End Poly Relationships or Separate from Wife

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pisceanman

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My wife and I have been married for 11 years and together for 15. We have two kids, 9 and 6 who incredibly happy and well-adjusted. We still love each other deeply and have had solid foundation to our marriage based on love, respect, trust and freedom, but, as in many long term relationships, the passion and physicality has waned. About 18 months ago we started considering opening our marriage to outside physical encounters and this idea made both of us very excited. During this period our communication was outstanding as we contemplated the idea of being physical with other people. Then an old friend of hers came to town (whom she has briefly dated when they were teenagers). She went out to see him and they ended up kissing that night. She told me about it and it was kind of exciting for both us. A few months later he let her know that he would be moving to an area about a hour away from where we live. As we talked more I asked her if she wanted to sleep with him and she said she did. Again this made us both very excited. For me partially because the liked idea of my wife being coveted and enjoying the pleasures of another man and partially because it meant I would be free to do the same thing. When he arrived she picked him up from the airport and they slept together that night. At the same time the option of staying at the house he had arranged an hour away fell through so he actually stayed at our house for a few days and eventually found a place to stay in our town. Over the next few weeks there was a ton of communication between her and I and all 3 of us during which she announced that she wanted to be his girlfriend for a while. This, for me, was a serious escalation from the random physical encounters that we had previously discussed to a full on, ongoing love relationship and I was not emotionally prepared for it at all. I was clearly having a very difficult time with it but was doing everything I could to work through all of the incredibly intense emotions I was experiencing and trying to be the highly evolved man I thought I was. Since she wanted to continue with him she suggested that “we” should find you a girlfriend to balance things out and take my mind off of her and her new BF. There was one woman in town that I already had a strong connection with so I approached her. Her initially reaction was “I am flattered but I don’t want to be the other woman” which I respected. Soon after we started hanging out a bit and then starting having sex and then quickly fell in love. Even though we both knew she was not fully ok with the situation the power of our connection on so many levels was impossible to resist. A year later my wife is still dating the guy - they are working together, he spends time with our kids and is seemingly happy being a ‘part of the family’ and satisfied with what she offers him. My girlfriend has struggled with the situation a lot more and has continually pulled away saying she can’t do it when the reality of it all becomes too much but our connection always draws her back in. Because I know she is not alright with me being intimate with my wife I have purposely been avoiding intimacy with her for the last few months and our communication has dropped off to almost nothing. My girlfriend recently went away for 2 months and after she left my wife and I had sex in a effort to re-connect. When girlfriend asked about it I told her the truth and now she says she is finally done and is exploring love with other people. I am devastated and confused and angry and conflicted. I am hugely emotional and sensitive and it makes no sense to my loving heart to let the love I have found with GF die while my wife gets to continue her relationship because her BF is more willing to be the other man. Now I am considering leaving my wife for GF, not because I don’t love her anymore or don’t want to be together, especially considering we have kids, but because I don’t want to give up this new relationship that challenges me on many levels that my marriage never has. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
 
I am sorry you struggle.

NRE lasts 6 - 24 months. You are about a year in with your GF. So that can cloud decision making and judgement.

Break ups are upsetting. That also clouds decision making and judgement.

I wouldn't make any major life changing decisions right now like divorce, since you sound like you still love and enjoy being with your wife. Just maybe want more sexy interaction/passion. You are getting plenty of challenges with wife with both of you participating in poly model.

My girlfriend has struggled with the situation a lot more and has continually pulled away saying she can’t do it when the reality of it all becomes too much but our connection always draws her back in.
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Is she a cowgirl? Trying to rope you away from your family to have you all to herself?

You were not able to say "GF, I see you really don't want to be doing poly. So let's not keep ping-ponging. That doesn't help either of us. Let's simply end it."

Why did you take her back before when you know she doesn't want it?

Because I know (GF) is not alright with me being intimate with my wife I have purposely been avoiding intimacy with her for the last few months and our communication has dropped off to almost nothing.
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If you want more sexy/passion with wife, I also don't see how this behavior helps create it or augment it.

