finding my way

urth

New member
I am a mother and married for ten years to the love of my life. We have been very close and committed and raising our children during this time.Our eyes never wondering past each other.That is just how it was.

Two years ago I travelled away from my family to do some training. While away I met another man whom I connected with deeply. Nothing happened other than deep meaningful conversation and who knows whether he ever felt the same but he left an impression on me. When I returned home I struggled to reintegrate myself back into my former life of being devoted wife and mother. I also re met a former love interest and sparks flew when we shared a platonic kiss that could have led to more...

I broached the subject of an open relationship to my husband (I did not know the term polyamory yet).He was angry and hurt at the suggestion. I had, out of fear and confusion, lied about my feelings for these men to him and he had found out because he felt suspicious and had gone through my computer.

Everytime I tried to broach the subject he grew angry and insecure and eventually I shelved the idea and resolved myself to the fact that if I wanted to be with this man, I had to decide to continue monogamy. When I did come to this conclusion, I felt fine about it.

During this time, he and I had a blow out and he left home for four days, he returned home a different person, much more empowered.

Fast forward one month and I am sitting on my bed catching up with some work. He sits down next to me and asks to speak to me, tells me he has fallen in love with our very good friend (Cindy) and he wants to speak to me about it.

I felt elated. I was so happy that he felt he could come and speak to me about this new love. I felt for the first time that I could speak openly to him about my feelings and needs around our relationship...that loving someone else didn't mean we loved each other less. We fell asleep happy in each other's arms.

Two days later he and friends and the children and Cindy were going away on a camping trip. I had to stay behind for work. He told me he wanted to initiate a physical relationship with Cindy. I felt it was all moving too fast. Thank goodness Cindy decided not to go with on the camping trip. She felt uncomfortable with it.

While he was away I had dinner with Cindy, we drank a bottle of wine and I reassured her. I told her that I felt fine with what was going on between them, she was feeling freaked out. I told her that communication between my husband and I was open and good and that I trusted him. That I was happy for them.

She proceeded to tell me a tale which was very different from the one he had told me.

It seemed that while he has been away for those four days after our blow out, he had initiated a relationship with her. Some thigh stroking and hand holding and much talk of love and connection.

Then over the next month they met and held hands and spoke and sent text messages and emails.much talk of love and all but nothing was said to me until that night when he admitted he was in love with her. he had made it seem very new and fresh and had omitted details.

I left Cindy's that night feeling shaken and confused. I got hold of him and got him to drive down so we could sort things out.

We talked well into the night and I asked for time to process and reconnect, for him to take a break from Cindy for a week while I integrated what was happening.

he was not able to do that and the text messages flew backwards and forwards between them...at first in secret and then in the open once I realised that there was not much I could do.

This went on for three weeks.most of it was beautiful and opening and a real opportunity for open communication and discussion between the three of us but there were moments of real hurt and sense of betrayal for me which my husband was very closed to (Cindy was great - really good listener - our friendship really blossomed during this time). He found my negative feelings threatening and confusing and we would inevitably fight.

Cindy was very confused about it all. Sometimes she gave a very clear yes and sometimes a very clear no. In the end we decided the best was to end it all. We were all emotionally exhausted.

Four days after we broke it off with Cindy, my husband had to go away for work. These four days were a very sensitive time for me.I felt I had been put through the emotional wringer and had not had much time to integrate everything that had happened. I was still confused and trying to process the sudden turnaround of the man who had been so adamently monogomous just a few months previously and now wanted to have secondary partners. I felt confused and sad by the lies and betrayal that had taken place. In essence I was confused and fragile and needed reassurance from my partner that we were stable - that our foundation was strong and from there we could explore this new idea and concept.

he left four days later for his three week trip.

He had a layover in a middle eastern country for under 24 hours and then was going on to Europe. I heard from him when he landed and that he had met an attractive Asian woman in the lift. That she had asked him to go sight seeing and that he had declined as he was tired but had given her his room number. I never heard from him again while he was there.

We chatted via Skype/email once he was in Europe. I was feeling sad and insecure the first two days he was away and we had much backward and forwarding about that. We had a long talk about how I made him feel scared to open up to me when I was down.that he worried he would depress me more.we processed a lot and I felt very close to him after that.

I started feeling better and had a good time with work and children.

My husband texted to say he had an important email to send me, that he wanted me to read in private. we arranged that I receive it Sat when I had time off and had no children.I didn't feel suspicious or scared or worried.

Friday night Cindy came over and we drank a bottle of wine together and sat under the stars. We had a good chat and she apologised to me about everything that had happened.

