Help! My man's new love is a very jealous Secondary-Mono/poly-DADT-LDR-Vee!

SparklePony

New member
Greetings Poly Community! I am so glad to have found you. I have been in a poly relationship for 4 years but until a few days ago I never knew the word.

My man and I are going through a challenge...our relationship has been mostly about unicorns (I have no desire to date outside but it's also ok if he dates without me). But this time My partner (P) and a mono girl (M) have really fallen in love. I am open to accepting her but she is very much mono, jealous, insecure and has to pretend that I don't exist (even though we have all hung out together and she otherwise likes me, she just can't face sharing her man). To be in a relationship with P she would basically be in a Secondary-Mono/poly-DADT-LDR-Vee (Secondary b/c of time/physical constraints, not because P & I have put some sort of restriction on it). M says she will try, but I am afraid it's going to be too much for her which is going to be painful for all of us.

P is on a week long trip to visit M (a plan he made without consenting me). This has been more painful than I ever expected as I have never had to deal with jealousy. However I realize my issues are not about P being with M, but because P chooses to severely limit our communication while trying to appease M (He has to go into damage control mode if he even looks at my texts and we haven't spoken on the phone about the matter in 5 days for fear of M's wrath). Underneath it all we have been having our own relationship problems with ORE and the fact that P has been feeling a little smothered by being around me 24/7 because we also run a business together.

Unfortunately on this trip to visit M, P is trying to both get some "space" from me and start his first serious outside relationship, all while our unstable crazy landlady is trying to kick us out. I'm stuck at home dealing with the mess (both physical and emotional) with no friends I can talk about poly with and hardly any communication from P while he's enjoying a romantic vacationship. I am super easy going and patient, feel compersion and candualism, never had jealousy issues, but this has been an extremely painful challenge for me.

Please help me see some clarity! I go to pick up P at the airport tomorrow.
 
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P has created a relationship that will consistently harm his existing relationship. We all have a responsibility to maintain the relationships that we create and he has gone against that by choosing to be with someone who requires monogamy despite already having a partner who considers their relationship to be primary. But how can it be, really? Do you really think he considers the relationship you have with him to be primary when he obviously is willing to risk it to build a relationship with someone who absolutely does not want it to exist?

In this situation, I would be strongly questioning why my partner is building relationships with people who identify as monogamous and obviously are not happy in the absence of monogamy, I'd be asking why he is willing to treat me badly in order to appease her and why we are not treated equally.

To me, a decent partner who was worth my time wouldn't want the headache that comes with trying to convert a monogamous person to someone who can embrace their partner being polyamorous. They just wouldn't risk harming our relationship in that fashion. I'd be having serious talks with my partner about our future together; he has the responsibility to maintain our relationship, not her, I can't blame her for what she needs from a relationship, I can blame him for trying to give it to her though, especially when he knows that giving it to her would be dismissing our relationship.
 
I Hope It Works Out

Danger_Magic8Ball.jpg


I really hope it works out for you .. but without communication I don't see how M and you can ever be on the same page .. and P must be caught up in his own NRE (new relationship energy) to be blind to see what the effect will be on you. And you are suppose to be his primary relationship from the sounds of it.

Here's hoping that you can beat the odds of what looks like a lot of heart ache in your future.

Just Me,
Tim :confused:
 
This is why Poly should be in Sex Ed!

So you're saying that even by poly standards I should not be putting up with this behavior?

The thing is while we've been poly for 4 years we have had no structure or support from knowing what it means to be poly, or mono, or mono/poly. (Wish they talked about this stuff in Sex Ed!) We never knew what to call our relationship so we just called it "Single Together" and tried to ignore the fact that it was not really like being single and not really like being together. We never had the advantage of being able to read up on poly experiences from others and outline our boundaries and intentions...we just dove into the deep end but we're very mature and (usually) very good communicators so we've been totally fine (even having happy relationships with close friends, co-workers in the business we both run, and P's ex girlfriends) for 4 years until this.

P did not know the mono consequences of what he was getting us into when he fell in love with M and now he is being swept up in NRE without being properly warned about it's dangers. Since I'm inherently the more stable, patient partner I have to just be patient and wait in the dark while he tries to see if M can accept it.

While P has been gone I only just discovered the word polyamory while searching for some sort of relief an understanding for my pain and it has really opened my eyes to a better way of going about our "single-togetherness." I have tried to share my new discovery of this enlightened path on which we have been stumbling recklessly for so long, but he won't talk to me. He just says "I love you, we'll talk when I get back."
 
Poly Partner + Business Partner

I acknowledge that underlying problems with our relationship are expressing themselves through pain because P and I have not created healthy space in the relationship (codependent?). 90% of our business happens in the summer months and we just finished our most intense season ever. We have not been good at keeping the stress from work out of our relationship. This is driving him to seek space for himself which I know is very important for P (but for some reason he thinks be can get personal space while also on a vacationship???)

