Looking for some perspective: Making my partner unhappy. me=poly, partner=open.

B

byte

New member
Hello lovely people,

I'm writing this post to get some perspective. It is about me and my primary partner (who happens to be my wife). We've been a couple for over seven years. She is less and less happy in our partnership, while I on the other hand, feel more and more connected to myself and whole like never before in my life.

To put it short: Because I love other people, my wife feels unhappy because, as she puts it, it kills her illusion of being emotional exclusive to me. I on the other hand feel happy because I am coming more and more out and to terms with my, what I guess is, Polyamory.

I've (we've) never really been part of a poly community, so this is my first step into that direction. We've read a little but most of the stuff we worked through ourselves in long conversations and relationship work.


To start I will write down the history of our relationship real quick.
When we met I was (monogamously) with another woman. On that other woman I cheated, because I was really confused with my feelings (and mostly unfamiliar to the open/poly concept). I liked her (even loved her) but I enjoyed meeting the others so much - it really made me feel alive. I couldn't talk about it to this woman at that point (various reasons, I won't go into detail here).
When I met my future wife, though, I quit that cheating relationship within a week. But I told my future wife that being monogamous wouldn't make so much sense to me anymore, because I cheated in that relationship before and enjoyed it much (except the dishonesty). So she proposed to be open.
Each of us had one date with another person at that time, only to find out, we weren't really interested in other people, except ourselves. So we remained open, but we were so in love with each other, that it wasn't a topic anymore. We also moved in together and had our first (planned) child, within the first year.
It wasn't until around three years later, when I/we started talking about that open relationship thing again. It started because I also felt sexually unfulfilled. She classifies (nowadays) more as a graysexual, while I myself am probably on the hypersexual scale of the spectrum. It's not only the frequency, but also the experience itself. We experience sex differently and it has a whole other meaning to me, than it has to her. So it is really hard to share on that level (which makes me feel unexpressed and thus sad). Since were open, I can enjoy sex with her more freely, because I also know, I can get the things I need, but she doesn't, somewhere else.
We then experimented around a bit. We dated women together, I had one night stands, dated some alone. She also had dated a guy but wasn't interested in sleeping with him. We even each went once to a swinger party, but I feel, nowadays, it is not really for me, because I almost always feel a connection when having sex and cannot "just have sex" with someone, worse if I feel I am just a piece of meat for that person.
To put it short I mostly went for sexual encounters (sometimes repeated), because I thought it was the stuff I'm missing, because of the incompatability (see above). She was okay with it, because as she says herself, she is not jealous on a sexual level.
There then came a woman who fell in love with me (but never openly admitted it to us), also I felt stronger for her. She tried somehow to seperate us, which was when it ended. It was painful for all of us. We learned not to accept dishonest persons in our life any longer and that I would be more open in communicating what I feel.

We were back on that sex only mode. But we also discussed falling in love could be nice (but "falling in love" being a different story from "being in love"). At this point I should mention that I have the trait of being highly sensitive, to put it short: I can feel other people's feelings and it is really hard for me to seperate them from my own. So why does it matter here? I always knew my wife hated me having feelings for other persons. Life is a great gray area for me anyways, so I can be fine with or without being poly. Avoiding the distress of a person close to me (and thus my own) sometimes makes me happier, than going after something I deem to be "nice to have". Thus I didn't really force the polyamorous part...

But it turned out I've now fallen in love and would even say I am in love with another woman. We met a year ago, she is also openly married and really respectful of my primary relationship. Since I have a family and a lot of responsibilities and she is also very busy, we only see each other like every other week.
I've searched my feelings and know now that I really love that feeling of feeling love towards another person and sharing it and being open about it. The only reason I wouldn't do it is because I'm afraid it might hurt someone (like my wife).




So what's the issue now?
My wife says it makes her unhappy, seeing me being also emotionally attached to her (or more broadly anyone else). She also says not being with me would make her even unhappier.

My wife is everything to me. I love her so dearly, it is hard to put into words for me. I enjoy every second of being around her. She is the first person I enjoy having around me 24/7. Mostly because she supports me and accepts me just for who I am and even works on understanding me further. She is funny, smart, courageous, witty, fierce and the strongest person I know (side note: she is also the hottest person I know). Our relationship is beautiful, we talk through the nights and grow together. We support each other. She is everything I ever hoped for. She is truly the person I call my "home" (and I have not felt at home in my life, until I met her - no, not even in my origin family).
Still I feel love towards other people and want to experience that.

