Our anniversary is coming up this Friday. And we are not getting there in a good place. It's our first (together 8, married just last year), so it's all kinds of symbolic- the wedding cake is still in our freezer, all that. We toke time off from work months in advance, were planning a vacation. Now all I wanna do is stay in MY bed (she's been banished to sleep in the guest room a week ago) and cry all day.
My wife has been having a relationship I don't condone (wish I could link to older posts but I don't know how). With someone who is cheating on her wife. After posting and receiving much support here (thanx all!) I put my foot down and said "this is not ethical poly-shipping and I can't handle it". But I also gave my wife time to figure this out, created a sort of "safety net" for ourselves by promising we will not end the relationship (aka move out, tell friends & family we're separated and so on) until the end of the month.
And right now that promise is the only thing keeping me here. She broke my heart the other day.
We had agreed that for our upcoming anniversary we will not buy presents, but will instead make each other playlists of music. A sort of "mix-tape"... I was imagining how this would become a tradition, all the playlists we would give each other over the years.
Then she tells me she wants to give this cheater she is seeing a birthday present. What's the present? A disc she would compile with songs. I was so hurt. She wants to give this person, who in the month+ they have been "together" lied to her, cheated on her, exposed her (and me!) to possible STD's by being a lying bastard, and made her risk her marriage for that treatment, the same gift she is giving me for our anniversary??? (and to make it worst she says "No, it's not the same gift! you get a playlist and she gets a disc!". People on the NRE drug are so terribly stupid!).
It made me feel like we were of the same importance to her. And I am convinced that this person she is sleeping with is nothing but a player, who lied to my trusting wife and manipulated her to get into her pants. She just doesn't see it yet. She's been with me since the age of 20, she has no experience with this kind of behavior, so she is easy to fool.
But it is just too much for me. I held her hand through the death of both her parents. I helped her pull herself by the bootstraps to achieve higher education despite financial circumstances. I pulled her out of bed screaming and kicking and made sure she continued going to school when she was in grief and wanted to through it all away. For 8 years I was there for her, for better or worse. I never lied to her. I also never wanted the need to lie to push us apart, or to limit her freedom, so I wanted our relationship to be open.
But how can I have a poly relationship with someone who can't tell the difference between love and sex? How can I be in an open relationship with someone who can't distinguish an honest, loving partner and a lying, cheating, manipulating player?
She broke it off with the cheater after that, or so she says (we've been here before...) But even if it's really over it doesn't change how I feel. The problem was never that she was sleeping with someone else. I have zero jealousy of the possessiveness kind. The problem was she got so carried away in this infatuation that she made me feel like our relationship held no significance for her. Like the only reason she's not leaving me for this other person is that I am age-appropriate and socially acceptable as her mate.
I'm just so sad. I feel like I lost to NRE and the "you can only love one person at a time" model. Am I being unreasonable? I feel like a "bad" poly to be taking this so hard. But this is how I feel now. I look at her and I either wanna cry, slap her or vomit. So I just walk away. I can't talk to her anymore. How can I celebrate an anniversary with someone who has made me feel so unappreciated? If we manage to stay together, how will this not become something I will always carry with me, to every anniversary we have?
I don't know how we can come back from this and rebuild our trust and closeness.
My wife has been having a relationship I don't condone (wish I could link to older posts but I don't know how). With someone who is cheating on her wife. After posting and receiving much support here (thanx all!) I put my foot down and said "this is not ethical poly-shipping and I can't handle it". But I also gave my wife time to figure this out, created a sort of "safety net" for ourselves by promising we will not end the relationship (aka move out, tell friends & family we're separated and so on) until the end of the month.
And right now that promise is the only thing keeping me here. She broke my heart the other day.
We had agreed that for our upcoming anniversary we will not buy presents, but will instead make each other playlists of music. A sort of "mix-tape"... I was imagining how this would become a tradition, all the playlists we would give each other over the years.
Then she tells me she wants to give this cheater she is seeing a birthday present. What's the present? A disc she would compile with songs. I was so hurt. She wants to give this person, who in the month+ they have been "together" lied to her, cheated on her, exposed her (and me!) to possible STD's by being a lying bastard, and made her risk her marriage for that treatment, the same gift she is giving me for our anniversary??? (and to make it worst she says "No, it's not the same gift! you get a playlist and she gets a disc!". People on the NRE drug are so terribly stupid!).
It made me feel like we were of the same importance to her. And I am convinced that this person she is sleeping with is nothing but a player, who lied to my trusting wife and manipulated her to get into her pants. She just doesn't see it yet. She's been with me since the age of 20, she has no experience with this kind of behavior, so she is easy to fool.
But it is just too much for me. I held her hand through the death of both her parents. I helped her pull herself by the bootstraps to achieve higher education despite financial circumstances. I pulled her out of bed screaming and kicking and made sure she continued going to school when she was in grief and wanted to through it all away. For 8 years I was there for her, for better or worse. I never lied to her. I also never wanted the need to lie to push us apart, or to limit her freedom, so I wanted our relationship to be open.
But how can I have a poly relationship with someone who can't tell the difference between love and sex? How can I be in an open relationship with someone who can't distinguish an honest, loving partner and a lying, cheating, manipulating player?
She broke it off with the cheater after that, or so she says (we've been here before...) But even if it's really over it doesn't change how I feel. The problem was never that she was sleeping with someone else. I have zero jealousy of the possessiveness kind. The problem was she got so carried away in this infatuation that she made me feel like our relationship held no significance for her. Like the only reason she's not leaving me for this other person is that I am age-appropriate and socially acceptable as her mate.
I'm just so sad. I feel like I lost to NRE and the "you can only love one person at a time" model. Am I being unreasonable? I feel like a "bad" poly to be taking this so hard. But this is how I feel now. I look at her and I either wanna cry, slap her or vomit. So I just walk away. I can't talk to her anymore. How can I celebrate an anniversary with someone who has made me feel so unappreciated? If we manage to stay together, how will this not become something I will always carry with me, to every anniversary we have?
I don't know how we can come back from this and rebuild our trust and closeness.