SimpleSimian
New member
I'm 22. I'm married. No kids. I'm male.
So my SO and I met in our martial arts classes. We knew each other casually for a couple months before we started going out. We were really attracted to one another and it was blindingly obvious, so it was only a matter of time.
21 March 2009 - we started dating
June/July 2009 - I moved in with her
10 August 2009 - We got married
The whole relationship moved at light-speed, compared to what I was used to, but I really don't regret anything. I am happier than I have been in what I can remember of my life.
I married her knowing she was polyamorous, but not really *knowing* what it meant, and never expecting it to come up. For me, marriage is a huge deal. I didn't want to get married at first because of how huge a deal it was to me. I eased into the idea, we had a quiet, small marriage, and we've had a great life with one another, adjusting to one another, growing, learning, evolving, being in love, being best friends, dreaming about and loosely planning our future together.
We grow together, and we start seriously building our lives. After a bout with unemployment, the two of us manage to find pretty decent jobs. She's going to school part-time (moving to full-time), and working in a kitchen, and I'm working full-time as tech support at the company I used to work for before. Together we make enough that we can afford to take our next step: moving into the city together in a new, bigger, better apartment.
While she's in school, she's shy. After much encouraging to start making friends, she slowly becomes comfortable with the idea, and she starts making new friends at school. One of these friends is a great guy who is in her kitchen classes with her. He shares a sense of humour and everything with her, and the two of them get along great. She talks about him all the time.
I meet him. He's really cool. I'm glad she has such cool friends.
Slowly, I start to realise she's in love with him. Even more slowly, I start to realise he loves her too.
He has a girlfriend (she's nice, I'm sure, but I don't get to see the nice side, only the results of fights between her and her boyfriend). They're stuck in a lease together. It seems to me like she's controlling; if she thinks he might be hanging out with my wife, even if I'm there, too, she's jealous as fuck, gets pissed off, and sometimes drops class at her school to make him stay with her instead of going out with his friends. From what I understand, they don't exactly have a stellar home life, either. I'm sure their situation reflects my situation very strongly, and I'm sure she's just stuck in a similar situation to me and unsure of what to do about it. And maybe less willing to change to allow it to continue instead of trying to stop it.
So anyway, my wife meets this really great guy and they fall in love and they're great friends. I have friends like that too. Only one or two to that extent, where I really do love them romantically, but I have them. I'm very happy for her, actually. I'm so glad she has friends who she cares about THAT much, to which point she is able to fall in love with them. It makes me so happy to see them together.
But it also makes me jealous.
Back to the story: so after several things I won't post here (they're private, and in my previous incarnation of this post, they were here, but they are irrelevant to this situation, so I got rid of them), I ended up broaching the topic to my wife. She didn't even realise she loved him, because we're crazy and blissfully ignorant and dense like that. Seeing her come to terms with loving him is kinda cute, because she's all head-over-heels with him and stuff, and it makes me feel good to see her like that, even if it's not about me.
But getting in the way of the joy I feel for her is my jealousy. First I was afraid she would end up leaving me for him. That is, after all, how my last long-term relationship ended. My ex left me for another man after becoming his friend and watching it grow into more than just friendship. As a result, I have serious trust issues. My wife may tell me a million times that she won't leave me, and I might start to believe it. As I have. But that doesn't help me not feel insecure about this.
The feelings I have are so distracting that I almost killed myself yesterday on the way home from work because I ran a red light. I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I didn't even see the physical traffic light. Not just the colour, but the whole thing was gone.
She and I already talked about my fears of her leaving me, and gradually, they faded. Now I'm jealous that she has sexual feelings that she seems to want to go to any end to express.
I understand loving somebody and having sexual feelings for them. I have a close friend like that, too. But I could/would never ever actually go through with it. I can't. It's like it's contrary to my very nature. Instead, I take those sexual feelings, detach the emotion from them, and kind of re-route them back into my core sexuality. I don't really know what else goes on inside my head with them, but that's the basics of it. I detach it and turn it around to be put to good use in something legitimate and ok with me.
So right now, we don't really know if this guy my wife loves is bisexual or polyamorous. I can't deal with that. Not knowing is killing me. The possibility that my wife would still have a relationship with this guy, but have to keep it separate from me is not ok with me. I wouldn't do the same thing. I asked my wife if she would be okay with me having a relationship with another woman who was not polyamorous and who was not bisexual, and she said no. So if she's not okay with it, why should I be?
Question: am I justified in expecting her to behave like I would in this situation? If he turns out to be 100% heterosexual and not polyamorous, is it ok for me to be upset? I don't want my wife having a second relationship, I want her to bring this all together into one big relationship.