On one hand, as I wrote before, I'm okay with compromising and, as I feel, already do it a lot. I only see my other partner once a week or even every other week. I never see her for longer than 4-5 hours, I never sleep over. I restrict telephoning with her, sometimes even texting. I do this because of my wife. Most of the stuff is not so "hard" for me, I learned making compromises for others early in my life. Some of the stuff I just see as nice to have. Still sometimes I would like to behave differently. No, I would not want to see her all the time, maybe sometimes twice a week - as I said I am busy in my life and quite happy with it. But sometimes I think, oh it would be nice to be a weekend away with her or just "call her" and then just I swat that thought away. Sometimes I talk to my wife about that.
On the other hand I know that my wife wishes for me to end that other relationship and I just don't want to. Even if this one ended I don't think I would ever want to not feel love towards other persons. I'm being more and more open about this (as I mentioned, it is quite hard for me to talk about these things, if I know I hurt someone with it). But even if I would be willing to distance myself from the abstract idea of falling in love with a, at this point hypothetical person (i.e. being poly), in this case it is not hypothetical and that relationship means a lot to me. I am less and less willing to compromise on that (abstract and concrete) and my wife feels that and is less and less happy about that, even though I commit on almost all of her terms.
Also lately sometimes her terms seem so arbitrary to me. I know she says she is stressed and it gives her some safety, but still those are really not my terms and sometimes it feels weird (like going home early even though, you don't want to or deliberatly not talking about deep emotional stuff even though, you'd feel like it). Lately she wants me to stop dating third persons or her.

I hate being in that position to destroy my wife's illusions (about some exclusive attachment). Even though for me it is all still really really exclusive with her, it is not in her way of thinking. It is hard to talk in the same language about these things, because we feel some things so differently. I putting the person I love the most under so much stress and make her unhappy. But I also find myself less and less inclined (which is super new and weird to me) to hide myself and my, what I guess is, polyamory.

Thank you for reading :)

She is not giving me an ultimatum, nor do I have a concrete question, it is just that I'm feeling I could be missing something. What are you thoughts about this?
 
byte said:
Hello lovely people,

I'm writing this post to get some perspective. It is about me and my primary partner (who happens to be my wife). We've been a couple for over seven years. She is less and less happy in our partnership, while on the other hand, I feel more and more connected to myself, and whole, like never before in my life.

To put it short: Because I love other people, my wife feels unhappy because, as she puts it, it kills her illusion of being emotionally exclusive with me. On the other hand, I feel happy because I am coming more and more out and to terms with my, what I guess is, polyamory.

I/ we have never really been part of a poly community, so this is my first step into that direction. We've read a little, but most of the stuff we worked out by ourselves, with long conversations and relationship work.


To start, I will write down the history of our relationship real quick.

When we met I was (monogamously) with another woman. I cheated on that woman, because I was really confused about my feelings (and mostly unfamiliar with the open/poly concept). I liked her, even loved her, but I enjoyed meeting the others very much. It really made me feel alive. I couldn't talk about it to this woman at that point, for various reasons, which I won't go into here.

When I met my future wife, though, I quit that cheating relationship within a week. But I told my future wife that being monogamous wouldn't make much sense to me anymore, because I cheated in that relationship before and enjoyed it, except for the dishonesty. So she proposed that we could be open.

Each of us had one date with another person at that time, only to find out, we weren't really interested in other people, only in ourselves. So we remained open, but we were so in love with each other, that it wasn't a topic anymore. We also moved in together and had our first (planned) child, within the first year.

It wasn't until around three years later, when I/we started talking about that open relationship thing again. It started because I also felt sexually unfulfilled. She classifies (nowadays) more as a graysexual, while I myself am probably on the hypersexual scale of the spectrum.

It's not only the frequency, but also the experience itself. We experience sex differently, and it has a whole other meaning to me, than it does for her. So it is really hard to share on that level (which makes me feel unexpressed and thus sad).

