Another Mono in Polyland

My boss got upset with me yesterday, because she is fighting so hard to maintain our department and on some level I'm accepting of it's demise. I didn't get it until I was lying sleepless after my conversation with him about formalizing his relationship with A. I thought fuck him, if he is not "all in" then why am I? Apparently I think that "all in" means monogamy.

When I learned that he was considering A, my first thought was "well I guess we're not getting married." Because apparently I think that a polyamorous partner is not marriage material. Then I thought "well if we're not headed towards marriage, then why are we living together." That lead to a lot of internal storminess.

So here I'm today, taking off work to take Pops to doctor 'cause really you don't want him on the road. My boss isn't thrilled with me because I'm out on the day when so many others are out. I'm trying to work from home until I need to leave and once again I'm wasting time working through fucking poly issues.

So what if I try another way to deal with this. The idea of liberty, to release the constraints of how he "should" be in a relationship, the "should" created by society and my parents and my experience of 52 years on this planet. I love the idea of freedom for him. For a variety of reasons, I don't think much about freedom for me. But if I did, I think about spending my time as I would like to spend it, not worrying about being so available to him. Maybe seeing a friend on the weekend, a meeting every day, not worrying about having dinner for him. I'm not interested in a romantic relationship with anyone else but I would like to spend money the way I want. So that freedom might make me feel less resentful in the short term but where would we end up in the long term. He has his life, I have my life, maybe growing apart maybe growing together. I don't know how to commit to a relationship without making choices that favor him over other things. Maybe it's a continuum and maybe I don't need to take it so far one way or another.

I can see that without attention, we could grow apart and I really don't want that to happen. He doesn't seem worried about that and wants to have fun in the moment. He doesn't believe that his outside relationship choices -especially as they are now - have really any impact on me. And I agree, as things are now there is no real impact. But it is highly unlikely that is how things will stay based on what I know of him and her. You can argue that I should just let it all play out -- and that is what I'm going to do. But you can argue that this something so important to me, if I don't fight for it now, when will I fight. But what does fighting look like, trying to change him? That just can't be the answer. But change me? Why is that the answer. There are very few things I know right now, but one is that I don't want to marry someone who has another serious relationship. On a gut level I don't want to fuck someone who is regularly fucking someone else. No logic to that, its just how I feel.
 
I feel completely devoid of any sense of play, safety or desire to have sex. Nothing feels fun, I can't imagine what might be fun. I can't concentrate, I go to work and obsess on this forum. Someone else, I might wonder if they are depressed. Theoretically my depression has been treated. But there are so many other things I could do to feel better: exercise, clean up my food, put myself on a more consistent work schedule, go to more meetings, not sacrifice the things I love when I'm not asked to, meditate, reconnect spiritually. Why is it when you most need to act for yourself, that is when it's most difficult? And if I'm in a D/s relationship why does it fall all to me to make it all happen. I thought the deal was that he takes some of that responsibility to get me back on track.
Otherwise its all sacrifice and no benefit.

Maybe this is why I don't work from home - any emotional disturbance I ruminate on it instead of working.
 
Thanks FOL.
 
Taking action

I was productive at work yesterday, ate well and exercised, it does help. Work busy today so I will be distracted.

He has a date tonight with potential FWB and they've already had the safer sex talk. The next time I see him he could have already fucked someone else, or not. My goal is to not let it ruin my day. I'm trying to set up plans for me tonight so I'm happily distracted but first attempt feel through.

Setting intention for a peacefully productive day focused on self care :)
 
Still new, and want to start my own blog, but reading your few posts...

Are you depressed? Are you being treated for it? You sound like your life (work, dad, self image, love, lover) is totally unbalanced right now and I don't know how you can address one (love and lover) when the others push them out of the way.

It especially struck home when you wrote about your lack of desire for sex. My wife and I struggled with that for a couple years, but mostly it was a symptom of how much stress she was under.

I get horny when I'm stressed. She feels less receptive. That of course leads to some conflict.

You are very brave and you understand the concept of ownership it seems, but it extends well beyond feelings. You own your life, your body, your health, and no one else can do it for you.
 
Roller coaster fun

So Friday, when he had is date with the potential FWB. I had a spectacularly busy day, a good part of it spent trying to prevent someone from getting unjustly fired. I worked till 8pm, I really needed to catch up from all the lost poly obsession time. I had a backup plan in case I started freaking out but I didn’t need it. Watched a movie and went to sleep and I really wanted to be when he came home so I didn’t have to deal with him.

