The Accidental Homewrecker

dragonette

New member
Hi everyone, I'm dragonette. I'm an early 40s, hetero cis female living in New York City. I was in a monogamous long-term relationship and marriage with a great guy for 11 years (mid-20s to mid-30s). We're still friends.

Since our split, finding people I want to date has been difficult. Finding age-appropriate men who are interested and who don't want to rush into a very serious relationship before we really know each other (in the sense of "I have no social life! Please save me!") has been difficult. I'm independent and value my alone time and time with friends; I'm not going to give it up for someone I've just met.

Although I've never had much interest in dating multiple partners, I have always valued flexibility, freedom and honesty in relationships. So a few years ago, I started exploring the concept of dating someone who was already partnered. A friend told me about the More Than Two website, and I've been reading voraciously about polyamory since then.

And two years ago, I met BF, who was in an open marriage with Wife. BF and Wife at that time had only known each other for 2 years, having been open for at least a year and married for six months. Six months into my relationship with BF, Wife met a poly married man and embarked on a fairly passionate romance with him. I went on a few dates but found that although I like the idea of being able to date, I'm not that motivated to try to make it happen, so I've been voluntarily monogamous with BF.

Fast forward eighteen months, and rather suddenly it seems that BF and Wife's relationship is falling apart. As best I can understand, it seems that Wife always had various doubts about BF's ability to meet her needs, but she married him anyway. Then she met her boyfriend, who met a lot of the needs that BF was not meeting, so she was happy. Now that relationship is on the rocks, she is questioning whether she wants to be poly, but realizing that a lot of her needs aren't going to be met if she stays married to BF and doesn't have outside relationships.

Whatever the cause, from what I'm told she's upset with BF almost all the time now. The level of upset and the suddenness with which she began expressing it have BF feeling confused and terrorized. She has explicitly raised with him the threat of divorce, and he has told me that although he doesn't want to make a rash decision, it's hard for him to see any other outcome here because even if things improve between them, he's going to be afraid of a recurrence, which is going to make it hard for them to move forward together. It's unclear if or when either of them will pull the trigger, but divorce is looking pretty inevitable from where I sit.

It's a bit of a roller coaster ride for me. I have always questioned their compatibility, and now that things are bad between them BF is disclosing more information (about past as well as current events) that makes me question whether BF should stay in this relationship. At the same time, I don't want to encourage him to end his marriage. I'm trying to help BF figure out what he wants, stand up for it, but also make a real effort to reconnect with his wife. But given the dynamic of their relationship, and the relationship between me and Wife, I suspect that if they do get through this rough patch, I may have to end my relationship with BF. So I may seek the advice of the hive on that at some point. For now, I'm just trying to hang on!
 
Welcome!

Welcome to the Forum!
Enjoy the place.
Why wouldn't you be able to continue with your Bf after.?
 
Hi there,

welcome to the forums. Can I ask why you called your thread the accidental homewrecker? I can't see anything in what you've said that indicates you wrecked anything.
 
Greetings dragonette,
Welcome to our forum. Please feel free to lurk, browse, etc.

Sorry to hear you are caught in this difficult situation. I hope Polyamory.com can help. Certainly you should stand up for your own rights in the relationship, and I imagine that you do. Hang in there!

Sincerely,
Kevin T., "official greeter"

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If you have any questions about the board itself, please private-message a mod and they'll do their best to help.

Welcome aboard!
 
Well I certainly wouldn't' call you a homewrecker. Their issues have nothing to do with you. Welcome to the forum regardless!

I would say that whether or not you stay with your BF is something you will have to explore based on your personal needs and boundaries. That's not an easy answer, but its' something that will have to come from within.

I recommend using these forums to help you explore and work out your thoughts though! The members ask some tough questions!
 
Thanks, everyone.