Since we opened, I can enjoy sex with her more freely, because I know I can get the things I need, but she doesn't, somewhere else.

We experimented a bit. We dated women together, I had one night stands, I dated some alone. She also dated a guy, but wasn't interested in sleeping with him.

We even went to a swinger party once, but I feel, nowadays, it is not really for me, because I almost always feel a connection when having sex and cannot "just have sex" with someone. It's worse if I feel I am just a piece of meat for that person.

To put it short, I mostly went for sexual encounters (sometimes repeated), because I thought it was the stuff I'm missing, because of the incompatibility (see above). She was okay with it, because, as she says herself, she is not jealous on a sexual level.

There then came a woman who fell in love with me (but never openly admitted it to us). I also felt strongly for her. This woman tried to separate my wife and me, which was when it ended. It was painful for all of us. We learned not to accept dishonest persons in our lives any longer, and that I would be more open in communicating what I feel.

We were back to that "sex only" mode. But we also discussed that falling in love could be nice, but that "falling in love" was a different story from "being in love."

At this point, I should mention that I have the trait of being highly sensitive. To put it short: I can feel other people's feelings, and it is really hard for me to separate them from my own. So why does that matter here? I always knew my wife hated me having feelings for other persons.

Life is a great gray area for me anyway, so I can be fine with or without being poly. Avoiding the distress of a person close to me (and thus my own) sometimes makes me happier, than going after something I deem to be "nice to have." Thus I didn't really force the polyamorous part...

But it turned out I've now fallen in love, and would even say I am in love with another woman. We met a year ago. She is also openly married, and really respectful of my primary relationship. Since I have a family and a lot of responsibilities, and she is also very busy, we only see each other like every other week.

I've searched my feelings and know now that I really love that feeling of feeling love towards another person, and sharing it and being open about it. The only reason I wouldn't do it is because I'm afraid it might hurt someone (like my wife).

So what's the issue now?

My wife says it makes her unhappy, to see me being also emotionally attached to this new woman (or more broadly, to anyone else). She also says not being with me would make her even more unhappy.

My wife is everything to me. I love her so dearly. It is hard to put it into words. I enjoy every second of being around her. She is the first person I enjoy having around me 24/7. Mostly because she supports me and accepts me just for who I am, and even works on understanding me further.

She is funny, smart, courageous, witty, fierce and the strongest person I know. (Side note: she is also the hottest person I know.) Our relationship is beautiful-- we talk through the nights and grow together. We support each other.

She is everything I ever hoped for. She is truly the person I call my "home" (and I have not felt at home in my life, until I met her - no, not even in my origin family).

Still, I feel love towards other people, and want to experience that.

On one hand, as I wrote before, I'm okay with compromising and, as I feel, already do it a lot. I only see my other partner once a week or even every other week. I never see her for longer than 4-5 hours, I never sleep over. I restrict telephoning with her, sometimes even texting.

I do this because of my wife. Most of the stuff is not so "hard" for me, I learned making compromises for others early in my life. Some of the stuff I just see as nice to have.

Still, sometimes, I would like to behave differently. No, I would not want to see her all the time, maybe sometimes twice a week - as I said I am busy in my life and quite happy with it. But sometimes I think, oh it would be nice to go away for a weekend with her, or just call her! Then just I swat that thought away. Sometimes I talk to my wife about that.

On the other hand, I know that my wife wishes for me to end that other relationship. But I just don't want to! Even if this one ended, I don't think I would ever want to not feel love towards other people.

I'm being more and more open about this, but as I mentioned, it is quite hard for me to talk about these things, if I know I am hurting someone with it. But even if I would be willing to distance myself from the abstract idea of falling in love with a, at this point hypothetical person (i.e. being poly), in this case it is not hypothetical, and that relationship means a lot to me.

I am less and less willing to compromise on that (abstract and concrete), and my wife feels that, and is less and less happy about that, even though I have committed to almost all of her terms.

Also, lately, sometimes her terms seem so arbitrary to me. I know she says she is stressed and it gives her some safety, but still those are really not my terms, and sometimes they feel weird (like going home early, even though you don't want to, or deliberaetly not talking about deep emotional stuff, even though you feel like it). Lately my wife wants me to stop dating third persons, or the current woman.

