poly and affair

Hunny

New member
HI everyone, i am new to this forum and i am also fairly new to the polyamory lifestyle. Its been an off and on thing for me but my partner and i have been heavily involved in a polyamory relationship with another married couple for the last 2 1/2 months.

my partner and i have been together for 5 years and have always been extremely open and honest with each other and have always had complete trust for one another. We have had the type of relationship that people envy where we are so into each other and display our love for one another to the world. he makes me feel like the only woman alive and i know i do the same for him. We take the time nearly every day to focus on our relationship and work on it to make it continually better. So its safe to say that what we have is pretty special and amazing and neither of us have any doubts that we will be life long partners.

Soooo... last year we become friends with a couple and it was quite flirty between all of us from the beginning. At first it was only about flirting but after a drunken party we ended up swapping with this couple who have never been involved in a poly type relationship. My partner and I had discussed the poly lifestyle before so we were half prepared for what was ahead of us.

We became heavily involved with this couple quickly after that first night together and i fully believed that my partner and i were on the same page as far as what the boundaries were as well as our level of honesty and communication. We helped each other to feel secure whenever there were any doubts about the situation and i thought that all was well in our own relationship. HOwever, i can see now that there were still some grey areas that we should have addressed further for ourselves as well as with this other couple.

There was a point where i thought my partners "girlfriend" was getting too involved with him by having too much outside contact (through texting and facebook). I KNEW that she was after more from him so after speaking with BOTH of them i believed that they were toning things down as we all agreed that it was getting too heavy.

so to suddenly make a long story abruptly short we ended up breaking up with this couple just over a week ago because it was slowly but surely starting to create problems in my own relationship, despite my partner and i doing everything we could to keep each other feeling secure and following all the "rules". At the time i believed that both my partner and myself wanted it to be this way as he seemed happy to end it with her.

So here i am thinking that its all over but last friday i happened to see my partners facebook open while he was in bed. i had long suspected that his girlfriend was too involved (as i mentioned above) and my instincts were screaming at me to look at the facebook messages. i could not resist looking to see if i was right or not and what i came across has completely destroyed me.

it turns out that they were pretty much having an affair over the last 4 weeks. They were talking like they were in love (i was always under the impression that he did not feel that way about her as he has always told me that) and they were lying and sneaking behind my back (as well as his girlfriends husbands back) constantly.

To me it is an affair because it was based on lies and deceit and anything that you wouldnt tell your partner about is considered an affair in my books. I always believed that we were 100% honest with each other as we have always been this way since we've been together. so it was such a horrible shock to see him lie like this.

obviously i have confronted him and we are working on why this happened and my partner admits that it wasnt about "her" but more about fulfilling his need to experience that initial "honeymoon phase" when you first meet someone. That 24/7 constant excitement, that crazy passion, the butterflies etc etc. I understand this completely but what i am struggling with is the level of deceit that he went to. for 5 years i have had nothing but complete trust for this man. We have always been so honest with each other and i took great pride in that so its extremely hard for me to believe that he would lie to me like this.

He said that he knew he was lying but once the first lie was created he found it more and more difficult to stop and the more he lied the more he couldnt bring himself to tell me what was going on. he didnt want to hurt me. (that is a cop out but i still understand where he is coming from) i also know that this girlfriend pushed him constantly into getting more (the evidence was in their facebook exchanges) and that he denied her at first but slowly fell into the trap of deceit and lies.

So my question is how does one recover from a situation like this and learn to trust again? My partner has ALWAYS gone the extra mile to show me his love and trust and now seeing him go that extra mile to win back my trust isnt working because i dont believe in him. Its so sad and I am in so much pain.

We are going to counselling in a couple of weeks (we cant get in any sooner) so in the meantime i am trying to figure all of this out on my own. i am so confused and heart broken and want to find a way to believe him again.

has anyone else had their trust abused like this or has your partner had an "affair" while you are in a polyamorous relationship?

i hope everything i said makes a lot of sense. i had to leave some things out in order to keep this simple and easy to follow. I know that i havent mentioned much about my "boyfriend" but there really isnt much to tell because neither of us crossed any boundaries.

any advice is truly appreciated :)

thank you!

Hunny
 
Welcome Hunny,
Glad you could join us.

I don't think there is any quick way of recovering from a breach of trust. In a way, things may have changed permanently, as you now know your partner is not "perfect," and that he is capable of getting caught up in something he knows is wrong. But in time, if he continues to show evidence that he can be trusted again, you may slowly begin to feel more trust in him. What you have to decide is, what is the extent to which you can forgive him.

Yes, it's true that any goings-on conducted without the *knowledge* and consent of everyone connected to the relationship, is an affair, regardless of whether the persons involved identify as poly. It sounds like your partner is quite taken by this other woman, and I wonder if it won't be very difficult for him to let her go.

Try not to make an major decisions until you have had some counselling and some time to think about all this. More light needs to be shed about why this happened, how/if it can be prevented in the future, and what it means to you and your partner as a couple.

I hope you find some of the answers you are looking for on this site.
Sincerely,
Kevin T.
 
You cannot regain your trust until he proves he deserves it. The bottom line is that he fucked up, so he has to fix it. It would be foolish for you to simply start trusting him again without him making some changes to show you that he merits trust.

Some simple examples are giving you full access to his email, facebook, cell phone, basically any method of communication that he has, for you to verify at your whim whether or not he's keeping secrets.
 
Welcome to the forums. I'm so sorry this happened to you. I've been cheated on (although it was before my poly days), but I imagine your pain and feelings of betrayal are every bit as severe as mine were. You never expect your soul-mate, the person who you depend upon to always be there for you and never hurt you, could stoop to such deceit. He knew he was doing wrong, else he would never have kept this from you.

I second everthing Schoedinger said. I demanded complete transparency from my W when this happened, in addition to no-contact, MC, and I even got in touch with the OM's fiancee to ensure this affair would come to an end. Does the "girlfriend"'s husband know about all this? If not, are you going to tell him? I've always had the belief that it's best to let him know, because if he were to find out through other means and know you were holding out on him, he would be very angry and resentful.

And I'm sure many here will agree with me that it's best to stop contact with this couple and concentrate on repairing that trust, which will take a commitment from your husband and lots of time.
 
It is not her place to notify the husband of this other woman though. That is crossing a line and interfering with a relationship that really doesn't have anything to do with her.
 
It is not her place to notify the husband of this other woman though. That is crossing a line and interfering with a relationship that really doesn't have anything to do with her.

I'm afraid we're going to have a philosophical difference here. Telling the husband helps ensure the affair doesn't re-occur, because affairs dwell in secrecy and darkness, and this helps bring it out into the harsh light of day. If I were the husband, I'd want to know. Plus, it's Hunny's partner and his "girlfriend" that did the interfering, it would just be Hunny revealing the truth.
 
I would want to know too, except it simply is not her place to tell him. If the affair continues that is because of her husband, this other woman owes her no alliance, her husband does, if he has an affair with that woman again he clearly can't be trusted.
If you think telling the husband of this woman would control the situation well, that is awfully naive and is more than likely just a vindictive action to 'get back' at this other woman. Fact is, no one knows what is going on in this other relationship and is therefore not her business, her husband is her business, she should concentrate on that and probably steer clear of non monogamy.
 
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