I'm the boy in Rhaenes's relationship if anybody has read her introduce me section. I thought i would add my thoughts and they mainly consist with dealing with my family at some point down the road. I realize that our poly relationship is new and i shouldnt worry about it just yet, and i intend not to, i intend to just live and let live but i dont feel i can ignore my family forever if i want to move in one day with my partners.
I feel i have a very good inkling as to how my family (primarily my oldest brother and mother, as my parents are divorced me dad doesnt really know much about my personal life) will react. For the last few years while i was still monogamous with my girlfriend they tended to poke fun at my relationship at every opportunity, it was fine at first but it almost became nonstop harassment. I would come home for a break from college and every single thing they mentioned was either ridicule about something i hadnt done (finding a job, or keeping in contact enough) but mainly about how i was "taking myself too seriously" in my relationship and it was almost like i was destined to fail and my whole life is a big joke to them. And if i tried to defend myself it would just go in one ear and out the other and they wouldnt even be able to see my side of the story, and would straight up think i was lying to them! They just think that everything i tell them isnt true, like im a pathological liar of sorts. My brother makes genuinely hurtful jokes about my relationship and my mother verges on verbal harassment when i have done nothing to provoke her (i think she does it because she has no outlet because my father left so i've become the scapegoat) but that doesnt mean it hurts any less. I dread coming home from school because of all this, and obviously if they found out about this i cannot imagine what they might think.
Top of the list being, i'm cheating on my girlfriend with another woman and i cant possibly love two women and im just like my asshole father who cheated etc. etc. And if my girlfriend tries to explain how loving and open we have been and communicating about everything and its not an affair in the slightest and i really do love two people, they think i probably brainwashed her or something similar. My brother is very liberal and to a lesser degree my mother but when it comes to relationships they're very pessimistic and i think this is too far fetched for them to ever believe/accept.
What advice can you give to me so that my family doesn't entrench their false mistrust of me further?
I feel i have a very good inkling as to how my family (primarily my oldest brother and mother, as my parents are divorced me dad doesnt really know much about my personal life) will react. For the last few years while i was still monogamous with my girlfriend they tended to poke fun at my relationship at every opportunity, it was fine at first but it almost became nonstop harassment. I would come home for a break from college and every single thing they mentioned was either ridicule about something i hadnt done (finding a job, or keeping in contact enough) but mainly about how i was "taking myself too seriously" in my relationship and it was almost like i was destined to fail and my whole life is a big joke to them. And if i tried to defend myself it would just go in one ear and out the other and they wouldnt even be able to see my side of the story, and would straight up think i was lying to them! They just think that everything i tell them isnt true, like im a pathological liar of sorts. My brother makes genuinely hurtful jokes about my relationship and my mother verges on verbal harassment when i have done nothing to provoke her (i think she does it because she has no outlet because my father left so i've become the scapegoat) but that doesnt mean it hurts any less. I dread coming home from school because of all this, and obviously if they found out about this i cannot imagine what they might think.
Top of the list being, i'm cheating on my girlfriend with another woman and i cant possibly love two women and im just like my asshole father who cheated etc. etc. And if my girlfriend tries to explain how loving and open we have been and communicating about everything and its not an affair in the slightest and i really do love two people, they think i probably brainwashed her or something similar. My brother is very liberal and to a lesser degree my mother but when it comes to relationships they're very pessimistic and i think this is too far fetched for them to ever believe/accept.
What advice can you give to me so that my family doesn't entrench their false mistrust of me further?