I hate being in the position to destroy my wife's illusions (about some exclusive attachment). Even though for me it is all still really really exclusive with her, it is not in her way of thinking. It is hard to talk in the same language about these things, because we feel some things so differently.

I am putting the person I love the most under so much stress, and making her unhappy. But I also find myself less and less inclined (which is super new and weird to me) to hide myself and my polyamory.

She is not giving me an ultimatum, nor do I have a concrete question, it is just that I'm feeling I could be missing something. What are you thoughts about this?
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Welcome to the board. I edited your long post slightly for better readability. I will comment in another post.
 
Hi and welcome to the forum.

My impression is that this is your wife's problem to figure out. You can be supportive and listen to what she needs from your relationship, but you can't fix this for her.

My wife and I had a poly/open relationship and it worked for us. I am poly and my wife was poly in theory, but preferred to be open on her end. She felt she would be capable of loving more than one person, but chose to have more casual relationships. I suppose one could say she was poly saturated at one partner, but enjoyed having FWB. It was her understanding that my love for others didn't diminish my love for her. It's possible that your wife may never get to that point.
 
How about everyone just own their own stuff?

My wife says it makes her unhappy, seeing me being also emotionally attached to her (or more broadly anyone else). She also says not being with me would make her even unhappier.
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Ok, she's made her choice for now. Let it be her choice.

I hate being in that position to destroy my wife's illusions (about some exclusive attachment)
Click to expand...

Well, what's her expectation? For you to not be authentic you so she can maintain her illusions?

Nothing stops her from being exclusively devoted to you if that's what she wants to do.

You on the other hand, can offer her devotion back. But it won't be exclusive because you have another partner.

Wife has to figure out if she can live with that or not. That's an inside job. Not anything you can do for her.


Galagirl
 
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Hello byte,

It sounds like you need to sit down with your wife, and explain to her that it makes you happy to be in love with other people (or with one other person in particular), and that it would be nice if she could be happy for you. Also explain to her that you are already compromising for her, in that you are only seeing this other person once every one or two weeks. And explain to her that you love her fully, and that being in love with somebody else does not take away from your love for her (for your wife). If you explain these things to your wife, then your wife should start feeling better about the situation, and if she doesn't, well, then you know you did all that you could. It does not seem to me like it would be healthy for you to deny your poly feelings. I even think it's unhealthy for your wife to stay with you when who you are makes her so unhappy -- but, that is her decision.

One thing that could help is, could you not talk to your wife, at least not most of the time, about how you feel about the other woman? Talking to your wife about it just rubs salt into the wound. Maybe if your wife wasn't hearing about it all the time, it would prop up her illusion of being emotionally exclusive with you, and then she would feel better about it. I know it sounds dishonest, but from your point of view, you would just be sparing her (your wife) from hearing the words she does not want to hear. Kind of like out of sight, out of mind. She would know you love the other woman, but she could refrain from thinking about it. Which would be her decision. She decides how she handles it if you refrain (most of the time) from talking to her (your wife) about your feelings for the other woman. I'm not saying you have to do that, I'm just saying you could do it.

I hope the two of you can work things out together.
Sincerely,
Kevin T.
 
Hi byte,

I hope it helped you to air out your story. It's obvious you love your wife dearly, but you are not monogamous. You are fully able to love multiple people at once, in a romantic way.

Just incidentally, even though you say your wife is your "everything," your libidos are mismatched. While extremely common, this is a difficult problem for many, if not most, monogamous couples. Poly is the perfect solution.

You say she's your everything, and you can be yourself around her. Despite enjoying a closed relationship during NRE, and the excitement of moving in together, having a kid, getting married, now you find something seems missing. Another partner.

One reason your wife might be feeling greysexual, even though she wasn't before, could be the fact that she's a mom now. I assume your daughter is still quite young. Men seem to be able to separate being a dad from being horny horn dogs. Often, it seems, women can lose their sex drive when they are immersed in mothering a very young child. I know I did, while my (ex) husband, father of my kids, was just as horny as ever.

Maybe her sex drive will come back someday if you keep the romance and intimacy alive. Maybe not.