How does GF learn to become ok sharing you as a lover when you do this behavior? She's a grown up. She entered this relationship model knowing you had a wife/lover person. Where's the surprise? :confused:

If this upset her, why even get herself into models like that?

If she's willing to ignore her personal limitations... why do you agree to let her rather than you saying "No... not even for me should you go against your own grain" or similar?

When girlfriend asked about it I told her the truth and now she says she is finally done and is exploring love with other people. I am devastated and confused and angry and conflicted.
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Understandable that you are upset. Being broken up with is not fun.

So.... GF doesn't want to be the other woman.
She gets herself into a situation where she IS another woman.
She breaks up with you when you share sex with your wife.

That doesn't strike you as weird? Her expectation when she got involved with you in a poly thing was for you to never share sex with your wife? :confused:

I am hugely emotional and sensitive and it makes no sense to my loving heart to let the love I have found with GF die while my wife gets to continue her relationship because her BF is more willing to be the other man.
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You might want to examine this thought. Why are your relationships tangled up with your wife's relationships? :confused:

Why does wife's and your other relationships have to be "tit for tat" or something?

You and wife BOTH get to date outside the marriage. That is equal and fair.

Whether or not you actually find compatible partners -- that's not a race, and it's not like ice cream for you and ice cream for her. There's no guarantee you both will have other partners at the same time that last exactly as long.

At this time?

Wife found and chooses to keep dating a partner who is ok participating poly.

You found a partner who did not want poly and chose to keep trying to date her anyway. This is setting you up for success how?

You might be struggling with envy -- wanting (what your wife has been building with her BF). But it's on you (to build something similar with your other partner.) Has nothing to do with wife. She doesn't build the (you + your GF) relationship.

Now I am considering leaving my wife for GF, not because I don’t love her anymore or don’t want to be together, especially considering we have kids, but because I don’t want to give up this new relationship that challenges me on many levels that my marriage never has.
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I wonder if that is "bargaining" stages of grief as you deal with the break up feelings. Juggling things in your head to make the break up "not be happening" so you don't feel as bad? :(

Again... take a time out. Don't be making any rash life changing decisions right now. NRE and breaking up both stir up a lot of emotions, but sunny days or rainy storms? All emotions pass in time.

It JUST happened. So it is fresh.

If you still want to divorce wife later when you aren't so fresh from a break up? You can still file at that point in time.

Just don't be doing it impulsively just because you are in "withdrawal" from the break up and know you won't be getting another "hit" off your GF any time soon because she's moved on.

You have worth, value, and dignity. You are lovable. It's just that not every person you date is going to be a long haul runner.

You also have to shop at the right store.

There was one woman in town that I already had a strong connection with so I approached her. Her initially reaction was “I am flattered but I don’t want to be the other woman” which I respected.
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If you had stopped there? That would have been good. But did you stop there?

Soon after we started hanging out a bit and then starting having sex and then quickly fell in love. Even though we both knew she was not fully ok with the situation the power of our connection on so many levels was impossible to resist.
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Nope. Did NOT stop.

You kept going and ultimately it led to all this upset and then her breaking up because she really doesn't want to be the other woman. BOTH of you could have respected that personal limitation instead of trying to "override" it.

You were shopping in the wrong store, but instead of leaving and seeking elsewhere, you bought in anyway. You could not do that to yourself next time. Set yourself up to succeed. Not set yourself up for drama. :(

Next time REALLY respect it. Not just say you will and then.... not. :(

Take care of you. Do your self care, grieve, heal. Then think about what your next steps are.

I think using a new GF to "bandaid" this problem...

This, for me, was a serious escalation from the random physical encounters that we had previously discussed to a full on, ongoing love relationship and I was not emotionally prepared for it at all. I was clearly having a very difficult time with it but was doing everything I could to work through all of the incredibly intense emotions I was experiencing and trying to be the highly evolved man I thought I was. Since she wanted to continue with him she suggested that “we” should find you a girlfriend to balance things out and take my mind off of her and her new BF.
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...is just avoiding dealing with it/going the long way around. Sooner or later you have to decide if you are actually ok participating in a poly V with wife as the hinge or not.

