Confusion

Conundrum

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I'm a 39 yr old female living with my 40 yr old "boyfriend", his wife and their 2 kids for the past 4 years. I met him first through the BDSM scene and quickly fell in love. I met his wife and realized that in a different situation, she and I would not be friends. It wasn't anything in particular about her, just an odd feeling. I had been in a very open marriage before and felt comfortable that this odd feeling wasn't jealousy. I moved in with them a year after I met him (this was her idea).
He and I were sexually active and we tried to have the wife join once. She claimed to be interested but I quickly found that she was interested only in receiving from both of us but would not "give" to either. I wrote this off to nerves until it happened again. I knew the that she was not bi and was only doing it because she thought that would make her appealing. I think we have all met girls like that, confused.
Over time I began to see that he was the one who cleaned house, took care the bills and the kids and pets. While he was doing all of this, she would sit on the couch and watch Disney movies or read her tablet. She very rarely cleaned up after herself and was refusing to have another child because of her career and because she wanted to wait for the current child to go to school.
I began to notice that she was very rude to friends and family, often touting her "intelligence, expertise and opinion".
She finally agreed to have another kid with him "if (he) bought her a bigger house so that the kids would have their own room". He bought a 5 bedroom house and she started "trying" to get pregnant. Once it became clear after a few months that it wasn't going to be easy, she freaked out and told me that she felt guilty because he had bought the house so now she HAD to have a baby. Eventually it did happen.
Now, he and I clean this huge house, pay bills, clean up after the wife, cook supper, help with homework, change diapers, get up with the baby at night and take off work when the kids are sick while she stays at work for 14 hour days, takes off during the week while the kids are in school or day care and works on the weekends. At times I will get so irritated that o will not do something in order to try to get her to do it herself. He ends up doing it instead and this ends up making me more pissed off.
Now, some items of importance:
1. She told me that before their oldest was conceived, she was leaving him for someone she was cheating on him with ( they did not have an open marriage at that time). He found out the day before she was leaving and left her. She decided to stay with him and beg him to take her back because "he is more stable and has a better paying job".
2. He has informed me that if I have a relationship with another guy, it will change our relationship significantly.
3. When I get fed up with her and get pissed, he gets mad at me for "upsetting the peace".
4. When I do finally confront her on her behavior, she either pouts, acts shocked and surprised or gets defensive and denies.
5. They won't tell anyone about our relationship except others in the BDSM/poly scene. He finally told his sister after I had lived with them for 3 years. I am constantly asked questions and looked at weirdly by the public when they learn that my "roommates" are a married couple and their kids. Neighbors have asked if I was the nanny. Their families have made polite inquiries as to why I don't date. He won't show me any PDA or even tell me he loves me if one of the kids are in the room. The kids know me as only a roommate.
6. She told me that she hasn't been sexually attracted to him in almost a decade.
7. We have a gps app we use called friend finder so that we can keep track of each other. For some reason hers never lets us see where she is (convenient for those 14 hour supposed work days)
8. None of our friends like her. She gets pouty because they don't invite her to do stuff with them. They say she is rude to them and their spouses, yells at their kids and tells them what they are doing wrong as parents, why would they invite her to do anything.
9. His 3 previous girlfriends in the poly lifestyle left him because she was "rude, bossy and a whiney, lazy bitch" He says they split because they were all going In Different directions.
10. His family can't stand her. His mom has told me that they feel so unwelcome because the wife is bossy, rude and yells at the husbands 80 year old step father. She is jealous because the wife's mother is often staying or visiting at our house but the wife tells them they can't.
I am sure you are wondering why I stay in this situation if I am so unhappy. The answer is that I absolutely love him and the kids. I feel awful that he has to do everything on his own and would have no help if I left.
My problem is that I am unsure how much longer I can take this. I'm getting more and more unhappy. He and I rarely get time to ourselves unless it's after the kids go to bed and then we are exhausted. im beginning to feel like a glorified nanny/maid/cocksucker. Am I just being jealous? How can I get him to see how she is since he is so blind. Should I start actively looking for a secondary someone who will put me first on occasion? Should I put my foot down and just let them both know how I feel and damn the consequences?
Conundrum
 
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There's a huge amount of blame going on here and not much personal responsibility, but be that as it may, you're 39 and have an incredibly long life ahead of you. Make some changes in you, learn from this valuable life experience and go forth to create better relationships. There are not enough maneuvers you could ever do to fix this situation. We can never make people see anything. You'll never change how he sees her. At the same time, she may be unpleasant, but you are the one who is deeply drawn to the situation, so your choice is only to change you, not them. I'd venture to guess that you have a good bit of "need to be needed" going on and that is what needs to be addressed, not the behavior of these other people. You can't even begin to make this better by focusing on what is wrong with them.
 
Karen,
You are correct.
I'm sure that I do things and have behaviors that irritate them. I do like to be needed and take care of those I love although I do feel that we all have equal responsibilities. I do need to make changes in myself first and I have realized that I am never going to change his views or her actions. I definitely need to do some inner reflections and make a healthy change for myself.
Thank you for giving me your thoughts.
 
Oh god, get out.

You can't be long-term involved with a married person while haring their spouse. You can't share a house long-term with someone you dislike.

I frankly do not understand why *anyone* is in this setup. It sounds terrible. (The person who currently has most of my sympathy is your boyfriend's wife.)

You cannot get your boyfriend to see anything. You should not patch this with another partner - relationship broken, add more people" is a well-known failure mode. You should find someplace else to live and move out as soon as you possibly can.
 
