i need help

Cygnus

New member
so heres my dilemma. my wife and I are a married couple and just recently became a triad. weve been married for nearly 5 years but together for a total of 7. recently there has been loss of connection between me and my wife and we had a falling out this past weekend when i tried to date someone. we had an agreement to keep things casual and friendly, yes i hugged the girl i planned on dating but it was cold out and so we kinda snuggled a bit. my wifes bf was virtually doing the same thing but to my wife and so i figured it wouldnt have been an issue. she left in a huff and made a small scene saying i knew what i did wrong and was treating me like a dog. telling me i couldnt say good bye to her(the girl we met) and told me to stay in the car like a damn dog. so there was an argument she says that I have never been that physically affectionate to her and so she was pissed at me for doing that to a random stranger than to her. one of our agreements was she could not have unprotected sex with her bf. we all agreed in her anger she said she had unprotected sex with him to spite me. me knowing she has had trouble conceiving and carrying a pregnancy in the past made the comment of go ahead you'll probably just miss carry anyway. in the end i apologized for what i said because yes i realised it was the worse possible thing i could say to hurt her and i don't know what came over me. in either case she did not in fact have unprotected sex with her bf she as meerly trying to get a point across that hit a nerve which i yet again i do understand except she knows how i would react to that.

so now she wants to downgrade my relationship with her and i'm no longer the primary partner for her. i get along with the other guy quiet well even though we vary a lot in personality and have no personal beef with eachother. however my wife will not see me unless he is present which i feel is detrimental to our marriage. i am really trying to reconnect with her and i don't know what to do and my work takes me away from the family mon-fri and sometimes at months at end. i need some advice and she wont budge on the seeing me one on one just so we can save our marriage. i am starting to feel as if i no longer have a place in her life and if thats the case do we divorce? i am willing to fix our marriage but she doesnt seem to be all she does lately is make snide remarks and finds any reason to just taunt that im no longer her primary partner.
 
Your wife sounds controlling and manipulative, as well as unreasonable.
Do you really want to mend a relationship with someone that treats you like a dog and doesn't seem to care about the relationship between the two of you?

That's not a healthy dynamic. Might do you good to think on it a while and see if you still think it's worth saving.
 
This is why we only had relationships with people my wife and I both loved. We tried it your way and it ended up with pregnant girlfriends, separations when we hit rough spots and spreading an STD to everyone any of us had sex with.

The last straw was the destruction of the marriage of our best friends when the wife did not like her husband's girlfriend whom he was seeing so much that he had less times for his kids. He had issues with his wife's boss being her lover because she seemed to be working late a lot and attending a few out of town conferences. They both said that multiple relationships were too stressful, a logistics nightmare and emotionally draining. They did not feel that they could satisfy the needs of all involved and make everyone happy so they split and married their lovers.

After all of this, my wife and girlfriend settled into a polyfidelitous Traid where we all loved each other, lived together and has great sex as both a threesome and one on one. This lasted for 40 years and none of our poly friends lasted more than a few years. I know that I cannot be in relationships outside of our triad. I fall in love too easily with anyone I have sex with. My wife tried another guy and declared that I was more than enough for her and she never wanted to date another guy again. Our girlfriend stopped dating and went online to find a cuckold to marry and she hit the jackpot because her cuck is a doctor who allows her to run their marriage and is find with her spending as much of her time with us as she wants.

I think that one relationship is hard enough to manage. We all came to feel that it is better to be satisfied with what our partners could fulfill than to go outside of our relationship to find it. When we left our girlfriend my wife and I had to deal with a monogamous life which was alien to us. We had a rough start but found by communicating we found out what was lacking in our relationship and found a solution to fix that just between the two of us.

We have only been monogamous for 5 years but we find it a lot less stressful and complicated. We also began to notice that most of our poly friends seemed to talk only about fulfilling their sexual needs. Never a mention of non sexual needs so we wonder what is really poly and what is just an open relationship. Why is a guy poly and not just a player?