If one good thing is to come of it I hope it will awaken us to the dangers of not creating healthy boundaries between romance and business. Even with all my pain I know I am a "hopeful romantic"

On another note...What are your opinions on me talking directly to M to try to make her feel more comfortable? Should I "mind my own business" or is this now my business to mind? M and I have had several heart to hearts in person last time she visited but they circled round and round and didn't really conclude anything. I wish I had known at the time how to explain to a mono what poly is all about...is it ok for me to reach out in friendship to her now? It would be long distance which runs the risk of miscommunication and then P might get upset at me if she can't handle talking to me...
 
Ask P how he feels about it-explain your reasons.

Personally-I prefer to take the route of friendship with metamours and when it has gone that way-things have worked out better for the partners as well. But-some people prefer to "keep it separated"
 
You'll never be able to have a healthy friendship with a metamour who wants you and your relationship with her partner not to exist. It's unrealistic to think that she could have a friendship with you whilst this situation continues. Your partner needs to own his shit, fuck the NRE excuses, he is an adult and needs to be accountable for the things he creates. This is one of them. Don't allow him to treat you this way.
 
Olive Branch

I would love to be friends with M if possible... I think she is brave for being willing to try in the tiniest bit. I think she would be less afraid if she could trust both me and P. I understand she must be going through insecurities because she worked as a model. The fashion industry is notorious for creating self-esteem complexities in beautiful young girls who are suddenly (in their 20s) told they are too old and dumped! (Not sure if this is exactly what M is going through but fear of being replaced is probably contributing to her jealousy)

The LDR thing complicates it though as M prefers texting to talking and much of anything I text could be misread...would have to be baby steps I guess.
 
That last response was to LovingRadience and then I saw London's response... I know it seems inherently doomed so how can I communicate to my partner the dangerous ground he is treading?
 
You can't. That's the bottom line. You could enforce boundaries, ask for the same level of communication that M has whilst P is with you and see if he sticks to them. You can tell him that you feel him being in a relationship with someone who wants your relationship with him to be over impedes on your relationship with him and that you aren't willing to be a part of that. You need to stop patronising M though. She is monogamous. That's just how she is wired. Making out that her monogamy is because she has insecurities is offensive - it would be like me saying that someone is only heterosexual because they have latent homophobic beliefs and when they are cured of this prejudice, they'd be bisexual.
 
I would say that the priority for you and P right now is to deal with your living situation and the landlord wanting to kick you out. The fact that P chose to take a pleasure trip now while this is going on says volumes about where his head is at right now.
 
Follow up

Thank you for all your support, it's been 2 months now and I thought I would post an update...It's been a very interesting ride that would make for an excellent romantic comedy filmed in a tropical location.

When P returned he was in a cloud of NRE and not sure of anything, either way he knew he needed to live alone. M had a dream where she and I were friends, and she seemed more optimistic about it. Around the same time I had a dream that M & I were having sex! Anyway, P and I moved out to separate living spaces. Supposedly we were "taking a break" but we couldn't help from seeing each other and having passionate forbidden "break" sex. I traveled to visit my family, all of us sort of on standby to see what would happen.

M soon embarked on her solo trip to Hawaii. A few days in, she stopped returning P's calls and messages. He didn't hear from her for days and when he did, he got a messages that sounded like she would never talk to him again, "have a good life," and something about a world famous hypnotist! M's communication was always awful but suddenly she disappeared. Somehow P managed to save her from a dangerous cult that wanted her to cut ties to everyone she knew! But still she kept him in the dark, continued her romp around the islands, and he was heartbroken and betrayed.

When I returned from visiting my family, P finally told me that, even though he hadn't heard from M and expected not to see her, he had bought tickets for Hawaii (the price randomly dipped to half the usual amount so he had snatched them up on a whim). I was heartbroken. I could not understand why he would chase after her when she treated him so poorly. We were both very confused. He said he loved me, and I know he did. But he knew he had to do this.

He went to Hawaii, and M finally contacted him. When he saw her he knew that things were different between them. She had broken his trust. The NRE bubble had popped and with sudden clarity, he realized that his perception of M and who he thought she was were complete fantasy. In a few days it was over and he left her to go surf the North Shore, accepting that he may never see her again.

P and I had been talking through all of this. I had been doing some serious soul searching. I finally demanded a solid answer. If it was truly over between us, I needed to break away completely and drop all communication with him for as long as it would take me to heal. His answer was to buy me a ticket to Hawaii.

For the next 10 days we experienced a tropical honeymoon (without the whole getting married part). Romantic dinner dates, surfing in the sunset, long walks on the beach...we re-evaluated our relationship, it's strengths and weaknesses, what we learned about ourselves, how we had grown. He told me how he had realized that M was what mystic spheres call his "twin flame" (a star splits to form two new souls, but while they experience an intense connection, it is unstable, and they must love from afar). He realized that she was the complete opposite of me, and had none of the qualities he valued in a partner, while I had everything that he valued. Especially trust, loyalty and communication. Throughout the whole drama I never wavered in these, and through the pain of his broken heart, he experienced just how important these qualities were to him.

We are taking it slow, still living separately, absorbing our lessons. After 4 years, we now have an opportunity to set up something newer and stronger. I has been an interesting ride, and I am wholeheartedly thankful to the angel M for the new level of clarity and commitment she has brought to our relationship, a blessing in disguise.
 
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