Polyamorous break ups

[Fleur-Du-Mal]

Dear community,

I am living my first polyamorous love story. It has been a lot of emotions. High are highs, lows are lows. Lots of joy, lots of tears…. Only had 2 boyfriends as a teenager and then my hub! So i would say i m really inexperienced…. My current boyfriend and I, have been having a passionate relationship, but with lots of breakups (for less than 24h each….) related to misunderstandings and poor communication. One was over the fact the he could not handle me being married…but he got over it….growing pains…. we cannot stay away from each other and always end up getting back together the next day. It is an emotional rollercoaster…yet i still would not have it any other way….i love him too much. I feel guilty because i do have to vent to my husband a lot about my drama with my boyfriend. I share my concerns/fears/sorrow with my husband and seek his comfort. I sometimes struggle to be in the moment with my husband if I am facing issues with my boyfriend. This brings me guilt but i cannot turn my feelings off like a robot…I was wondering how do you guys do when facing breakups? Do you share feelings with your spouses? How do you heal from a polyamorous breakup ? Any tips? Thanks a lot for your help!

 

[Marcus]

I was wondering how do you guys do when facing breakups? Do you share feelings with your spouses? How do you heal from a polyamorous breakup ? Any tips?

So, if you are "breaking up" and then getting back together the next day, and this is happening multiple times, I would say you need to stop and take a deep breath. It may be that you are diving head-long into something that you don't fully understand, and both you and the new person are emotionally ill equipped to get into something you would consider a relationship.

I would step away from the need to be "in a relationship" with this person (or anyone, for that matter). In stead try to re-frame how you relate to people in a more organic way, and let the association be what it is without lumping labels and the accompanying assumptions onto them. Once I let go of the idea of "boyfriend" and "wife" concepts, it freed me up to have fulfilling relationships that didn't fit neatly into those boxes. Now I can have associations with people that I have the occasional intellectual conversation and then make-out session with in a hot tub, I can have associations with people I live with and confide in and rarely have sex with, and I can have hot passionate sexual associations with people that I also enjoy re-watching episodes of 30 Rock with, and not much else. A "relationship" is just a word to describe that I do certain things with a person, and I have certain feelings about them. No two relationships need to have the same list of criteria.

It may very well be that the two of you are trying to jimmy yourselves into a box that just doesn't fit your personalities and circumstance. Try assessing the association without needing it to look like a particular thing, and see if you can describe what the two of you are actually interested in sharing with one another. Then... that's the relationship.

 

[GalaGirl]

I mean this kindly, ok? You sound pretty deep into NRE. I wonder if it isn't clouding your thinking a bit?

It's ok to enjoy a new relationship unfolding. It's not ok to try to square peg, round hole. Like trying to fly a kite that just won't fly. You can't force things. Maybe it's better to go back to being friends and stop trying to have him be your BF?

How much preparation did you do before starting this polyship? You sound like you struggle with a lot of things. Are you in over your head?

My current boyfriend and I, have been having a passionate relationship, but with lots of breakups (for less than 24h each….) related to misunderstandings and poor communication.

"Loving him" is not a reason to put up with that. That's how kids act. Have some kind of conflict, get mad and go "We aren't friends any more!" and stomp off.

This early on it's supposed to be pink, fluffy lalala clouds of New Relationship Energy. If it's already this hard when it's supposed to be BEST behavior? If it were me I'd be done. Let one of those breaking up times just STAY broken up.

How do you heal from a polyamorous breakup ?

Is that why you ask? You are thinking about letting this go for real rather than ride the "break up / get back together" merry-go-round?

One was over the fact the he could not handle me being married…but he got over it….growing pains….

From your other thread, he is married too. So what's the big deal about you being married also if you are doing poly?

Or is it that he dislikes your DH intruding into this dyad with the STD testing schedule being imposed on him? Rather than letting BF decide when HE is ready to share sex, and when he's ready to go get a health panel, buy some condoms, etc?

It would help if you kept your story in one thread. It's kinda hard to follow in pieces. You might even consider a blog thread.