We still think we want another women in bed but this time it is purely sexual and are not looking for anyone to share our love. Good luck to you because, as you can see by all the posts here talking about problems, poly is not easy.
 
Don't get me wrong I'm not innocent here. I have broken a lot of rules at one time or another none of my offenses were ever major though. I have at my worst kissed someone without her permission. And I have had a history of it. I have apologized but nothing I did would have led to life changing events such as an "accidental" pregnancy. We've been trying to have another child for years so yea I wanted to have another child with her. She on the other hand wants a baby regardless if it's mine or someone else's or even adoption. I get the need to have a kid but I've made my point clear I wanted a child with her. Yes there were talks of me getting someone else pregnant due to her having complications carrying a pregnancy but suddenly she feels she can do that with someone she's known less than three months.
 
This is why we only had relationships with people my wife and I both loved. We tried it your way and it ended up with pregnant girlfriends, separations when we hit rough spots and spreading an STD to everyone any of us had sex with.

Dude. That's got nothing to do with love. That's just irresponsible. How about avoiding getting someone pregnant or spreading a STD regardless of whether you love them or not?!

Did you even read the OP? Cus it seems like you just talked about yourself... It's getting a bit boring now.
 
Don't get me wrong I'm not innocent here. I have broken a lot of rules at one time or another none of my offenses were ever major though. I have at my worst kissed someone without her permission. And I have had a history of it. I have apologized but nothing I did would have led to life changing events such as an "accidental" pregnancy. We've been trying to have another child for years so yea I wanted to have another child with her. She on the other hand wants a baby regardless if it's mine or someone else's or even adoption. I get the need to have a kid but I've made my point clear I wanted a child with her. Yes there were talks of me getting someone else pregnant due to her having complications carrying a pregnancy but suddenly she feels she can do that with someone she's known less than three months.

To be perfectly honest, from the advice I have read on here I would say that you and your wife have many issues to sort through without other relationships being involved. Perhaps you have jumped into poly too quickly, and need to reassess. If you carry on this way, it sounds as though it's all going to get even more messy. I'd say go back to your marriage, just the two of you and figure stuff out if you want to to stay together. Perhaps with the help of a councellor. And then when you are in a better place, open up the marriage. If my husband 'downgraded me' to no-longer-primary, it would be game over.
 
Thank you journeyofawakening. I agree with that but she she says that would be unfair to her by and his feelings matter as well. I told her I'm not asking her to break up with him just that he needs to give us some space to rekindle our marriage and work out problems out. She says I am an excellent provider but I lack in affection. She said it's not the sex just the romance and small things. I find it hard to do those small things when I'm home so little. Is there any suggestions on how to be I dunno more romantic? I'm not a romantic person and never have been I'm blunt and at times too direct. I understand it's not gonna be an easy change but I'm trying here.
 
Well sounds like she wants a secondary relationship with you. If I were you id get a divorce from her and continue the secondary relationship without the financial support. I wouldn't support someone who treated me that way.
 
Sounds like she wants it all exactly her way and gets arsey if she doesn't.
My husband isn't overly romantic. Have you ever heard of the 5 love languages? My husband and I have different ones so he shows his love differently to me. Maybe that is the issue you have. From what I can see, one of the great things about poly is that loving several people exposes you to all sorts of love language. And if she can't see the way you love her from your point of view, then that is her issue not yours.
 
Dude. That's got nothing to do with love. That's just irresponsible. How about avoiding getting someone pregnant or spreading a STD regardless of whether you love them or not?!

Did you even read the OP? Cus it seems like you just talked about yourself... It's getting a bit boring now.

Thats what he does every post
 
To be perfectly honest, from the advice I have read on here I would say that you and your wife have many issues to sort through without other relationships being involved. Perhaps you have jumped into poly too quickly, and need to reassess. If you carry on this way, it sounds as though it's all going to get even more messy. I'd say go back to your marriage, just the two of you and figure stuff out if you want to to stay together. Perhaps with the help of a councellor. And then when you are in a better place, open up the marriage. If my husband 'downgraded me' to no-longer-primary, it would be game over.

