Worried about someone we vetoed

W

Wizard

New member
I realize this is not really poly specific but I felt many on here would have some good insights/perspectives.

I recently had to end a friends-with-benefits (FWB) situation abruptly at the request of my partner. I had been in communication with this person for about a year, and we had met up a few times for sex. Our boundaries were not well-defined, and by the end, it felt like more than just an FWB arrangement, as we communicated almost daily.

After ending things, I reached out to apologize for the abrupt way I handled the situation. My ex-FWB admitted she had developed strong feelings for me, and we both acknowledged that the situation had become too complicated. I was committed to fixing my relationship with my partner, and my ex-FWB expressed a desire to remain friends in the future, though it never seemed realistic to me even if I wanted to.

Despite wanting to distance myself, I found myself frequently checking her social media, and noticed she was doing the same. This only complicated things further. At my partner’s request, I eventually blocked her on all social media. When I did, I noticed that she made her Instagram account private again, after having briefly made it public—likely so I could still see what was going on in her life.

I also checked the dating app where we initially met and saw that her profile was active again. The new profile description was disturbing: “I want to be used and abused because that’s all you men are good for.” Given her past issues with abusive relationships, this really upset me, and I couldn’t help but think the timing might have been a reaction to me blocking her. Her issues with men were something we discussed regularly and towards the end of end of our communication made great strides in seeing her value and worth.

While I respect my partner’s boundaries, I’m struggling with concern for my ex-FWB because I do still care about her. I know I need to distance myself, but I’m finding it difficult. I’m curious if anyone can relate to this or has any advice. I appreciate any insights.
 
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I don't think you can do much to console her. But this is one of the reasons why it's unwise to open your relationship if either party only feels safe if they have the ability to veto.

Firstly, it seems to attract people who don't have the best self esteem. People with higher self esteem seem more risk averse when it comes to situations which may compromise their self esteem.

Secondly, it means that you might have to distance yourself from someone "abruptly" knowing that you feel both the desire and the obligation to give them more than that.

Thirdly, you're agreeing to hurt other people, and yourself, to console a third person. Agreeing to hurt people to prove your devotion is usually a bad thing to do.
 
Thinking "I need to remain connected with her because, look! I'm concerned for her wellbeing. I'm doing this for her own good" is an easy, dangerous trap to fall into. Thinking it's about her makes it easy to forget the desire to stay connected is coming from your own feelings, not hers.

You've got to let her move on.
 
Wizard said:
I realize this is not really poly specific but I felt many on here would have some good insights/perspectives.

I recently had to end a friends-with-benefits (FWB) situation abruptly at the request of my partner. I had been in communication with this person for about a year, and we had met up a few times for sex. Our boundaries were not well-defined, and by the end, it felt like more than just an FWB arrangement, as we communicated almost daily.
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Her forcing you to end the relationship isn't really a boundary, it's veto power or a rule. It's an imposed limitation on YOU. A boundary would be her stating that she doesn't want your FWB as a friend or meta, and does not want to hang out or have her in your house. This protects her, but still allows you to figure out how to be with someone you want. You are conflating the two.

If you have rules, that's fine. Just walk into the next relationship explaining that your wife has veto power over any relationship you may engage in. That way you have set the appropriate stage. You should track down the secondary's bill of rights so you are more aware of how to have healthy relationships with folks.

I just went through a major jealousy struggle. (I have been doing this 25 years and yes, I still get jealous.) I wanted to veto to protect myself. I REALLY wanted to. But I did not once verbalize that. Instead, I created some boundaries around time, and commitments to me, to ensure I would feel comfortable in the relationship with someone I didn't know/might not respect.

My backup plan, if I can't fix myself, is to break up with her, since I don't want to limit her freedoms. If she wanted fidelity with me, she could offer that, but I would never demand it.

Our relationship would never be the same if I vetoed. It couldn't be the same. I would lose all respect for myself and it would steal the joy we do have.

I hope that makes sense, and hope you are more clear with future FWBs/partners. This is a form of emotional abuse, imo. You should cut the cord and back off completely so you don't prolong the pain.
 
