very confused

thankyou all for the insight. im gonna take the weekend and spend some alone time and do some serious soul searching. we have talked at length about my feelings. im still not sure that k's responces are the truth. i cant help but think that she is telling me what i want to hear and not the truth. i dont know. k is my first love and i have a hard time understanding why she and h still have, as k put it, picked up right where they left off. i did get one piece of honesty, k slept with h when we started dating. that was after we got together, i was k's first. that news didnt bother me so much, we were just starting our relationship and not living together yet. i have stated my desire to meet h, but i go back and forth as my emotions rise and fall. i read alot about compersion on this site. once i get my head together, if this doesnt fall apart, i think i will try the nike method, just do it, that i read someone else did.
 
Is there any way you can start talking to him now? On line, call, email? something? Perhaps your fears will be dispelled if you get a sense of what is going on for him and what he wants from all this.
 
The ultimatum bothers me. Telling someone to feel a certain way or else leave the relationship is a sad way to dump the responsibility of her choices onto you.

It's understandable that she'd want to explore this relationship, but after a 20-year investment and sounding like there's still a lot of love between you, she has some responsibility towards you to help you get through this.

Or if she's too selfish to want to help you get through this, then she has a responsibility to take accountability for ending the relationship.

She says this is just for fun, but it doesn't sound like that to me. I say so because of the ultimatum. If it was just for fun, then the difficulty you're having with it should supersede a little fun.
 
well loaded up the 5th wheel and goin to do some soul searching. ihave reread my posts and all of your guys input. last nite we discussed all of my feelings again. k says she wants a friends with benifits type of arrangement. i personally dont thing she has discussed any feelings with h. this whole thing hits me as having your cake and eating it too. k keeps rerassuring me that im the one she wants, she wants our life. the whole relationship between them is based off of a highschool sweetheart type of thing. lucky for me its a long distance relationship. from the snooping that i have done, which i feel ashamed about, h only contacts k rarely. maybe i have over thought all of this. i know that h was k first love and i have been told by others that you never forget yourfirst love. honestly k is my first love. i have never had feelings for someone like this in my life. 20 years is along time to be with someone. we have experimented in the past with other couples and have had "adventures" with a few select singles. what is happening now feels nothing like those times. maybe all of this is caused from my insecurity of losing my life partner. i dont know. i have felt compersion that i have read so much about. when we were having our "adventures" with others. it was a very exciting time, full of love and happiness. maybe this is all from me being very male and seeing h as a threat. we are after all animals with basic insticts. from what i have been told, h doesnt want to hurt our life. but this has caused a large riff between k and myself. we also discussed the ultimatum, which i was told that it wasnt an ultimatum. k told me that she feels totally drained because of my feelings and that i keep unloading on her. i told her that i wasnt unloading, that i wanted to get my feelings out in the open so that they dont consume me. so now here i am today, dropping kids off at summer camp and goin camping for a couple of days. just me and my dog. i hope this helps me. what was that caption i read, i have gone to find myself, if i return before i get back keep me here. that to me is a very true thing. well thankyou all for reading my ramblings and giving me input. wish me luck.
 
It sounds like her point of view is that you are wrecking her good time with "unloading" your feelings onto her. In my opinion that is just too darn bad. No one ever has their cake and eats it too. At least very rarely in a poly situation. You know why? Because we have a responsibility to our other partners to listen and deal with their "unloading." Its part of the whole thing. If she thinks she can get away with not having to do so, she is sadly mistaken. If she wants you as her number one so badly then I think she is going to just have to be strong and deal. In this case she can't have it all without work. Work that most of us have to put in so we can live this way.
 
It sounds like her point of view is that you are wrecking her good time with "unloading" your feelings onto her. In my opinion that is just too darn bad. No one ever has their cake and eats it too. At least very rarely in a poly situation. You know why? Because we have a responsibility to our other partners to listen and deal with their "unloading." Its part of the whole thing. If she thinks she can get away with not having to do so, she is sadly mistaken. If she wants you as her number one so badly then I think she is going to just have to be strong and deal. In this case she can't have it all without work. Work that most of us have to put in so we can live this way.