I am at the point where I would do anything to get this resolved. I want to arrange a meeting and talk things out, the three of us, and come to a resolution of sorts. It really doesn't help that he went out-of-state this weekend to visit his hometown, besides the fact that his girlfriend wouldn't have let him go out anyway.
So I've accepted that my wife is polyamorous. I think I'm coming to terms with it, and I think I can be okay with it, so long as I'm involved. I don't think I will be able to stay sane in this relationship if this continues like this, especially not if it ends up being a second relationship thing, rather than a three-party relationship. If he's not bisexual, or at least polyamorous, I don't think I can be just the guy my wife comes home to. I want her body and her mind, but I know I can't have those, even though I do my best to give her mine. I wrap myself up in her and focus on her and keep my sexuality pointed at pleasing her (and therefore pleasing myself), but if she's going to split herself, then I'm only getting half of her. And this other guy might be getting a bigger half. And I'm not ok with that. I'm so jealous.
I'm not okay with being jealous. I want to be open to it all and just let it happen. I want to relax and just be happy. I need help.
I married a kitchen people. Apparently this kind of shit (kitchen affairs) is really common. Working in close quarters with a person has a way of creating tons of sexual tension, and instead of just holding on to it and bringing it home to their husbands/wives/boyfriends/girlfriends and unleashing it in a hot, sweaty night of brilliant mind-blowing sex, they unleash it on one another, in the kitchen, in a hot, sweaty night of brilliant mind-blowing sex, and then go home to their normal lives, living a second life in the kitchen, and not sharing their whole self with the person they love at home.
I need help.
So simple facts to break this down:
I love my wife.
My wife loves me.
My wife also loves another guy.
My wife wants to share her sexuality with another guy.
I want to be understanding and open, but I'm finding it very difficult.
Questions:
What can I do to be okay with this? I just want to let go and be ok.
What other questions should I be asking? I need help, I typed out everything once already, and then the post got deleted before it even got posted due to an error in my browser. I'm so drained at this point from unleashing my soul on the internet, that I don't even remember what I need to ask anymore. Please just help. I'm desperate to make the woman I love happy, but I'd prefer not at the expense of my sanity.
Thank you.
Best Regards,
SimpleSimian
P.S. - I told my wife about this post and where to find it, in the interest of being 100% open with her. She's ok with me posting about this, but afraid that people will judge her negatively. As far as I know, I have already talked about all of this with her, but at times, both she and I tend to accidentally tune things out when we can't deal with them anymore, so some of the details might have been missed. Since you'll be reading this: I love you.
So my SO and I met in our martial arts classes. We knew each other casually for a couple months before we started going out. We were really attracted to one another and it was blindingly obvious, so it was only a matter of time.
21 March 2009 - we started dating
June/July 2009 - I moved in with her
10 August 2009 - We got married
The whole relationship moved at light-speed, compared to what I was used to, but I really don't regret anything. I am happier than I have been in what I can remember of my life.
I married her knowing she was polyamorous, but not really *knowing* what it meant, and never expecting it to come up. For me, marriage is a huge deal. I didn't want to get married at first because of how huge a deal it was to me. I eased into the idea, we had a quiet, small marriage, and we've had a great life with one another, adjusting to one another, growing, learning, evolving, being in love, being best friends, dreaming about and loosely planning our future together.
We grow together, and we start seriously building our lives. After a bout with unemployment, the two of us manage to find pretty decent jobs. She's going to school part-time (moving to full-time), and working in a kitchen, and I'm working full-time as tech support at the company I used to work for before. Together we make enough that we can afford to take our next step: moving into the city together in a new, bigger, better apartment.
While she's in school, she's shy. After much encouraging to start making friends, she slowly becomes comfortable with the idea, and she starts making new friends at school. One of these friends is a great guy who is in her kitchen classes with her. He shares a sense of humour and everything with her, and the two of them get along great. She talks about him all the time.
I meet him. He's really cool. I'm glad she has such cool friends.
Slowly, I start to realise she's in love with him. Even more slowly, I start to realise he loves her too.
He has a girlfriend (she's nice, I'm sure, but I don't get to see the nice side, only the results of fights between her and her boyfriend). They're stuck in a lease together. It seems to me like she's controlling; if she thinks he might be hanging out with my wife, even if I'm there, too, she's jealous as fuck, gets pissed off, and sometimes drops class at her school to make him stay with her instead of going out with his friends. From what I understand, they don't exactly have a stellar home life, either. I'm sure their situation reflects my situation very strongly, and I'm sure she's just stuck in a similar situation to me and unsure of what to do about it. And maybe less willing to change to allow it to continue instead of trying to stop it.
So anyway, my wife meets this really great guy and they fall in love and they're great friends. I have friends like that too. Only one or two to that extent, where I really do love them romantically, but I have them. I'm very happy for her, actually. I'm so glad she has friends who she cares about THAT much, to which point she is able to fall in love with them. It makes me so happy to see them together.