I feel guilty because i do have to vent to my husband a lot about my drama with my boyfriend.

Why do you have drama with the BF?

And why do you have to vent at DH about it? He isn't the one picking out this BF to date. You are.

Are you whooshing at your DH and that's why you feel guilty?

Is that the core of the problem BF objects to?

You and DH are too "joined at the hip?"

Gonna guess. Maybe I guess wrong. You correct me if I do, ok?

Maybe you and BF fight about that because you go around saying things like "My DH wants me to do this" or "My DH says I have to..."
Rather than you taking personal responsibility and saying "I can't do this or that. I have other commitments to meet with my DH. I could do this instead. Could that work for you?"

Can you hear the difference?

share my concerns/fears/sorrow with my husband and seek his comfort

You know that you can ask for a comforting hug from your husband WITHOUT going into the concerns, fears, sorrow with him? Go do that part with a friend? You could spread the jobs around.

I sometimes struggle to be in the moment with my husband if I am facing issues with my boyfriend. This brings me guilt but i cannot turn my feelings off like a robot…

Why do you have this expectation of yourself? To turn feelings off like a robot?

You don't have to turn off your feelings. Why not have the expectation of "I'm new to poly. I'm struggling right now to learn new skills. I'll do my best and try to be present with the partner I'm with in the moment."

And then you try to be present with DH as best you can. You don't have to fake being happy. You can tell him you are struggling today but trying to be present. But don't overload him and just enjoy spending time together with DH as best you can. Find some balance. Get off the roller coaster.

You might have to learn to do different emotional management, seek other friends and family to talk who are outside the system, develop more realistc expectations of yourself, learn better conflict resolutions, etc.

Because talking to DH about your BF problems and talking to BF about DH problems? They are both IN the system. That's a recipe for making a pressure cooker.

Comfort in, kvetch out.

I was wondering how do you guys do when facing breakups? Do you share feelings with your spouses? How do you heal from a polyamorous breakup ?

Poly break ups aren't special. They are just break ups.

What might be different is that you are totally single after a break up in monogamy. In poly, you might be totally single. You might not be.

I share appropriate feelings with my spouse. But I don't drown him with it.

If I have 100 lbs of feelings? I spread it around. Find 5 people to share 20 lbs with.

I have to think about WHICH people. I'm not going to pick DH if the issue involves him. I'm also not going to pick a friend who just had a baby or death in the family. They have their own stuff going on.

I'll pick friends who are able to take some load. I actually ask them if they have the bandwidth for an unload, and if they say ok, I unload.

Just dumping all 100 lbs on one person from the sky isn't fair. If 100 lbs was too much for ME? I might feel better getting it off me, but then it will be too much for the one person too isn't it? How's that me being a friend to them?

If detangling is the most skipped step in polyamory? I think the 2nd most skipped step is having friends and family you are out to so you have a support network when things go wrong or you need an ear or something.

Spouses are great, but JUST because they are the spouse, doesn't mean they signed up to be the big emotional dumpster al the time. They are people too. And they get to give consent too -- they don't have to be up for everything all the time. They get to say "Look, just because I'm the spouse doesn't mean I have to..." or "Look, just because you are my spouse doesn't mean you get to..."

If it turns out you went in underprepared or this isn't a runner after all or whatever combo of things? It's ok to STOP.

Don't square peg round hole or bang head on wall.

Galagirl

 

[kdt26417]

Hi Fleur-Du-Mal,

My opinion on this aspect of your situation, is that you should not be venting to your husband about the drama with your boyfriend. Instead, I recommend getting a counselor/therapist that you can vent to, and get advice from. And if you can't afford that, and/or can't find a poly-friendly professional, your second-best option would be to vent on this forum, which you've done, but you could go into more detail here.

It does trouble me that you and your boyfriend have had lots of breakups when the two of you have only dated three times so far. Is your boyfriend always the one who initiates these breakups, or do you initiate some of them too? It might be a good idea for both of you to see a counselor. And, as I said, you can also (to some extent) turn to this forum, with more details about why each one of the breakups is happening.