BlueShoes,
I appreciate your thoughts and you have many valid points. I am wondering though why your sympathies lie with the wife? I'm not being facetious or argumentative, I am truly curious. I'm beginning to wonder if my expectations of a household provided for and run equally by all members of a triad are incorrect or not how others see it. Thanks.
 
My household WiFi is down and I'm doing this on my phone. Sorry about the typos.

My sympathies are with the wife because:

1. You talk about her refusing to have another child. I have two kids, and what they did to me physically was no joke, which is why deliberately conceiving has to be a situation where everyone is enthusiastically on board. She wasn't, and you don't appear to have been sympathetic to that. Neither does her husband. She didn't owe anyone children ever, and she wound up in a situation where she couldn't find her voice with her partner. She wasn't particularly smart about handling it, but no one else in the room where that happened was any better. (I'd cry too, if I was staring down the throat of fertility treatment I didn't feel able to back out of.)

2. She tried a threesome, a few times, to please you and her husband, and you talk about the results as if she frenched her sorority sister at a kegger. She gave it a try, she wasn't into it. Not the same as bi for attention.

3. You knew you didn't like her and moved in anyway. Seriously, why.

4. You get *mad* when she turns off the GPS tracker? You have a gps tracker on her? Just no.

5. You say your boyfriend bought her a 5 bed house. But he has to have bought it with partly her money, because marital assets, and because she is almost certainly also on the mortgage. And the house seems to also be partly for you. Which makes the actual accurate statement a lot more like "BF and his wife decided to buy a 5-bedroom house that would have room for all of us, and two children."

Whatever else in going on at your place, your boyfriend's wife has been run over, badly, in several directions. You are involved in that.

It is possible to have a triad in one household, all contributing equally (although my experience is that all households wind up using comparative advantages to some extent or another, and the houseworkgchildcare/finances seldom come out exactly even). But what you have here - someone moving in despite identified incompatibility, someone else getting pressuredown to have babies when she'd rather not, massive secrecy about the nature of relationships, one person controlling the ability of the other two to engage with additional partners, gigantic legal inequities disadvantaging one person - that is never going to be that kind of household.
 
Hi Conundrum,

In my opinion, it is not your job to rescue your boyfriend from having all the work to do when his wife won't do any. If you need to remove yourself from this relationship for your own sake, do so. If you do, that might be the very wake-up call he needs.

I am thinking that you should get your own place to live regardless. This, among other things, would be your way of keeping the peace in their home.

Sorry you are in this situation.
Sincerely,
Kevin T.
 
I am very sorry you deal in this.

I am sure you are wondering why I stay in this situation if I am so unhappy. The answer is that I absolutely love him and the kids. I feel awful that he has to do everything on his own and would have no help if I left.

Wife is there. She might actually have to do something if you are missing. Or they can hire an actually nanny/maid.

Your post doesn't sound like you love him. That sounds like you pity him.

I moved in with them a year after I met him (this was her idea).
im beginning to feel like a glorified nanny/maid/cocksucker.

That's pretty much what you seem to be and what wife moved you in for. :(

I cannot see anything here that reads like "I love him" or "he loves me."

  • He has informed me that if I have a relationship with another guy, it will change our relationship significantly. (He's going to withhold from you? And fearing this you don't date?)
  • When I get fed up with her and get pissed, he gets mad at me for "upsetting the peace". (Lack of spoken conflict does not automatically mean harmonious relationships. It just means silence.)
  • He won't tell anyone about our relationship except others in the BDSM/poly scene. He finally told his sister after I had lived with them for 3 years. (Sounds like being "out" and recognized as having an important place in your partner's life matters to you.)
  • He won't show me any PDA or even tell me he loves me if one of the kids are in the room. The kids know me as only a roommate. (Again, being recognized)

None of that sounds uplifting behavior from him or especially loving behavior from him to me. Where's the pleasure in all this for you?

We have a gps app we use called friend finder so that we can keep track of each other.

So you are on his/her digital leash? For what purpose IS this? That one sounds kinda creepy. They can track your every move when either wants to look? :eek:

9. His 3 previous girlfriends in the poly lifestyle left him because she was "rude, bossy and a whiney, lazy bitch" He says they split because they were all going In Different directions.

Maybe they left because they were being treated poorly by him just as you are. :(

My problem is that I am unsure how much longer I can take this.

Then stop being there. Don't take it. Why wait until a total break down? You already know you do not love it. Move out and break up. Or move out, and he can date you at your place.

Soon enough you will see if he means what he says, or if you were indeed, the "glorified nanny maid cocksucker."

Don't stay because of pity. Or pity YOU first and get you out of this house so you aren't overloaded with all their problems and all these extra jobs you really don't have to be doing.

He's had a string of GFs... you included. I don't think you need to worry that he won't find another GF if this turns out to be a game. If he is sincere (and for your sake I hope he is since you seem to love him), you moving out might wake him up to the fact that this dynamic is messed up and things need to change for the better. Or it might wake you up to the fact that yea, it was a game.

I suggest you take the plunge and find out one way or the other so your suffering can end.

Should I put my foot down and just let them both know how I feel and damn the consequences?

YES.

And be prepared to walk away if that is what it takes for you to regain your happiness. You deserve to be treated well.

It can start with you treating you well. You see you are suffering and cannot take it much longer? Remove yourself from the situation then. Let the chips fall where they may.

Galagirl
 
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