We then went on to talk about my husband who was sending us both cheeky texts.she mentioned that he had said to her that something beautiful had happened to him during his layover in the middle east but that he couldn't tell her before he had told me.

The penny dropped and so did my bowels. From the toilet I wrote to him from my phone: "Did you have something with someone in the middle east?"

He wrote back: "Maybe. I'll phone you"

The phone rang and I can still hear his voice telling me that he had spent the day with the beautiful Asian woman (M.) - she sounded intelligent and pretty - that they had ended up kissing and making love.

We ended up having a facebook chat (I couldn't bear to hear his voice).by this time he had sent the email he was waiting to send which gave the full details.he had planned to send it the moment he had arrived in Europe (or so he says) but got scared when he interacted with me and found me down and sad.

He felt good about his experience and didn't regret it. I think he was pretty high off it.

I felt confused and shocked.

I didn;t speak to him for a week and when we did start communicating I made it quite clear atht he had gone too far.that he had overstepped the mark and boundries of our relationship without consulting me.that as far as I was concerned, we had never agreed to an open relationship and what had happened was cheating. I wasn't sure I wanted him back in my life unless he could commit to me 100% until we were clear about our relationship and how it was going to work, etc.

He agreed begrudgingly at first but then warmed to the idea as we reconnected and chatted online and planned our time together.

It has been three months since all of this has happened and it has been a roller coaster ride.

I felt the need to communicate with M. and wrote to her. Twice. But she never wrote back. It was not a rude letter but one fo wanting to open up communication and resolve things - it had worked to well with Cindy and she is really one of my closest friends after this experience so I hope I could do the same with M.

She did write to my husband in response to my letter but when he wrote back she didn't write again (they had communicated quite a bit while he was still in Europe).

1. Do I write to her again - or do I just let it go? I feel the need to write and get some sense of peace from that but I could just be deluding myself...

2. I have been badly burnt through this experience and don't ever want to go through the kind of pain I have just been through again. My husband feels strange about what happened and is again at the place where he only wants me and to be with me and committed to me. He says the whole experience feels surreal and he wishes it ahd never happened.
i feel confused by his chopping and changing...it makes me feel insecure.

3. I am not sure what I want now...two years ago I wanted to explore other realtionships with other men.I then closed that idea in myself and also those relationships.I committed to monogamy and then was badly burnt.
At the moment I don't want a relationship, sexual or otherwise, with anyone one else but I feel the need to put down the ground rules we never put down before in case an attraction to someone else does happen.

4. In essence I believe in open love and relationships but I also believe in honesty and openess and that these all go hand in hand.in my case this has not happened and as a result I feel very fragile and insecure in my beliefs.

I am sure I have more questions and I will post them as they come up but I would appreciate some feedback please and support.
 
Sorry to hear you are hurting. Some suggestions follow.

1. How about writing the letter but never posting it? You could get those feelings out on the paper, and maybe reach some clarity. If she hasn't responded to you yet she probably never will.

2. Chances are your husband is mono and polyamory doesn't come to him naturally. Instead he cheats, because that is the only way he can make sense of the experience.

3. Some ground rules are probably in order, regardless if you continue exploring poly or not. Communication needs to improve.

4. Your beliefs are yours and they are valid if they make sense to you. Again, cheating might have been the only way your husband could wrap his head around the whole concept of polyamory.

If you want more advice, I suggest you post this on the Poly Relationships sub-forum, since this section is more for journaling.
 
I am sorry you are hurting. :(

1) When you brought it up, he was unwilling to discuss it and wigged out. I don't know if his core beliefs about loving were challenged. Or he had jealousy in other ways. Or his marriage as he knew it was over with you coming out with your crushes and he didn't know how to cope with that.


2) I don't know if he felt the need to assert/find out that he was still "desirable" to other people or what... but the bottom line is that he did not talk to you about changing agreements first. So he knowingly broke standing agreements in the marriage. So of course you are hurt. Trust has been broken. He can feel whatever he feels and sometimes yucky feelings bubble up. One does not get to pick WHAT you feel or WHEN to feel it. But one can pick HOW to respond to those feelings. He choose to break his marriage agreements with you rather than renegotiate them first.

3) Could do the repair work if you want to repair from a cheating affair.
http://felislunae.org/relationships-love/coming-clean/

Could get yourselves STD tested asap.

Don't bother to contact the affair woman at this time. What insight are you hoping to gain from that?

4) Could not go off to start more relationships with other people while wonky.

Could choose to remain CLOSED in your marriage while you do the repairs needed to rebuild or do the work to seperate legally in a clean way before starting over.