I'm sorry you're having these difficulties.
Sincerely,
Kevin T.

 

[Fleur-Du-Mal]

Hi Fleur-Du-Mal,

My opinion on this aspect of your situation, is that you should not be venting to your husband about the drama with your boyfriend. Instead, I recommend getting a counselor/therapist that you can vent to, and get advice from. And if you can't afford that, and/or can't find a poly-friendly professional, your second-best option would be to vent on this forum, which you've done, but you could go into more detail here.

It does trouble me that you and your boyfriend have had lots of breakups when the two of you have only dated three times so far. Is your boyfriend always the one who initiates these breakups, or do you initiate some of them too? It might be a good idea for both of you to see a counselor. And, as I said, you can also (to some extent) turn to this forum, with more details about why each one of the breakups is happening.

I'm sorry you're having these difficulties.
Sincerely,
Kevin T.

Thank you for your kindness and support. It means a lot. I am not “out of the closet” and my husband is the only one i could talk to before i found this forum. I m also the first one in my marriage to try polyamory. My bf has been romantically chasing me for 6 months when i was monogamous….we were close friends, but despite my feelings for him, i was never able to demonstrate any affection for him, out of respect for my husband (bc we were mono). I have had developed bonds and emotional affairs with other men like that for a couple of years now. I have always been transparent about them with my husband. In August, i could not handle anymore the guilt of loving my friend in addition to loving my husband. I talked to my husband again about it. Told him i m polyamorous….he agreed to open the marriage if my friend would get hiv tested right away, and then std tested tight away…. The rule sounded unnatural, but i went for it. The problem is that my friend has kids and a girlfriend of 9 years that he loves….she would never open the relationship…he loves her but loves me….we could not stay away from each other…. so we are living our relationship in a secretive way. We only communicate through snapchat or see each other at work at the office. No calls. Only snap messages. We see each other at night a couple of times a month….but sometimes things get canceled last minute bc of his kids or change of schedule with his girlfriend. It is not easy…. Snapchat creates a lot of miscommunication…. I wish we could talk in person etc…but he is tracked on his cellphone….and has no privacy.

1st fight: our communication pattern changed through messaging, he would take hours to answer a simple message, would not text me as much, change our ritual”-good morning” or “good night texts “…which got me confused bc texts were our only way of being in touch. Stupid but the change of routine with no explanation was unsettling to me. I thought smtg was wrong. So i asked if everything was ok. I knew he was struggling with health issues so i asked if we should just put our relationship on hold and give it a shot later when he has less things on his plate. He messaged me and asked me to talk about this later … but i misunderstood the text and thought he said he wanted to resume the relationship later. So i said “ok, let’s stop everything here then. I m thankful for what we had etc.” He got super upset! Said that was not what he meant to say, but that now that i said we are done , we are done. I explained i misunderstood him but that we can talk about this. He shut down and refused to talk more that night. The next day, he messaged me and said he missed me. And we resumed everything again.
2) second fight: my husband was out of town when i started my relationship with my bf. After a month, i told my bf my husband was gonna be back. He said that he could not handle having me getting back to my husband after spending time in bed with him, and that we would need to stop everything now. He said he is uncomfortable knowing that my husband knows that he is in a relationship with me… he hated that my husband knew about us. He said we would need to stick to the break up this time….the next day he texted me and we got back together. He actually overcame that issue very quickly and never referred to it again.

3) 3rd fight: my husband wanted me to push for a std test asap. Wanted me and my bf to get tested after a week lol. But my bf does not like people to dictate his life. I talked about std testing with him before. He would say “we will do it one day.” But that bugged me because behind the scene, my husband would ask weekly “have you had him tested?”. Then my husband would get upset when i would say no. My bf and i had a special date planned. I told him i just wanted him to do a home std test first, at the beginning of the date, to get this out of the way. He said “next time.” I got upset….explained to him testing is required from my partners….he remained silent, refuse to get tested on this date, and i canceled the date and ended the relationship. I was transparent about the reasons why. One week later we got back together…not talking about when we would get tested…..