It's not any new GF's job to "carry" you through that or "enable" you to do that or "make up for it" or something.

I encourage you to do the soul searching you need to be doing.

GL!
Galagirl
 
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Hi pisceanman,

Starting from the moment your wife announced she was going to be this other guy's girlfriend, your luck took a downturn I think. Things shifted away from exciting for both of you, toward stressful for you. :( Sorry that happened. I'd like to think that maybe you could find another girlfriend who was more accepting of the poly situation. Not right away, but something to consider.

The moment your wife announced she was going to be this other guy's girlfriend, was a moment you may not have forgiven her for, at least not yet. You might ask yourself, "Can I forgive her?" The answer may tell you whether to leave her or stay with her.

Sympathies and regards,
Kevin T.
 
Hey Kevin T. Thanks for your response. That is good question I should be asking myself. It was a huge moment that I was not prepared for indeed.

Perhaps I will find another girlfriend who will be more accepting of the situation and perhaps not. We live in a small town which makes it even harder. Right now it just doesn't make any sense to me to have to give up this love I have found with GF which is so beautiful and rare and difficult to find in this life. We have an incredible connection and make an amazing couple and I can't help thinking about what would happen if we were free to explore and grow that love. I suppose (more in response to Galagirl's reply) that I was secretly hoping that she would come around and become more accepting of the situation, that our love would be worth it. But now I realize that that was never going to happen and in fact she was hoping that our love would be worth me leaving my wife for.

This has been the first foray into poly for me, wife and GF (BF has had open relationships before) so it has been a huge, painful learning curve.
 
pisceanman said:
Now I am considering leaving my wife for GF, not because I don’t love her anymore or don’t want to be together, especially considering we have kids, but because I don’t want to give up this new relationship that challenges me on many levels that my marriage never has.
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I'm not sure what you mean by challenging, but if you're finding that your GF is more intellectually stimulating or that you have more of a mental connection with her, this is not to be brushed under the rug. I agree that a quick decision isn't good or even necessary here, but if you're at all sapiosexually inclined (like I am) then this kind of connection is something to cherish.

Some women are willing to try poly and see how it goes, but it's an extremely rare single woman (with no previous poly experience) who would be willing to be a permanent GF to a married man with young kids. That's an awful lot to share you with - for someone who didn't come to poly on her own. You and she fell in love and she willingly struggled while giving it a try. It's not weird to me that she loves you and really wanted this to work, but eventually realized that she wants a life with someone, just like you have - maybe even kids, too. I can see her POV. It's really much the same as any affair. Things with you are out in the open - but the feelings are much the same.
 
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This so mirrors a situation I had that I had to make sure I didn't write it.

As in your case, I met someone. She knew up front I had a wife. She said the same thing about not wanting to be "the other woman". We still hung out, starting having sex and all that. We fell in love. Then she started trying to cowgirl me. At first I was tempted because of NRE, but I found it disrespectful to me. And I loved my wife. We ended up being FWB. Now she is pissed because I'm not interested in an escalated relationship with her now that my wife has passed. I'm poly. I know I would not be happy in a mono relationship with her.

But reading your post, you may not be poly. It seems you only started a relationship because your wife had one. Now you are questioning your marriage because a GF decided she doesn't want to be poly. I don't think it's fair to ask your wife to end her relationship because yours isn't working out. Maybe you need to decide if you can handle being poly or not.

Only you can decide if leaving your wife is the right thing to do. I agree with Gala that there are things that are possibly clouding your judgement. Plus, I think you still have what I call a mono mindset. You think your only choices are between two people because part of you thinks you should only be with one person.
 
vinsanity0 said:
Only you can decide if leaving your wife is the right thing to do. I agree with Gala that there are things that are possibly clouding your judgement. Plus, I think you still have what I call a mono mindset. You think your only choices are between two people because part of you thinks you should only be with one person.
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I agree with vinsanity0. You seem to only be seeing 2 choices right now. "Be with this one or be with that one since I cannot be with both?"

