justlost
New member
So my husband (khas) and I have been married 10+ years, we have together raised (mostly) my 4 children.
We started with nothing but each other and my kids, we worked together and fought and loved and survived to the point of have 3 kids raised and mostly on their own, only one 15 year old still at home.
We briefly discussed poly shortly after our marriage. At the time a dear friend of mine became an sexual interest for my husband. He said he found her compelling because of the friendship the three of us had built and the interaction between her and I was one he found alluring. I didn't understand and in my naive mindset I set up a threesome between us. The problem mostly was I didn't tell either of them how much the whole thing hurt me. I wanted only the happiness of my husband and friend, I tried to put my own feelings in a box. Needless to say on "the night" I broke down and nothing happened besides the beginning of the slow death of a dear friendship. Somehow I thought if I kept her out of our life the whole thing would disappear.
Over the next 10 years our life became centered around work/kids and we had basically no friends. My friendship with B. devolved into a yearly christmas/birthday card relationship. And we moved, and moved, and moved... always searching for who knows what. We never again crossed out of our marriage for any other relationships. But as I am discovering things like this can't be ignored.
Over the years Khas became more and more ... frankly miserable... he was grouchy and awful and though we split for 8 months in 2004, nothing really changed when we got back together.
So all these years later, he finally has the career he was working for and I am now disabled and pretty miserable myself.
1500 miles away from where we started and B is back in our lives. Her daughter moved here for college and she followed. Slowly over the last year we have built our friendship back up. Openly discussing the situation that led to the estrangement and deciding together that she and Khas would never cross into that territory again.
But life is not so simple is it.... a couple of months ago Khas came to me and told me basically that he is poly and he has deep and growing feelings for B. he wants to love her, to hold her, to share life with her and yet he wants me too....
B and I have a deep friendship, we've talked about what is happening and she is pretty unsure of where to go... we aren't in a hurry, we have time to work it all out.
I love Khas, more than anything, I want to grow old with him and I want to share every up and down of life together with him along the way. More than anything I want him to be happy, the reemergence of his dating behaviors is both thrilling and deeply painful.
Why when I want him to be happy and he finally is, does it hurt me so very much?
I have agreed to the move to poly life. Rationally I understand and accept who he is and where this is going... emotionally I want to scream and rip out my hair...
I have been reading this site for the last couple of weeks. I see that I have much to work on personally, I have let my life devolve into the role of wife/mother and left no room to even see who I am.
I know his love is not finite, that his loving another is not an exclusion of me... but it feels like it.
I am sorry this is so rambling... I have read so many of your posts and see how far I have to go, but I have one question....
I keep seeing "it gets better" but.............
Does it ever stop hurting?
Is there ever a time to come when I will feel only joy for Khas' joy, and not just learn how to redirect my own anguish so that it is "better"?
Is there ever a moment of peace to come or will my heart hurt until I can't even define myself as more than pain... ok seriously melodramitic but that is so how I feel..
yesterday I made the analogy that its like he is cutting me with a chainsaw and then complaining because he stubbed his toe in the process... yes he hurts too, its hard to share my pain with him like he keeps asking me to when I then have to see how my pain hurts him, which hurts me.... vicious and endless cycle..
and really in a way I am GLAD it hurts him too.... I would hate to think that 13 years of working together, of the joy and pain of life worked in one direction which is being ripped into a billion pieces in order to create a new life in a new direction is a process only painful to me, and not to him too....
We started with nothing but each other and my kids, we worked together and fought and loved and survived to the point of have 3 kids raised and mostly on their own, only one 15 year old still at home.
We briefly discussed poly shortly after our marriage. At the time a dear friend of mine became an sexual interest for my husband. He said he found her compelling because of the friendship the three of us had built and the interaction between her and I was one he found alluring. I didn't understand and in my naive mindset I set up a threesome between us. The problem mostly was I didn't tell either of them how much the whole thing hurt me. I wanted only the happiness of my husband and friend, I tried to put my own feelings in a box. Needless to say on "the night" I broke down and nothing happened besides the beginning of the slow death of a dear friendship. Somehow I thought if I kept her out of our life the whole thing would disappear.
Over the next 10 years our life became centered around work/kids and we had basically no friends. My friendship with B. devolved into a yearly christmas/birthday card relationship. And we moved, and moved, and moved... always searching for who knows what. We never again crossed out of our marriage for any other relationships. But as I am discovering things like this can't be ignored.
Over the years Khas became more and more ... frankly miserable... he was grouchy and awful and though we split for 8 months in 2004, nothing really changed when we got back together.
So all these years later, he finally has the career he was working for and I am now disabled and pretty miserable myself.
1500 miles away from where we started and B is back in our lives. Her daughter moved here for college and she followed. Slowly over the last year we have built our friendship back up. Openly discussing the situation that led to the estrangement and deciding together that she and Khas would never cross into that territory again.
But life is not so simple is it.... a couple of months ago Khas came to me and told me basically that he is poly and he has deep and growing feelings for B. he wants to love her, to hold her, to share life with her and yet he wants me too....
B and I have a deep friendship, we've talked about what is happening and she is pretty unsure of where to go... we aren't in a hurry, we have time to work it all out.
I love Khas, more than anything, I want to grow old with him and I want to share every up and down of life together with him along the way. More than anything I want him to be happy, the reemergence of his dating behaviors is both thrilling and deeply painful.
Why when I want him to be happy and he finally is, does it hurt me so very much?
I have agreed to the move to poly life. Rationally I understand and accept who he is and where this is going... emotionally I want to scream and rip out my hair...
I have been reading this site for the last couple of weeks. I see that I have much to work on personally, I have let my life devolve into the role of wife/mother and left no room to even see who I am.
I know his love is not finite, that his loving another is not an exclusion of me... but it feels like it.
I am sorry this is so rambling... I have read so many of your posts and see how far I have to go, but I have one question....
I keep seeing "it gets better" but.............
Does it ever stop hurting?
Is there ever a time to come when I will feel only joy for Khas' joy, and not just learn how to redirect my own anguish so that it is "better"?
Is there ever a moment of peace to come or will my heart hurt until I can't even define myself as more than pain... ok seriously melodramitic but that is so how I feel..
yesterday I made the analogy that its like he is cutting me with a chainsaw and then complaining because he stubbed his toe in the process... yes he hurts too, its hard to share my pain with him like he keeps asking me to when I then have to see how my pain hurts him, which hurts me.... vicious and endless cycle..
and really in a way I am GLAD it hurts him too.... I would hate to think that 13 years of working together, of the joy and pain of life worked in one direction which is being ripped into a billion pieces in order to create a new life in a new direction is a process only painful to me, and not to him too....
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