New to the Poly Life, Please, I need your Advice

L

Lionness

New member
Hi All,

My name is Lionness. I am 31 and before July I was in a happy monogamous relationship with my husband of 3.5 years. He went on a 2 month field study and came back to me claiming he had been thinking about love and life for year. That he had fallen in love with another women, but still loved me and wanted me to be ok with the poly thing.

I was devastated. He fell in love with her shortly after starting out on his field study and waited 2 months to talk to me about it. He said it was because he didn't want to tell me by phone, and that there was little to no reception. He told me that I am his primary concern but how can I be? There are things called land lines! How do you go for 7 years with someone and not communicate the idea of poly with them at all and then expect for them to believe that you have been thinking about it when you come back after being gone for just 2 months And you are in love with another women? How do I not feel devastated?

Am I the crazy one? How is this ok? And he wonders why I have security issues now! How do you trust someone you think was telling you who they were and then they up and change. Please help. I need some advice.
 
Greetings Lionness,
Welcome to our forum. Please feel free to lurk, browse, etc.

I think you will experience many unpleasant feelings due to your husband's behavior; one of those feelings is shock. He should have told you sooner and it does sound like he's making up excuses. One of the most important virtues in healthy polyamory is always telling the truth. If he's serious about polyamory then he needs to learn that virtue.

I wouldn't make any big decisions while you are very upset. Take some time to read and post on this site, see if you can get some questions answered, and perhaps remove some of the mystery from polyamory which is not a well-known model of conducting love relationships. If you understand something and are familiar with it, then you can make a solid decision on whether it's something you want in your life.

Sorry you are going through this right now.
Sincerely,
Kevin T., "official greeter"

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Welcome aboard!
 
Especially from your last paragraph, it shows that you're really distraught and frustrated by the turn of events. You're absolutely not the crazy one for being blindsided by this development. It's not an easy pill to swallow, especially for someone who didn't even know this pill existed. For lack of a more casual way of saying it, you have my condolences for all the chaos this brought to your life.

How is this ok?
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For better or for worse, for ok or not ok, people do change. Life can be overwhelming and crazy that way. No one really signed up for the life they got, but they got it, and sure enough more craziness keeps getting flung their way, and it can be extremely difficult feeling as if within a meteor shower trying to scramble oneself to cope and adapt.

How do I not feel devastated?
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It's not really a topic that can be brought up easily. I doubt many people enter into a monogamous marriage even considering that this kind of change would happen. No one really has a contingency plan for it. And I am sorry that it happened to you in this way that has overwhelmed and upset you.

How do you trust someone you think was telling you who they were and then they up and change.
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Like I said, people do change. However, people changing doesn't necessarily mean your husband deceived you or meant do deceive you. A certain lyric comes to mind: "I'm sorry I wasn't who you thought I was... Fuck it, I'm sorry I wasn't who I thought I was." It can be a difficult reality to face when all you want is security, that people are complicated and change and learn and grow. (Especially young people have a lot more changing to do. Some people have found their niches and know themselves better. Those self-knowing people can come at any age, but I'm sure they're more common older. But I digress...)

In any case, what should you do? This circumstance is certainly not one you signed up for with your marriage. You didn't want this or prepare yourself for this. You have every right to be upset and shocked, and you have every right to communicate your honest feelings to him so he knows where you stand, unhappy with the now. Perhaps your husband will listen to your cries and reclose the marriage for you both, or perhaps he would rather chase the poly path. Either could be a possible outcome for him. You have influence over his choices, but in the end, his choices are his own for himself, just like his feelings are his own to feel, himself. What will you do in reaction to his choices? Maybe you'd like to stay and sort through the difficult slew of new, unexpected emotions and explore the poly side of relationships, or perhaps this just isn't your bag and you want out to heal and try anew. Maybe what you want to do is a little bit of both combined? I can't really say. But I hope whatever you do choose, you stay optimistic and resilient in the face of these difficult times for you.
 
Firstly, Thank you all for your words of advice, your kind words and words that show the reality of the situation.

Thank you for your condolences. It's nice to receive them, as I have not been able to talk to anyone about this before now. I have felt all alone in my situation. And it has been really hard.

People do change, I just wish he had let me in while he was changing. I thought we were closer than that. But he didn't. And it makes me question him now. And I hate feeling insecure about our relationship. I was so sure before.

Now I am questioning everything, which is overwhelming by itself. I just don't know where to start, how to heal so that I can again grow.

We have talked about things extensively, but the insecurity is stronger now than it was when he first told me about being poly. The hurt and the feeling of being overwhelmed is stronger now. Any advice, I don't know how to continue.
 
You don't have to agree to anything happening right now. You can say I accept you and I want to learn more about this and about you before deciding what I want or either of you pursuing another person.
 
It might help to get couples counseling with a poly-friendly therapist. I think you need a chance to express yourself with a competent mediator.

I think you are feeling as if the very earth was pulled out from under you. I don't blame you for being upset.
 