SEASONEDpolyAgain said:
I don't think you can do much to console her, but this is one of the reasons why it's unwise to open your relationship if either party only feels safe if they have the ability to veto.

Firstly, it seems to attract people who don't have the best self esteem. People with higher self esteem seem more risk averse when they comes to situations which may compromise their self esteem.

Secondly, it means that you might have to distance yourself from someone "abruptly," knowing that you feel both the desire and the obligation to give them more than that.

Thirdly, you're agreeing to hurt other people, and yourself, to console a third person. Agreeing to hurt people to prove your devotion is usually a bad thing to do.
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Thank you for your response. I agree with your points. Truthfully, I’ve never been in a situation like this before. Most of my experience with other people has been purely physical. This was the first time it was more than that and went terribly wrong. The amount of damage caused has turned me off to being open altogether, and it’s obvious I shouldn’t have been. The amount of guilt I feel has honestly been traumatizing.
 
Albert Ross said:
Thinking "I need to remain connected with her because, look! I'm concerned for her wellbeing. I'm doing this for her own good" is an easy, dangerous trap to fall into. Thinking it's about her makes it easy to forget the desire to stay connected is coming from your own feelings, not hers.

You've got to let her move on.
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Thank you for your respective. I don’t think I need to remain connected to her. That’s clearly not fair to her (or me) and would certainly not be for her own good. I know I wasn’t the only one who made mistakes in this situation, but my struggle is with the guilt I feel over my part in this and what it has done to her.
 
Ariakas said:
Her forcing you to end the relationship isn't really a boundary. Thats veto power or a rule. Its an imposed limitation to YOU. A boundary would be her stating that she doesn't want your FWB as a friend or meta, and does not want to hang out or have her in your house. This protects her, but still allows you to figure out how to be with someone you want.

You are conflating the two. And if you have rules, thats fine, next relationship just walk into the next relationship explaining your wife has veto power over any relationship you may engage in. That way you have set the appropriate stage. You should track down the secondary's bill of rights so you are more aware of healthy relationship with folks.

I just went through a major jealousy struggle. I wanted to veto, to protect myself. I REALLY wanted to. But I did not once verbalize that. Instead I created some boundaries around time, and commitments to me.

My backup plan is to break up with her, since I dont want to limit her freedoms. If she wanted fidelity with me, she could offer that but I would never demand it.

Our relationship would never be the same if I vetoed. It couldn't be the same. I would lose all respect for myself and it would steal the joy we do have.

I hope you are more clear with future FWBs/partners. This is a form of emotional abuse, imo. You should cut the cord and back off completely so you don't prolong the pain.
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Thank you for this. I agree with you. Veto power vs boundaries was a point of contention with my partner over this. I felt like abruptly ending things was treating my FWB like she was disposable. I know I was causing her mental trauma. I don’t disagree it was ultimately emotionally abusive. I should have been more communicative with my partner in the beginning. This could have possibly been avoided.

I have cut off the cord. We have not been in contact since I apologized. I was worried the blocking would put her in a bad place and it looks like it has and I am struggling.

Honestly, after this I have no desire to pursue a FWB situation. This has been so emotionally damaging on so many levels.
 
Wizard said:
Honestly, after this I have no desire to pursue a fwb situation. This has been so emotionally damaging on so many levels.
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Personally I wouldn't pursue another relationship (whatever you want to call it) until you have that veto power vetoed. :)
 
Ugh, I feel so bad for everyone concerned. Was this your first relationship outside your marriage, or just the first time a casual FWB thing grew into something more?

Is your wife feeling really threatened by you developing feelings for someone who is just supposed to be a non-romantic friend/sex partner?

How will this abrupt ending of your other relationship affect your relationship with your wife? That is supposed to be your first priority. But I see you might be more worried about your gf (let's call her what she is) because she's been abused before and is out there actually asking to be abused now. That's really scary. Does your wife know this?