But all that is almost incidental to you wanting to date. Make sure that your wife and child get plenty of attention while you're in NRE with your new interest. No wife wants to feel like they are suddenly chopped liver. And of course, kid's needs come first, always. They didn't ask to be here. You planned to be a dad. Many poly people take a break from dating when kids are quite young.

So, that said, it seems like your wife knew from the start that a) you are polysexual, and b) you are emotional, an empath, and likely to develop feelings for sex partners. Most people, in fact, do develop feelings for sex partners. Swingers and young men seem able to fuck with a minimum of feelings, but it's pretty difficult for many of us to be attracted enough to fuck and not "catch the feels."

I hope that your wife can come to understand this. Polyamory puts the health of individuals first. Our culture would prefer we put a mono marriage, its mere existence, first, personal happiness last. How many people are bending themselves like pretzels to avoid a breakup? Is this healthy or wise? Is it a good example for kids, really?

If you haven't already, read Opening Up, and Sex at Dawn. The first is more of a how to book. The second is a "why" book. Why are humans wired to be polysexual? In a word, because all animals are. It is a sociological and anthropological study of primates, including our ape cousins, and humans, and how our bodies and minds work when it comes to mating.
 
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I was wondering what you meant by this:
We were back to that "sex only" mode. But we also discussed that falling in love could be nice, but that "falling in love" was a different story from "being in love."
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Did you and your wife go back to a open relationship that only allowed for physical relationships? Did you two agree that it would be okay for her if you experienced "crushes" but not pursued relationships? Did you agree that it was okay for both of you to "fall in love" as long as you kept "beeing in love" with each other?
Did you make an agreement that got broken, so that your wife might persive you persuing the relationship with the other woman as cheating or as a threat to her beeing kept in informed consent?

A second observation is that while you mention that you are highly sensitive, but spent very little time pondering on why it might be so important to your wife to hold on on her "illusion of exclusive attachment".
Maybe her changing sexuality and the resulting sexual mismatch between you two has impacted her self-image and -confidence?
Maybe having children has isolated her (only spends time with children and househld) and her end of the relationship is bordering a kinda social dependence?
Maybe she managed to mitigate the monogamous idea that a man committing to her is somehow linked to her ability sexually satify that man - but that has left her vunerable to doubts filling that void? (a la "What else am I offering exactly that he couldn't get anywhere else?" which is of course linked to self-esteem)
Maybe she has uncoupled the idea that sex and love only happen together by defining "sex" as the less meaningful/more compulsive thing and putting love on a pedastal - and now the pedastal is threatened?


Thirdly I think this could be a good starting point:
Even though for me it is all still really really exclusive with her, it is not in her way of thinking. It is hard to talk in the same language about these things, because we feel some things so differently.
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If the problem is the language - find a language. Let her know that she is special and apprecciated for specific "her" things that other people cannot replace. And I don't mean putting her into the "we share a house, we have kids, we are married"-narrative where beeing her partner is a sort of functional necessity. I mean things you value in her as a individual - outside of her role as mother or wife. Basically think of compliments you'd give a new lover, too.
She is funny, smart, courageous, witty, fierce and the strongest person I know.
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What I like with my partner(s) is to be specific: "Your dark humor is so twisted it could be a black hole!"/ "You're so resourceful! You always find these opportunities to make life better!"/ "I admire the way you are unapoliogetically yourself!" - it makes it feel less generic and more honest to me.


I know takes on this vary but I also think it is okay for her to want some form of exclusiveness. Yeah, it's petty to say "This is our restaurant" or "This is our song", but if you are trying to somehow ease her fear of not beeing seen as something special, I feel like it can't hurt to give her something tangible that feels special.
Why not tell her about certain things that are (effectively) hers exclusively? Like your shared home (you don't sound like you are planning to co-habit with your girlfriend), your shared history, inside jokes, family- or couples tradition (like me and Arthur always skip Valentines day but make a lavish British Breakfast the first Saturday after).It might make her feel more "exclusive" in the relationship without beeing sexually/romantically exclusive.
 
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Hello beautiful people of this forum,

thank you for reading my story and answering me with your perspectives. It has helped me a lot to realize something about myself.

I've read all your responses but I fear I cannot answer them all in detail. Instead I'd like to give a little update on what happened the last weeks.