Everything sounds stupid….i think the nain issue if the communication pb with snapchat…

 

[Fleur-Du-Mal]

Thank you for your kindness and support. It means a lot. I am not “out of the closet” and my husband is the only one i could talk to before i found this forum. I m also the first one in my marriage to try polyamory. My bf has been romantically chasing me for 6 months when i was monogamous….we were close friends, but despite my feelings for him, i was never able to demonstrate any affection for him, out of respect for my husband (bc we were mono). I have had developed bonds and emotional affairs with other men like that for a couple of years now. I have always been transparent about them with my husband. In August, i could not handle anymore the guilt of loving my friend in addition to loving my husband. I talked to my husband again about it. Told him i m polyamorous….he agreed to open the marriage if my friend would get hiv tested right away, and then std tested tight away…. The rule sounded unnatural, but i went for it. The problem is that my friend has kids and a girlfriend of 9 years that he loves….she would never open the relationship…he loves her but loves me….we could not stay away from each other…. so we are living our relationship in a secretive way. We only communicate through snapchat or see each other at work at the office. No calls. Only snap messages. We see each other at night a couple of times a month….but sometimes things get canceled last minute bc of his kids or change of schedule with his girlfriend. It is not easy…. Snapchat creates a lot of miscommunication…. I wish we could talk in person etc…but he is tracked on his cellphone….and has no privacy.

1st fight: our communication pattern changed through messaging, he would take hours to answer a simple message, would not text me as much, change our ritual”-good morning” or “good night texts “…which got me confused bc texts were our only way of being in touch. Stupid but the change of routine with no explanation was unsettling to me. I thought smtg was wrong. So i asked if everything was ok. I knew he was struggling with health issues so i asked if we should just put our relationship on hold and give it a shot later when he has less things on his plate. He messaged me and asked me to talk about this later … but i misunderstood the text and thought he said he wanted to resume the relationship later. So i said “ok, let’s stop everything here then. I m thankful for what we had etc.” He got super upset! Said that was not what he meant to say, but that now that i said we are done , we are done. I explained i misunderstood him but that we can talk about this. He shut down and refused to talk more that night. The next day, he messaged me and said he missed me. And we resumed everything again.
2) second fight: my husband was out of town when i started my relationship with my bf. After a month, i told my bf my husband was gonna be back. He said that he could not handle having me getting back to my husband after spending time in bed with him, and that we would need to stop everything now. He said he is uncomfortable knowing that my husband knows that he is in a relationship with me… he hated that my husband knew about us. He said we would need to stick to the break up this time….the next day he texted me and we got back together. He actually overcame that issue very quickly and never referred to it again.

3) 3rd fight: my husband wanted me to push for a std test asap. Wanted me and my bf to get tested after a week lol. But my bf does not like people to dictate his life. I talked about std testing with him before. He would say “we will do it one day.” But that bugged me because behind the scene, my husband would ask weekly “have you had him tested?”. Then my husband would get upset when i would say no. My bf and i had a special date planned. I told him i just wanted him to do a home std test first, at the beginning of the date, to get this out of the way. He said “next time.” I got upset….explained to him testing is required from my partners….he remained silent, refuse to get tested on this date, and i canceled the date and ended the relationship. I was transparent about the reasons why. One week later we got back together…not talking about when we would get tested…..

Everything sounds stupid….i think the nain issue if the communication pb with snapchat…

Oh and as a side note . Our emotional affair was for 5 months, and we have been “dating” for 3 months (3 actual dates only).

 

[Evie]

So you've done the work to open your relationship with your husband, but your boyfriend has not even broached it with his long term girlfriend (live in? Mother of their children?) And he's not going to because she wouldn't agree to polyamory?

This is not going to end well.

(First hand experience, not a saint here. The small mercy was that my crush's partner didn't find out at all before I got sick of his unavailability and he finally got the message that I wasn't just his text based wank fodder.)

