Having trouble adjusting to husband's new girlfriend

[Emm]

Originally Posted by mercury

In short, don't think of yourselves as troubled poly couples while the non-message-board poly couples are doing just fine. They're not better at being poly than you are. They have the same issues. Just as non-message-board mono couples have the same issues as message-board mono people. It's not an insult; it's just the truth.

You're the one saying that everyone involved in poly is "freaking sad". We're just pointing out that finding people having difficulties in a place set up at least in part for people having difficulties to go for help shouldn't be surprising or seen as indicitive of the mindset of everyone else who has a similar relationship style. Also, please stop assuming that I'm troubled - you're projecting again.

Originally Posted by mercury

But I implore you all, even if he is your husband of 15-25 years, stop hating on other women. I don't think she's as bad as you're making her out to be. She's just a woman who has relationship needs like any other woman.

And more projection.

Originally Posted by mercury

I wish they would like each other more, that's all. I wish a woman would actually like her husband's partner. (And that that partner would like her boyfriend's WIFE). You never hear that on here. I have not once read "she's really cool, he picked well." At BEST, it's been "Well, I have my issues with her, but so far there haven't been any major difficulties." It's like this begrudging acceptance. It's never nice. It's mildly troubled, AT BEST.

Well, now you have. Hi. My name is Emily, and I quite like my boyfriend's wife. She's pretty cool and we get along wonderfully. The two of them suit each other perfectly. Obviously he has extraordinarily good taste in women . I also like my other boyfriend's new girlfriend. We don't have as much in common as I do with B2's wife, but she seems very nice.

Originally Posted by mercury

i see much more female cattiness in the poly ones (which only makes sense because there is much more prevalence of women pitted against each other).

You obviously hang out with very different women than I do.

Originally Posted by mercury

It's almost like you think I"m insulting you when I say it seems a hassle and has a lot of issues. I'm not insulting you. I'm just saying poly is this way.

You said:

Originally Posted by mercury

...this is what poly is, and it's freaking sad.

You didn't say it was a hassle or full of issues, you said it was freaking sad. If you didn't expect poly people to find that insulting you really need to pay more attention to social interaction.

[opalescent]

Originally Posted by Fiona

"(My husband and his girlfriend) are both extroverts and don't seem to understand my need for privacy and a bit of distance. I've tried to communicate this to both of them, with mixed results.

On the one point of having your husband understand your introversion and need better, have him read 'Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking' by Susan Cain. It explains introversion and the differences of being introverted (as compared to extroversion) in a really accessible way while also going into interesting depth on various ramifications on being introverted in a society (the US) that really does value extroversion more.

Also, I have not read the rest of the thread yet so if this has been suggested, well it can't hurt to do it again! Great book.

[Fiona]

Wow. Much to process here. I'll come back to it when I have a bit more time to write and respond.

[MeeraReed]

Originally Posted by ViableAlternative

Seriously?! So, a person of unknown health status has a condom break with a guy. Now the guy's health status is also unknown. It IS possible that something can pass with one single oopsie. How likely or unlikely it is doesn't matter; it IS possible. You really think it's totally okay to NOT tell another sexual partner with whom he also uses condoms (which might again break or otherwise fail)?! I have a clean bill of health. No interesting STDs, no yeasties, no nothing. My boyfriend and I had a condom fail. I absolutely REQUIRED that he inform his wife, out of plain old courtesy. It was irrelevant that I required it, because he fully intended to tell her ASAP anyway. She wasn't upset, but she was glad she was told.

Yes, it seriously would not occur to me that a condom breakage must immediately be reported to other partners who are also using condoms.

I would never withhold that information--but it just might not occur to me that the situation is an emergency. (Unless I wasn't using birth control, or unless one of us was known to have HIV, of course).

But that's exactly what I mean--one person's very reasonable boundaries may seem bizarre to another person. This is particularly the case for single people who are dating married people.

That doesn't mean the married couple's boundaries are wrong, it just means that it might be harder to explain to the single girlfriend what they are. And the burden of explaining and upholding those boundaries is on the husband in this case.

Yes, of course Fiona has a right to be upset that her husband broke their boundaries. But I was just offering a single person's perspective: the girlfriend isn't necessarily untrustworthy just because those boundaries were broken.

Some couples approach broken boundaries as a chance to reexamine and renegotiate those boundaries. I'm not sure that would be the right move in this case, but it's a possibility.

[lovefromgirl]

Originally Posted by MeeraReed

But that's exactly what I mean--one person's very reasonable boundaries may seem bizarre to another person. This is particularly the case for single people who are dating married people.

Hey, speak for yourself. I understood "boundaries" from the word go. Single, married, in-between, we all have them, so what is the goddamn problem with respecting them?

[CielDuMatin]

Originally Posted by MeeraReed

You said that your problems with the girlfriend started in part because your husband began the relationship by breaking boundaries: getting drunk and having sex with her before everyone was tested for diseases.

But, I'm also wondering if your boundaries are reasonable. They used condoms, yes? In fact, you said all of you, including you & your husband, use condoms?

Whether or not the boundaries are reasonable, the fact is that they were agreed-upon and he broke them.

If he thinks they are unreasonable, then he needs to sit down and discuss it, not disrespect the agreement by just ignoring it when it suits him. Or he shouldn't have agreed to them in the first place.

If their agreement was that he buy a pineapple before he rode in a car with another, then that is the agreement. If he breaks it, then he broke something that was discussed and cheated on the relationship.

If you want to have a debate about what boundaries are reasonable or not, then that's fair enough, but in my mind it in no way excuses someone unilaterally breaking them, and I don't find it at all relevant to this discussion to have that debate here.

[MeeraReed]

Originally Posted by CielDuMatin

If you want to have a debate about what boundaries are reasonable or not, then that's fair enough, but in my mind it in no way excuses someone unilaterally breaking them, and I don't find it at all relevant to this discussion to have that debate here.

Everything that I mentioned, I mentioned because I did indeed think it was relevant to the discussion.

I wasn't trying to excuse the husband for breaking the boundaries. I was suggesting other ways of looking at the situation so that Fiona could move past feeling that the girlfriend is untrustworthy.

I suspect that the girlfriend doesn't know how serious the boundary-breaking was. The rule of needing to get tested before using condoms--that jumped out at me as something that someone new to poly (as the girlfriend is) might not understand is a deeply serious rule.

That doesn't excuse the husband for breaking the rule, of course. Nor does it mean the rule is unreasonable and should be renegotiated. But it does offer an explanation for how the rule may have gotten broken without the girlfriend necessarily being irresponsible and immature.

[MeeraReed]

Originally Posted by lovefromgirl

Hey, speak for yourself. I understood "boundaries" from the word go. Single, married, in-between, we all have them, so what is the goddamn problem with respecting them?

Well, there clearly was a problem in this case, because Fiona's boundaries got broken.

I'm not arguing that anyone should EVER not respect someone's boundaries. I'm trying to explain why sometimes boundaries get broken--because one person didn't even realize it WAS a boundary.

And I do see a lot of issues arising from the fact that single people (especially those new to poly) are often coming from a totally different place than married/long-term-committed poly people. (Coming from a different place in terms of how dating "works," I mean).