In which Alleycat finds himself in a moral quandary

Alleycat

New member
So, recently I've come into a situation that is unusual to me, by that I mean one where I'm being asked to bend my usual code of ethics, and I find myself fairly agreeable to the request.

A long term friend of mine, (lets call her Freyja) and I have had a mutual latent attraction which we never acted on for a number of reasons, mostly due to us being in various other committed relationships which wouldn't have meshed well with the others situation (hers being generally monogamous but occasionally fraught with infidelity, mine being normally triads, V's or occasionally...... Ok, habitually FWBs/one nighters, and being married at the time)

Now, freyja and I have several things in common, (and not altogether happy things) we both have very similar skeletons in our respective closets, commonality of personal baggage and scar tissue from previous relationships, and certain tendencies related to sex as well as a few traits in common how we "adjust" our partners. This gives us a very specific and intimate understanding of how and why each of us is wired and behaves a certain way, which tends to lead us to a fairly perverse flavor of honesty with each other.

Recently some of the barriers to us acting on our mutual attraction have disappeared, and we ended up acting out lightly on some of our urges (frankly we're both 1000% more comfortable with someone once there's been some sexual contact with that person), and it turns out the attraction was quite a bit more than physical, and we're both interested in presuing things further.

The issue (and poly angle) is; she currently has a boyfriend, who's she's deeply committed to, and with good reason. He's very good to her, has been there for her thru a lot of personal grief, understands to a degree a lot of her issues and history, and frankly he's a great guy. Hell I get along great with him.
however;
Whereas he'd likly be ok with her having a throw-away one night stand, we're both fairly certain he's not wired to accept ME suddenly becoming involved with her, which leads me to an issue where I don't want to have a negative impact on their relationship and potentially ruin something good for her, but knowing how me and her tend to behave, and why, it's fairly certain we won't be able to avoid the sexual aspect, and certainly have zero desire to cease any social contact with one another.

So for the time being while she figures out how to work things so she can have her cake and eat it too, she's asked me for utmost discretion, and to keep things a secret for the time being, we both know at a certain point it becomes painfully obvious when I'm involved with someone, it's not like I haven't been someone's secret thing before, but the signs always show up eventually, so "Discretion" (meaning: omissions and lies as nessisary) would only be a short term solution, and one I'm not normally comfortable with. In fact the only reason I'd consider it is because of the potential damage that could be done with honesty at this point until she can work things out (potentially) on the other end of things.

Sigh. More details to add tomorrow.

-not looking for advice, just needed to vent. Thanks for scrolling down this far.
 
Erm, if she wants polyamorous relationships, and he wants sort of a more open relationship where emotional availability and romantic attahment is restricted outside the relationship, why doesn't she acknowledge their incompatibility and move on? Maybe I'm old fashioned.
 
Erm, if she wants polyamorous relationships, and he wants sort of a more open relationship where emotional availability and romantic attahment is restricted outside the relationship, why doesn't she acknowledge their incompatibility and move on? Maybe I'm old fashioned.

Because it sounds like she loves him?

It sounds like you could just as easily ask Alleycat to move on to avoid the moral quandary or ask Freyja to move on to avoid lying to her BF. Leaving her BF leaves her in a decidedly not poly situation.

It seems more reasonable to suggest to the BF that she wants two BF than anything else, and if he vetoes it then she can move on. If he doesn't freak out then she can get two cakes.
 
Seems pretty clear what his boundaries for non monogamy are.
 
You say you're willing to consider breaking your moral code to avoid "potential damage". But that potential damage will only increase from what would likely be a temporary hurt if you stop now (Him: "You should have told me right away!") to what will likely be a devastating, scarring, relationship-ending hurt if you continue (Him: "You lied to me for how long, how often, about how many things?? You really don't respect me at all, do you... how can I ever trust you again?").

I urge you to look your motivation of avoiding potential damage square in the face and realize that you're looking at it in a self-serving way that will accomplish the opposite of your stated goal. If you actually want to give the two of them time to work this out, step back and give them that time, rather than fuck her behind his back and then expect him to realize that poly is a great idea once the truth comes to light... because it *will* come to light, it always does, sooner or later. All that lying will do is ensure this never works out.
 
Also, I've gotta say... why do you even want to be romantically involved with someone who's perfectly willing to make a habit of lying to the face of someone she's supposedly deeply committed to, and who's a good partner to her? Why would you open yourself up to someone who's showing you that she's willing to expose her partners to emotional (being cheated on can really fuck people up) and physical (right now he thinks his STI risk is zero because he's in a mono relationship... except, nope, he actually can't make informed decisions about the level of risk he wants to accept, because he doesn't know who his partner is sleeping with) risks without their input? Doesn't exactly sound like a keeper to me.

