I could need a few kind words

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FordPrefect

New member
Started writing, stopped, started again. So, here I am late at night, tears brimming in my eyes; It's jealousy, I know, just jealousy.
My wife started seeing someone new a couple of weeks ago after a rather clumsy and messy fling/relation a year before. ("It's like he is a soul-mate") It didn't end well. But my wife and I worked out between us that instead of the occasional one-night stand of hers (with a firm don't ask don't tell policy) she was polly and needed the freedom to act upon that.
Within boundary's, offcourse. Nothing to put our relationship, our marriage, the kids, in harms way.
But I afraid it won't work. I'm trying hard, so very hard to keep our relationship and their relationship apart. Just to avoid feeling hurt. But I can't.
I work in my wife’s business, we both work very hard. We don't earn much, but the business is growing steadily, it could become big.
Lots of nights she still working and I do most of the cleaning and caring for the kids. There's hardly any room for going out and doing something fun and our tastes have diverged the last couple of years. But when we do get our act together, our sex is great. Really, awesome.

But now she is in love with someone else, and they go out and to a bar and you know the stuff you do when you're just dating, and that part really breaks my hart. My wife fell asleep tonight exhausted after I massaged her feet. While I was expecting to fold her every which way after the way we were texting through the day. And i know in two days time she'll be with him again. And as tired she may be that night, she probably won't fall asleep. Because when she with him, she not working, she not annoyed with how noisy the kids are. None of that everyday drudgery.
And it wears me down.
I feel like I can't really talk to any one and when I do all the attention is about "another relation omg" and not about what is actually hurting me.
My wife says that I have to step up and just do the same things with her, swoop her of her feet and I look at our calendar and think when the fuck is there time?

It makes me scared.
 
I'm sorry you are suffering. You are not alone. Many people have experienced such times in their journey. Sometimes things work out and people adapt. Feel free to browse the blogs and read others' experiences and how they coped. There are no magic words that I have to help you. Try to take care of yourself the best that you can.:eek:
 
In my personal opinion as a person that has some glimpses into your situation it is complicated. I can certainly feel what she feels as long as she is truly poly and not just being a cheater.
She is looking for so much more out of her life that she is living right now. She sounds as if she wants you to sweep her off her feet and have you make all of her dreams come true. BUT hard as it seems there are so many road blocks right now. You are saddled with the care of the household duties and the children and she is just running away from reality.
The reason I say this is because I lived that life. My wife worked away from home usually 5 or more days at a time for the first sixteen years of our life. Our sex life was pitiful. She had a fling with another man because I was not providing the exciting sex life for her. I only saw her for two days or less per week. Tired from working 2 jobs of my own as well as raising three children not only wore me out but fueled my frustration. When she drove into the driveway the children ran to her and wrapped their arms around Mommy and left little or no time for me. Our patience with each other continued to dwindle as the years went by.
I wish I could offer you hope for your feelings and that all would become a happy ending. In our case the children grew up and an on job injury forced her to return home. We had a period of adjustment where we both tried to be the boss around home. The knock down verbal battles finally culminated where we had a decision to make of staying together or she was leaving to start her new life and maybe get it right the next time.
We started a new life and a new adventure together finally finding a new sex life that we had never known. Now we were able to get in tune with each other's feelings. We decided to try the swinging lifestyle to have sex with another couple. That would be easy to find. Boy were we wrong. Nothing panned out. One day a young man contacted us online and months later had become friends to both of us. We finally arranged a meeting and it went very well. The meetings started and we formed a triad. Three can be quite cumbersome in the bedroom at times and they desired meetings on their own.. This brought back so many of the past pains I had known.
Bringing this to conclusion, I was finally forced to face my fears and realized how powerful a true poly situation can be. She truly has more love to offer than just loving me. It doesn't mean she loves me any less and somehow she loves me even more now that her ability to love another right along side the two of us. That dear girl tries to never do anything to hurt me but in moments of weakness I do feel twinges of the past. We are moving forward together and she is also helping to find the lady of my dreams or even a poly couple if they are out there.
Not sure if our journey is of any help to you but with some trust and communication a lot of pain can be avoided.
 