I didn’t want to wonder about it so in the morning I asked him if he fucked her, he had. He went to work for the morning and I went crazy in my head. The urge to break up with him was enormous and persistent. I exercised, called three trusted advisors, wrote, prayed, went to a meeting, all to not throw away the good that we have created. We talked and when asked directly, he admitted that he had fucked A too but didn’t tell me because he was afraid of my reaction. I told him that I understood about being afraid of my reaction but that he needed to put his big boy pants on.

I told him body wanted to vomit, my mind wanted to change the locks and my heart was broken. He claims to have had no idea that I was so distressed. I pointed out the extent and frequency of my crying over the last months. Frequent weeping didn’t penetrate his denial but changing the locks did. Fuck. We talked, talked, got better, when to presentation about D/s relationships and I was reminded what was lacking in ours, A was there. She is fine, it’s the just added stressor. I was hysterical in the car and at home, went to a meeting, had dinner, returned to my old affectionate self, massaged him in front of the fire till he fell asleep. I woke up so so sad and asked myself why and remembered and sobbed out loud and woke him up.

Why am I writing this? Not sure. I don’t want to reactivate myself about the whole thing. To remember how up and down it is? I can build an entire case about how immature and irresponsible he’s been. I can build a case about how all this is based on my reactions and it’s my responsibility to change. I can build a case that we are each perfectly suited to provide learning opportunities that we each desperately need – for me it would be to lighten up and have fun and don’t try to control and for him it would be to get out of denial and step up to take responsibility for choices he has made.

Oh whatever, I’m done tussling with it for now. I need to do laundry, trim roses, walk with friend, clean, pickup food for party, go to the party, then fetch and hang out with Pop. Ugg I don’t want my father over to dinner when things feel so unstable.

@Spock thank you, I am under tremendous stress and I’m sure that is much of it. My body is much more sensitive than my mind. My body says fuck you no before my mind does. Even before this poly upheaval, I’d been upset at my partner but didn’t talk about it enough and my body said fuck you no. I get and really empathize with you and your wife’s different ways of coping. To me that is hardest situation, when both people have legitimate but opposite needs – no one can be blamed or should have to change because neither is wrong.
 
So I'm not sure why you're exploring poly at all?

I mean, other than the fact that the love of your life wants to, which is very generous of you! Had my wife brought this up two or three years ago, I would have gently shut her down because our own life had too many unresolved issues.

My wife was struggling to keep our sex life active because she was under so much stress (me too, but as I said I get more horny when I'm stressed) since my dad had died, my mom was staying with us, she was at home with two kids, and then of course my mom died too. I was seriously considering asking her if I could look for 'outside counsel' since it was overwhelming to her to meet my needs for affection, companionship, and sex. I was hanging out at the playground with my kids so I could chat up the neighborhood moms, just so I had someone to talk to.

And I'll be fair, it wasn't her job to solely meet my needs, but at the same time she had previously said that she would divorce me if I ever hit on her sister (oh yea, she was staying with us too!) or cheated on her, so that was a delicate subject as well. Meaning that her request to open up our marriage was kind of a surprise. She has since started taking medication and has a lot more energy, if not time.

I'm going to reiterate that I think you need to take care of yourself and it isn't unreasonable for you to ask your husband to help you.
 
@Spock thanks for sharing your story. I can understand that she would be upset if you hit on her sister or cheat on her - but I'm sure that you could have searched out other options. I was kind of you to refrain from other options as well for a while, it sounds like it was really really rough.

As far why I am exploring poly, well we started poly, I met him when he was still married. He has always said he was poly, I can't change the game this far into it. I knew he was poly and he knew I was pretty mono. We both took a risk that we could weather the differences. I told him before we moved in together that I could not handle watching him fall in love with someone, I would rather gouge my eye out. He had told me he wasn't looking for another relationship, to play and fuck yes but nothing deep. And now "oops" he is in relationship. He hasn’t said he is in love but if you hang out in a tattoo shop, eventually you will get a tattoo.

I always challenged him, how can you think you can do x,y,z and not expect to fall into love with a nice person? Funny, people may think that mono means you think there is one and only. Actually I know how easy it is to fall in love, when people share themselves it is beautiful and tender so of course more will follow duh! The difference is the choices to stay focused and he didn't choose it. And he is way more apt to fall in love; he really does have a big heart.