A new possibility

I think I am going through the grieving process now. Grieving what our relationship was, what I thought it was, and what I thought it would become.

I went through a pretty rough period of being shocked, angry, and depressed. I lost 5 lbs in one month and I lost hair. I have never grieved like this before. I am better now though, I have some moments of major insecurities because of how my husband didn't communicate with me. My husband and I have talked a lot about things since the initial discussion. We talked about things we want, things we are not ok with, what we would want in a loving life long relationship, etc.

Recently a guy on a different site contacted me and we have been talking about our experiences with being poly. My husband is aware and perfectly fine with us talking. I am interested in meeting him because we share similar experiences with how we came to learn about being poly. It has been nice to talk to someone who understand what you have been through. And it would be nice to talk in person and not be held back by talking just in email. I am very nervous though, which I think is a bit silly because we could just become good friends, but I guess the uncharted territory of going out with another guy while married is exciting/scary all at the same time. I started talking with him thinking to myself that I would not meet with him at all. But I do want to meet him, though it's hard to see what someone is like just by email. I know my husband would be fine with it, so it's just me being nervous and silly. oh me! I feel like a little school girl again.
 
Sounds like polyamory might have some unexpected benefits. :)
 
Lioness, from the perspective of someone who is poly and has trouble expressing it... It's scary for everyone. Talking about feelings is very hard, and in the sort term it's so much easier to be quiet and suppressive. Sure, it might stress you out, make you feel bad, etc... But it's easier than talking about it which could make your partner insecure in the relationship, break trust, and be a confusing mess. What ends up pushing someone to talking in that sort of situation is usually a breaking point. They have the opportunity to experience something different, to glimpse a light at the end of the tunnel, to love and be loved by someone (possibly only emotionally) and that's such a big deal. It snaps things into perspective and it hurts to go back to being the quiet, demure, repressed person you were. Freedom is delightful and hard to not want very badly. And that desire can come about very, very suddenly.
My partner and I in particular have been having a lot of blue fish tuba moments lately trying to work through my five years of minimally expressed poly. Moments where I try to say something and it just sounds like a garbled mess, or vice versa. It's really hard to express poly ideas and what you want and why to someone. It's a completely different mindset.

Combine that with the idea that poly is frowned upon massively... People crying to therapists about their husbands having "emotional affairs" or girlfriends getting mad at their guys just for being friends with another woman....

It's a scary subject to breach. It's terrifying, in fact, and it's hard to deal with for the poly person as well (who may, honestly, just wanna be normal so things can be easier).

your feelings are totally justified... But I hope you slow down, calm down, and help yourself to understand if Poly is something that could work for you or not. It's OK if it's not. But I hope it gives you a bit of perspective.
 
Lioness

You have every right to be uncomfortable with what was sprung on you. the two of you have a LOT MORE TALKING TO DO.
I would be careful in meeting this other man no matter how exciting it is. Don't be surprised if he just wants to get in your pants, and also don't be surprised if that happens if your husband all of a sudden doesn't think poly is such a great idea.
HE JUMPED THE GUN ON YOU, and seems like with a woman not geographically right where you live. If you two don't really talk this out, what could happen here is you will be involved in a NRE relationship with a local man that you can see all the time and if his LDR does not work out he'll demand monogamy real quick.
This should all be discussed beforehand. Give him the courtesy he did not give you and ask him how silly happy he will be if you come home and tell him you are having sex with this new man.
 
Reply to All

All, I wanted to say thank you all for your advice. I have written a few incorrect statements that I need to correct here. So I also want to apologize, firstly to my husband for the incorrect statements and then to you.

My husband did not fall in love shortly after starting out on his field study. It was not that quickly.

My husband waited to tell me about falling in love with another woman because he knows how low I can get with my thinking and so he waited to talk to me in person so that he could then be there for me, as he knew I would have a hard time with it. Who knows how low I would have gotten if I had heard the news by phone, it could have been really bad for me. So, he did right by me, by waiting to tell me and be there for me. Honestly he didn't do anything wrong- Falling in love with someone is not a bad thing. And that is what happened. He didn't take it any further while he was away.

He had not gone 7 years thinking about polyamory. He actually didn't realize it was a thing until he found he had feelings for another woman while still having his feelings for me.

My husband and I have discussed this forum and it is a helpful resource, but I didn't use it properly and I am sorry. I have moments where I get really low and the facts seem different than what really occurred. I think I might have ptsd from the shock of the new love and what it mean for me. However, I don't want to have an excuse for what I did. I messed up and I am sorry.

The truth is my husband has been there for me over and over again when I get low and question everything about him. This mess up has helped us grow closer and more communicative and has shown me that I hold in more than I should as I have had no one outside of him to talk to. Not that he is enough, but I have trouble communicating things to him sometimes and I am working on that now.

My husband has shown me again and again that he desires open communication and that he is here for me. Things would be very different if he was not.
 
Sounds like things are going better now; I'm glad to hear that.
 
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