How can you work on your marriage when you are so worried about your ex-gf? I'd say it would be impossible without serious help from a therapist/couple's counselor. Even then, I am not sure you can.

In the article I linked above, this quote stood out:

It’s also worth pointing out that veto rarely works in the long run. There’s no positive outcome from exerting any control, including veto power, over a relationship that doesn’t involve you. Once people form connections, they don’t like to be told by others to let them go – because they shouldn’t have to. Unfortunately, this can result in cheating, or the primary partnership ending, instead of the secondary.
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This actually happened to me. When my ex-husband and I first opened our relationship back in 1999, I had little to no poly/ENM resources. We had the first edition of The Ethical Slut, no internet to speak of, and that was it. Long story short, my ex fell in love with our supposed unicorn and she fell in love with him, and she didn't want to have sex with me. Their NRE was intense, and after six months, I used our agreed-upon veto. ("Our" meaning my ex-h and I had agreed on it. My metamour was probably not even aware we'd do that to her.) I thought it was big of me to allow them to have a long distance email and phone friendship, and even to see each other at mutual friends' events, as long as they didn't have sex. While my ex and I had other problems, which contributed to the end of our marriage, his resentment of me made him fall out of love with me, while his love for his gf deepened. Right after we broke up, they resumed a full relationship and are together to this day.

I remained poly after our breakup. I would never do this to anyone ever again.

Just a cautionary tale... I am sorry you're going through this.
 
Hello Wizard,

I am not a big fan of veto power, but if you're going to do it, you may as well do it right. Trust that your ex-FWB can take care of herself, and be done with that relationship. You probably still have feelings for her, and will not be able to put those to rest anytime soon. If you reach out to your ex-FWB, it will just make things harder for you (and her). Let that relationship be done, and give yourselves time to separate, resolve, and heal.

Regards,
Kevin T.
 
Magdlyn said:
Ugh, I feel so bad for everyone concerned. Was this your first relationship outside your marriage, or just the first time a casual FWB thing grew into something more?

Is your wife feeling really threatened by you developing feelings for someone who is just supposed to be a non-romantic friend/sex partner?

How will this abrupt ending of your other relationship affect your relationship with your wife? That is supposed to be your first priority. But I see you might be more worried about your gf (let's call her what she is) because she's been abused before and is out there actually asking to be abused now. That's really scary. Does your wife know this?

How can you work on your marriage when you are so worried about your ex-gf? I'd say it would be impossible without serious help from a therapist/couple's counselor. Even then, I am not sure you can.

In the article I linked above, this quote stood out:



This actually happened to me. When my ex-husband and I first opened our relationship back in 1999, I had little to no poly/ENM resources. We had the first edition of The Ethical Slut, no internet to speak of, and that was it. Long story short, my ex fell in love with our supposed unicorn and she fell in love with him, and she didn't want to have sex with me. Their NRE was intense, and after six months, I used our agreed-upon veto. ("Our" meaning my ex-h and I had agreed on it. My metamour was probably not even aware we'd do that to her.) I thought it was big of me to allow them to have a long distance email and phone friendship, and even to see each other at mutual friends' events, as long as they didn't have sex. While my ex and I had other problems, which contributed to the end of our marriage, his deep love for his gf and resentment of me made him fall out of love with me, while his love for her deepened. Right after we broke up, they resumed a full relationship and are together to this day.

I remained poly after our breakup. I would never do this to anyone ever again.

Just a cautionary tale... I am sorry you're going through this.
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Thank you for sharing your story and for your empathy.

My wife and I have been in an open relationship on and off for about five years. I've had casual encounters with three other people, but those were mostly one-time physical interactions with little communication. I was looking for a more meaningful friends-with-benefits (FWB) situation because I didn't enjoy those brief encounters. My wife has been more active in the past, partly due to more opportunities.

However, this recent situation turned into something more significant. We talked for about a year before meeting in person, which didn’t happen until eight months in due to various reasons like life, distance, and health. Honestly, I didn’t think we would ever meet, as most things tend to fizzle out quickly, but we clearly had a connection and were both dealing with heavy life issues.