 

[MeeraReed]

It sounds like you have a natural inclination toward polyamory and that you could really enjoy being polyamorous...but not with this terrible, dishonest cheater boyfriend.

I am sorry to be blunt. But I don't see any positive qualities in him here. He pursued you when you were mono/married, but now that your marriage is open, he can't handle the idea that you'll still see your husband. He can't handle the quite reasonable request for STI testing. He can't be bothered to be honest with his longtime girlfriend, and would prefer instead to sneak around and communicate over Snapchat, because his girlfriend suspects he's cheating and keeps tabs on his phone.

This is a whole giant field of red flags.

Your husband is being very accepting and patient. He deserves you to date a guy who would be more respectful of him & his requests.

However, many people's first forays into poly dating are similarly disastrous. It doesn't mean there isn't a happy poly life ahead of you.

 

[Marcus]

This is not going to end well.

I appreciate how succinctly and absent of color you made that sum-up. As I was reading the breakdown of this situation, I was coming up with words like "catastrophe", "napalm", "wrecking ball", and "certain destruction".

I am sorry to be blunt. But I don't see any positive qualities in him here. He pursued you when you were mono/married, but now that your marriage is open, he can't handle the idea that you'll still see your husband. He can't handle the quite reasonable request for STI testing. He can't be bothered to be honest with his longtime girlfriend, and would prefer instead to sneak around and communicate over Snapchat, because his girlfriend suspects he's cheating and keeps tabs on his phone.

Certainly the ongoing "emotional affairs" are a good sign that this thing is on fire, but I disagree that there is only one party at fault in the likely demise of this setup.

 

[Fleur-Du-Mal]

I appreciate all feedbacks! I know that i am not perfect! Probably just needed to hear you guys to see my relationship differently.

 

[GalaGirl]

What is your goal? Ethical non-monogamy of some kind? Something else?

Right now this doesn't sound ethical. Sounds like a lot of sneaking around.

To me it sounds like your BF is seeing you behind his GF's back so he's basically cheating on their agreements.

And while your DH knows you see your BF.... does your DH know your BF is cheating on his GF? And that you are basically helping your BF cheat?

Is THAT why the BF doesn't want to do testing? Like if this were all on the level, everyone would just go do their sex health tests. Because it would be open and consenting ethical non-mongamy across adults who are taking their basic health responsibilities seriously.

But if he asks his GF to test, it means revealing that he's been cheating?

Or revealing to you and his GF that he's got some other partner or partner(s) squirreled away somewhere that would have to test?

It's kind of hard to give you suggestions when I'm not sure what the goal is here.

I am concerned you are caught up in NRE with this guy and are letting your soft feelings for him lead you into a mess.

Why are you participating in this?

Your husband is being very accepting and patient. He deserves you to date a guy who would be more respectful of him & his requests.

I would add that YOU deserve to date a person who would be more ethical, respectful of you, and your requests.

Galagirl

 

[Fleur-Du-Mal]

Galagirl, i love your honesty. My goal was initially to explore my feelings for him, and explore being in a relationship with him. I wanted and he wanted to “go for it.” I was ok with work interaction, msgs, and a date once a week. I did not want too much. I liked that balance. Unfortunately things were not as easy. He is unavailable, dates get canceled last minute bc if lack of organization…..he is maybe somehow possessive and stubborn. I feel “stuck” and each break ups hurt me immensely…i struggle to get away from him. My goal by posting here was to have people give me their honest insight to help me open my eyes. Thank you for that

 

[GalaGirl]

Thank you for more info.

My goal was initially to explore my feelings for him, and explore being in a relationship with him.

When you vet potentials? I think you could include the HOW this exploration will be happening. Like...what KIND of a relationship?

• Because exploring feelings for each other? If it is within an ethical, consenting context? That's great.
• If it's you helping him cheat on his other partner(s)? Other hinky business? Not so great.

