Keeping other relationships alive while having a baby?

A

Aletheria

New member
Hello,
I've been polyamorous for as long as I've been dating- almost 2 decades now. I've dealt with my share of ups and downs over the years, but right now things are pretty much smooth sailing. I love my partners and my life and everything is going well.
So where's the problem?
I'm considering having a baby with my nesting partner. I have another serious partner who I don't live with but is very important to me and who isn't interested in having kids himself. He also doesn't really enjoy spending time with them. I want to keep him in my life, but all of the poly parents that I know ended or suspended their relationships with any partners who weren't a co-parent when their children were very young, or flat out ended them. I don't want to do that. The very idea of it hurts enough that it makes me hesitate about having kids at all, if it would automatically mean sacrificing my other partner.
Has anybody in this forum succeeded at having a healthy relationship with someone you weren't co-parenting with while pregnant or parenting a very young child? If so, what did you do to keep the relationship alive without negatively impacting your parenting responsibilities? What worked? What didn't work? What do you wish you had done differently? Thank you in advance for your help.
 
I am not a parent myself, so can't speak from experience about your questions. But I will say that if this relationship is very important to you both that there should not be any reason why you can't continue with it. You may, on occasion, have to leave your child in someone else's care so you can have one-on-one time with your companion.

I think it is just terrible if folks bail out of happy healthy relationships of any kind (platonic or otherwise) simply because someone has had a child, or gotten married.... I lost a dear friend recently simply because she met someone and fell in love! Sheesh!
 
Aletheria said:
Has anybody in this forum succeeded at having a healthy relationship with someone you weren't co-parenting with while pregnant or parenting a very young child?
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yup.


If so, what did you do to keep the relationship alive without negatively impacting your parenting responsibilities? What worked? What didn't work? What do you wish you had done differently? Thank you in advance for your help.
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Our model may not fit for you, the wife/mistress situation. Two households. Different cities.

We were relentless about school from the earliest age, and all of our daily interactions on the internet, skype and whatnot was schooling. They can do letters and numbers before they read, and we had them reading by age two.

You have songs on youtube, "wheels on the bus" my God how many times we did that one, they never got tired of it.

What we have in similarity to you is that the mistress is not involved in the kids, she has no desire for it and we don't want her involved either. There is one mommy.

The kids know, but ours are much older now. As infants, no. As toddlers, it can be compartmentalized, there is no reason for them to know. As they get older then you eventually have a talk with them.

And since everyone is cool with it there is no reason for them to be upset by it. Mom told them it isn't cheating. Cheating is when you do not agree to it.

The mistress goes off doing her own thing when I am skyping, no biggie.
 
I was serious with a girl who had a three year old. At the time, I really didn't want kids or anything to do with them. Too bad.. lol. A kid is part of your life if you are dating someone with a kid. At least it is if you're in a relationship with a woman with a kid. So I had a kid in my life.

We didn't last, but I ended up with a couple kids of my own later. Then I met my wife, who was not into kids at all. She survived.

My only advice is don't neglect your child just to be with someone who doesn't like kids.
 
Hello Aletheria,

The only solution I can think of for you is to compromise by not dating your other serious partner nearly as often as you do now. Shorter dates, too. And when you do date him, your nesting partner will have to support you in that endeavor by taking care of the child. It will probably be a bit of a strain, I don't see any way around that. You do want to keep said other partner in your life, so.

Unless he would be willing to be around your baby? even if it's not within his comfort zone? just throwing that out there.

I hope you can work something out.
Sincerely,
Kevin T.
 
River said:
I think it is just terrible if folks bail out of happy healthy relationships of any kind (platonic or otherwise) simply because someone has had a child, or gotten married....
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You clearly have not gotten pregnant and birthed a baby! :p Otherwise, you'd know the powerful pull that overcomes a woman when Mother Nature turns her head toward creating the next generation. Life becomes all about making and raising those kids and everything that doesn't pertain just falls away. Aletheria, it's likely that you will be the one to lose focus on the non-nesting partner who has no desire for participating when the babies come. You can't imagine the power of a tiny baby to make the entire household and all of its inhabitants turn their every resource toward nurturing and sustaining it.
 
I have 3 children 25, 16, and 12..

The last 25 years of my life have revolved around my children. Everything I do has an effect on them.

If Murf would have been antikids our relationship would never have worked.
 
My partner has a newborn right now.

So far, more has changed in our relationship by me moving closer to him, then him being a parent. But, he's the man, and not very attached to parenting. And, it's all very new. We'll see.

I don't intend to have co-parenting responsibilities. But I don't intend to avoid the child either. As the baby grows, I expect my partner to bring it over as he needs to, but I don't intend to babysit twice a week or whatever.

I've seen the baby, and it's magical, I expect to like it. But overall (exaggerated by my not-always-great relationship with Meta), I have a very strong feeling of "not my child". I view myself as an aunt.

I don't write often (usually only in moments of distress), but feel free to follow my blog.
 
I have two perspectives to offer:

First of all, when I started being poly my kids were 4 and just-turned-2 years old. Finding time away from them was hard, but my boyfriend enjoyed spending time with them and was more focused on spending time with me than on having all that time be romantic/one-on-one time. So we spent (and continue to spend) a lot of our time together as “family time” with the kids — it’s not just date nights but also just nights at home where he makes dinner and then we put the kids to bed and then we go have time together but keep the monitor on so that my husband isn’t the only one doing kid duty. This works great, but of course it depends on the partner.

