Communication advice-full disclosure
- Thread starter nycsinger2000
- Start date
ArtemisHunt
New member
Omg! (Slaps forehead) I'm so terribly sorry!
anamikanon
New member
Ouch. My apologies.
Shaya
New member
Hi.
Many people on this thread have made some very insightful comments and I hope their advice has helped. I'd like to start by saying that my wife and I dipped our toes in polyamory and failed, so please take anything I say with the proverbial pinch of salt.
In reading your posts, I am impressed at how ready you seem to be to accept polyamory given that your mindset seems monogamous at this point in time. Truly, I imagine myself in your situation and ... just can't imagine it. I also can't imagine how much you're beating yourself up about it. I feel that you and your partner would benefit if you were both kinder on yourselves and focused on yourselves first.
The main issue I see is trust, hurt and betrayal. Your posts seem to imply that he has cheated on you multiple times. This is terrible. Affairs cannot be rationalised as "just sex". Affairs break bonds of trust that are built on love and mutual respect. These broken bonds take time to heal. It is wonderful that you and your partner have worked hard to come back from these dark times and are now exploring open relationships as a way to legitimise any further affairs. You are an amazing person to be even considering polyamory under these circumstances. Well done!
When you do polyamory, I suspect you will likely find it difficult. Do not deny yourself this fact or push yourself too hard or too fast, please. Look after yourself and realise that you are going to experience legitimate difficulties that all people go through when exploring polyamory and also unique difficulties of your own.
I suspect you may encounter a few difficulties and wanted to see if I could be helpful:
Finally, in affair recovery websites, they point out that the reason the person who committed the affair is hesitant to speak about these things is because they feel ashamed and guilty. If your partner is feeling hesitant to open up, consider that he may be suffering from his past actions where being open about these issues has previously caused a lot of harm to your relationship. His hesitancy in opening up sexual truths about other partners may be secondary to unconscious psychological stress that he has experienced in opening up to you in the past about sex with others. I'd also like to add that I'm not a psychologist and may have interpreted this wrongly. Please forgive me if I have.
I'd like to conclude by saying that the two of you are amazing to be standing here today, with your improved relationship and looking to start what I believe to be a truly difficult endeavour. To be entirely honest, the odds are not in your favour. You are most likely to be successful if you see these potential pitfalls and go slow. Be gentle on yourselves. A transition to polyamory moves at the rate of the slowest member.
Good luck. I look forward to hearing more as you and your partner go into polyamory, and also look forward to your advice in the future to me as my partner and I transition to polyamory from our affair.
Many people on this thread have made some very insightful comments and I hope their advice has helped. I'd like to start by saying that my wife and I dipped our toes in polyamory and failed, so please take anything I say with the proverbial pinch of salt.
In reading your posts, I am impressed at how ready you seem to be to accept polyamory given that your mindset seems monogamous at this point in time. Truly, I imagine myself in your situation and ... just can't imagine it. I also can't imagine how much you're beating yourself up about it. I feel that you and your partner would benefit if you were both kinder on yourselves and focused on yourselves first.
The main issue I see is trust, hurt and betrayal. Your posts seem to imply that he has cheated on you multiple times. This is terrible. Affairs cannot be rationalised as "just sex". Affairs break bonds of trust that are built on love and mutual respect. These broken bonds take time to heal. It is wonderful that you and your partner have worked hard to come back from these dark times and are now exploring open relationships as a way to legitimise any further affairs. You are an amazing person to be even considering polyamory under these circumstances. Well done!
When you do polyamory, I suspect you will likely find it difficult. Do not deny yourself this fact or push yourself too hard or too fast, please. Look after yourself and realise that you are going to experience legitimate difficulties that all people go through when exploring polyamory and also unique difficulties of your own.
I suspect you may encounter a few difficulties and wanted to see if I could be helpful:
- Transitioning from monogamy to polyamory is difficult and the book "Opening up" by Tristan Taornimo is often suggested to be a good start. I haven't read the book, but imagine this resource to be similar.
- Mono/Poly difficulties, meaning a mono partner with a poly partner. This involves a lot of work on his part on being a good "hinge" in a V-type relationship, as well as both of you helping to manage the inevitable jealousy. Morethantwo explores this well, and there are threads on this forum devoted to this kind of thing.
- Betrayal and affair. In my opinion, this is the truly hard part. Polyamory is about adding more love to an existing healthy relationship. Polyamory works because lovers trust each other to not hurt each other. If your partner has betrayed your trust, what guarantee do you have that he won't betray it again? He may be promising you things in good faith now, but he's previously broken those promises - what guarantee do you have that he won't again? This is not easy. I suggest he understands that this process of going into polyamory requires a huge sacrifice on your part in managing jealousy and insecurities with very little gain for you, whilst he stands a lot to gain romantically and totally avoids having to experience jealousy. If he understands this, then he will understand your need for disclosure as a way to handle insecurity. Affair recovery websites teach that the most effective way to regain trust is for total transparency. His own discomfort comes second to your discomfort because of his previous actions in betraying you for other romantic partners. I think you will overcome this hurdle easiest if you are provided with a sense of security about your relationship with him. Asking to know when he has engaged in sex with someone is in my opinion totally legitimate.
Finally, in affair recovery websites, they point out that the reason the person who committed the affair is hesitant to speak about these things is because they feel ashamed and guilty. If your partner is feeling hesitant to open up, consider that he may be suffering from his past actions where being open about these issues has previously caused a lot of harm to your relationship. His hesitancy in opening up sexual truths about other partners may be secondary to unconscious psychological stress that he has experienced in opening up to you in the past about sex with others. I'd also like to add that I'm not a psychologist and may have interpreted this wrongly. Please forgive me if I have.
I'd like to conclude by saying that the two of you are amazing to be standing here today, with your improved relationship and looking to start what I believe to be a truly difficult endeavour. To be entirely honest, the odds are not in your favour. You are most likely to be successful if you see these potential pitfalls and go slow. Be gentle on yourselves. A transition to polyamory moves at the rate of the slowest member.
Good luck. I look forward to hearing more as you and your partner go into polyamory, and also look forward to your advice in the future to me as my partner and I transition to polyamory from our affair.
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Hi nycsinger2000,
You might already be doing this, but my suggestion is, give your boyfriend positive feedback when he tells you about having sex with someone else. "Thank you for telling me." "Thank you for your honesty." Something like that. This way your boyfriend had a kind of reward system for telling you the truth. It may help him feel more comfortable about telling it.
As for the privacy of his other partners, I don't see a problem as long as he notifies them of his agreement with you ahead of time. Of course, it will reduce the number of partners available to him ahead of time. But that's part of what he agrees to.
It's clear to me that you have made a sacrifice in consenting to your boyfriend having sex with other people. Most monogamous people wouldn't agree to that, but you have. So, I give you kudos. You have been very understanding toward your boyfriend.
Sincerely,
Kevin T.
You might already be doing this, but my suggestion is, give your boyfriend positive feedback when he tells you about having sex with someone else. "Thank you for telling me." "Thank you for your honesty." Something like that. This way your boyfriend had a kind of reward system for telling you the truth. It may help him feel more comfortable about telling it.
As for the privacy of his other partners, I don't see a problem as long as he notifies them of his agreement with you ahead of time. Of course, it will reduce the number of partners available to him ahead of time. But that's part of what he agrees to.
It's clear to me that you have made a sacrifice in consenting to your boyfriend having sex with other people. Most monogamous people wouldn't agree to that, but you have. So, I give you kudos. You have been very understanding toward your boyfriend.
Sincerely,
Kevin T.