I'm new to the site so thanks in advance for the help! Other than reading books I don't have a lot of ways to get help with my poly relationship as I don't know anybody else personally who is in this kind of relationship. It's hard to ask advice when none of my friends have ever experienced a similar situation.
The situation I am dealing with is frustrating. I have a friend who I have known for a very long time, longer than I've known my husband. I was in love with this friend way back when, he didn't know this at the time. We lost touch for approximately 10 years and we just started hanging out again 2 years ago. I quickly fell back in love with him and I talked to my husband about starting a relationship with him. I got the green light. So I explained to my friend about being in a poly relationship and essentially asked him if he would like to start a relationship with me. His answer was no.
We talked about it for a while but I'll highlight his objections: 1) "Open relationships don't work" 2) "What is the end goal for us? We wouldn't be able to get married/have kids." 3) "I would get jealous"
I don't really like the idea of pushing the issue and trying to convince him because ultimately that would create insecurity for me that he had to be persuaded. So we moved on, did not start a relationship, and have maintained a great friendship for approximately 6 months. It has come up occasionally, he knows that its still something I want, and despite my best attempts at honest communication, I have never gotten him to express how he feels about me. However, during the last 2-3 months he has gotten increasingly more physical with me. The big issue is that if I say anything about this or try to talk about it he shuts down, but if I just accept it without comment it continues. This is so hard for me because my husband and I are all about communication and I have a really hard time not just asking him whats up.
So here is the problem.... I don't want to officially bring up the idea of starting a relationship again because we've had this conversation 3 times and he hasn't changed his mind (however, the last time we talked about it his only objection was his potential jealousy). However, his actions towards me have changed significantly over the last couple of months and despite the fact that he has rejected me I feel its clear that he does actually want something more out of our relationship. My best friend summed it up best: "He is more honest with his actions than with his words".
Has anybody dealt with this type of situation before where you have had success overcoming a potential lovers objections to being part of an open relationship?
Also, any advice in general would really help because at this point I'm considering ignoring my usual approach (communication) and taking a page out of his book and start being more aggressive physically and see what he does about it. This to me seems really risky because he has rejected me already and I don't really need to create an awkward situation by ignoring the fact that he said no to a relationship.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, I know it's long, sorry about that!
The situation I am dealing with is frustrating. I have a friend who I have known for a very long time, longer than I've known my husband. I was in love with this friend way back when, he didn't know this at the time. We lost touch for approximately 10 years and we just started hanging out again 2 years ago. I quickly fell back in love with him and I talked to my husband about starting a relationship with him. I got the green light. So I explained to my friend about being in a poly relationship and essentially asked him if he would like to start a relationship with me. His answer was no.
We talked about it for a while but I'll highlight his objections: 1) "Open relationships don't work" 2) "What is the end goal for us? We wouldn't be able to get married/have kids." 3) "I would get jealous"
I don't really like the idea of pushing the issue and trying to convince him because ultimately that would create insecurity for me that he had to be persuaded. So we moved on, did not start a relationship, and have maintained a great friendship for approximately 6 months. It has come up occasionally, he knows that its still something I want, and despite my best attempts at honest communication, I have never gotten him to express how he feels about me. However, during the last 2-3 months he has gotten increasingly more physical with me. The big issue is that if I say anything about this or try to talk about it he shuts down, but if I just accept it without comment it continues. This is so hard for me because my husband and I are all about communication and I have a really hard time not just asking him whats up.
So here is the problem.... I don't want to officially bring up the idea of starting a relationship again because we've had this conversation 3 times and he hasn't changed his mind (however, the last time we talked about it his only objection was his potential jealousy). However, his actions towards me have changed significantly over the last couple of months and despite the fact that he has rejected me I feel its clear that he does actually want something more out of our relationship. My best friend summed it up best: "He is more honest with his actions than with his words".
Has anybody dealt with this type of situation before where you have had success overcoming a potential lovers objections to being part of an open relationship?
Also, any advice in general would really help because at this point I'm considering ignoring my usual approach (communication) and taking a page out of his book and start being more aggressive physically and see what he does about it. This to me seems really risky because he has rejected me already and I don't really need to create an awkward situation by ignoring the fact that he said no to a relationship.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, I know it's long, sorry about that!