I feel like a homewrecker because I worry that BF put too much of his energy into his relationship with me, and his connection with Wife suffered. (Although it's really on him/them, because they both could have made more of an effort to spend quality time together, and I even told him multiple times that I thought he should be doing that. So I know my guilty feelings are not warranted.) I guess I also worry that my friends, parents etc. will all assume that their marriage is ending because of me, and will think of me as a homewrecker.

I'm trying to postpone making any big decisions for now, and just be as supportive as I can be. We'll see how it goes....
 
I hear you can't help but feel some guilt emotionally, despite your rational understanding that their marriage is in danger of ending not because of you, but because of their deep incompatiblity. Also, the Wife has or had a bf of her own. So who will judge you, if they know the full story? Your bf and his wife are adults and made their own choice to be open as newlyweds. They also made the choice to marry after a fairly short period of time, despite the wife's true feeling that her husband wouldn't be able to meet her needs.

Sounds to me like it's all on them.

Do you feel a desire to step back until they clean up their mess?

Do you feel overwhelmed from constantly counseling your bf about his other relationship?
 
I'm sorry you are struggling.

FWIW, I don't think you are a homewrecker.

  • You are not the one who had doubts about him meeting needs and married him anyway.
  • You are not the one confusing and TERRORIZING him.
  • You are not the one threatening divorce.

Her behaviors are on her.

If BF thinks divorce is inevitable? He doesn't see any other outcome? I would suggest he go file at the courthouse and get it over with rather than keep on being terrorized. That sounds horrible. :(

If you are getting overwhelmed with their problems, it is ok to take a break and say "BF, I feel overwhelmed. It looks like you are heading to divorce. I suggest you and I take a break so you can sort your stuff out. Then after you are on better footing we can try again." If not a total break, then tell him you are getting full and prefer to see him less often so he has the extra time to do divorce work. Like if you used to see him weekly, scale it back to monthly.

If BF needs extra support, encourage him to get a therapist during this rough patch. You cannot be his therapist. If he's dragging you down oversharing stuff? Tell him so. It's ok to listen to some, but if all you can hold is 5 gallon bucket of load, and he's got 100 gallons to dump out? He's gotta spread it around with talking to other people. Not dumping it all on you.

Galagirl
 
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Do you feel a desire to step back until they clean up their mess?

Do you feel overwhelmed from constantly counseling your bf about his other relationship?

Thanks, Magdlyn. I don't feel overwhelmed from counseling BF -- it's the kind of thing I like doing for my friends, and I think I'm helping him a lot because it's hard for him to process his emotions and think about his own needs. Also, by being involved I've been hoping to reduce the chances that they "get through this" without actually resolving some of their fundamental issues, including what their visions are for being poly and having other partners.

At the same time, I am starting to feel like I do need to pull back, because BF seems too distracted to be a good partner right now. For example, even though he knows that I like to have as much advance notice as possible of when he'll be free on weekends, last week he forgot to tell me so I didn't know until the last minute, even though his wife had known for weeks that she was going on an overnight trip Saturday. Then, he started a discussion with her Saturday morning that, if continued to its logical conclusion, probably would have led to them separating. She apparently said "that sucks, but I have to leave for this overnight trip." BF, who has a sensitive stomach, had terrible stomach issues for our entire date, presumably because he was dreading the continuation of that conversation. We went out to dinner Saturday but he was away from the table half the time; Sunday morning he just wanted to whine and sleep.

Meanwhile, there was an issue about whether our date night this week would be tonight or Wednesday. It's usually Tuesday, and I'd made plans for us on that basis, but Wife wanted Wednesday this week. BF agreed to discuss with Wife either her changing her plans or them having different weeknight date nights. He could have raised it with her Friday night (before he initiated the really heavy relationship conversation) but didn't, and apparently didn't raise it Sunday night either (which I understand more because he was feeling sick by then, and basically slept the whole night). I understand that and don't really have an issue with the outcome, but the fact that he had agreed to discuss it, and then changed his mind but didn't tell me that, made me feel like he doesn't care about my needs.