I think this kind of situation can happen even in mono relationships - although I suppose at least there she wouldn't be getting "swept off her feet" (I'll come back to this in a moment) by anyone, and you wouldn't necessarily have a contrast to observe and ponder about. The sad fact of a life with responsibilities, particularly familial responsibilities, even much cherished and wanted responsibilities, is that nothing happens without a bit of effort and planning. We all want to feel like we can act spontaneously. Sometimes, we even feel like 'being spontaneous' is a personality trait that some of us have, and some of us don't. However, in my experience, spontaneity is related intrinsically to what we have going on in our life. It needs to be enabled in some way. It needs conscious cultivation.

Your wife thinks her lover sweeps her off her feet, and asks you to do the same. I call bullshit on that. What actually happens is your wife carves out a chunk of time from her schedule - maybe a few hours, maybe an evening, maybe an overnight - and she says 'this is our time, let's have a blast'. It sounds to me like she's not carving out any time to nurture your relationship with her. Family time, in a very real sense, does not count. Work time definitely does not count. In your shoes, I'd be really upset too. Sounds like you guys need to learn how to relate to each other one on one again. So that means hiring a baby sitter/leaving kids with friends or family, planning a date in advance (just as she does with him - it's not a ridiculous notion) and making it happen.

You don't mention whether you also have another lover or not, but even if you don't, I see no reason why you shouldn't get to have a break from childcare as often as she does, to go out and be a grown-up - meet up with friends, have a drink, just relax away from the house. We often get women posting on the forum, who do the majority of house and child care, who are going stir crazy in their world and having to deal with a male partner who has all the freedom in the world and still has the cheek to ask her 'why don't you feel sexy? why are you never interested in me?'. This absolutely can happen to guys too. If the other partner pulls their weight more, it's amazing what a transformation can happen to a person's libido and sense of self. That in turn, can massively regenerate the relationship and bring both partners a lot of joy. I think you could work towards that with her, because I think it's less a case of there being something special about their connection that yours has lost over the years, than that you are both stuck in a bit of a rut in how you relate to each other. Make the opportunity for fun and relaxation more equal, and see what follows.
 
Thanks for the advice and insights. Made me feel a bit less brittle. I'm not sure about having another lover in my life but I could definitely be more pro-active about doing stuff outside of the family.

When I go places I usually take the kids (or the youngest) along. My wife wants me to enjoy seeing other people, saying it would be good for my confidence. But (apart from that I don't really like dating or that my experiences differ from hers. I'm an average 51 year old man, not a good looking 33 year old women. :p ) I feel that would cut into the time we could be together.

Thanks,

Amro
 
Sounds like you are experiencing envy, along with regret and a sence of not being treated fairly, perhaps some anger, combining to what you call jealousy.
In my experience jealousy (mostly envy in my case) happens when some of my needs are not being met, when I desire something more/the same as she gets from my lover, when I am dissatisfied in any way. When I am happy and satisfied with the relationship, I can feel compersion for whatever my lover experiences. Being at a good place in the the relationship helps immensely with jealousy.
You really sound dissatisfied with the time you get with your wife. What you might want to try is getting more alone time, more room for the relatinship to happen.
One more peace of advice from me: Take it day to day, week to week. If you feel dissatisfied, don't concentrate on the overall. Ask to schedule time as soon as possible and enjoy that. Of course it helps to schedule regular time too, because then you are not solving the same over and over.

Your wife is caught up in NRE above everything, it might be a little difficult to talk to her now. Anyway this is the way to go. You seem to have it together not to blame her lover for your feelings, and not to blame her that she's "hurting you", that's good, however stand up for what you need in the relationship.

+1 on the whole post of tenK, especially this part.
tenK said:
Your wife thinks her lover sweeps her off her feet, and asks you to do the same. I call bullshit on that. What actually happens is your wife carves out a chunk of time from her schedule - maybe a few hours, maybe an evening, maybe an overnight - and she says 'this is our time, let's have a blast'. It sounds to me like she's not carving out any time to nurture your relationship with her. Family time, in a very real sense, does not count. Work time definitely does not count. In your shoes, I'd be really upset too. Sounds like you guys need to learn how to relate to each other one on one again. So that means hiring a baby sitter/leaving kids with friends or family, planning a date in advance (just as she does with him - it's not a ridiculous notion) and making it happen.
Click to expand...
 