I'm not sure where you guys are headed on that one.

But for sure adding more people right now is not good -- takes time, energy, effort away from the task at hand. Could move it forward and resolve the task at hand first.

Hopefully toward a place of healing one way or another for you.

My 2 cents,
Galagirl
 
I had, out of fear and confusion, lied about my feelings for these men to him and he had found out because he felt suspicious and had gone through my computer.

Your post is very "feely" and not very "thinky". While it is good to be aware of the emotions you are feeling they are not, in and of themselves, much more than blinking alarms. When one needs to decide what actions to take they need to base their actions on thought, not emotions.

She proceeded to tell me a tale which was very different from the one he had told me...he had made it seem very new and fresh and had omitted details.

Both of you were dishonest, right out of the gate. You seem to be focusing on the fact that *he* was dishonest and what that makes you feel but from my perspective you have both fallen prey to the instinct to hide the truth.

We talked well into the night and I asked for time to process and reconnect, for him to take a break from Cindy for a week while I integrated what was happening.

This is a habit I suggest you move away from.

You were feeling insecure, which is something only you can deal with. Asking someone to take action to placate your insecurity should be done with extreme caution (though I suggest never). Emotions come from an internal source and should be addressed accordingly.

I feel the need to write and get some sense of peace from that but I could just be deluding myself...

Which is entirely your prerogative but expecting her to take action for you isn't reasonable. She hooked up with your husband for a magical day and then had some texting conversations with him... I don't think that signs her up for needing to "deal with his wifes emotional backlash". It's your emotional backlash, if she doesn't want to be a part of it that is entirely up to her.

Dear god, please don't write her again. Leave her alone and deal with your stuff.
 
Your post is very "feely" and not very "thinky". While it is good to be aware of the emotions you are feeling they are not, in and of themselves, much more than blinking alarms. When one needs to decide what actions to take they need to base their actions on thought, not emotions.



Both of you were dishonest, right out of the gate. You seem to be focusing on the fact that *he* was dishonest and what that makes you feel but from my perspective you have both fallen prey to the instinct to hide the truth.



This is a habit I suggest you move away from.

You were feeling insecure, which is something only you can deal with. Asking someone to take action to placate your insecurity should be done with extreme caution (though I suggest never). Emotions come from an internal source and should be addressed accordingly.



Which is entirely your prerogative but expecting her to take action for you isn't reasonable. She hooked up with your husband for a magical day and then had some texting conversations with him... I don't think that signs her up for needing to "deal with his wifes emotional backlash". It's your emotional backlash, if she doesn't want to be a part of it that is entirely up to her.

Dear god, please don't write her again. Leave her alone and deal with your stuff.

What are good suggestions to deal with insecurity in this kind of situation? Is it insecurity being hurt when your partner cheats?
 
What are good suggestions to deal with insecurity in this kind of situation? Is it insecurity being hurt when your partner cheats?

In order for having a romantic encounter with someone to be considered cheating there would need to be rules forbidding it. Rules which forbid a romantic partner from being romantic with with other people are generally created due to insecurity.

How to deal with insecurity?

Get exercise
Get therapy
Hang out with friends
Get a better job
Do whatever it takes to feel comfortable in your own skin

What is *not* a good way to deal with insecurities is laying out rules for the people around you to behave by. Insecurity is an internal issue and should be addressed by the person who has it and not offloaded onto friends, lovers, or family (read: anyone).
 
thanks so far

Thanks everyone for your responses thus far.

I agree Markus that I was not honest to start with and that we had to work through a lot as a result...loving someone else had never crossed my mind, not because I disapproved but because in ten years I had not thought about anyone else...silly I know but it is true...so when I did fall for someone else it completely freaked me out and I kept that information from my husband as well as myself. Needless to say it blew up in my face.

When the same thing happened to my husband...he was also afraid of my reaction and also confused by his new feelings for someone else...his primary reason for keeping the info from me...

When it was all finally in the open, as I mentioned, I felt happy and wanted to explore it - my request for him to take a break I feel came not out of insecurity or jealousy but more from a place of "hang on...wait a minute...I just need a moment to figure out what is going on here!?!" which in a relationship of ten years based on very different principals suddenly taking a very different turn, I feel I have a right to do...maybe you disagree with me on this fact.

I am by nature not a jealous person...the idea of my husband with someone else does not fill me with horror or insecurity...My parents from my birth were in an open relationship (my father married to someone else...we were his 'other' family, his wife had full knowledge of this, my mother had other lovers) so the idea/concept/lifestyle is not strange to me.