We have those kinds of issues in general, because he's got some ADHD and Asperger's issues, but it seems worse now. And before the current crisis I might have texted Wife directly about the Tuesday/Wednesday thing, but now I feel weird about it -- "Hey, Wife, I know you're probably overwhelmed with your possible divorce right now, but can we discuss a trivial scheduling matter?"

The issues seem so trivial compared to the kind of behavior I read about on this and other sites, but when I can't get quality time with BF I feel disconnected with him, and when he and Wife leave me hanging about scheduling issues I feel disrespected and taken for granted. So I think I am going to take a step back. I'm just not sure what that should look like.
 
Just an update for anyone who is curious -- shortly after writing my last post, I decided that I needed some distance. I told BF that I didn't feel he could be a good partner while there's so much uncertainty and intense relationship discussion in his relationship. I also told him that given the recent dynamic among the three of us, I don't think I would want to continue in our previous dating pattern (one long overnight weekend date plus one short but also overnight weeknight date per week).

I suggested we shift to a pattern of seeing each other once a month. My hope is that this will allow me to get into a mindset of really focusing on myself and seeing time with him as an occasional treat, rather than thinking of him as my "boyfriend" and getting upset when I don't get the kind of time I've gotten used to having with him.

I'm quite nervous about this strategy, though. What I like about our connection is how relaxed and comfortable we are just spending time together. Unlike some other partners I've had in the past, he's not someone who adds a lot to my life via text or other communications between dates. Also, I'm afraid that with all this new free time (in which Wife will be with her boyfriend and he won't be with me), he'll start dating, find a new person, and get sucked into NRE with her, so that even if things calm down between him and Wife, he still won't be able to focus on our relationship.

I'm not sure our connection will survive this lack of interaction, but I still think this was the right decision. The problem before was not that I minded playing therapist to him, but that he'd say things that suggested some kind of change was imminent, and then I'd get no information for a while, and then I'd get an update that made clear that nothing meaningful was happening -- they're not breaking up, nor are they coming up with any kind of strategy for fixing their relationship. They're just constantly discussing how unhappy they are and agonizing about the consequences of staying or going.

Given that I don't feel I can even ask for what I want while this is going on, having him say things that suggest there's an end in sight, and then realizing that's not the case, was extremely upsetting. And of course, I'm upset for him (and her) as well, because as others have said, since they seem to be headed for divorce I think they would both be happier just getting it over with.

Anyway, thanks everyone for the support and guidance. We'll see how this goes.
 
Wow... You just made a tough but ridiculously mature decision. I know this all must hurt and I know you don't want to lose time with him. However, even though I'm new to this I definitely understand what it's like already when you are sacrificing nearly all of your time to be the sounding board for another relationship, rather than focusing on the joy of your own. I think that's a sign that you are exactly the kind of partner that he or anyone else would want to have. In the end, if you don't take care of yourself and your needs, you may not be able to love others at your full potential. Please do keep us posted. I wish you the very best. :)
 
I suggested we shift to a pattern of seeing each other once a month.

I'm not sure our connection will survive this lack of interaction, but I still think this was the right decision

I think it sounds like the best decision at this time. Good for you.

I think BF will either get on with his divorce work or not. And he will either work on things with you or not.

I think a bit of distance will help you assess that more accurately.

Given that I don't feel I can even ask for what I want while this is going on, having him say things that suggest there's an end in sight, and then realizing that's not the case, was extremely upsetting. And of course, I'm upset for him (and her) as well, because as others have said, since they seem to be headed for divorce I think they would both be happier just getting it over with.

And you will be more free of this stuff. If it's still drama with them, getting a monthly update is plenty. You don't need the twice a week play-by-play.

Galagirl
 
Hi dragonette, thanks for that update. I think you made the right choice in stepping back a little. All we can do now is hope that BF and his wife either figure out some way to work things out, or get divorced and get it over with.
 
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