The pace of the one who is struggling most

[Sonic]

I don't really think I was at fault, NovemberRain, but my husband sure wants me to think so. Apparently he thinks I should have wanted to dance the last 15 minutes before midnight with him, and the fact that I hadn't looked around to see if he was in the room yet before I asked Colin to dance was a sign I really don't care about him. He seems to think the room was full of couples seeking out their sweethearts at two dances before midnight, and I was the only wife in the room who wasn't bothering to look for her husband.

I keep saying, "I can't meet your expectations if I don't know what they are," and he keeps saying, "Any reasonable person would have understood that we should be together for the 15 minutes before midnight."

Oh, this sounds so familiar. I'm sorry you are struggling with the same problems I have.

One thing that helped in my situation (at least a bit), was figuring out our different languages of love. http://www.5lovelanguages.com/learn-the-languages/the-five-love-languages/

Sorry, I haven't read the whole topic, so I don't know if this has been discussed before.

In any case, if you speak different love languages, you can do as much as ever to make your husband feel special, and yet he might not, if you aren't speaking the same language.

Like, I like receiving gifts, but he couldn't care less. So I could shower him with gifts and it wouldn't help one bit. However, he likes quality time, so I can give him this and make him feel valued.

Maybe opening the discussion about this would make him realize that you are not willingly neglecting him?

 

[dingedheart]

Sounds like a great event. Sorry about the ending. I know nothing of the dance world. Is it normal to have several floors going at once? I assume each floor had a theme or music style. Was it common for him to go to that style and you to go to where you spent the night, or was he trying to avoid seeing you with Colin? Is it possible that he popped in from time to time, and every time he did he saw the two of you together, just by coincidence? I picture this like a large hotel, with ballrooms across the hall from one another. Did you ever seek him out during the evening to dance with him, or go check in with him, outside of asking him to come find you just before midnight to catch the last dance and the kiss?

The 11:45 argument sounds a lot like PMS... just emotions spilling out. Men have to learn early on that those types of outbursts are going to happen. They're not going to make sense a percentage of the time. I'd look at it like that and forget it.

 

[AnotherConfused]

We hashed this all out for several hours yesterday. Why does love have to complicate things so much? It seems like he was living in another world that night at the dance, interpreting all sorts of things in the worst possible light, so that missing that second-to-last dance with me seemed like the final slap in his face.

For example, he determined that my smile was brighter when I danced with Colin than when I danced with him. I went upstairs to dance with him a few times, but instead of his usual style of dancing with me, which is close, eye to eye, and communicative, he was trying all these flashy steps and huge movements, spinning me round and round in a really packed crowd, apparently because someone had told him he was a good dancer, and someone else had told him she liked his energy, and someone else had told him the correct frame involved looking beyond your partner's shoulder (rather than in your wife's eyes?). So I came along and asked him not to spin so much, it was making me nauseous, and that I couldn't follow his random footwork, and some other comments along those lines, and totally offended him. He figured I like dancing with everyone else but him. (I also asked Colin to spin me less, when I started to get nauseous at one point with him.)

Apparently he also happened to be in the main hall for all 3 times I danced with Colin, which led him to the conclusion I'd been dancing with him all night. (He did know I had only danced once with him in the whole first half of the night, though, so it was still not a logical conclusion, if you ask me.) He concluded from my asking Colin for the second-to-last dance before midnight, that Colin and I had prearranged that so we could be together as close to midnight as possible, and he concluded from the post-dance hug (something I do with most partners, something very common in this crowd) that C and I were kissing. I have explicitly promised not to kiss C in public.

When I left our argument after midnight and went to chat with other people, he concluded that I was saying bad things about him. When I went alone to get my coat and street shoes after the dance, and he later found his coat on the floor, he concluded I had dumped his coat on the floor on purpose. It just seems like I could do no right, and was guilty of all sorts of imagined wrongs.

On the plus side, he had very good things to say about the experience of Luke's party a couple of weeks back, in contrast. He thought that Luke showed a lot of integrity in his interactions with him and me that night. We had gone to great pains to make sure we barely spoke to each other that night, and to only dance together once. I guess in the future that's what I'll need to do with Colin, treat him with more distance than I normally would, if my husband is present. Lesson learned.

 

[AnnabelMore]

So, does he at least understand that he was being irrational?

 

[AnotherConfused]

So, does he at least understand that he was being irrational?