Same here. Id move out and get my own place. Nate would need to get a job to support himself.
 
The other issue of that is our son. So if theoretically we get a divorce I don't think I'd see my son much at all due to work and the amount I have to work I cannot create a solid base to upbring a child and he is autistic so he requires a bit more attention than your average child. I am not oppose to paying child support but being able to spend time with my son is gonna kill me.im military so they will not give me custody of the child because it's an unstable living environment as a single parent
 
The other issue of that is our son. So if theoretically we get a divorce I don't think I'd see my son much at all due to work and the amount I have to work I cannot create a solid base to upbring a child and he is autistic so he requires a bit more attention than your average child. I am not oppose to paying child support but being able to spend time with my son is gonna kill me.im military so they will not give me custody of the child because it's an unstable living environment as a single parent

Sounds like you don't see your son very often as it is. So you pay child support and when you are in town you have a custody arrangement for visitation. You aren't prisoner yo her because you have a child together.
 
I do still love her and it hurts. I may not love her the way she wants me to but I do love her. I would like to resolve things but if we can't resolve it I'm not gonna let our son see us yelling at each other a what not. I'm very scared of getting a divorce I truly don't want one for more than just loving her I feel like if I did that it's saying I've given up on the relationship and I told myself and her I'd never do that.
 
I am sorry you deal in this. :(

Don't fly off the handle yourself jumping on to divorce land. BREATHE.

SHORT TERM

I would suggest you do nothing more at this time. You have apologized and said you want to work things out. Now you could back off and let both sides cool off.

LONG TERM

Is this the normal pattern? Have you thought about counseling to break out of it?


LONG VERSION

I think your wife is behaving provocatively:
  • She flew off the handle over a simple snuggle.
  • Ordered you out of the house to sit in the car “like a dog.”
  • Then she lied to you that she was going to break agreements and have unprotected sex with her BF and get pregnant.
  • Then she threatened to demote you to secondary and makes snide remarks about it.

This is all destructive behavior you guys are doing -- her going off to extremes, fishing for a reaction. And she got it when you told her to go ahead and then miscarry.

This behavior is not constructive to the marriage or staying on topic.

You could put the focus back on the actual issues.

  1. Her unacceptable flying off the handle behavior and treating you poorly
  2. Your poly agreements being too restrictive.
  3. Her wanting romantic gestures from you. (Who wants to snuggle with a porcupine?)

I am not saying that what you said about miscarriage was ok. It was not.

I am saying that some people do that – act out and behave provocatively ON PURPOSE to get you to blow up. Then when you do blow up, they act all “righteous anger and punishing" so you grovel to get into their good graces again like their reprehensible behavior was then justified. When they are the ones who could apologize for starting it. Or they act so “hurt and surprised” you are so mad to get you tending to them. Or a combo.

If she wants to come to the table like a grown up and work it out, do so.

Until then, I suggest you do nothing more and sit back to reflect.

Do you enjoy this dynamic? If not, why participate in it? I'm not saying you have to divorce her, but you do not have to attend every argument she invites you to. You could guard against provocation if that is her usual pattern. Do not participate in that.

You can say “No, thank you. I am not going to sit in the car. I am going to (go read in the bedroom/go for a walk/something you like to do to cool off. ) When you are ready to talk this out calmly, you can let me know in X days (the time that you need to cool off) when you would like to set an appointment to talk. ”

If she brings it up before X days, you just say “Thanks. I'm glad you are ready to talk calmly. I need X days. I will talk to you then about setting an appointment. We can talk about normal life stuff, but on THIS topic, I still need time to gather my thoughts.”

Move on to where you both RESPOND after thinking. Not just REACT off the cuff and unload grrr on each other. I think that would server you both and the marriage better -- to cool off FIRST and stop all the reactionary stuff.

Right now you sound like you are trying hard to appease the Volcano Goddess so you do not get spewed on again. While I understand that want to be free from spew and verbal abuse? That's another reaction thing feeds into the dynamic. You have done nothing wrong. Don't keep “chasing” her.