When the break up is not so fresh, and you have had time to do that soul searching? You might start considering your other options and how realistic they might be for you.

  • Lover to both wife and GF. (off the table... GF does not want to do poly so I grey it out)

  • No contact with GF any more after break up.
  • No initial contact to have some break up closure from the old romance. Then when healed, start anew. Be friends only with GF and enjoy her company that way (assuming she is up for friendship.)
  • Stay with wife doing poly.
  • Stay with wife and stop doing poly.
  • Leave wife and only coparent together. You do poly on your own.
  • Leave wife and only coparent together. You do not poly any more.
  • No contact with neither wife nor GF. Be on your own for a while before resuming your coparenting duties.
  • Something else I cannot think of right now.
  • A mix and match combo of the above.

I imagine this must feel very hard for you to sit with right now. But I still think not rushing any life changing decisions and taking the time to do some soul searching could be good for you.

Galagirl
 
The more I read and write about this, the more I realize that I am a total newbie and should have been posting and reading on this forum since the beginning. Plus this has been the first foray into poly for both my wife and I and after reading all of your posts I think I definitely still have a mono mindset. I also think that GF has been trying to cowgirl me but I continued with her because she is the first woman I have fallen in love with or had any physical relationship with since I met my wife 15 years ago. Yes I have been blind-sided by NRE and I also feel love very deeply and have fallen for her very deeply. She challenges me intellectually, spiritually, physically - in ways that my wife doesn’t necessarily. And on a purely superficial, physical level GF is my ideal body type. I didn’t marry my wife because she was some gorgeous trophy wife - I married her for her soul, for her heart, for her passion for life and her humour. She is an incredible partner and mother - in other words, a great wife. But she never was my ideal body type.

So today wife and I had our first in depth communication in some time. I wanted to be perfectly honest with her about everything I have been feeling and everything I have done. She felt like I was blaming her for wanting to be BF’s girlfriend at the beginning but the reason I didn’t say no or I didn’t stop her then was because it was all so new and my love for her is so immense that I wanted her to have whatever she wanted and to have this new experience even though it was hurting me deeply to deal with it. Selfishly I also knew that if I could handle this situation that some day I would be able to experience something similar. Then I was honest about how I have thought about separation and now she feels betrayed and hurt like I have already left her physically and emotionally by avoiding intimacy and communication for the last few months. She says she is willing to leave BF and try to pick up the pieces and repair our marriage. Personally I don’t think our marriage is damaged - we just need to reconnect and spend more time together which I am more than willing to do. But I also can’t help feel that now that I have experienced this new, exciting challenging love with GF that my relationship with wife will ever be enough to fully satisfy me. Basically I want to take time for myself to assess the situation and deal with all of these new and intense emotions I have been dealing with but there is another factor. I have a thirst for truth and knowledge and I have been on quest for spiritual and personal growth for some time and she recently brought up that she feels like I have been selfish in this quest and that she is growing tired of supporting me because I often put my self first and fall victim the pitfalls of alcohol etc when it all becomes to much for me. So when I said today that I want to take some time to process and try to sort out my emotions it was like the last straw for her. She feels like I am asking her to wait around again so I can deal with my own shit before I decide what to do next. She’s not wrong and it adds another layer to an already complex situation.

Apologies but I am very emotional and kind of just spitting words onto the page just to get them out so it all may seem a bit discombobulated.
 
You have to choose between your wife and your girlfriend, I think to a large extent you're already choosing your girlfriend. Not that it's the wrong thing to do, but I suggest you make it a conscious choice, and tell your wife what you choose. At the moment it seems that you are avoiding intimacy with your wife because your girlfriend says so. Does your wife know that?
 
How much of the day to day, humdrum, responsibilities of running a family and a household is left to your wife while you are engaging in your "quest?"
 
