another. To reduce misunderstandings like that in future, I will say "When you say ____, do you mean ____?" so I will know that I got it how you meant it.

"No, thanks. I won't be pausing. Existing people can stay -- you and Albert. I'm willing to do couple counseling to help improve communication and our shared agreements. I'm willing to pause dating any NEW people until we have completed X appointments."

If you no longer want to use condoms with Albert, and Albert is ok with that, you just don't. Then, before you share sex again with Jason, you update him as to your risk profile/safer sex practices. You could make it a practice to check in, saying: "Since the last time we shared sex, have there been any changes? On my side there was..." so you both can do continued informed consent.

You could use condoms with Jason, if Jason would prefer that now. But you are in charge of your body and how you choose to share sex with it. Jason is in charge of his body and how he chooses to share sex with it. That is fair. You are each in charge of your own self.

I then asked if it was OK for me to see Albert in person, with the explicit understanding that I would not be physical with him.

Why would you even ask that? What is the purpose of doing that? Do you have to ask to go to work, see your friends, your relatives?

I'm concerned that you are trying to keep agreements that aren't actually realistic, reasonable, or keepable for you, rather than just saying, "No thanks, I do not agree to that," from the beginning.

If I were Jason, I might be disappointed to hear you say, "I agree to use BCP. Risk profile update -- I have stopped using condoms with Albert. I'm willing to use them with you if you no longer want to share bare sex with me."

My trust in you is based on you being a person of your word, so I'd rather you are direct and honest when talking to me, rather than all up and down with your word, one minute saying this, another minute saying that. Being inconsistent with your word does not inspire confidence or trust.

I might be bummed that you want to change how we share sex, but my feelings are my job to manage. I'd see you are making effort to meet our safer-sex agreements on this side of the V.

And, nobody is entitled to sex, much less bare sex.

It's like you are bending into pretzels to save Jason from actually having to do the work around you poly dating and having to share your time and attention with other partners. If you both agreed to practice poly, presumably you're both willing to do that work. Right?

We’ve since started couples therapy and Jason has come around to letting me re-connect with Albert platonically after about two months of no contact.

I think in therapy you could address that YOU get to pick out who you date/not date, not Jason.

It's not like Albert is his dad, boss, or best friend. It's a person you met that has nothing to do with Jason.

My question here is if I’m being unreasonable for asking Jason to allow me to continue a romantic relationship (emotional + physical) with Albert.

I think that you could not ask Jason "permission" at all. That kind of set-up, where you are in charge of his other relationships, or he is in charge of yours, where there's veto power, is messy.

Instead, in therapy, you could state that you plan to ask Albert out again. You aren't sure how that will actually go, because Albert might decline. But this time you plan to have an autonomous relationship, where you and X decide how (you + X) go, not Jason. No more of Jason "gatekeeping," and asking you to turn these other relationships "on/off," based on whatever Jason feels or thinks in the moment. That is not kind to you or to the other person.

You are willing to make reasonable and rational shared agreements with Jason, like using safer sex practices. But you are no longer willing to have Jason be the "gatekeeper" or "boss" of your other relationships. You don't want to be involved with his other relationships like that, and you don't want him involved in yours like that, either.

You two could work out new realistic, reasonable, and KEEPABLE agreements, with the help of your therapist. Do not agree to do stuff you don't really want to do. Do not make agreements you can't realistically keep.

Galagirl

 

[waavymirror]

thank you for replying @GalaGirl!

i hear and agree with your point about each of us having autonomy to do what we like in our respective relationships; this is what i’ve been offering him and what i would like for myself as well.

i’m not one to typically flip-flop or break agreements; it was out of character for me. i attribute this to what you describe as me bending myself like a pretzel in my relationship with Jason — in having to negotiate (ask permission) to get what i want.

it seems like making a shift from “asking for permission” to “stating each of our terms” is the core issue that i need to work out with Jason.

