First post, so definiteyl a newbie, both to the Poly scene and this forum.
I'll give a quick cliff note version of my gf and my history. Feel free to jump to the question below. Sorry in advance for the long post.
Background:
Basically I was dating my girlfriend of 10 years (we broke up for almost 2 years at the 4th year mark) when a few months ago, I discovered she has been cheating on me with a man she had some sexual relationship with in the past (while we were broken up). This relationship has consistantly being a sore point due to the fact that their "friendship" almost always require exclusivity in activity. In other words, they'd go camping, concert, spend weekends together etc without other parties involved.
I've tried to deal with the exclusivity issue by being flexible and lya down boundries and chalk the rest of my discomfort to my jealousy streak, something I felt very guilty of.
4 months ago, I ran across email that indicated they have more going on than friendship. I also noticed her taking more weekend trips and increase in secrecy. Finally last month I showed up at the man's door and exposed the affair.
When she finally came home, we discussed what to do going forward. She said the man (we shall refer to him as T going forward) is a friend, and that she is in love with him and desire to have him in her life in some form or another for the rest of her life. And how it does not diminish any love she had for me. She has no plans on leaving me for him, in fact, there are no plans to escalate relationship with T to any kind of relationship. She said through this experience, she's learned that she is a Poly person, that her heart of split between the 2 men in her life.
Upon hearing this, I read through "Opening up" and devour the content on thsi forum. My gf and I also learned to be open and honest, beginning with her telling me about the nature of her relationship with T, including email and text communication, this is to try to established the lost trust from the affair.
I tried furiously deling with my jealousy issue, something I'm still struggling with daily. I asked to go at my pace, which is something she has agreed to.
With that background, here are my questions:
1.) I'm not opposed to Poly in an intellectual sense, in fact, the idea of being able to share intimacy with multiple individual has strong appeal to me.
I am however, having a lot of difficulty getting over the issue of jealousy. I've read through the many resources online in dealing with jealousy but just cannot prevent my emotion from taking over every time I read another email from T expressing his love for my gf or plan another weekend getaway. I'm close to giving up on dealing with jealousy issue alone.
2.) GF has asked me to see T 2 times a month with ocassional weekend getawys. She gains most satisfaction from spending the night at T's house. The problem is I experience very strong sense of loss when she spends the night at T's house, how does other monos deal with this? Do you just find some midnight hobby while you're up all night engulfed in jealousy?
3.) GF is currently completely in NRE, which annoys me to no end since every time she sees something beautiful, like clouds, sunset, flowers etc, it reminds her of him. How do you guys deal with NRE? How do you experience "compersion", to share the experience with her? I just cannto find the space in my heart to enjoy her going gaga over another man, I wish I could!
I have so much trouble dealing with these issue that the idea of leaving this relationship is beginning to cloud over my judgement. I don't want to throw away 10 years of history and the beautiful dreams my gf and I have constructed together. I really want this to work, I just feel so lost and don't know what else to do.
Thanks for listening
I'll give a quick cliff note version of my gf and my history. Feel free to jump to the question below. Sorry in advance for the long post.
Background:
Basically I was dating my girlfriend of 10 years (we broke up for almost 2 years at the 4th year mark) when a few months ago, I discovered she has been cheating on me with a man she had some sexual relationship with in the past (while we were broken up). This relationship has consistantly being a sore point due to the fact that their "friendship" almost always require exclusivity in activity. In other words, they'd go camping, concert, spend weekends together etc without other parties involved.
I've tried to deal with the exclusivity issue by being flexible and lya down boundries and chalk the rest of my discomfort to my jealousy streak, something I felt very guilty of.
4 months ago, I ran across email that indicated they have more going on than friendship. I also noticed her taking more weekend trips and increase in secrecy. Finally last month I showed up at the man's door and exposed the affair.
When she finally came home, we discussed what to do going forward. She said the man (we shall refer to him as T going forward) is a friend, and that she is in love with him and desire to have him in her life in some form or another for the rest of her life. And how it does not diminish any love she had for me. She has no plans on leaving me for him, in fact, there are no plans to escalate relationship with T to any kind of relationship. She said through this experience, she's learned that she is a Poly person, that her heart of split between the 2 men in her life.
Upon hearing this, I read through "Opening up" and devour the content on thsi forum. My gf and I also learned to be open and honest, beginning with her telling me about the nature of her relationship with T, including email and text communication, this is to try to established the lost trust from the affair.
I tried furiously deling with my jealousy issue, something I'm still struggling with daily. I asked to go at my pace, which is something she has agreed to.
With that background, here are my questions:
1.) I'm not opposed to Poly in an intellectual sense, in fact, the idea of being able to share intimacy with multiple individual has strong appeal to me.
I am however, having a lot of difficulty getting over the issue of jealousy. I've read through the many resources online in dealing with jealousy but just cannot prevent my emotion from taking over every time I read another email from T expressing his love for my gf or plan another weekend getaway. I'm close to giving up on dealing with jealousy issue alone.
2.) GF has asked me to see T 2 times a month with ocassional weekend getawys. She gains most satisfaction from spending the night at T's house. The problem is I experience very strong sense of loss when she spends the night at T's house, how does other monos deal with this? Do you just find some midnight hobby while you're up all night engulfed in jealousy?
3.) GF is currently completely in NRE, which annoys me to no end since every time she sees something beautiful, like clouds, sunset, flowers etc, it reminds her of him. How do you guys deal with NRE? How do you experience "compersion", to share the experience with her? I just cannto find the space in my heart to enjoy her going gaga over another man, I wish I could!
I have so much trouble dealing with these issue that the idea of leaving this relationship is beginning to cloud over my judgement. I don't want to throw away 10 years of history and the beautiful dreams my gf and I have constructed together. I really want this to work, I just feel so lost and don't know what else to do.
Thanks for listening