I know you think you two have a special sort of honesty between you... but if she's willing to deceive him, then, buddy, sooner or later you're going to find out she's lying to you too... maybe about something really important.
 
I suggest you go with ethical behavior.

  • You want to date a woman with a BF.
  • You don't want to wreck a good thing for her.
  • So you could do the respectful thing and ask them both to seriously consider if they could be willing and able to partcipate in a "V" polyship with her as the shared hinge.
  • Could NOT choose to be disrespectful and become her cheating partner, start lying, and start going against your own grain/ethics. That's a good way to ding your own spiritual health.

1) The dating issue?

Could ask up front and honest.

  • Find out their answers. It all lines up? You could all launch something forthrightly then.
  • It doesn't line up? You stay friends and cushion that small disappointment with the fact that in your own behavior you were honest and ethical and you can still be friends. Forthright friends. Yay.

2) The cheating issue? Could get to the bottom of her shirky.

How does her inviting you to become her cheating affair partner demonstrate "deeply committed to my BF" behavior? It doesn't. It makes her seem shirky. And her Word now being shaky?

Could note if you are not actually asking him anything -- and it's all filtering through her and she's blocking you having direct communication with him.

You could re-examine what she said to you about "one night stands are ok" and "bf not good with YOU being the bf" because I suspect your shared sex already.

If she said their agreement was "casual ok, check in for more?" She got the sex share with you from the sound of it. And now that you are at the time and place of "check in for more"... she doesn't want to.

That second bit could be a partial truth. BF is not good with you being the new BF not because of your "YOU-NESS." But because she made you her "unwitting one night stand cheating partner" by lying about that agreement even existing. And BF would not be crazy about ANY cheating partner. She's inviting you think it's YOU -- so you will agree to stay silent?

Could it be that she rather invite you to be a cheating affair partner because she doesn't want to be caught out by either BF or YOU? And the "damage" she is actually worried that honesty at this point in time will "out" is her own poor behavior? She has treated you both with less than honest behavior and less than respectful behavior and the consequence could that both of you could be pissed with her poor behavior if either finds out?

Smells fishy. But could still go with your ethics and sort this all out. Ethics is not for wimps.

I suggest you go with ethical behavior and get to the bottom of the shirky and ask for his "willing and able" honestly.

Then at least you in YOUR conduct are playing like Jedi -- you want to date a woman with a BF, so you ask them both up front if they are willing and able to polyship like that or not. You are worth dating respectfully, right?

If she gave you false information at the start you and BF could both be cross with her. But she could own her own behavior.


Choose well how you want to behave in each of those issues. Because you get to own YOUR behavior.

We are all free to choose. We are not free from the consequences of our behavior.

HTH!
Galagirl
 
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Little update;
Been meaning to post more but life and such things get in the way of internet,

"Freyja" has made headway and has brought the non-monogamy talk to the table with the BF, which went better than expected, which is to say they've had the normal initial discussions and come to some agreements.

Things had been kept very general, but I was brought up in a certain context, not by her, but by him in a positive light, which was unexpected. And he's given the green light for us to indulge in some of the more ecclesiastic actives of ours. (I confirmed this.)

Yes, there is a few details that are being omitted (for the time being), but baby steps being the requested mode of operation for the time being, not an unreasonable course of action.

That second bit could be a partial truth. BF is not good with you being the new BF not because of your "YOU-NESS." But because she made you her "unwitting one night stand cheating partner" by lying about that agreement even existing. And BF would not be crazy about ANY cheating partner. She's inviting you think it's YOU -- so you will agree to stay silent?

Could it be that she rather invite you to be a cheating affair partner because she doesn't want to be caught out by either BF or YOU? And the "damage" she is actually worried that honesty at this point in time will "out" is her own poor behavior? She has treated you both with less than honest behavior and less than respectful behavior and the consequence could that both of you could be pissed with her poor behavior if either finds out?
Nope. Frankly if she just wanted to cheat on him and keep it quite, there would be a flat declaration of intent.
I know this from previous history.
Nearly 10 years of history actually, some of it pretty terrible.

We both know the other ones worst relationship sins and methods pretty intimately, so we don't bother trying to bullshit each other, it doesn't work anyway.
 
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