SO TRUE! Nothing worthwhile can last very long without a little work here and there...Hell I can't imagine loving without a lot of work. Growth=Hard Work=Satisfaction:D
 
I hope you were able to find what you were looking for this weekend :).

After reading what's been written on this thread I have learned something. Always a good thing.

I have learned that the reason I was having problems with jealousy in the beginning was because: 1. It was early in our relationship so we didn't have a good foundation to work from & 2. since it was the beginning I didn't have the reassurances I needed in order to feel secure.

I will put more in my thread so I don't hijack this one :D.
 
glad you liked those links, BG, i found them very helpful- i hope they helped you dazed. good luck this weekend, having a little space & time to yourself can really help sort things out. :)
 
It sounds like her point of view is that you are wrecking her good time with "unloading" your feelings onto her. In my opinion that is just too darn bad. No one ever has their cake and eats it too. At least very rarely in a poly situation.

This is beyond having your cake and eating it too. I personally think that poly already is having your cake and eating it too -- you get to express your ability and desire to love multiple people without the lies, burden and pain of cheating.

This is like... having your cake and eating it too, and then eating your husband's cake with a big shit-eating grin.
 
well, had a good weekend althought it didnt end up with me and the dog. k came out to visit and we ended up siting out under the stars and talking for a very long time. she apologized to me for the way that she has been handling my issues with her new relationship. she also told me something that really put my mind at ease, lets see if i can remember this correctly. k said that our love is not threatened because nobody cant replace me in her life, that i am the man that she wants to spend the rest of her life with and her relationship with h will never be a replacement for us or our relatonship that we have. i cant remember the exact words but the light came on, and i am feeling much better about the whole situation. i even have an email for h. i wrote him a somewhat short letter and sent it on its way.
earlier today when i was at work, k sent me a number and said i should send a text. the number is to my highschool sweetheart, wow! what a flood of emotions. so i started texting with L. i havent seen this woman in 15 years and we played catchup for most of the afternoon. i also relized that i have feelings for L, still. but the feelings(love?) is very different from what k and i have. k and i talked quickly this afternoon about L. sly woman has taught me yet again. we talked about how the feelings are different and i think we are on the proper road now. thank you to all that have given me insite and advice. i really appreciate the help. its still a little soon to tell but things are looking up.
 
Awesome that you are now getting closer to being on the same page! I'm so happy for you and her! This is awesome! What a success story. (so far) I'm almost crying now. LOL
 
well, my life is progressing towards happiness. i am learning to deal with my insecurity. K and i have had some good talks. reconnecting with my highschool gf "L" has unlocked a lot of emotions that i had locked away, part of being mono i guess. with K's help i am learning that it is possible to love someone else and not lose what k and i have. L and i have been playing catch up in our lives. i have not heard back from K's bf, but she said not to worry, he has a hard time communicating. she says he talks in circles and has a hard time conveying his true feelings. im not real thrilled with that, but i think with time and meeting face to face we can become friends. it will be difficult because H(guess i should change the letter i use for his name since H stood for HOMEWRECKER.) lives so far away, but i think with time things will improve. i still have my insecurity of K leaving, but if she was gonna do it i gave her the perfect oppurtunity. i now have a new saying " im riding this train wreck i call life to the very end of the line." haha, makes me laugh when i start getting to serious and over think things.
 
I know how you feel, trust me I do. My wife came out as Poly a couple of years ago. We'd been together for 5 years before that, and when she told me she wanted to start seeing this other man she was interested, I was devastated. I won't lie to you; I hurt, I cried, I was depressed, I raged, I rode a roller coaster of emotions and the peaks were a lot smaller than the valleys. I alternated between wanting to leave her and fear of her leaving me. I never thought it would work out and I would end up alone.

It didn't work out that way at all. I told my wife how I was feeling, I made sure she knew how it made me felt. We talked, so many times, long into the night, we argued, we discussed like rational adults, we talked until our brains hurt. In short, we communicated honestly and openly about everything we were feeling. Things got easier over time. My fear of being left for 'the other man' slowly went away and although I still had (and have) jealousies and the niggling fear that any babies in our relationship may not be mine, things got easier. We negotiated some ground rules. You have a right to feel the way you feel, but you need to talk to your wife about how you are feeling. If you trust her, and she has told you that you are her life and her love, then believe her. I'm not saying there's no way she'll ever leave, hell, my wife might decide to leave tomorrow, but she's being honest with you and with herself and that's a very good sign.