No. He concedes that he jumped to some wrong conclusions, but thinks he was using sound logic to reach them. And he still thinks I was very much in the wrong for not looking for him for that dance. Bottom line, I guess he doesn't feel like I want to be with him as much as he wants to be with me. And right now, I don't. But when we're not fighting I do, and I don't know how to show it any better than I have been.

 

[Phy]

Sorry to say this, but it sounds like the wrong person learned the wrong lesson here. This is really a case of perseverating that goes in a completely unhealthy direction. He needs to wake up before he pushes you too far away with this behavior.

And you shouldn't support this development by yielding under the pressure he is putting onto you. If there is any chance for him to see what is going on here, it will be by your unwavering refusal to take the blame and make him search for a more appropriate explanation for what went wrong. When you buckle, he doesn't have a reason to waste any thought on the matter, now or in the future.

I know that this is easier said than done. I am sorry that this situation is so unpleasant, but I see a certain danger of this developing into a pattern that will ruin your relationship in the long run.

 

[SNeacail]

At such events, where my husband and I tend to separate and go our own ways, I go out of my way to schedule ahead of time, regular times to check in with each other (at least once an hour). I'm the one that will get paranoid, or will find a corner to brood in and feel neglected, if I don't take a few minutes every so often to at least talk to my husband.

 

[dingedheart]

Where did she buckle? By having that extra dance she had planned with C, I don't think she admitted wrongdoing at all.

Who knows how long he watched them dance, talk together, exchange looks? And then a different energy (possibly just in his mind) occurred when they were together. Here's where you could get into obligatory actions. Or that feeling. And then the spiral starts.

Are these dance events usually set up with multi floors going at once? Did he do what he'd normally do in terms of music and style. Did you? Did you years ago split up at these things?

 

[IndieSolo]

Are these dance events usually set up with multi floors going at once? Did he do what he'd normally do in terms of music and style? Did you? Did you years ago split up at these things?

Partner dancing is like a subculture with its own set of norms. To me, how they went about it that night sounds quite common for that activity.

 

[Magdlyn]

Wow. I am sorry, but all these accusations are horrible and triggering for me, because my ex used to be the same way. And we weren't poly. His low self esteem led him to all kinds of similar paranoid conclusions. Your smile was brighter? You let Colin spin you more? You must've been talking about him after your argument? You must've thrown his coat on the floor???

Paranoid BS. He is projecting his worst fears of being replaced onto you, imagining you as this vindictive hyper-sexual devious monster, who must be laughing at him behind his back.

Seriously, this man seems way too strange and jealous to ever be comfortable with you AROUND other men, period, much less having any very limited sexual contact with any. Dancing itself is too much for him.

I'd say you being poly while married to him is a lost cause. No wonder you're pissed and don't want to talk to him.

 

[IndieSolo]

Seriously, this man seems way too strange and jealous to ever be comfortable with you AROUND other men, period, much less having any very limited sexual contact with any. Dancing itself is too much for him.

I'd say you being poly while married to him is a lost cause. No wonder you're pissed and don't want to talk to him.

I think he would be okay with her dancing with other men, if they were not the men that she specifically asked for permission to have more than a friendship with. It seems to me that that knowledge about whom she was dancing with is what fueled his paranoia.

And that, AC, is very revealing about his true feelings regarding your friendships with your "other men." I think that, even though he has "allowed" you to have greater intimacy with your male friends, there is a disdain he holds about it, and quite probably a sense that you are basically a bad person, dirty, flawed beyond reason, and a terrible wife, for wanting someone other than him in an intimate way. He will always hold this deep-seated resentment and judgment about you, no matter how much love and attention you give him and your children. That's how I see it.

When couples open up their relationships to poly, there are inevitable hurdles to get past in all of them. So don't get discouraged or think that you failed. You didn't marry a bad man. I am certain he is a good person in many, many ways and you love him. However, you married a deeply prejudiced, sexist man, ingrained in his cultural upbringing to such a degree, that I don't think he will ever get past it it enough for you to be happy or fulfilled within his parameters. He will always be disappointed and view a part of you, your poly-ness, with disgust. Can you live with that?

