Greetings all,
Just wondering if anyone has experienced anything like this and whether they had any useful advice for us. TL/DR version - we are struggling to know how to help our metamour and friend cope with our deepening relationship with her primary partner.
A bit of background: me and my gf Nina have been dating a lovely chap called Jay for just over 6 months now. Things are pottering along nicely - we are enjoying what we have together and settling into what is a very new relationship structure (for all of us) quite well I think. It started off quite casual, but now we are becoming emotionally invested. It's a happy place to be.
Jay lives with his gf Lily, who is a good friend of ours. She has had a *really* crappy few months - she's been ill, her rocky relationship with her own gf imploded, and she's just suffered a family bereavement. We've all been trying to support her in that time, particularly Jay, and she's doing remarkably well considering. It's been a time of transformation for her, and she, in her own words, has finally found some headspace to think about her relationship with Jay, and how she feels about his relationship with us.
With regards to the latter, it's been clear for some time that she's not been as comfortable with it as she (and I'll be honest, we) would like. As an example of just one way in which this has manifested, this has led her to go from initially being comfortable with the three of us being alone in their home, or him sleeping over, to not being. I think there are a number of salient factors involved, but the key ones are: that her and Jay differ quite wildly in terms of how independent they are (he prefers to be more autonomous in his relationships, she is more community minded); she feels starved of quality time with him (he works A LOT, and although he only spends an evening a week with us, she feels we always get the best of him while she just gets the exhausted him); and just to add to the troubles, there is some tension between Lily and me due to the fact that right at the start of this relationship with Jay, she and I hooked up during group sex without discussing what it would mean or what we would like to happen next. Although I care deeply about her as a friend, I have realised I don't want to pursue a romantic relationship with her, and this has left her feeling rejected and mournful of a quad-like relationship that never quite happened.
So, to the issue at hand. Lily wants us all to sit down and have a four-way pow wow to figure out where we're all at - she wants us to try to define what we have with Jay and where we think this is headed. This is not a bad thing at all, and Nina and I think it's a positive move. Where it gets tricky is that she already seems unhappy with even the (from our perspective) limited time we get to spend with Jay without her (we do a lot of socialising the four of us - much more than we do as a three). And since we last had a chat of this nature our feelings for Jay have developed. I think our vision of where we'd like this to go are probably going to make her feel more anxious than she does at present, even though the reality of what we have to say is not so unreasonable. We don't see his role in our life as being very different to now, but our feelings have definitely intensified, and of course we'd like to see him more.
Now, we realise that to a very large extent, this is up to Jay to sort out. With the exception of the sex share that's left both Lily and I feeling regretful - me because I feel it complicated things negatively, her because she feels she had a taste of what it's like to share this path with Jay a bit (which she admits would be her preferred poly shape, instead of them both maintaining very independent relationships) - the bulk of this boils down to the fact that she is feeling a bit neglected. Of course it is extra highlighted because she is no longer seeing anyone else. And it's also true that many of these issues predate our relationship with Jay. HOWEVER, we care about her immensely. It sucks to see her struggle with this. It's hard to hear her (occasionally) blame us for their issues. We want to help, but we're not sure how.
Does anyone have any advice on how to handle this talk? Obviously, we are going to be honest about how our feelings have grown (although it would be nice to have a proper chat with him about that first! Story for another day perhaps!). But does anyone have any practical suggestions for ways we can better support her? We've come up with quite a few creative ways we think we could get more out of the time we spend as a four that might help us feel less cut off from him, and mean less time is taken away from them as a couple, but should we instead be offering them space to sort out their own issues?
Just wondering if anyone has experienced anything like this and whether they had any useful advice for us. TL/DR version - we are struggling to know how to help our metamour and friend cope with our deepening relationship with her primary partner.
A bit of background: me and my gf Nina have been dating a lovely chap called Jay for just over 6 months now. Things are pottering along nicely - we are enjoying what we have together and settling into what is a very new relationship structure (for all of us) quite well I think. It started off quite casual, but now we are becoming emotionally invested. It's a happy place to be.
Jay lives with his gf Lily, who is a good friend of ours. She has had a *really* crappy few months - she's been ill, her rocky relationship with her own gf imploded, and she's just suffered a family bereavement. We've all been trying to support her in that time, particularly Jay, and she's doing remarkably well considering. It's been a time of transformation for her, and she, in her own words, has finally found some headspace to think about her relationship with Jay, and how she feels about his relationship with us.
With regards to the latter, it's been clear for some time that she's not been as comfortable with it as she (and I'll be honest, we) would like. As an example of just one way in which this has manifested, this has led her to go from initially being comfortable with the three of us being alone in their home, or him sleeping over, to not being. I think there are a number of salient factors involved, but the key ones are: that her and Jay differ quite wildly in terms of how independent they are (he prefers to be more autonomous in his relationships, she is more community minded); she feels starved of quality time with him (he works A LOT, and although he only spends an evening a week with us, she feels we always get the best of him while she just gets the exhausted him); and just to add to the troubles, there is some tension between Lily and me due to the fact that right at the start of this relationship with Jay, she and I hooked up during group sex without discussing what it would mean or what we would like to happen next. Although I care deeply about her as a friend, I have realised I don't want to pursue a romantic relationship with her, and this has left her feeling rejected and mournful of a quad-like relationship that never quite happened.
So, to the issue at hand. Lily wants us all to sit down and have a four-way pow wow to figure out where we're all at - she wants us to try to define what we have with Jay and where we think this is headed. This is not a bad thing at all, and Nina and I think it's a positive move. Where it gets tricky is that she already seems unhappy with even the (from our perspective) limited time we get to spend with Jay without her (we do a lot of socialising the four of us - much more than we do as a three). And since we last had a chat of this nature our feelings for Jay have developed. I think our vision of where we'd like this to go are probably going to make her feel more anxious than she does at present, even though the reality of what we have to say is not so unreasonable. We don't see his role in our life as being very different to now, but our feelings have definitely intensified, and of course we'd like to see him more.
Now, we realise that to a very large extent, this is up to Jay to sort out. With the exception of the sex share that's left both Lily and I feeling regretful - me because I feel it complicated things negatively, her because she feels she had a taste of what it's like to share this path with Jay a bit (which she admits would be her preferred poly shape, instead of them both maintaining very independent relationships) - the bulk of this boils down to the fact that she is feeling a bit neglected. Of course it is extra highlighted because she is no longer seeing anyone else. And it's also true that many of these issues predate our relationship with Jay. HOWEVER, we care about her immensely. It sucks to see her struggle with this. It's hard to hear her (occasionally) blame us for their issues. We want to help, but we're not sure how.
Does anyone have any advice on how to handle this talk? Obviously, we are going to be honest about how our feelings have grown (although it would be nice to have a proper chat with him about that first! Story for another day perhaps!). But does anyone have any practical suggestions for ways we can better support her? We've come up with quite a few creative ways we think we could get more out of the time we spend as a four that might help us feel less cut off from him, and mean less time is taken away from them as a couple, but should we instead be offering them space to sort out their own issues?