I would suggest to you that you really work on figuring out how you feel, and why you feel the way you do. I would also suggest that you tell your wife when you do figure it out, and talk to her as often as you can about how you feel and what you want. Relationships are always a lot of work, and compromise is the name of the game if a relationship is going to last. You are making a compromise in sharing your wife on an emotional level, it's only fair that she be willing to make compromises for you. What works for me may not work for you, but trust me when I say that honesty and open communication is always the best policy in these situations. No doubt the road will be rough at times, but it's up to you to decide whether that road is worth it. I don't know a darned thing about you, but believe me when I say you are worth it and you are worthy of being loved, everyone deserves love.

Another thing you can do is really work on loving yourself. It's hard since our society sees self-congratulation as a conceited, but it's healthy to have self-respect and self-worth. It makes a man more attractive than a flashy car or muscles of expensive clothing, and many women have told me that. Be honest with yourself about your achievements, feel proud of the accomplishments you've made, try not to compare yourself to others. Last of all, don't believe that a poly relationship is some kind of 'unnatural' way of going through life. It's been reinforced in society that monogamy is the norm, and statistically it is, but there were times when slavery was the norm, when beating your wife was accepted and even encouraged, and look where we are now. Our society views monogamy as the norm, but that doesn't mean it's the only way to go through life and it doesn't mean it's normal. I hope you got something out of this and I have helped in some small way. You are not alone.

-Love is all you need
 
K got L number from my cousin who was in a relationship and has two kids with L's cousin. I come from a very small town so its nuthing to see old friends or be friends with ex,s and their family. K thought that if I unlocked my heart and let old feelings out that we (k and I) could work thru my issues alittle easier. Reconnecting with L has opened my eyes so to speak, I can see where K is coming from. Still have alot of work to do. The insecurity issue is the cause of my jealousy and now that i know the cause I think it will be easier to deal with. K and I know that this is a work in progress and I think if we both keep working together that over time this will be easier for me to deal with. I think that I will always have some type of insecurity or jealousy, dont think those will ever completely disappear, but with work my emotions will be much more manageable. time will tell.
 
K and I went shopping alone today, no kids. had a long discussion about her relationship, or lack there of, with H. They havent really talked, at all, about what they want. K wants to talk face to face with H and i can understand why, its a very important discussion. K is not sure what he is wanting. I told K that I think its a very good idea to find out and see if they both want the same thing. Part of me still thinks that H wants her all to himself, I do. Whether he does or not K says she is committed to me and is in this till the end. That makes me happy, but i still have that foreboding feeling that it will all end one day. Sometimes it feels like a timebomd and i cant see the timer. But for the most part things are going very well. Thankyou to all who have given advice and ideas. It has really helped finding other people that have had similiar issues in their lives.
 
Well its been a very rough week. K's whole demeanor and attidude changed dramtically. She now wants to move back home,this is also where H lives. I tried to talk to her but something has happened, I'm not sure what. So I did a little txt snooping(this is something that i hate doing, feel very ashamed) and K wants to leave me and start dating H. Her message was very straight forward and she asked him if the could start seein each other. Her feelings for me are completely different, she sees me as a friend with benifits. She also said that she never felt the spark with me that they had when they were dating. So now I sit here not sure what todo. K is planning to leave and live with a close friend, her, my kids, and the friends family. I have tried to talk to her and I seem to be making things worse, no matter how hard I try. Its so hard to watch the woman I love so completely make plans that in noway, shape, or form include me. What is happening is exactly what i was afraid of, she is in love with someone else and there seems to be nothing I can do. Well thats my story up till now. Any suggestions will help. thank you in advance.
 
Poly is probably quite often used as a way to try to avoid ending an existing relationship after emotions change. It sounds like she isn't poly at all. Regardless, if that is how she feels about you and decided to stay would that fulfill your heart?

My ex wife once said the same things about me, it was devastating but we did manage to reconnect. If I didn't feel that her love for me was genuine, I wouldn't have been able to stay.

I don't have any advice to keep her in your life. I do know that you can find the type of love you are looking for. Where you find it is the unknown part.

Take care
 
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