I just can’t be that person that says “no you can’t do that” because I don’t want to me be that controlling and it doesn’t really help. I don’t want him to not do things because I stop him but because he makes a mature decision which supports the future we envisioned. But he would in insist that what he is doing has absolutely no impact on our future together. And I would insist that when he’s busy fucking around he’s not doing other things. He would respond that even when I’m working hard, I still need to have fun. He has a point, I tell to be all work and no play and he leans the other way. Anyway we are 15 years apart in age and with very different experiences and those differences are starting to have an impact on me.
 
Had a long talk with him this morning after I dreamed that a short blond woman was trying to break into the house. Haha the new girl is short and blond. During the talk we went over lots of stuff and I reminded him of the conversation when I told him I couldn’t watch him fall in love with someone, he remembers it clearly. When I insisted that he can’t go walking in the rain and keep saying that he didn’t want to get wet the big realization came out: he realized that when I said I couldn’t watch him fall in love, he was assuming that I just had a bad experience and he thought that I would be okay if the third person was a better fit. He admitted that really deep down falling in love was what he wanted in addition to our relationship.

We both kind of froze it was so big. I still feel oddly numb. I really get wanting reality to be different, but wow we’ve paid a big price for us wanting things to be different.
 
We've survived two days since his realization. Neither of us wants to break up. After lots of soul searching I agreed keep trying until our contract expires in July 2014. All this has been negatively impacting my performance at work, sapping all my energy. I asked and he agreed to delay formalizing with the new girl and to not fuck the latest girl...I HATE WRITING THOSE WORDS...until I can get through the holidays, family visits and work obligations, so its 40 days.

I'm relieved but I also feel a bit of a failure, asking for agreement on limits on their behavior. But I'm doing the best I can. I can't believe how many times I'm cycling through the negative emotions. What I know is that I made this agreement so I can't keep punishing him for it, I'm deciding to stay the 8 months and god help me I want to feel better about the whole thing. I can't spend this time planning my exit, I really want to give it an real try. I want to fee better so I can stay with him and not sacrifice my well being in the process.
 
Yeah, it is getting quite silly now. You obviously do not want to do this and your reluctance is starting to have a negative impact on other people. He should be making a decision now about whether being poly is more important to him than your individual relationship and ending the relationships that won't result in the people in them being happy. It's becoming unethical and going through it for another eight months because you have a kink contract doesn't make sense.
 
I tried so hard but I couldn't make it work for me. After all these years living together and him having sequential partners I ended it. It was heartbreakingly sad but it's been a month and I've survived.
 
I'm sorry to hear about the break up. Even when the best decision, it's not like breakups are fun.

I hope you over time you start to feel better and heal.

GG
 
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Oh Pet, what a hard decision to finally make. Thank you for the update and I'm glad you survived although I'm sure you would have at any time.

I wish you all the best and that you can thrive in your future relationships. From reading above, it sounds like you'll be looking for a mono relationship configuration in the future. I hope you find it when you are ready.

Evie
 
I tried so hard but I couldn't make it work for me. After all these years living together and him having sequential partners I ended it. It was heartbreakingly sad but it's been a month and I've survived.
Wow, so you sure made it past that July in 2014! What made you hold on so much longer? How did you survive?

I am not judging, as I *knew* I needed to leave my ex-h in 2000, but it took me 8 more years to really feel ready, to feel strong, to feel like the kids would experience less trauma...

I hope happier, calmer and more authentic times are on your horizon, as they were for me when I made the change.
 
Thank you everyone that responded. I've read your posts all these years up to the last six months. I've learned amazing things from this forum and from Alanon things I couldn't have learned any other way if I weren't in this relationship or it would've taken me much longer.

I learned great things but I wasn't happy or calm or authentic. I'm not going to think about them as wasted years because there were many many many beautiful times and that's how I stayed. But the price was too high. I used so much energy to fit into his life to adjust to his needs. And I got lost.
 
I hope you enjoy finding yourself again, becoming you again. I wish you all the very best.
 
Yes. Subsuming yourself to a relationship, getting lost, losing your authentic self.... that price is too high.

I'm glad you have learned things along the way that help you and are thinking about a new future. Wishing you well!

GG
 
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