I'm sorry you struggle. I hope you feel better for the vent.
We started off as friends but the energy was like no other. He is married with kids 15 years and trying to open the relationship with his wife (she does not know about me)...
To me that would be "Ok. I like you a lot, but I don't like shenanigans. So go finish sorting your stuff at home then. Let me know when you are actually practicing Open/Poly and available for poly dating."
And then I'd back off. Because I don't want to be "the other woman."
Sounds like you let yourself get involved in a cheating affair with this guy and are now trying to figure out what to do. I get that you want to be with him, but you seem to know this isn't great and it's not right for you two to sneak off behind wife's back if he's currently in a CLOSED marriage.
Not trying to be mean, ok? I mean this kindly. But I might say some things you don't want to hear:
Love alone is not enough to make a relationship sustainable.
i know he has to figure out things with her ( and we also know this should of happened 1st then he could of brought someone in slowly)
If you were driving and KNOW you took the wrong fork in the road, you turn around and double back to fix it as soon as possible. Not keep driving on the wrong side hoping it will fit itself by magic or something.
"But I love him!" is not a reason to carry on down the wrong path. I imagine deep down you know that already, or else you wouldn't be posting here.
So I encourage you to STOP sneaking around. Stop sharing sex with him. Tell him no more of that. Turn around and get back on the right path.
Could tell him you expect him to do the work in therapy and tell wife about you and put it all on the table. He had a cheating affair and now realizes he wants open marriage.
- If you both apologize, and wife chooses to forgive both of you and is willing to do open marriage with you in the network? Then this relationship can be clean and on the level.
- Or wife doesn't want to do open marriage? They finish breaking up first. Then this relationship can be clean and on the level.
- He wants to keep going in secret? Tell him "No, thanks" and you dump him. Because that is not on the level. So he can find a new cheating affair partner. It doesn't have to be you. Then you can be free of this stress and worry stuff.
You are worth being treated well and on the level, right? You can do the right thing with or without him and leave this cheating affair thing. Because your consent to participate in things or not belongs to YOU. You get to decide what you will and will not get involved with, and whether or not you keep doing something or not.
I am looking for suggestions that would help both of us be able to enjoy what ever time we can get instead of always talking about what we are worried about.
Well, the time shared would be a lot more enjoyable if it was clean and on the level.
Could stop sneaking around, and give him time and space to sort out his life. Expect him to get himself better together.
Because YOU deserve a better offer than "Come be my cheating affair partner."
Do you not wonder "Well, if he can cheat on agreements with his wife with me... would he cheat on agreements with me with someone else?" Not a great foundation to start a new relationship from.
Where if you stopped? And told him to sort his life? And he followed through? You could think "Ok, we messed up. But I did the right thing and stopped seeing him. He did the right thing and tried to clean up at home first one way or another. So we could restart on better footing."
That might be a better foundation.
But things happened ... we met hung out and fell in love.
Things might happen. But
we get to choose how we behave in response/reaction.
So I encourage you to do the ethical thing and tell him you can't see him any more until he sorts his stuff at home. You no longer want to sneak around, and you want to reduce YOUR stress/worry.
Do you run the risk of the love feelings fading away when apart for a time? Yes. You do.
But if it fades because you were trying to do the right thing? How strong of a love was it anyway? Maybe it was more a passing infatuation and you both got NRE (New Relationship Energy) drunk and made some mistakes. But it's not ok to keep ON making them.
So don't let your soft feelings for him get in the way of your ethics if you what you want is ethical non-monogamy/ethical polyamory.
I believe I have probably always been poly
Then go do poly rather than doing this. There's other poly people in the world to date that don't come with hinky business.
I encourage you to do your soul searching, strengthen your resolve, and then get yourself out of the cheating situation one way or another.
Galagirl