Galagirl was right. When I put up my original post I was scrambling. Coming up with any plan to avoid the pain and heartbreak of losing GF who I am still madly in love with and insanely attracted to. Separation from my wife and family was never really an option - I was just coming up with anything to avoid having to give her up. But I now realize that I have been disrespecting myself and my wife and my marriage by avoiding intimacy with my wife because GF was not comfortable with it. She was ‘cowgirling’ me and I was going along with it because I was blinded (and I didn’t even know that was a thing until Galagirl said it). I have been blinded by desire for love, connection, affection, adoration, sex, intimacy, affirmation, adventure, freedom - all of which GF provided for me in spades. But I have decided to let her go. My wife and children and the life we have built is too important to me. It leaves me heartbroken and sad and confused but I will get over it. I am taking time for myself and doing positive things everyday. I plan on spending more time as a family and reconnecting with my wife. I will make no life changing decisions and will not get involved with anyone else until I have taken the time to grieve and heal and analyze why I avoided the truth and let myself make bad decisions. I am also taking the advice of this forum and allowing wife to continue her relationship with BF. I realize now that it is not right to punish them both because I made the bad choice of getting involved with someone who was not comfortable with the situation. I want to thank everyone who responded for their insight and perspective. It has helped me immensely during this incredibly difficult and emotional time.
 
Sounds like you are making the right decision. Glad to hear that the responses you have received have been helpful.
 
Dear pisceanman, the pain you are going through is clearly visible in your words. Your grief mirrors my wife's own.

One thing she found helpful was in understanding the difference between falling in love and growing in love. It is unfortunate that our English language uses the word "love" for two very different things.

Falling in love is the obsession, romantic, lustful craze that polyamorists call NRE and affair recovery websites call limerence. Growing in love is something that long term couples who have been together for years sometimes describe. There is overlap in that we care for the other and would sacrifice for the other, but there are significant differences as well.

I believe falling in love is more about your own needs. You need to meet this person, you feel an overwhelming urge to give this person gifts, or to make sacrifices for this person even at the expense of everything else you hold dear. Think of affairs and the lies that monogamous partners tell each other, the lies they tell to their friends and families just so they can be with the affair partner. People having affairs, drunk on the emotions of "falling in love" end up compromising their integrity, their honesty and their marriage vows. They sometimes even make excuses to spend less time with their children in order to get their next "drug fix" with their affair partner. Falling in love is a cocktail of hormones and chemicals that makes the sky look bluer and gives you a spring in your step and feel ten years younger. There is mystery, excitement, ongoing daily discoveries. In contrast to growing in love that I will describe below, I believe falling in love is primarily about yourself - primarily about doing things in order to gain that endorphin drug high. You even give gifts so that you can see their smile and that smile rewards you with an endorphin drug high.

In contrast, I believe growing in love takes years to mature. You give gifts or make sacrifices without expectation of the endorphin-high. If you feel you know your partner so well during the "falling in love" stage, then logically, the additional years you spend "growing in love" clearly makes you know them more (The paradox is that without the endorphin high, many paradoxically believe they feel they feel they know their partner less with time and end up separating). People who grow in love make sacrifices for their partner with no aim to better themselves which contrasts with those who have fallen in love who do it either to get the endorphin high or because of the endorphine high that clouds their mind. Additionally people in an arranged marriage may never fall in love, but sometimes describe a sensation of growing in love due to mutual respect after coming to know each other well. I believe that people who have grown in love do things for each other primarily for each other rather than for any reward for themselves.

I admit there is lots of grey in between, but you have to admit, that if you've only just met someone for a few weeks and feel you have known them a lifetime, then this feeling must be an illusion. Most people who have had the experience of many relationships will say that the illusion fades with time when you get to really know them.

My wife realised she had "fallen in love" with her affair partner but had been "growing in love" for me. We were monogamous at the time and she had difficulty reconciling her strong feelings of "love" for her affair partner whilst still understanding how she could feel "love" for me. The "love" she felt for her affair partner felt stronger than her "love" for me and the philosophy of monogamy gave her only 2 options - be with him and leave me, or be with me and leave him. Polyamory explained to her how she could love two people at the same time and gave her more options. The theory that "love" in the English language might mean two different things, namely "falling in love" or "growing in love" helped her further understand her feelings for the two of us.