Second, one of my other partners has a young child and also his wife is pregnant. I am SUPER excited for them, but also really nervous that there just isn’t going to be time for me when the baby arrives. The best thing that he could do for me to reassure me is to make plans with me. So even though I know he won’t be able to hang out for awhile when the baby is first born and his wife is recovering, settting a time for me to come over for a visit when the baby is a few weeks old, and a date with him when the baby is a couple months old, would be what I really need in order to feel secure. I have one planned (as in tickets are purchased) date with him for when the baby will be about 3 months old and even that is really helping me feel comfortable that things will eventually return to normal. That is what I would recommend doing.
 
When my son was a baby, I didn't even have time for myself or quality romantic time with my ex husband, let alone anyone else. I was exhausted all the time and my son took up most of my waking hours.

Is your nesting partner even willing to do childcare duties so you can go off with your other partner, if he doesn't want to be around your child? I know I wouldn't mind once in a while, but unless you're willing to do the same for him and now that starts eating into any quality time together... it gets stressful.

And honestly, you may find that it bothers you that your child is such an important part of your life and you have to be away from them often ish to see your other partner. There are reasons why friendships drift (let alone relationships) when one person has a child; it's that their life changes, their goals and wants and needs.

I can't even imagine dealing with another serious relationship through the toddler years. I was much more interested in getting enough sleep, making sure household chores got done, and having at least a little time to myself. I have a crazy high sex drive but that was definitely on the bottom of my priority list.

My current boyfriend is in no way shape or form a co-parent to my son, but if he wasn't even willing to be around him, we'd have a lot less date time. He comes over and has dinner with my whole family at least once a week and we play games or hang out with my husband and my son. When my son goes to bed, we have our date night. I go over to his place once a week as well, and my husband stays home while kiddo is in bed.
 
I didn't get to pee or shower in peace for over 10 years of my adult life.... And I was blessed that Butch is a hands on dad.

Heck everyone still comes and bugs me when I am in the bathroom.
 
@Vicki82

To answer your question, my nesting partner is absolutely willing to fly solo to give me time with my other partner. Our plan would be to have him be a stay-at-home dad, as I'm the family breadwinner and he's a naturally very caring and nurturing man who is great with children.
 
I had a long conversation with my non-nesting partner, and it sounds like he is much more willing to spend time around a child than I had initially believed. I still have a lot to think over before I make any decisions.
 
Aletheria said:
@Vicki82

To answer your question, my nesting partner is absolutely willing to fly solo to give me time with my other partner. Our plan would be to have him be a stay-at-home dad, as I'm the family breadwinner and he's a naturally very caring and nurturing man who is great with children.
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I don't mean to assert otherwise. But man, I was a stay at home mom, and I'm an early childhood educator, so this is my field. At the end of the day I wanted nothing more for when my partner came home to take the kid so I could go relax and have a bath or read or have a nap. I would have started to get resentful if I was on full time kid duty while m partner got to leave the house and interact with adults all day and feel productive... and then come home and still leave me with kid so they could go out with another partner.

It's really easy to say now that it won't be a problem, but I don't know too many stay at home parents who would be happy with that arrangement long term. It's a really tough job with little to no outward validation and recognition.
 
Dagferi said:
I didn't get to pee or shower in peace for over 10 years of my adult life.... And I was blessed that Butch is a hands on dad.

Heck everyone still comes and bugs me when I am in the bathroom.
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Don't you just pee *in* the shower, like everyone else? You don't have to admit it publicly. Maybe someone could start an anonymous poll in the Fireplace:

Who admits to peeing in the shower?

Or

How often do you pee in the shower?

I pee in the shower nearly every time I take a shower, even though it's not usually a full bladder's worth. And I don't even have kids.
 
Vicki82 said:
I don't mean to assert otherwise. But man, I was a stay at home mom, and I'm an early childhood educator, so this is my field. At the end of the day I wanted nothing more for when my partner came home to take the kid so I could go relax and have a bath or read or have a nap. I would have started to get resentful if I was on full time kid duty while m partner got to leave the house and interact with adults all day and feel productive... and then come home and still leave me with kid so they could go out with another partner.

It's really easy to say now that it won't be a problem, but I don't know too many stay at home parents who would be happy with that arrangement long term. It's a really tough job with little to no outward validation and recognition.
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Agreed! I was home alone all day with my young children yesterday and I was ready to tear my hair out. And I don’t even have to do that every day.
 
ref2018 said:
Don't you just pee *in* the shower, like everyone else? You don't have to admit it publicly. Maybe someone could start an anonymous poll in the Fireplace:

Who admits to peeing in the shower?

Or

How often do you pee in the shower?

I pee in the shower nearly every time I take a shower, even though it's not usually a full bladder's worth. And I don't even have kids.
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I have never in my life peed in the shower, but even if Dagferi does, the statement still stands....if you can’t shower in peace then it doesn’t matter if you pee in the shower, you won’t be able to pee in peace either.
 
ref2018 said:
I pee in the shower nearly every time I take a shower, even though it's not usually a full bladder's worth. And I don't even have kids.
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I've peeped in the shower all my life, straight through two pregnancies. :p

Dagferi meant pee or shower. When you have an infant to care for, even getting to pee at all is a luxury. Showers take a far distant second to sleep, on the rare occasion you can choose. Peeing in the shower is de rigueur for new parents.

Aletheria, you have it all planned out nice and neat, like most folks who are thinking about having their first. People who have not had kids see them as just another task to perform while carrying on with their life. People who have had kids just smile and laugh.
 
I've pooped (on the toilet, not in the shower) with a baby on my lap, nursing.

But long before kids, I had Burmese cats we were breeding, and one of them liked me so much she'd jump on my lap in the morning when I was pooping. Which was cute, but mildly annoying. One time, when she was a nursing mother, and her kittens were old enough to jump, they all joined her on my lap and started feeding. It was really rather ridiculous! LOLOL

Yes, I pee in the shower. It just makes sense. And I've showered with partners and we've both peed. It just makes sense.
 
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