I believe the current situation stems from a combination of my wife feeling threatened by my developing feelings and unclear boundaries or expectations. She has had feelings for someone else before and was briefly in another relationship when our marriage was going through a rough patch. I understood that these things can happen and gave her space to explore it, but it seems the same understanding doesn't apply to me. Her reasoning is that she was more aware of her feelings and communicated her desire to be in a relationship quickly, while I took longer to come to that realization, which she feels makes the situation different.

I'm unsure how this abrupt ending will affect my relationship with my wife. I've been trying to work through it, and we had made some progress. However, since seeing my ex-girlfriend's profile, I've been really struggling. I can't pretend I didn't see it, but it’s not something I can discuss with my wife, as she refuses to talk about her. I was seeing a therapist, but he was pretty terrible and had outdated views on things, especially non-monogamy. He was the only person I could really talk to about the situation, which is why I’m sharing this here.
 
kdt26417 said:
Hello Wizard,

I am not a big fan of veto power, but if you're going to do it, you may as well do it right. Trust that your ex-FWB can take care of herself, and be done with that relationship. You probably still have feelings for her, and will not be able to put those to rest anytime soon. If you reach out to your ex-FWB, it will just make things harder for you (and her). Let that relationship be done, and give yourselves time to separate, resolve, and heal.

Regards,
Kevin T.
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Thanks for your response. That seems to be a common theme with responses. Veto power was something my partner and I never really discussed, and it wasn't something I ever initiated, so perhaps I was oblivious. But when it was, I relented, because I thought it was the right thing to do, even if I disagreed with it in principal. Things happened really fast and I wasn't prepared. I never planned on reaching out to her. I was just struggling with how to handle my feelings and emotions around this, as they are taking a heavy toll. A part of me wished I'd never checked her dating profile, but I was concerned how the message to block may be received, and though I can not know for sure, and she is her own individual, I can't help but feel helpless and upset by it, wondering if I am doing what is right in the end.
 
Wizard said:
Thank you for sharing your story and for your empathy.

My wife and I have been in an open relationship on and off for about five years. I've had casual encounters with three other people, but those were mostly one-time physical interactions with little communication. I was looking for a more meaningful friends-with-benefits (FWB) situation because I didn't enjoy those brief encounters. My wife has been more active in the past, partly due to more opportunities.

However, this recent situation turned into something more significant. We talked for about a year before meeting in person, which didn’t happen until eight months in due to various reasons like life, distance, and health. Honestly, I didn’t think we would ever meet, as most things tend to fizzle out quickly, but we clearly had a connection and were both dealing with heavy life issues.

I believe the current situation stems from a combination of my wife feeling threatened by my developing feelings and unclear boundaries or expectations. She has had feelings for someone else before and was briefly in another relationship when our marriage was going through a rough patch. I understood that these things can happen and gave her space to explore it, but it seems the same understanding doesn't apply to me. Her reasoning is that she was more aware of her feelings and communicated her desire to be in a relationship quickly, while I took longer to come to that realization, which she feels makes the situation different.

I'm unsure how this abrupt ending will affect my relationship with my wife. I've been trying to work through it, and we had made some progress. However, since seeing my ex-girlfriend's profile, I've been really struggling. I can't pretend I didn't see it, but it’s not something I can discuss with my wife, as she refuses to talk about her. I was seeing a therapist, but he was pretty terrible and had outdated views on things, especially non-monogamy. He was the only person I could really talk to about the situation, which is why I’m sharing this here.
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I guess you two never read any resources or listened to any podcasts about the best ways to do ENM? I mean, it's pretty common for humans to want to have repeated sex with someone they like/trust well enough to get naked with, and that sex can deepen the like to love, and bam, you're doing polyamory.