Pisceanman, I don't know if this helps you in your case. You may very well be "growing in love" for both these wonderful women, but if you feel you are in the stage of NRE for your new love, I was hoping that this distinction of the word "love" might help you organise your thoughts. It certainly helped my wife.
 
The Love I feel for my wife whom I've known for 12 years is most similar to the Love I feel for my parents and siblings. Maybe what I feel for my family has a little more duty and what I feel for my wife has a little more of love.

In contrast, I feel something very different for someone whom I am "falling in love" with.

Falling in love and growing in love seem like two separate things with possible overlap.
 
We have two kids, 9 and 6 who incredibly happy and well-adjusted.
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Values and opinions vary - but for me this would be the primary factor in any decision concerning maintaining the marriage.

My wife and I have a good, loving marriage (including a passionate sex life) - and we have a young daughter who is incredibly happy and well adjusted in her home life with us. So - when my wife asked me to open our marriage so she could pursue her resurgent feelings for and old college bf, (although I was predisposed to mono and may have had a different reaction if we had no kids) - my first concern was preserving the happiness and stability in our family household for the sake of our daughter. For me, that meant agreeing to Becky's request- so as to avoid conflict and contention in the home (it is very doubtful that we would have broken up over this if I had refused - but it would have caused a lot of tension in our home, perhaps for a long time - so I agreed to a poly marriage - although I would have preferred otherwise - even though that might mean I am sitting on my hands when she is spending the night with her bf on occasion).

Just another couple of cents worth - opinions vary.

Have a great weekend!

Al
 
Its probably over

It sounds like your wife was initiating the poly discussion from the start, made a major escalation without giving you a real choice, and you were unhappy with it, but tried to cope best you could.

You are probably a good person, but I think the marriage is likely over, unless you are willing to be be the bank to support her with other men.

Its disappointing, but she appears to have chose what she wants above the stability of the family.

Good luck, and I'm sorry
 
Once again I appreciate all of your responses.

The issue I am struggling with the most now is this idea of NRE. It seems that the attitude towards NRE is that it is selfish, immature and of less value than long term deep love. While on the surface I agree that the high one gets from the NRE experience can be dangerous due to clouding of judgement, I also think there is something to be said of the deep and long lasting connections that can be born of it. In fact one could argue that the vast majority of long term loving relationships began with a phase of NRE and grew into a deeper longer lasting love. I can say for certain that that is exactly what happened when my wife and I met 15 years ago and we are still together and still love each other. So, while I admit that I am still in the NRE phase with my (now ex) GF and that has perhaps been influencing my judgement, I don’t think it is enough to dismiss our love and connection as fleeting, immature, less-meaningful or of less value. There is a very real possibility that the NRE we feel for each other, which currently could still be described as a passion-fuelled obsession or addiction, could grow into a long lasting deep love. This is why I am struggling so much. I want to continue to explore the love and connection I have found with GF because of the possibility of long term connection. But I will never know because I feel like I am being forced to let her go against my will for the sake of my children and to maintain my marriage. Is it selfish of me to want to continue to explore this love? I believe that it is very important for each parents to be happy in order to raise happy, well adjusted children. I think it is a mistake for couples to stay in loveless marriages “for the sake of the children.” My marriage is certainly not loveless but the love I feel for my wife is one of deep mutual respect and a partnership to raise our children. And perhaps the love that could grow out of my current NRE will be more fulfilling and what I need more in my life now than my marriage. In this article posted by Shaya, https://www.affairrecovery.com/newsletter/founder/an-affair-is-it-love-or-infatuation , the author speaks of love vs limerence (NRE) as if they are mutually exclusive. I don’t believe this to be true and from experience I know it isn’t. I have been together and in love with GF for over a year now and the passionate, obsessive quality is still very much present. Yet there is also an underlying love that is growing. We view the world and our place in it in similar ways. We have similar views on the pursuit of personal growth and learning. I also have recognized many things about her and her personality that I don’t like (and she has identified distasteful traits in me). She has a very dark side to her that I have witnessed first hand. She self-admittedly has deep seated anger and abandonment issues. I haven’t just ignored these issues because I am head over heels in NRE. On the contrary I have considered them greatly in my questions about whether we could ever be together long term. And my answer has been that as long as she is aware of her issues and willing to work on them and I am willing to work on mine then there is a golden opportunity for us to grow and learn and develop together. And just perhaps being together will facilitate and accelerate that process. At the moment I don’t feel that I can say the same thing about my marriage. My wife does not share my passion for learning and personal development. In fact she has admitted that she resents me for pursuing my personal development and quest for knowledge and wisdom as being selfish. She feels like she has been supporting this quest since we met and has had to pick me up repeatedly when I fall or become overwhelmed. She feels that my quest and path has been a burden on her because I have often felt the weight on the world on my shoulders and she has been forced to support me. She recently said ‘why aren’t the kids and I enough for you?’ While true that there have been times when I have leaned heavily on her I don’t think it is fair to dismiss my personal path as selfish just because she is on a different path. In marriage couples are supposed to support each other and the fact that perhaps wife is tired of supporting me emotionally is just another thing to consider is this incredibly complex situation.