But it also makes me jealous.
Back to the story: so after several things I won't post here (they're private, and in my previous incarnation of this post, they were here, but they are irrelevant to this situation, so I got rid of them), I ended up broaching the topic to my wife. She didn't even realise she loved him, because we're crazy and blissfully ignorant and dense like that. Seeing her come to terms with loving him is kinda cute, because she's all head-over-heels with him and stuff, and it makes me feel good to see her like that, even if it's not about me.
But getting in the way of the joy I feel for her is my jealousy. First I was afraid she would end up leaving me for him. That is, after all, how my last long-term relationship ended. My ex left me for another man after becoming his friend and watching it grow into more than just friendship. As a result, I have serious trust issues. My wife may tell me a million times that she won't leave me, and I might start to believe it. As I have. But that doesn't help me not feel insecure about this.
The feelings I have are so distracting that I almost killed myself yesterday on the way home from work because I ran a red light. I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I didn't even see the physical traffic light. Not just the colour, but the whole thing was gone.
She and I already talked about my fears of her leaving me, and gradually, they faded. Now I'm jealous that she has sexual feelings that she seems to want to go to any end to express.
I understand loving somebody and having sexual feelings for them. I have a close friend like that, too. But I could/would never ever actually go through with it. I can't. It's like it's contrary to my very nature. Instead, I take those sexual feelings, detach the emotion from them, and kind of re-route them back into my core sexuality. I don't really know what else goes on inside my head with them, but that's the basics of it. I detach it and turn it around to be put to good use in something legitimate and ok with me.
So right now, we don't really know if this guy my wife loves is bisexual or polyamorous. I can't deal with that. Not knowing is killing me. The possibility that my wife would still have a relationship with this guy, but have to keep it separate from me is not ok with me. I wouldn't do the same thing. I asked my wife if she would be okay with me having a relationship with another woman who was not polyamorous and who was not bisexual, and she said no. So if she's not okay with it, why should I be?
Question: am I justified in expecting her to behave like I would in this situation? If he turns out to be 100% heterosexual and not polyamorous, is it ok for me to be upset? I don't want my wife having a second relationship, I want her to bring this all together into one big relationship.
I am at the point where I would do anything to get this resolved. I want to arrange a meeting and talk things out, the three of us, and come to a resolution of sorts. It really doesn't help that he went out-of-state this weekend to visit his hometown, besides the fact that his girlfriend wouldn't have let him go out anyway.
So I've accepted that my wife is polyamorous. I think I'm coming to terms with it, and I think I can be okay with it, so long as I'm involved. I don't think I will be able to stay sane in this relationship if this continues like this, especially not if it ends up being a second relationship thing, rather than a three-party relationship. If he's not bisexual, or at least polyamorous, I don't think I can be just the guy my wife comes home to. I want her body and her mind, but I know I can't have those, even though I do my best to give her mine. I wrap myself up in her and focus on her and keep my sexuality pointed at pleasing her (and therefore pleasing myself), but if she's going to split herself, then I'm only getting half of her. And this other guy might be getting a bigger half. And I'm not ok with that. I'm so jealous.
I'm not okay with being jealous. I want to be open to it all and just let it happen. I want to relax and just be happy. I need help.
I married a kitchen people. Apparently this kind of shit (kitchen affairs) is really common. Working in close quarters with a person has a way of creating tons of sexual tension, and instead of just holding on to it and bringing it home to their husbands/wives/boyfriends/girlfriends and unleashing it in a hot, sweaty night of brilliant mind-blowing sex, they unleash it on one another, in the kitchen, in a hot, sweaty night of brilliant mind-blowing sex, and then go home to their normal lives, living a second life in the kitchen, and not sharing their whole self with the person they love at home.
I need help.
So simple facts to break this down:
I love my wife.
My wife loves me.
My wife also loves another guy.
My wife wants to share her sexuality with another guy.
I want to be understanding and open, but I'm finding it very difficult.
Questions:
What can I do to be okay with this? I just want to let go and be ok.
What other questions should I be asking? I need help, I typed out everything once already, and then the post got deleted before it even got posted due to an error in my browser. I'm so drained at this point from unleashing my soul on the internet, that I don't even remember what I need to ask anymore. Please just help. I'm desperate to make the woman I love happy, but I'd prefer not at the expense of my sanity.
Thank you.
Best Regards,
SimpleSimian
P.S. - I told my wife about this post and where to find it, in the interest of being 100% open with her. She's ok with me posting about this, but afraid that people will judge her negatively. As far as I know, I have already talked about all of this with her, but at times, both she and I tend to accidentally tune things out when we can't deal with them anymore, so some of the details might have been missed. Since you'll be reading this: I love you.
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