illuminarme
New member
Hello! I'd really appreciate some perspective on a situation that I'm in.
I have been dating this partner for 16 months; we became anchor partners in September of 2022. He is in a long-term marriage of 18 years with two kids that I love dearly. To start his wife and tried to build a relationship, but she did some incredibly harmful and triggering things (repeatedly talking crap about my partner to me without informing him of the concerns after I set the boundary to not do this multiple times, etc.) and I had to set up some major no contact boundaries. This was in March of 2022. Since then, my partner and I have done really well with the no contact, but I've been struggling with the idea of not being at important things for the kids (e.g., sports games, holidays) and also feeling like I'm constantly running away from this partner and that she's controlling my time when I'm at his place since we can't safely be in proximity.
I've also be told about many harmful things his wife has done to him and, I know, I know, not my circus, not my monkeys, but it's really hard to think about his safety in that relationship. He's actually waffling in leaving the nesting relationship, deescalating it from anchor to specifically a nesting relationship. We tiptoe around what shared time with the other partner might be like (e.g., me coming to a kid's game), but then he struggles to talk about it and I'm struggling with the idea of that she has taken no accountability for doing really shitty stuff in front of the kids and worrying about this happening again and more harm coming my way.
This partner and I have a really magical relationship in so many ways; we share love languages and have so much fun together. We have similar interests and have similar long-term goals personally. We also built a lot of long-term goals based on this early in our relationship (e.g., RV life, buying a vacation property together, huge travel plans, supporting each other with work around our respective properties). When we're on, this feels like the most wonderful relationship I've ever had.
And then after my boundary setting, it seems like he recognized that we can't do many of these things and grieved this process much sooner than I did, but I'm still working with the grief. I'm struggling to stay present in our relationship now that he's told me that this process of not living together could be several years or more. He's let me know he's not the place for the grief that I'm experiencing, so I'm having to reduce our time together to take care of myself, which is also very triggering to both of us...
I'm feeling like I was led into creating a lovely future for our relationship that I really wanted specifically with this partner and having feelings of this being taken away from me and it really hurts. I'm not trying to rush what is a very complicated process for him with his nesting relationship and still it acts like such an obstructive pillar in my functioning in our relationship...
It seems like my options are:
I have been dating this partner for 16 months; we became anchor partners in September of 2022. He is in a long-term marriage of 18 years with two kids that I love dearly. To start his wife and tried to build a relationship, but she did some incredibly harmful and triggering things (repeatedly talking crap about my partner to me without informing him of the concerns after I set the boundary to not do this multiple times, etc.) and I had to set up some major no contact boundaries. This was in March of 2022. Since then, my partner and I have done really well with the no contact, but I've been struggling with the idea of not being at important things for the kids (e.g., sports games, holidays) and also feeling like I'm constantly running away from this partner and that she's controlling my time when I'm at his place since we can't safely be in proximity.
I've also be told about many harmful things his wife has done to him and, I know, I know, not my circus, not my monkeys, but it's really hard to think about his safety in that relationship. He's actually waffling in leaving the nesting relationship, deescalating it from anchor to specifically a nesting relationship. We tiptoe around what shared time with the other partner might be like (e.g., me coming to a kid's game), but then he struggles to talk about it and I'm struggling with the idea of that she has taken no accountability for doing really shitty stuff in front of the kids and worrying about this happening again and more harm coming my way.
This partner and I have a really magical relationship in so many ways; we share love languages and have so much fun together. We have similar interests and have similar long-term goals personally. We also built a lot of long-term goals based on this early in our relationship (e.g., RV life, buying a vacation property together, huge travel plans, supporting each other with work around our respective properties). When we're on, this feels like the most wonderful relationship I've ever had.
And then after my boundary setting, it seems like he recognized that we can't do many of these things and grieved this process much sooner than I did, but I'm still working with the grief. I'm struggling to stay present in our relationship now that he's told me that this process of not living together could be several years or more. He's let me know he's not the place for the grief that I'm experiencing, so I'm having to reduce our time together to take care of myself, which is also very triggering to both of us...
I'm feeling like I was led into creating a lovely future for our relationship that I really wanted specifically with this partner and having feelings of this being taken away from me and it really hurts. I'm not trying to rush what is a very complicated process for him with his nesting relationship and still it acts like such an obstructive pillar in my functioning in our relationship...
It seems like my options are:
- Cut my losses and run because this is too difficult to get through emotionally right now or
- Work on processing grief and re-establishing new normal in current relationship, working with obstructions.