 

[Magdlyn]

I agree with your point about each of us having autonomy to do what we like in our respective relationships; this is what i’ve been offering him and what i would like for myself as well.

i’m not one to typically flip-flop or break agreements; it was out of character for me. i attribute this to what you describe as me bending myself like a pretzel in my relationship with Jason — in having to negotiate (ask permission) to get what i want.

There is a difference between negotiating with a poly partner to make sure you're both comfortable, feel secure, are (sexually) healthy, are having your needs met-- and "asking permission." The first one assumes you two are equals. You are consenting adults, consenting to ethical non-monogamy, and figuring out what "ethical" means to you (and to most poly people). Asking permission implies ownership-- he possesses you, you possess him, you "belong" to each other, and have the right to impose restrictions on each other. Does that make more sense?

it seems like making a shift from “asking for permission” to “stating each of our terms” is the core issue that i need to work out with Jason.

Right!

 

[Bobbi]

I'm going to be a bit harsh, but I think you need to hear it. You don't have to agree with me, but if it makes you think, then I did my job.

My impetus for this ask was because I felt a lack of emotional connection with Jason and he wasn’t doing much to change it.

If you are feeling a lack of emotional connection from him, why are you still together? It sounds like you want poly to avoid breaking up. You want to move on, but don't want to be responsible for maybe hurting him by ending things. To me, this makes you a poly person I'd never want to date.

You are dragging him along for the ride. Once you fall in love with someone else and start to escalate this relationship he will be thrown aside and have to endure a ton of crap until he finally gives up and leaves. It's incredibly selfish not to break up and let him really explore finding the right person for him.

As Jason and I had not worked toward resolving our emotional intimacy issues in any meaningful way, it was hard for him to see me getting these needs met with another person.

Wait... he can't imagine you having feelings for someone else because you don't have them for him? He will be surprised and hurt when he sees it happen.

He asked me to start birth control, and I walked away from our conversation thinking that meant I no longer needed to use condoms.

How could you possibly think him asking you to use birth control meant he was cool with you ditching condoms? It seems your communication skills need a ton of work. Polyamory needs excellent communication, and you two really don't have it with each other. What makes you think you can have it with strangers?

All of this is a train wreck in slow motion. You should stop dating, spend time learning about polyamory, learning the skills needed to do it well, and figuring out why you want to be in a relationship where you don't have feelings or emotional connection with that person. Figure out if you really want poly, because right now it sounds like you don't. You just want to move on without breaking up. It's time to learn those break-up skills. Yes, it will hurt, and it's hard, but if you aren't capable of breaking up with a person then you probably shouldn't be dating in the first place.

Everyone else went into the communication/permission/over-sharing aspect, so I won't elaborate on that.

 

[waavymirror]

There is a difference between negotiating with a poly partner to make sure you're both comfortable, feel secure, are (sexually) healthy, are having your needs met-- and "asking permission." The first one assumes you two are equals. You are consenting adults, consenting to ethical non-monogamy, and figuring out what "ethical" means to you (and to most poly people). Asking permission implies ownership-- he possesses you, you possess him, you "belong" to each other, and have the right to impose restrictions on each other. Does that make more sense?

Right!

thank you for articulating this distinction. to further expand, i’d articulate it as: having a discussion where i acknowledge he’s struggling to see me have feelings for another person and seeing what can we do to strengthen our connection vs asking me to curb my behavior in a completely separate relationship.

 

[waavymirror]

I'm going to be a bit harsh, but I think you need to hear it. You don't have to agree with me but if it makes you think then I did my job.


If you are feeling a lack of emotional connection from him why are you still together? It sounds like you want poly to avoid breaking up. You want to move on but don't want to be responsible for maybe hurting him by ending things. To me, this makes you a poly person I'd never want to date.

You are dragging him along for the ride. Once you fall in love with someone else and start to escalate this relationship he will be thrown aside and have to endure a ton of crap until he finally gives up and leaves. It's incredibly selfish not to break up and let him really explore finding the right person for him.