 

[AnotherConfused]

The weird thing is, my husband is usually not a jealous person at all. Most weeks I go out dancing 2 or 3 nights without him, and he babysits the kids. He didn't mind my going to a weekend dance camp with Colin in September, and he mostly didn't mind my spending a recent Saturday with Luke. He doesn't at all mind when Colin comes to town and we hang out during the day, when my husband is at work and the kids are at school, because he doesn't feel like I am neglecting anyone.

New Year's Eve was just out of the blue strange. It didn't seem like the same guy I married. He didn't act like usual, dance like usual... I like the PMS thought, dingedheart. Maybe it was just a bad mood. He had been sick for a couple of days beforehand.

The multiple-level dance thing was just for the holiday, so we didn't have any explicit agreement for how to handle that as a couple. I mostly wanted the type of dancing on the main floor, while he wasn't feeling 100% after being sick, so he spent more time upstairs, where there were chairs around the edges of the room and the dancing was more sedate. We each went back and forth a couple of times. The last time I danced with him upstairs, I asked him to come down before midnight. Other than that we didn't make any arrangements together.

It's true, NYCindie, he reacted that way because deep down he's not comfortable with the nature of my relationship with Colin.

Back to the original title of my thread-- we are trying to find the path where we are each struggling the least (less). He still struggles with sharing me, and I still struggle with limits on the time I spend with the men I love. But we are both willing to go through that struggle in order to be together.

I think he does believe polyamory is immoral. Unfortunately, all his ideas about relationships are based on what he perceives other people are doing, and since he has never been in a relationship or had sex with anyone but me, he has no clue what goes on behind the closed doors of other couples' lives. As far as he can see, I'm the only person (outside of porn movies, I guess) who has sexual fantasies, or uses sex toys. He never hears our friends talking about them, or his family. So between my libido and my interest in other men, I'm really not what he expected in a wife. It's disheartening.

This will all work out. It always does.

 

[IndieSolo]

New Year's Eve was just out of the blue strange. It didn't seem like the same guy I married. He didn't act like usual, dance like usual...

Hmm, another possibility comes to my mind. Do you think he got into any conversations or confided/alluded to/asked questions with anyone about your arrangement, and was told something that painted it more negatively than before? Very often, I find, when there is a visible shift in attitude or approach, it often comes from an outside influence, even sometimes just a passing comment made by someone that feeds already raw or conflicted feelings about something.

Oh, and maybe you ought to get all your friends in a conversation about sex and relationships sometime! He could do well to see other perspectives from people he knows.

 

[AnotherConfused]

Hmm, another possibility comes to my mind. Do you think he got into any conversations or confided/alluded to/asked questions with anyone about your arrangement, and was told something that painted it more negatively than before? Very often, I find, when there is a visible shift in attitude or approach, it often comes from an outside influence, even sometimes just a passing comment made by someone that feeds already raw or conflicted feelings about something..

Wow, you're good! As he approached me for the second-to-last dance, trying to get my attention, not catching my eye and watching me walk up to Colin and ask him to dance, someone said, "Looks like your wife stood you up!" I'm sure the comment was meant in jest, since it's a very friendly community, but he took it seriously and felt humiliated.

 

[Phy]

Where did she buckle? By having that extra dance she had planned with C. I didn't think she admit wrongdoing at all.

I read her 'lesson learned' comment that way, because of his incapacity to see where his problems lie, and her willingness to admit that she should have handled the situation differently, and all this based on his assumptions of what she should have known as a 'reasonable person'. As I stated, I see the possibility of a behavioral pattern developing at this point if she doesn't make him look closer at what was going on there in his head, why it is unreasonable to assume that she could have known in any way what he was expecting. By not giving in to his reasoning I saw the only way to avoid this negative circle from getting started.

 

[AnnabelMore]

I was once involved with a man who would act very distant and irritable when he was sick. He didn't seem to recognize this pattern and took his feelings during those times seriously.

I agree with Phy that it's important that you not admit fault here. You can agree to change your behavior, but it's an important distinction that you're doing it to accommodate this problem he's having, versus doing it because you were wrong and callous at NYE. You didn't do anything wrong.

 

[IndieSolo]

Wow, you're good! As he approached me for the second-to-last dance, trying to get my attention, not catching my eye and watching me walk up to Colin and ask him to dance, someone said, "Looks like your wife stood you up!" I'm sure the comment was meant in jest, since it's a very friendly community, but he took it seriously and felt humiliated.