Hi amro,

It sounds like you are stuck between a rock and a hard place, your wife is out there having fun with someone new and you are stuck at home doing all the work. She talks about you sweeping her off her feet, but I think it is also her responsibility to sweep you off yours. Like tenK said, your wife needs to schedule quality time for you.

I hope you get some relief from the dreadful feelings you're feeling.

Sincerely,
Kevin T.
 
I am sorry you struggle. You sound lonely for your wife in a non-work and non-parent context. You want couple time. And it doesn't sound like she's putting the energy in.

You also sound like you are in poly hell.

Could reading that with wife help any? She's basically spending all her free time with the new guy, and not much with you in a "couple" kind of way.

My wife says that I have to step up and just do the same things with her, swoop her of her feet and I look at our calendar and think when the fuck is there time?
Click to expand...

Is SHE going to step up and do same with you? The tending of a marriage is a shared responsibility. It's not all on you.

Galagirl
 
Along with all of the already-given excellent advice here:

Your wife wants you to do the same things he does, and to "sweep her off her feet." Is she asking him to do the same things you do, like clean the house, pay bills, take care of the children, etc? I'm going to guess not.

Dating is fun. I am sure you had fun with your wife while you were dating, which is why you got married. Of course she's swept off her feet with him: that is literally ALL he has to do in their relationship. If that was the entirety of your relationship with her, you'd probably be sweeping her off her feet, as well.

You need to express to her that her expectations are unfair: the burden of working on rekindling connection and relationship, as GalaGirl points out, isn't yours alone. She needs to make time, make fun plans, arrange childcare, etc., as well. And she needs to get her NRE under control, take a step back, and realize that what she's asking is not only unfair and unreasonable, it's also simply impossible. You can't just suddenly not have the responsibilities of children, a home, a business, etc., and the reality is that those responsibilities, while welcome and wonderful, also mean that your life is, of course, going to look different from a new relationship with it's total lack of encumbrance.
 
Thanks

You all really helping me. Putting things in perspective, giving me ways to adress these problems.

Yesterday morning we talked and in the end she admitted we need our couple time too. Which we scheduled for Friday nights. So, that felt good and resolved.

And last night I almost walked out on her, after a talk that went sour in a few sentences.
The gist; I felt threatened in my masculinity because she repeated something he said (actually quite nice) about her not trying to make me into something resembling him; 'cause she remarked to him how nice it felt that he looked up a place to eat in the city for her while they where talking on the phone and she mentioned she was hungry. That it made her feel like a women, how manly it al was.

It pissed me of on many levels. I said some stupid shit, she said it felt I was reneging on the whole poly -deal. I tried to point out I have done the exact same stuff for her when we were first dating... She said that I stopped doing that a long time ago. Stormed out of the room. I stormed out of the house.

Walked.
And met some ghosts from my past. Really dark memories of feeling abandoned by the ones I loved after being told more or less the same stuff.

The moon was out. She rang. Sounded pissed off 'cause I had not said I was going for a walk. We talked. All the long while home we talked and I told her that bringing up that stuff when we're both tired and irritated is a sure way to get in to a fight. And that part of what i felt was old, memories, not her doing. But that I still feel it and have to deal with it. Made her feel better. Didn't make me feel better that when I got home and we hugged, she told me that acting out for fear abandonment made it a self full filling prophesy.

In the end things calmed down, we talked and then slept.

So, where does this all leave me? I don't know. It's slippery road ahead. I feel that have got too explain this whole NRE thing to her. I mean she has a copy "The ethical Slut" lying about. Is it not mentioned in there?
There is other stuff but I'm running out of time. Maybe tonight when she at his place.

And don't forget, there's lots love between us.
 
There are five NRE threads listed in Golden Nuggets, and you can find many more by doing a forum search and tag search for NRE. I would think "Ethical Slut" would mention NRE but it's been quite a while since I read that book so I'm not sure.
 
I feel much better now. Thanks to your advice. I pointed out the poly hell piece to her. She responded quite well to it. She recognized what's happening between us. And helped organise our own date-night.

I feel loved and appriciated . This a really a warm community.
I'll stick around.

Amro
 
Glad to hear things are improved. :)
 
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