Wait...he can't imagine you having feelings for someone else because you don't have them for him? He will be surprised and hurt when he sees it happen.


How could you possibly think him asking you to use birth control meant he was cool with you ditching condoms? It seems your communication skills need a ton of work. Polyamory needs excellent communication and you two really don't have it with each other. What makes you think you can have it with strangers.

All of this is a train wreck in slow motion. You should stop dating, spend time learning about polyamory, learning the skills needed to do it well, and figuring out why you want to be in a relationship where you don't have feelings or emotional connection with that person. Figurt out if you really want poly because right now it sounds like you don't. You just want to move on without breaking up. It's time to learn those break up skills. Yes it will hurt and it's hard but if you aren't capable of breaking up with a person then you probably shouldn't be dating in the first place.

Everyone else went into the communication/permission/ over sharing aspect so I won't elaborate on that.

harsh, but you make valid points. thank you for taking time to reply.

we have talked about my need for emotional connection and i’d like to think it’s not a completely binary situation where he doesn’t recognize this lack on his end. he has a more avoidant attachment style and is seemingly coming around to acknowledging how this impacts him showing up in a relationship. i did not say i don’t have feelings — there are feelings and this is why i want to make this work.

i seemingly haven’t run into communication issues with others, yet, but do hear your advice here and acknowledge it’s something we both need to work on within the context of our relationship. i did not say i do not value communication or that i don’t consider this of critical importance in my relationships with others.

definitely agree that i don’t want a situation where one person just feels like they are being dragged along — we’ve established that the goal is mutual consent, where neither of us feels like we are compromising what we each want.

i originally included an acknowledgment that we jumped into this with very little education and full understanding of the poly lifestyle. and that is something we realized really did not set us up for success here. since then i’ve read and learned a lot more about it and am familiar with the idea that a hierarchical relationship setup and veto power typically led to more messy situations than they help. this is something we don’t see eye-to-eye on, as he would prefer a more hierarchical setup with veto power.

i am not dating anyone at the moment, nor do i have any real desire to until Jason and i can come to a more mutual agreement. he is still seeing others, as i don’t feel a need to limit what he can do.

 

[SEASONEDpolyAgain]

I think you've put Albert through enough.

 

[kdt26417]

Hello waavymirror,

Albert is the guy (in addition to Jason) you are interested in, so of course you would ask Jason to let you pursue that. You did make a mistake, so you need to apologize for that. But, tell Jason that you need to pursue Albert romantically. This, of course, is not to say that Jason won't say, "I don't consent to that." If he does say that, you'll have to decide if that's a deal breaker for you. But you can't know how he'll answer if you don't ask. My vote is to ask.

Regards,
Kevin T.

 

[GalaGirl]

i’m not one to typically flip-flop or break agreements; it was out of character for me. i attribute this to what you describe as me bending myself like a pretzel in my relationship with Jason — in having to negotiate (ask permission) to get what i want.

it seems like making a shift from “asking for permission” to “stating each of our terms” is the core issue that i need to work out with Jason.

I'm glad it helps you some.

And yes, this "permission" thing has to go. Jason is not your kid. You aren't Jason's kid. You are both adults.

Work with the counselor to make realistic, reasonable and keepable shared agreements, or to accept that you two want different things now and have grown apart.

STOP bending into pretzels. Have honest conversations instead.

Maybe you both want to look over the relationship menu with the counselor.

https://www.reddit.com/r/polyamory/comments/pwkdxp/v3_relationship_components_menu_last_update_for

to further expand, i’d articulate it as: having a discussion where i acknowledge he’s struggling to see me have feelings for another person and seeing what can we do to strengthen our connection vs asking me to curb my behavior in a completely separate relationship.

Yes. You state what you are and are not willing to do, what you are and are not up for.

You can be kind but firm when stating this. But there's no point in pussyfooting around with it. What you can offer is going to be enough for Jason, or not.

