Questioning...

A

AprilArtist

New member
Hello!

I came to this board to try and talk to some folks who are making the poly thing work for them. I am a 43 year old woman who has been married for 20 years. My husband and I have two teenage children and I am working on completing an MFA degree. At the beginning of the summer my husband announced to me that he was in love with one of his coworkers and is now engaged in a poly relationship with her. I feel like I've been in a state of shock over this for the last two months and am only now starting to come out of it. I've threatened to divorce him on several occasions, but the fact of the matter is that I don't want to leave. How do you all make this work? I feel like I'm at fault for him needing someone more than me, especially considering the amount of time and energy that I've been pouring into balancing my degree and work. We tried talking to a therapist and that just lead to more fighting, now we're going to try seeing someone who specializes in "consensual non-monogamous" relationships.

How do you find balance in sharing your partner with someone else, especially since she lives 3.5 hours away, which means that he's spending 2-3 days with her at a time, leaving me to hold down the fort at home, so to speak? It doesn't help that her husband has left her over this and every time I try and talk to her things seem to break down quickly into anger or defensiveness. We had talked about the three of us getting together this week since she is in town, but she wasn't willing. (I have met her, but never as my husband's lover)

Any advice would be welcome. All of my friends just tell me to divorce him and move on.

Thanks!
 
AprilArtist said:
At the beginning of the summer my husband announced to me that he was in love with one of his coworkers and is now engaged in a poly relationship with her.
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You've misspelled "... my husband announced that he was cheating on me and expected me to accept it". Slapping a "poly" label on cheating doesn't make it not cheating.
 
I'm sorry this is happening. :(

Did he obtain your consent and willingness to Open the marriage first? Doesn't sound like it.

So this is a case of him cheating, announcing it, and continuing to cheat. Just that it is in front of your face. Rather than behind your back. And he wants to whitewash it with the "poly brush" and for you to get with the program, stat.

Maybe you don't WANT to get with that program. Since he cheated on his previous monogamous agreements, what makes you think he will honor any new open or poly agreements? :confused: Those models are not magically "cheater proof.":(

All of my friends just tell me to divorce him and move on.
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I would say the same. Because you might eventually be willing to do poly, but maybe not necessarily with THIS particular grouping of dishonest people.

She's not apologizing for being his cheating accomplice and her share of the situation making. He is not apologizing for his share of the situation making either. He also doesn't sound like he's willing to do the work of

http://felislunae.org/relationships-love/coming-clean/

and make repairs to your marriage that he caused.

How do you find balance in sharing your partner with someone else, especially since she lives 3.5 hours away, which means that he's spending 2-3 days with her at a time, leaving me to hold down the fort at home, so to speak?
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You do not "find" balance. You co-create it. If he's shirking duties at home so he can go party with his cheating affair partner? Leaving you to single-mom it?
He's not helping to co-create.

Not being present in his marriage and attending to it? Maybe you just don't want to deal in a half-assed marriage. Or do double work to hold up your end of the stick AND his end.

I suppose you could see the new counselor and ask about cheating repair. But if husband just isn't going to call it what it is? And do the work of repair? Then maybe you decide you want out of this mess and not deal with new shenanigans. It's hurtful enough with just the cheating without adding more shenanigans to it.

You may have to accept there is only so much you can do if he doesn't want to do his share of marriage repair: stay in the yuck or leave the yuck.

Galagirl
 
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As Dan Savage would say,


"DTMFA"*


(Dump the Mother Fucker Already)

This isn't poly. He's got you at home, taking care of all the things that need to be taken care of (kids, household, your DEGREE) while he gets to go bouncing off to the new and shiny.

Next time he goes? Tell him he can stay gone.
 
Frankly, I'm surprised that nobody's popped in here to defend your husband's behavior as "just another flavor of polyamory -- there's no single standard definition, after all." :rolleyes:
AprilArtist said:
now we're going to try seeing someone who specializes in "consensual non-monogamous" relationships.
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I don't see a significant amount of "consensual" going on.

Assuming you can get your "partner" to go at all, I see only two potential outcomes --
  • the therapist decides that you are being unreasonable & not giving polyamory a proper chance to work its healing powers -- such is the risk with specialists
  • the therapist decides your husband really needs to get his shit together, which will not go over well
He seems unable to countenance even the thought that he MIGHT NOT be totally in the right. For me, that alone puts it outside any possible defense of "polyamory."

If you were my friend & asking for advice, I'd say set aside thoughts of divorce for the moment: from this point on, he's a roommate, until such time as he might want to repair that situation OR you file the paperwork.

Focus on your job & on proper completion of your MFA. (Congrats, btw: I gave up on pursuing my MSci Soc when I was 31 & have always kinda regretted it.) Consider your husband a secondary relationship -- amusing under ideal circumstances but not central to your life -- with the primary position(s) momentarily open. Enjoy a semi-single life for a while. Take care of yourself & get things done. If (when!) his fling fizzles, you can get around to deciding whether repair is even worth pursuing.
 
Hi AprilArtist - welcome to the Forum! If the responses are not exactly what you expected, it is because (as has been pointed out already) there was no prior consent on your part prior to his relationship with the other woman. And - "knowledge and consent of all involved" is a defining element of polyamory - so, poly folks will generally object to calling non-consensual non-monogamy "polyamory". As was noted, most would consider it cheating with a poly label slapped on it.

However, despite the dishonest beginnings, it is possible to transition the affair into consensual poly - although that does place an additional burden on the transition. There has been discussion about this before, so you might want to use the search feature in the forum to check for those (there are almost a quarter-million archived posts).

Also, you can post in the "poly relationship corner" for advice on how to transition to polyamory from an affair - that section of the forum tends to be quite active - with the advice of a lot of experienced poly folks.

Best of luck. Al
 
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Greetings AprilArtist,
Welcome to our forum. Please feel free to lurk, browse, etc.

It does concern me that your husband seems to be carrying on with his coworker without your consent. As the others have said, he can't have poly without your consent. Not all cheating is done in secret, this is cheating out in the open. The way the coworker is acting towards you isn't helping. I won't tell you to divorce because I know that's not what you want to do, but I will say that this is largely a problem for your husband to fix, there's not a lot you can do about it. As far as poly in general is concerned, if you'll explore this site and do more posts, you'll gain more knowledge and familiarity with the subject. Which will help you figure out the way forward.

Hang in there; we'll try to help.
Sincerely,
Kevin T., "official greeter" :)

Notes:

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

Please read through the guidelines if you haven't already.

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!
 
Welcome!

Welcome to our Forum! As has been well stated... It's not Polyamory! Just isn't... And don't waste your time trying to shoehorn it into poly....
I feel for you... He cheated.
Find you sweetheart! Live your life... You don't have to divorce today or tomorrow... Just find your direction.. if That means it's easier for you to stay in place for a bit.. Awesome.
I would suggest... To just work on you.. Just like going to school for you.. Same.. Just find you.
There's plenty of real poly folks out in this world that would be honored to show you the fun enjoyable way to poly.
 
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