Our culture has tried to separate love and sex, and indeed, some people can do it. Swingers, usually MF couples, with the women being homoflexible, enter into agreements where they will "play" sexually with other adults. But no forming romantic connections, and typically no MM gay stuff (MM homophobia being what it is/was in our culture). Anyway, some swingers say the ability to have sex with no feelings other than friendship, or even mere acquaintanceship, comes naturally to them, whereas others need to practice certain behaviors to prevent feelings from happening. These might be:

No extended eye contact
No kissing on the mouth
No cuddling-- after sex, get up, get dressed and leave
No solo vanilla dating-- couples only, and everyone leaves with their spouse
No repeated sex, hookups only
Etc.

As you've seen, mindless one night stand hookups can feel unsatisfying. (Even dehumanizing, I've found. I don't want to be seen as just a body and an open vagina. Ugh!) And FWBs can definitely morph into lovers before you know it.

It seems to me you should tell your wife you're seriously concerned for the emotional and even physical well-being of your gf. Maybe your wife has "forbidden" you to talk about it. If I were you, I'd tell her anyway. This is a human being's safety we're talking about here.

Your marriage has been on shaky ground for a while, and maybe you opened it to have sex with others to help you two stay together. I don't know. You can't help that your feelings for gf developed more slowly than hers did for her guy. You're not her clone!

There are poly-friendly therapists out there. With a 50% divorce rate, couples counselors must run into these kinds of situations all the time. Some people cheat, and others try to open their marriages ethically, but run into problems. Polyamory is a fast-growing movement in our culture.
One of our members, GalaGirl, has a list of poly-friendly therapists she often shares. You can DM her for that. I've also asked her to add it to our resources thread, here:

 
Magdlyn said:
I guess you two never read any resources or listened to any podcasts about the best ways to do ENM? I mean, it's pretty common for humans to want to have repeated sex with someone they like/trust well enough to get naked with, and that sex can deepen the like to love, and bam, you're doing polyamory.

Our culture has tried to separate love and sex, and indeed, some people can do it. Swingers, usually MF couples, with the women being homoflexible, enter into agreements where they will "play" sexually with other adults. But no forming romantic connections, and typically no MM gay stuff (MM homophobia being what it is/was in our culture). Anyway, some swingers say the ability to have sex with no feelings other than friendship, or even mere acquaintanceship, comes naturally to them, whereas others need to practice certain behaviors to prevent feelings from happening. These might be:

No extended eye contact
No kissing on the mouth
No cuddling-- after sex, get up, get dressed and leave
No solo vanilla dating-- couples only, and everyone leaves with their spouse
No repeated sex, hookups only
Etc.

As you've seen, mindless one night stand hookups can feel unsatisfying. (Even dehumanizing, I've found. I don't want to be seen as just a body and an open vagina. Ugh!) And FWBs can definitely morph into lovers before you know it.

It seems to me you should tell your wife you're seriously concerned for the emotional and even physical well-being of your gf. Maybe your wife has "forbidden" you to talk about it. If I were you, I'd tell her anyway. This is a human being's safety we're talking about here.

Your marriage has been on shaky ground for a while, and maybe you opened it to have sex with others to help you two stay together. I don't know. You can't help that your feelings for gf developed more slowly than hers did for her guy. You're not her clone!

There are poly-friendly therapists out there. With a 50% divorce rate, couples counselors must run into these kinds of situations all the time. Some people cheat, and others try to open their marriages ethically, but run into problems. Polyamory is a fast-growing movement in our culture.
One of our members, GalaGirl, has a list of poly-friendly therapists she often shares. You can DM her for that. I've also asked her to add it to our resources thread, here:

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I have but my wife not so much. But, it's something I should have done more of admittedly. I don't think I am able to separate the physical from emotional. Maybe she can or at least thinks she can.

Thank you for your advice. I want to tell my wife.The last time I attempted to she felt we should separate and that was just a few days ago.

Our marriage has definitely not improved since we opened it up. Lots of hurt feelings and resentment and frankly unrealistic expectations. I can live with that but adding a third person in who did nothing wrong is something I can't get on board with.

I reached out to Galagirl. Therapists are tough to come by where I live. Even more so ones that have experience with ENM. Fingers crossed we are able to find someone. Thank you again.
 
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