Here is an assessment tool in case you two are growing apart. Maybe you're making mess because of anticipatory grief over that, or something. Some couples decide to try polyamory as a means avoid acknowledging that they have grown apart or in different directions, or to avoid a break-up. I hope that isn't happening here. But if it is, it's best to face it than to drag it out or bend into those kinds of pretzels.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Feeling unhappy in or unsure about your relationship? Having problems you don't know how to work through, or don't even know if you should? We'll talk you through making these choices, including how-to's on conflict resolution and doing breakups better.

www.scarleteen.com

since then i’ve read and learned a lot more about it and am familiar with the idea that a hierarchical relationship setup and veto power typically led to more messy situations than they help. this is something we don’t see eye-to-eye on, as he would prefer a more hierarchical setup with veto power.

Have you asked Jason what happens when a primary-secondary model is outgrown? This article mentions some of that.

What if he dates X and eventually X wants to be his co-primary? Is he going to renegotiate agreements with you, dump X, or what?

What if this doesn't change? You want one kind of open model and he wants another? At what point do you call it incompatible, break up, and move on? Just because people were compatible enough for monogamy for a time doesn't mean they will automatically be compatible for non-monogamy in all its forms. Do you have a timeframe in mind for how long you want to keep trying/working on this? It's not going to be 5, 10, 50 years, right?

i am not dating anyone at the moment, nor do i have any real desire to until Jason and i can come to a more mutual agreement. he is still seeing others, as i don’t feel a need to limit what he can do.

If the current agreement is poly, then it is poly for BOTH.

I think you could go out anyway, on your own, or with friends, if you aren't dating anyone in particular right now. Jason needs to learn how to be alone, self soothe, get used to you being out and having dates, etc. And in poly, you can just not date if you don't feel like dating right now. There doesn't have to be some big announcement about that to Jason, or a whole shared agreement overhaul. You could be dealing with a broken leg, so on a dating break. You could be on a big work project so on a dating break. But you can take a break whenever you want without overhauling everything. Right? You simply rest.

If he's kicked up a great big fuss and now you are doing some variation of mono-poly, staying home and only seeing Jason because you don't feel like fussing, is that what he wanted all along, open for him, but not for you? Some people promise to "work on it," but then never really do the work, and never really "arrive," because it behooves them to keep it just like this, with them dating and you not.

Tread with caution. What work is he supposed to be doing right now? How do you know he's actually doing it? Is it measurable?

Various ways to approach it:

It's one thing if you agree to pause for X number of counseling appointments and then get back out there. You can measure the appointment dates. It's one thing if you agree to pause until you have read X book together. You can measure the chapters. Pausing "til he's ready" is too vague.

You could view this as a series of openings. This time you both jumped in underprepared and dinged each other and your other dating partners. Nobody likes being collateral damage to a couple. BOTH of you could let go of all other relationships, close back up for 6-12 mos and work with the counselor to prepare for the next opening attempt so that one goes better, and hopefully "sticks."

You two could accept this difference, and talk to your counselor about what having a "mixed marriage" could look like.

• One where he does casual sex only/primary-secondary on his side, where he calls you his primary and all his other people secondary.
  
  
• One where you do polyamory/co-primary model on your side, where you date for long-term relationships that share both love and sex, and call your partners co-primary. (Really, if he's the legal spouse, even if you call all your partners co-primary, there's inherent hierarchy in a marriage. He's got legal standing the others don't. It's best to acknowledge that from the get-go and call it "working towards as close to co-primary as possible" than pretending it isn't there.)

Another option is to have a trial separation. You date on your side how you want. He dates on his side how he wants, while doing the work. And you both work with your counselor to reconcile and make new shared agreements once he's completed it.

Another option is to divorce. Then what Jason wants no longer applies.

There could be other approaches.

Setting Jason aside for a moment, what would YOU want for this chapter of your life? How would YOU like to be?

Galagirl