New from NJ

H

Holly

New member
Hi,

My name is Holly and I am 43 years old. I am new to this lifestyle. I have been married to my husband for 12 years and with him for 16. We have been monogamous for 16 years and then this past Sept. decided to swap for a night with a couple I had known for years(ex lover and his partner). I never thought I wanted to do that, my husband was always interested. Surprisngly, it turned me on, we both seemed to end up having a relationship with them, more like a quad, but the man from the other couple got too jealous and could not handle my husband and his long time partner having feelings for each other, when it became more than just sex for them, even though he had feelings for me. During this time I began researching a poly lifestyle and it made sense to me.

Since then, I developed a connection with another male friend of mine and in the mean time, my husband became very interested in flirting and wanting to be with other women, sometimes acting on that behind my back and has since confessed. I prefer openness and honesty and he gets that now, it's the lying that hurts. However, there is a point now we are not on the same page, I am more about a relationship with another person and not sleeping around with many and my husband is more about just sex(like swinging, I guess), because he was hurt when it was cut off with the other girl.

I now have a relationship and my husband does not. He is not 100% on board with this lifestyle and I am. We are seeing a Poly-friendly marriage counselor to help us change our marriage. My husband has gone on dates and had sexual encounters with a woman he has been friends with, but he is not interested in more and is not continuing to see her. He is for now, fine with me continuing my relationship, but goes back and forth on this lifestyle. He loves me, but he may leave me at some point, I understand I am asking a lot, this is not for everyone, but I don't think I can go back to monogamy. My husband does not believe you can love two people, yet he did, when we were with the other couple. I am hoping through counseling, we can stay together and work through this. We have two children, girls, 9 and 11 and I want to shield them from our life style for now, so I joined here to deal with issues like that, jealousy and as much as I am reassuring my husband I still love him so help with that. Being in more than one relationship is hard work too.

My second, is very understanding and does not want my family broken up. He is more evolved to this than my husband. He understands you get different things, needs and joy from different people and bring that happiness home to everyone.

Basically, looking to meet like minded people, get advice on issues we will be facing as we have only been poly few months now and read more about it from people living it.
 
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Welcome! I am sorry you are struggling. I do have a question: you're post reads to me as though your husband is/was sleeping with your marriage counselor. Did I misinterpret that?
 
No we are just seeing one to guide us through this type of marriage. He is not sleeping with her. I see how it reads like that, I meant he has gone on a few dates with another woman, not the marriage counselor. I edited it and fixed it.
 
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Greetings Holly,
Welcome to our forum. Please feel free to lurk, browse, etc.

Hopefully we can be of help for you, you can definitely get advice here and whatnot. Sounds like your husband is struggling to believe that poly is a real thing. I can assure you and him it is, I have lived it myself, and I know many others have. As far as jealousy is concerned, some of these links might help:

Let us discuss the greeneye monster shall we?
How to slay the greeneyed beastie.

How To Contain The Green Monster
Jealousy, Envy, Insecurity, Etc.
How do you achieve compersion?

The Theory of Jealousy Management
The Practice of Jealousy Management

Jealousy and the Poly Family
Kathy Labriola: Unmasking the Green-Eyed Monster
Brené Brown: the Power of Vulnerability

Hope that helps.
Sincerely,
Kevin T., "official greeter" :)

Notes:

There's a *lot* of good info in Golden Nuggets. Have a look!

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Note: You needn't read every reply to your posts, especially if someone posts in a disagreeable way. Given the size and scope of the site it's hard not to run into the occasional disagreeable person. Please contact the mods if you do (or if you see any spam), and you can block the person if you want.

If you have any questions about the board itself, please private-message a mod and they'll do their best to help.

Welcome aboard!
 
Hi Holly. Best of luck working through the difficulties.

Sounds like your husband feeling hurt by having to break away from that other women may be a big part of his current perspective. It was painful losing her, now he's scared he'll lose you! A lot of that will be irrational. For example, saying you can't love more than one person even though he himself has. That's fear talking, imo. Possibly, its too much to cope with the idea you'll like others more than him and is torturing himself with that thinking, so wants to shut off the possiblity of living with sharing you

You have to do your best to communicate, be compassionate and patient with him. However, quite a lot of how things will go depends upon him and he has the harder inner journey to make. You can only do so much.
 
Thank you for the links.


Halcyeus-I agree, he is very hurt about losing this other woman and he is only now letting on how much. We meet with the counselor tonight, so I am going to bring this up, because I think it is important in moving further that he deals with this so he isn;t irrational.
 
Re:
"We meet with the counselor tonight, so I am going to bring this up ..."
Click to expand...

That sounds good; let us know how the session goes if you're willing.
 
The session seemed to go very well Thursday. My husband opened up a lot. The therapist explained how you could love two people and how they bring you different joy and that is doesn't take away from the other person.

He seemed to get it...then Friday my husband and I had a wonderful night together, so I thought. He even changed a rule and said I could have sleepover Sat. night and assured me he'd be fine. Then after he went to bed for an hour he woke up and was back down, ready to leave me. By Saturday morning he was apologizing and insisting he was fine again, this is a process for him. I keep reassuring him of my love.

He actually ran into my secondary and all was good between them. So he def. was better.

I did stay over, I made sure to text my husband and tell him I was thinking about him, I think he needs this right now. He was fine this morning when I got home. So just getting him adjusted to this new way of life and through his ups and downs and if he can't do it, he can't and I will accept that.
 
Sounds like a bumpy ride so far. Hang in there.
 
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