So I finally I had the self-actualization, that I am and always have been poly by character.
So many things in my past now make sense to me. I don't know why it took me thirty years to realize (mostly missing role-models I suppose), but in the end it does not even matter.

After I realized this for myself, I came out to my wife about this.

I told my wife that I am polyamorous. That I do and will continue to love multiple people in my life.
Ever since I've outspoken those words almost all the resistance in our relationship has vanished.
No longer was there any denial on her or my side of the fact. No longer was there a need to change something. There was just acceptance and readjusting to the new situation.
It was of course not in an instant, but over a lot of relationship work in the past weeks. We still manage to readjust, but it has gotten quite easier.
For me, because I know myself now and it all makes a lot of sense to me now.
For her, because she has the feeling she truly knows me and can now support me in my being.

Interestingly she said she "actually" knew this already. Still it made a big difference. As I said the resistance in our relationship dropped.

I always knew I didn't want to replace her in any way, but it didn't make sense to her then that I was so attached and deepening my emotional connection to my other lover.
I always knew she was perfect for me, but it didn't make sense to her that I loved my girlfriend this way. Now that we know I'm polyamorous, this suddenly all makes sense.
I just wrote I knew, but of course I couldn't pinpoint those things either.
Now that we know, we finally found our language together. Now there is expression for what I feel and what she feels.

Once again, thank you all so much for helping to getting to know me.
I can't express how lifechanging this time is for me right now.
It has caused a lot of pain in my past. But right now I actually come to think of it as a gift. It is also one of my special traits and it has been that, but now I can express myself the way it will not hurt the people I love anymore.
 
Hi byte,

It sounds like you have come to a realization that you really needed to come to, and now you know that you are, and have always been, poly. This realization empowers you to freely love, and be loved by, your wife. Now you do not have to make excuses; you can say, "I love multiple people because I am poly." And your wife now knows that you loving multiple people, does not take away from your love for her. This is what poly is.

Thank you for sharing this update with us. I was wondering how (and whether) things were working out for you. As of right now, I consider this a poly success story. Hopefully it will continue to be so!

Regards,
Kevin T.
 
Sounds like you have taken a step toward being more authentically you, and it resulted in better understanding of yourself. And wife also better understanding you. I hope things continue to unfold ok for you both.

Galagirl
 
byte said:
Hello beautiful people of this forum,

thank you for reading my story and answering me with your perspectives. It has helped me a lot to realize something about myself.

I've read all your responses but I fear I cannot answer them all in detail. Instead I'd like to give a little update on what happened the last weeks.

So I finally I had the self-actualization, that I am and always have been poly by character.
So many things in my past now make sense to me. I don't know why it took me thirty years to realize (mostly missing role-models I suppose), but in the end it does not even matter.

After I realized this for myself, I came out to my wife about this.

I told my wife that I am polyamorous. That I do and will continue to love multiple people in my life.
Ever since I've outspoken those words almost all the resistance in our relationship has vanished.
No longer was there any denial on her or my side of the fact. No longer was there a need to change something. There was just acceptance and readjusting to the new situation.
It was of course not in an instant, but over a lot of relationship work in the past weeks. We still manage to readjust, but it has gotten quite easier.
For me, because I know myself now and it all makes a lot of sense to me now.
For her, because she has the feeling she truly knows me and can now support me in my being.

Interestingly she said she "actually" knew this already. Still it made a big difference. As I said the resistance in our relationship dropped.

I always knew I didn't want to replace her in any way, but it didn't make sense to her then that I was so attached and deepening my emotional connection to my other lover.
I always knew she was perfect for me, but it didn't make sense to her that I loved my girlfriend this way. Now that we know I'm polyamorous, this suddenly all makes sense.
I just wrote I knew, but of course I couldn't pinpoint those things either.
Now that we know, we finally found our language together. Now there is expression for what I feel and what she feels.

Once again, thank you all so much for helping to getting to know me.
I can't express how lifechanging this time is for me right now.
It has caused a lot of pain in my past. But right now I actually come to think of it as a gift. It is also one of my special traits and it has been that, but now I can express myself the way it will not hurt the people I love anymore.
Click to expand...

It makes me really happy to read this! Congrats.
 
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