Can a monogamous secondary be satisfied?

[Marcus]

Originally Posted by WhatHappened

"I know tomorrow is the one night you're free, but my wife wants to do something."

Wow, that's really rude.

I certainly hope that the wife was unaware of his plans and wasn't just being a bitch, and that there was some underlying emergency involved and he wasn't just being spineless.

[WhatHappened]

Originally Posted by Marcus

Wow, that's really rude.

I certainly hope that the wife was unaware of his plans and wasn't just being a bitch, and that there was some underlying emergency involved and he wasn't just being spineless.

He didn't say those words directly. The full quote was,

the phone call I got the next day was, essentially, "I know tomorrow is the one night you're free, but my wife wants to do something."

In his defense, when he and I go out depends on my ex-husband's schedule (so the kids aren't sitting home alone), and that schedule moves around. Still, there's a pattern to it, and Bf did know that was my free night. I think he forgot and the plans had been made some time before, and he'd forgotten about those plans, too.

In the end, he cancelled the plans and he and I did go out together.

[WhatHappened]

AnotherConfused, as much as I can understand why someone might not invest in a relationship that can't lead to a future, a spouse, a home together, etc., it sounds like it's just outright thoughtlessness, at best, at this point. :-(

[AnotherConfused]

Originally Posted by WhatHappened

AnotherConfused, as much as I can understand why someone might not invest in a relationship that can't lead to a future, a spouse, a home together, etc., it sounds like it's just outright thoughtlessness, at best, at this point. :-(

Well, it turns out he was just really clueless about how I've been feeling, partly due to being so busy he'd been only scanning my last several emails. He also has a habit of over-scheduling himself. He was also hesitating to put time with me on his calendar for fear my husband wouldn't like it. We talked it all through and cried a lot and came to a much better place, and he wrote me into his calendar for next month. He also has thanked me for encouraging him to be here, because it has been a fantastic time getting to be together.

Meanwhile, my husband has been "clarifying" our rules by objecting to more and more things I've tried to do with C, and has now outright forbidden his presence in our house whether my husband is home or not. This makes me feel like it is not my house, just my husband's house, and he keeps pointing out how much more times, effort and money he has put into it. (He works full time, I am the caregiver parent and run my own business part time which doesn't make very much money.)

So tonight, C's last night in town for this visit, will be our last "date" for a while, and I will give monogamy another try in order to try to save my marriage. I have no idea how this will work because I love C very much, and that will be true whether I am with him or not, whether we touch each other or not. C is adamant that he wants no part in breaking up my marriage, and my husband now is equally adamant that my being polyamorous doesn't work for him. What does this mean? How do I stop? I have no idea how to do this, but I know I have to try. It feels like ripping my heart out.

[Arrowbound]

Where is this "clarification" coming from all of a sudden? Why is your husband dictating to you? Have y'all had a conversation about this, or are you just resigned to doing what he wants?

This can end up not being good for your mental health, to be frank. I'm gleaning a lot of "I have to, or else" from all of this. Not good.

[AnotherConfused]

What honestly seems to be happening is that we run into "grey areas" where we haven't explicitly laid things out clearly enough, and suddenly I either find myself having done something that my husband felt I should have known was not ok, or find my husband nixing a plan that I felt should have been ok. In his mind, I am continually "pushing the boundaries" every time this happens.

For example, when he had plans to go out the other night for volleyball and it was one of C's 3 nights in town, I suggested C come over while he was out and we put on a movie we could watch with the kids. My husband felt this was completely unacceptable, because the movie room is the basement room where he works from home, and that felt like a violation to him. Instead, he canceled his own plans and stayed home. Up to that point I had understood our agreement to be "C doesn't come over when my husband is home" and "C and I will not be intimate in our house," an implicit "other people don't go in our bedroom," along with my attempts to limit my time with C to time my husband isn't spending with me anyway. So he clarified that he didn't want C "coming over" to do activities at our house, but only being here incidentally, such as to pick me up, or to spend time with me if I am too ill to go out (I had another relapse of pericarditis and have been in bed a lot again).

The next day, I was out with C and my pain came back and I felt a strong need to lie down. For complicated reasons we had about 20 minutes when the place C was staying in wasn't available to us. I was at a loss and finally decided that I should be allowed to lie down in my own home when I'm in pain, so we returned to my house and went to the guest room, which doubles as my home office so I feel it is the closest thing I have to my "own" room. The bed is in a nook with no space for a chair so C stretched out alongside me (no cuddling, of course). I was under the covers, he was not. My husband was irate to find this out, and to realize that we had passed through the movie room to exit the house 20 minutes later. The bed in the guest room is one we used to have in our bedroom, so it felt obvious to my husband that C shouldn't have been on it.

In the end, my husband felt these grey areas were so pervasive that it would be best just to bar C from our house entirely. I don't like going along with this at all. My home is a big chunk of my life I don't want to keep hidden from a loved one. But as my husband keeps pointing out, it has been mostly his earnings paying for the place, so he feels he has the right to make these rules.

I've been browsing condo ads. I want a place where I can make my own rules. My husband supports me using my own earnings for my own place (not to live in, just a getaway), although I know that will make "our home" even more into "his home".

I just feel that in the end it comes down to my husband really not being ok with this relationship with C, and C being firmly against causing problems in my marriage, which pretty much leaves me in the position of trying to make monogamy work. I've asked my husband to let me know what kind of agreement he would feel really truly comfortable with (he says he felt "coerced" into all our previous agreements) and he is taking some time to figure that out. I don't know what to expect. C is just hanging back being prepared to engage with me as much or little as I offer.

I hate how complicated life has become just because of the addition of some extra love.

[AnotherConfused]

We have it! We have an agreement that we are all satisfied with, and I couldn't be happier. For my husband, my relationship with C itself has not been as difficult for him to cope with as has the messy way it has overlapped with his home life with me, causing one misunderstanding after another with all the grey areas involved. We've decided that an ongoing relationship between C and I will be possible, though, by limiting it to a couple of clearly defined, discussed in advance days per month, when I go to see him rather than C coming to our city. We already have a weekend event planned together in October, but for the most part I'll be able to schedule days mid-week so that my time away is largely while the kids are at school and my husband is at work.

This helps tremendously in my relationship with C as well, whose life is largely a series of events and trips one after another. Rather than trying to fit me in between or have to give something up to make time for me, I can simply join him for something each month that is close enough for me to get to for a couple of days. This can help satisfy his desire for a partner who can travel with him, although I know two days a month isn't much. I've always been frustrated by the frantic feel to our times together, when they have been limited to an hour or two and we barely have time to get past small talk to just relax in each other's presence. He's often felt bad about having this busy life that leaves little time for me, even though he is thinking of me and has expressed an intention to make me more of a priority. Now he can know that with our times together scheduled in advance for an agreed amount and frequency, he doesn't need to try to alter his habits to accommodate me.

During the days in between, I can give my focus fully to my husband and kids. My husband and I have discussed things for hours and are already finding ways to improve what we have between us, so this is feeling like a win-win-win to me. We recognize that grey areas and misunderstandings will no doubt arise eventually, but I think they will be much easier to see coming so we should be able to resolve them without all the drama and pain we've been through lately.