Is she borderline or bipolar? Like push-pull? You don't sound unwilling to work with her. She wants more snuggling herself, she could ASK. You are not a mind reader.

For now just be normal and boring around the house. You cool off, and give her space to cool off. Let her deal with her emotional management.

Next time she pops off like that say NO. “No. I do not accept this acting out behavior. We can talk calmly to solve problems or wait to cool off first. I am not going to get into a fight thing. You can manage your anger appropriately on your own and cool off first. I will do mine. Then we talk.”

CONCLUSION

I'm very scared of getting a divorce I truly don't want one for more than just loving her I feel like if I did that it's saying I've given up on the relationship and I told myself and her I'd never do that.

I see that you are scared and worried about loss. But I also think she maybe uses that NOT being on the table to skip exercising self control. Where if it was on the table, she might exercise more self control.

Again it makes me think of borderline. She feels safe enough with you to be this way, but it is dubious "honor" for the borderline's relatives.

I think it would not be giving up on the relationship. It would be letting the relationship be how it needs to be to be healthier for ALL parties. A non-cohabiting, co-parenting one.

Could not be teaching your son to put up with this behavior from people so he goes on to date one himself thinking it is ok or acceptable. Or he dates someone with worse problems because his "normal" is so skewed!

But again, don't jump the gun over to Divorce Land. One thing at a time here. Deal with the issues; get a counselor if needed to sort it out.

  1. Her flying off the handle and behaving provocatively. That is not acceptable. That has to change.
  2. Your poly agreements being too restrictive on your end. If you have a past of not keeping them, it may mean they are too tight rather than you being a "bad" person. (Is that what she tells you? You are bad?)
  3. Her wanting romantic gestures. Ok. But AGAIN... who wants to be romantic with a porcupine?

If she doesn't want to be with you romantically any more, or the issues are insurmountable? Then you could move on to as peaceful divorce as possible.

But to allow yourself to be used for a punching bag? That's not ok. It is not loving behavior on her part..or yours. You loving her is not enough. You have to love yourself too.

The relationship is not meant to be a "weapon." Where she grants or withholds "place" or "status" to manipulate.

I could be totally off base in my guess, but if I am not I hope it gives you some ideas for how to handle this bit more constructively.

GL!
Galagirl
 
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Well certainly give her some time to cool off but what happens if she's indefinitely making you secondary? How long are you going to be willing to be just a pay check?
 
Sounds like junior high school.. Seriously, all of you need a good dose of grow the fuck up, or you shouldn't even be in any relationships. Oh, and drop the primary/secondary crap - a hierarchy isn't necessary in poly. Just learn how to treat people with kindness and respect, and the way you want to be treated, and that's all you need.

Man, the crappy things people do to others they claim to love and care about... it's mystifying to me.
 
thank you all so much for the different ideas and advice. for those of you asking yes my wife is bi polar and on medication. I'm gonna talk to her this weekend about it when i'm home from work and see if we can resolve the issues we've had. i still think there is a chance to save our marriage and i'm gonna go for it. if i feel we make no progress then i think its best for all involved that her and i divorce. i work too hard for her to treat me that way. i'm not without flaws but it would still be nice to be talked to in a calm and decent manner.

ive even asked her bf if he thought what i did was out of line and he himself said that he couldnt see anything wrong with what i did. i am going to ask him to give her and i some space to figure things out and if he cant respect that i think thats another issue al together.
 
as for the growing up thing trust me ive been handling this in as calm a manner as possible. i grew up and made a life she still clings to her same ideals we had when we were teens. i think thats a part of the problem is that i grew up because of the military and she remained the same.
 
Were I in your wife's shoes I think I'd be filing for divorce. Your nasty comment showed a complete lack of empathy. I'm not saying her comment was any nicer, but there you have it. I don't waste my time in relationships where mind games and tit-for-tat behaviours are prevalent. I especially don't waste my time in relationships with people whose only response to being hurt is to do something hurtful in return. Whilst I agree she needs to sort her behaviour out, you also need to take a long hard look at what kind of person and partner you are. I think more than an apology on both sides is in order here.
 
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