It's not behavior you can feel proud of. And then you can't hold yourself in good esteem. And then questions start to leak in. Like "If he's ok cheating on his GF with me... is he gonna cheat on me with someone else?"

If someone offers you something like that, you could give it a hard pass.

I wanted and he wanted to “go for it.” I was ok with work interaction, msgs, and a date once a week. I did not want too much. I liked that balance. Unfortunately things were not as easy. He is unavailable, dates get canceled last minute bc if lack of organization…..he is maybe somehow possessive and stubborn.

So even if this WAS ethical, it's just not compatible anyway. It is ok to let it go.

Not everyone you date is going to be a long haul runner.

I feel “stuck” and each break ups hurt me immensely…i struggle to get away from him.

Do you mean you struggle because he's harming you or threatening to harm you in some way? Cuz you mentioned the possessive thing above too.

Or do you mean you struggle because you don't have a lot of dating experiences or break up experiences but want to end this and get away?
If that is the current goal?

In general? No break up is FUN like "Whee! Let's bake cookies!" And yes, there will be a time of sadness. But given time, you will heal and can move on. You aren't really giving yourself enough time to heal if you keep going back in less than 24 hours.

Is it that you need some kind of assessment tool because you are inexperienced and the NRE is clouding the view? I'm sure there were some good points but maybe it's just not enough to keep going.

Here is what I give my kids. If you were to color it green for good and red for not good...what would you end up with? There's two sets of questions at the top of the article and then a third set lower down.

https://www.scarleteen.com/article/relationships/should_i_stay_or_should_i_go

If you ping a lot of reds (and so far it sounds like it does), I think you could tell him it is over, then disconnect him from all your things. Email, social media, delete and block his phone, etc.

Then do your healing work and raise the bar. So when you try to poly date again, you have a higher personal standard for what you will and will not put up with. And can vet your potential partners more carefully.

It's ok to make mistakes as a poly newbie. It's not ok to keep ON making them when you realize things are hinky.

My goal by posting here was to have people give me their honest insight to help me open my eyes. Thank you for that

I hope by talking to other people here you are more able to see that this situation is not not esp healthy sounding for you.

You can't do anything about him and his behavior choices. But if he wants to go around doing hinky things, you don't have to join him in it. YKWIM?

I hope you've gotten the honest insights you were after and they help you make a decision.

Galagirl

 

[kdt26417]

Hi Fleur-Du-Mal,

We've heard a lot of the bad things that your boyfriend has done, a lot of his bad traits. To put that in perspective, could you tell us some of the good things he has done? some of his good traits? In short, what makes you want to keep coming back to him?

I will admit, his way of repeatedly delaying getting tested for STD's makes me worried, it is probably my #1 concern. Followed by the fact that he is keeping this relationship a secret from his other/first girlfriend.

Kind regards,
Kevin T.

 

[Fleur-Du-Mal]

Thanks for taking the time to read me.

My friend has been by my side when i was very depressed. He has been loyal to me and was by my side at the office when people started rumors about me. He would tell me who to watch out for…he has been very protective of me. he would have parties to cheer me up…. In the current relationship, he makes me laugh, pampers me when i see him (massage etc). I love having him as my companion and being in touch with him during the day. When we are together we talk about everything and just click. In person, when we are together, it flows. Communication is easy when we are face to face. He is gentle, caring and funny. It is a real joy when we are together. Also, i feel attractive, funny and special when i m with him because of the way he talks to me. We have common center of interests, the same sense of humor, and similar struggles.

 

[kdt26417]

Hi Fleur, thanks for sharing that. I had a feeling we were missing some part of picture; this fills things in a little. He sounds like a very likable guy, caring and charismatic. The kind of guy who is worth fighting for. I would not give up on your relationship with him just yet.

 

[powerpuffgrl1969]

Be good to yourself and stop participating in an affair. This isn't poly, and he has NO intentions on making this right.

Honestly, what does this say about YOU? Hey, I've been there and got the t-shirt. It took a long time for me to accept blame and become a person who doesn't concern myself only with what benefits me.