Ahh, people don't realize what harm such remarks can be. It is like a turd in the punch bowl - it poisons everything. That's why I used to tell people to stop sending me those stupid email jokes about marriage and how dumb husbands are, etc., because I didn't want that kind of energy coming at me and affecting my relationship. Saying something like that is often all that is needed for someone who is struggling to suddenly see a relationship or situation in a very negative light. Maybe eventually he will calm down and start to see how his discomfort with the whole thing was rocked by a silly comment. I think he needs to be more grounded in his trust in you.

 

[AnotherConfused]

Thanks. I've actually been repeating to him again and again, "I didn't do anything wrong." The only bit he'll agree with is that Colin didn't do anything wrong.

The lesson I think I've learned here, is that we need to be more explicit in our expectations of each other, and that he is really sensitive to seeing me with Colin. It didn't seem that way at our dinner party mid-December, but I think dancing just provides a lot more close one-on-one moments, so I was there in Colin's arms, looking into his eyes and smiling giddily. Of course, I was doing the same with a lot of other men that night, but my husband didn't read the signals the same way. It actually was different; when I look in Colin's eyes, it really is intimate. It seems fair enough to keep that under wraps if my husband is watching.

So I appreciate the concern, Phy and AnnabelMore, but I think I'm holding to my guns here. I don't think I did anything wrong, I do think he got waaaaay carried away, but I'm going to try to prevent this from happening again by being more aware of his triggers and more explicit with our expectations. Fair enough?

 

[AnotherConfused]

Ahh, people don't realize what harm such remarks can be.
...
I think he needs to be more grounded in his trust in you.

So true.

How is he going to be more grounded in his trust, though? This is the crux of it. I mean, his assuming that the hug he witnessed from a distance included a kiss, was an assumption that I was directly violating one of his most explicit requests, that Colin and I not kiss in front of other people. And he didn't then say, "It looked like you could have been kissing. Were you?" He said, "I saw you kissing," which tells me he doesn't trust me at all.

*sigh* Why would I go to all the trouble of bringing up polyamory and doing all this work, for two years, to make it work for us in the least painful way possible, if I were not intending to be honest? It would have been so much easier just to have affairs!

 

[dingedheart]

I really can't believe some of the responses.

The "struggling mono" husband who (recently) agreed to his wife's poly exploration finds out that his New Years Eve plans are going to include one or of both of the new guys, instead of panicking and bowing out, agrees to go. No credit given. We know that the main floor was where AC wanted to dance, at least that night. Normal doesn't really apply because 3 separate floors with different themes didn't happen before. And no detail on dance style preferences is given. He, on the other hand, after coming off an illness, opted for the floor that had chairs and a more sedate music/dance style. My gut tells me he did so to avoid seeing exactly what he ended up seeing: entwined partners and giddy smiles every time he popped by to check in.

What seems very clear is that the "struggling husband," because of the forced circumstances-- large public venue, the stress of being embarrassed or humiliated, is hypersensitive to everything. EVERYTHING.

Because of the last few joint encounters, and mix of NRE, AC is more relaxed or oblivious to hubs' hypersensitive state.

In this state, he notices within the first half of the evening the number of times you danced with Colin versus him. He may have been watching the spinning you did with Colin, but when he did it he was told to slow down or stop, not know C had been told the same thing. He notices the giddy smile and energy.

All in all, he plastered a smile on his face and soldiered on. No credit given.

Then, at 11:45 the dam broke. He had the romantic illusion that his wife, the person he's doing all this for, would want to spend the last 15 minutes of the old year focused on him. Maybe he had the silly idea the she would surprise him and come find him, be with him, focus on him for the last hour or half hour. However, as the clock ticked down, that didn't happen. He got to the main floor at 11:45. However, he's a couple a minutes too late. Gets the comment about being stood up. Things devolve from there.

All those tightly-packed emotions spill out... he exaggerates and extrapolates and gets some of the facts wrong. You, of course, did nothing wrong and feel attacked and insulted by a crazy person. Points taken away.

If he didn't before, I think he now places different meanings on words and actions.

Just out of curiosity, who's the better dancer of these men? How would you rate all their dancing skills or partner skills?

The last 15-30 min had a meaning to him that even he might not have been aware of at the beginning of the night. It just evolved as the night devolved. Just showing up at 11:56 and 30secs to share a kiss had, in his mind, a completely different feeling and meaning.

Lessons learned. I'm sure he learned plenty.