So now I am left grieving, in pain and dreaming of the ‘what ifs’. It is a horrible position to be in. Currently GF is away for 2 months and we have suspended all contact which I believe is for the best. Although it is incredibly difficult and I think of her all the time I feel it is necessary to try and un-embed myself from the situation and the NRE and try to gain some perspective and discover what it is I truly want for the rest of my life. And if it is to be with GF rather than wife then at least that decision will be made with a clear, grounded and thoughtful mind. In the meantime my focus will be on myself, my children and reconnecting with my wife. Time will tell.
 
I think you have 2 separate issues going on here. 1 being whether or not you should continue to stay married, and 1 being whether or not it's worth trying to work things out with ex-GF.

Working things out with ex-GF can ONLY happen if you choose to leave your wife and be monogamous. Choosing to stay married is a choice you need to make regardless of whether you want to make things work with ex-GF.

And actually, there's a 3rd choice in there about whether you want to be polyamorous or not, because if you choose ex-GF you can't be poly, if you choose not to be with ex-GF then you can be poly whether or not you choose to stay with your wife.

I understand you wanting to continue to grow things with ex-GF and struggling with why you should or shouldn't explore that growing love given that the love you feel for your wife has changed and maybe isn't what you need fully in your life right now... but the bottom line is that you picked a partner to date in a poly situation who never wanted poly and probably never will want it. So that is the choice you set yourself up for. It's a choice you have to make, not because there's some fundamental rule that you can't have both, but because ex-GF has made it clear that if SHE, specifically, is going to be part of the equation, then you have to choose. She's mono, so being with her means being mono, end of story. If it were another woman who was ok with poly, you might not have that same choice.

While you don't feel the same sort of love for your wife, you did say that it's not a loveless marriage, and for that matter not even a sexless one. So staying with your wife doesn't mean that you can't continue to explore and find the kind of love that you want in your life.... it means that you can't find it specifically with ex-GF. You still have the option of just considering it a hard lesson in picking appropriate partners and trying to date someone else that would be a more appropriate fit so that you can stay married.

Or if you really don't think you want to stay married to your wife and think you would just be better friends and co-parents, then you need to make that decision and just divorce your wife. But again, that still leaves you with the option of trying to salvage things with ex-GF and being mono with her, or dating other people altogether (be it mono or poly).


As for the bit about NRE, I don't think any of us thinks that NRE is a bad/terrible thing. We just caution you that being in NRE does cloud judgment and it might lead to you making decisions that you wouldn't otherwise make, or that you might regret later. NRE doesn't mean that your love is fake, or not still important, or that deeper love isn't also growing. It just means that because you're on an emotional high, you have to make a point to purposefully try and step back and evaluate things and try to remember to use some rational/logical thought process too and not always just rush into an emotional decision.
 
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