I think what has happened is that after ten years of ful time work and parenting, my husband and I have woken up to our different needs and haven't dealt with it very well.

I think what we have both learned from these experiences is that honesty well and truly is the key... in any relationship.

When the whole thing happened with Cindy, I encouraged and supported it as much as possible. She pulled out and so did we.

Then he left and met a beautiful woman whom he connected with and they made love. He wanted to share this news with me excitedly thinking I'd be happy and proud. When we spoke he found a sad and confused woman on the other end of the phone. He panicked and decided not to tell me until I was 'better.' As a result...I found out by accident...not a nice way to find out.

So did he cheat? I don't know...we had made no clear decisions yet but we had also opened up the poly box and therefore there was some ambiguity there...he travels extensively and in our ten years together he has never done anything like this...

And thanks for the std advice...we have done that already :)

so...I guess it just a case of wait and see and working through our stuff. I appreciate your knowledge and info to a novice like me.

Oh and by the way...you are right...no writing to the Asian beauty (except perhaps for my own processing)...as I wrote it I knew the answer to my own question but good to hear it said back to me
 
So in the case where a mono couple starts to open up, husband gets a girlfriend then had sex with a random stranger wouldn't that be considered cheating because they made monogamous vows and never entered into an agreement that they had carte Blanche to have sex with whoever they want. Or is it since they opened up she should have specified that he did not have carte blanche that it wasn't cheating.

Is wanting a courtesy heads up being insecure?
 
hmmm

good questions

at the time I felt like I was being cheated on...

at the time he felt like he was exploring something I was open to...

That is the great misunderstanding...which we, as adults, need to work through.

He feels like a silly noo noo now
 
appear erwrote

and to be honest had the middle eastern affair just taken place out of the blue I don't think I would have felt so broken either...but in the space of six weeks I had re examine the entire structure of a ten year relationship involving four children and two new women
 
Or is it since they opened up she should have specified that he did not have carte blanche that it wasn't cheating.

I'm not sure if this is directed at me but I'll answer it just in case.

As the OP pointed out, there was some sloppy communication going on with both of them. In this particular case it just seems like there were some expectations present which weren't clearly expressed so people were just going with their gut. As it turns out, the gut reaction was not what the other partner had in mind and there were hurt feelings for everyone involved. It sucks, but it happens and in the case of the OP it sounds like she intends to not make the same mistakes (which is really the best reaction we can have).

Based on the information given, I wouldn't consider what happened here cheating, just bad communication of expectations. The important thing is to consider how reasonable each persons expectations are and to examine how well they line up with what the other person wants to do.

Is wanting a courtesy heads up being insecure?

I'm not a head shrink, I really don't have these answers. Personally I think that if someone needs to adjust their actions for my emotional state then I have offloaded responsibility for my own feelings onto them. This is not appropriate in my world. My world has a very low population, but I think reason is on my side when I say that the approach of dealing with ones own issues will foster more healthy relationships.
 
thanks Markus

As the OP pointed out, there was some sloppy communication going on with both of them. In this particular case it just seems like there were some expectations present which weren't clearly expressed so people were just going with their gut. As it turns out, the gut reaction was not what the other partner had in mind and there were hurt feelings for everyone involved. It sucks, but it happens and in the case of the OP it sounds like she intends to not make the same mistakes (which is really the best reaction we can have).

Based on the information given, I wouldn't consider what happened here cheating, just bad communication of expectations. The important thing is to consider how reasonable each persons expectations are and to examine how well they line up with what the other person wants to do.

I agree and thanks for this Markus...makes it all feel much clearer...I don't feel it was ACTUALLY cheating just really bad communication from both our sides and seeing it from that perspective makes it much easier to forge on ahead.:eek:
 
thanks Markus

As the OP pointed out, there was some sloppy communication going on with both of them. In this particular case it just seems like there were some expectations present which weren't clearly expressed so people were just going with their gut. As it turns out, the gut reaction was not what the other partner had in mind and there were hurt feelings for everyone involved. It sucks, but it happens and in the case of the OP it sounds like she intends to not make the same mistakes (which is really the best reaction we can have).

Based on the information given, I wouldn't consider what happened here cheating, just bad communication of expectations. The important thing is to consider how reasonable each persons expectations are and to examine how well they line up with what the other person wants to do.

I agree and thanks for this Markus...makes it all feel much clearer...I don't feel it was ACTUALLY cheating just really bad communication from both our sides and seeing it from that perspective makes it much easier to forge on ahead.:eek:
 
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